Lillian Ross, J.D. Salinger, Salman Rushdie, Robin Williams

Lillian Ross, in the introduction to her book Reporting Always, on J.D. Salinger:

He liked what Ralph Waldo Emerson said. He quoted Emerson in a letter to me: “A man must have aunts and cousins, must buy carrots and turnips, must have barn and woodshed, must go to market and to the blacksmith’s shop, must saunter and sleep and be inferior and silly.” Writers, Salinger said, sometimes had trouble abiding by that, and he referred to Flaubert and Kafka as “two other born non-buyers of carrots and turnips.”

Watching Ross interview Robin Williams at Lincoln Centre, for The New Yorker FestivalYork Times, remains one of the highlights of my life. I just learned that Salman Rushdie was in the audience that afternoon too; he writes:

I once saw Lillian Ross on stage in New York, interviewing Robin Williams. This was not an easy job, because Robin Williams could take an innocent question and run with it for a long time, twisting and turning his answer into various kinds of surreality. (At one point, for example, he became for several minutes a beret-wearing, Gauloise-smoking French parrot.) I remember being impressed by Lillian Ross’s demeanor, her faint smile, her unflappability, her willingness to let Robin fly (who could have stopped him?), but also her determination to get the interview done, and done properly.

I wholly concur.