Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Andrew, welcome to Waterstones. Thank you.
Chapter 2: How did Andrew Sean Greer's novel 'Less' impact the host's reading journey?
I don't often do this at interviews, but I am going to start by thanking you because, as I sort of mentioned on our way up here, your novel Less came at exactly the right time in my life when I needed a book to kind of kickstart my reading passion again because I'd got a little bit stuck in the weeds.
And there was something about the, it felt to me, effortless comedy of that book that I found so, so charming. But I know that it's not effortless. I'm sure you put a lot of work into it, and we will find out with your new book, Villa Coco, just exactly how that works.
Before we get into that, I have to say I was intrigued by the little letter that was at the front of my proof, where you mentioned that this novel had its basis in real life. There was a real Baronessa, and I therefore, of course, was like, I need to know more. I'm not expecting you to tell me all the details of her life, because as you say, this is a fictionalized version of things.
But what was it about that experience that made you think, ah, there's a novel here?
I think it was when I first started working at this rural writer's residency and the septic tank overflowed on my first day, which is something that happens in the novel, and I understood that I had to deal with it. And that was also, I think, the first moment I really became a grown-up at age 46 when I thought, there's no one to deal with this. Yeah.
Except the Baronessa was happy to help me deal with it. And I realized that there were depths to her that I had not expected. And so I started taking notes, not on her, on... the little details of life that surprised me every day or meeting a porcupine or what we had for dinner.
And when I decided I wanted to write a kind of charm novel, a kind of lovely escape novel, I thought, oh, I have all this experience and I can invent some more.
Seeing as you've mentioned about the charm novel, why don't you sort of explain a little bit what you mean by that? And maybe some, I suppose, some other examples of sort of authors who've written charm novels. Well, I think it's actually a very British thing.
I can't think of a lot of American charm novels. Comic novels, yes. But something that touches on real human pain lightly, but with a sense of humor and absurdity, has its own absurd logic. And I think of the Mitford novels or a comedy like Cold Comfort Farm or Graham Greene's Entertainments. that are not absolute farce.
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Chapter 3: What real-life experiences inspired Greer's new book 'Villa Coco'?
That I find myself not quite understanding what's going on. Or at least I understand that I'm the thing that's wrong in most situations. And I'm willing to change. But it is, of course, I exaggerate that property in the books. And also in this book, he arrives, he's 21, 22 years old. He thinks he's getting this very serious archivist job in Italy. And it's anything but.
But the person telling the story is himself... in his 50s. So he's sort of looking back and seeing what a fool he was when he was young. A useful thing for all people to remember.
You all look back one day and go... Good attitude, yeah. I was really intrigued by... This novel is set in Italy, and I was really intrigued by one moment in the book where you describe the fact that a lot of people think of Italy as being a very old country, but actually...
in its modern form as a unified country, it's actually younger than America, and it was these separate kingdoms, and that that's why you have these very separate rules about food or customs and things like that. When did you notice that, I suppose, and how did you use that in the telling of this story?
I first noticed it when a friend, there's a character named Oscar who's based on a friend of mine, Max, from Italy, he... He came from Genova, and he brought pesto. And everyone was very, very excited. And as an American, I think in Italian restaurants, they always have pesto on the menu. And not in Italy.
And it had to be explained to me why you would never dare have pesto in Tuscany, because the basil isn't right. And you can't just bring the basil. It has to be done in Genova. Otherwise, you must never have it.
This is one of the things I love about Italy is they are very strict about their food rules, even though they seem slightly absurd to anybody.
Absolutely. And then the story I remember being that someone visited, he'd been to Pisa, which has been in a war with Florence for a few hundred years. And he told about a traffic accident where the Pisa guy had hit someone in Florence. But the Pisa guy told a police officer, but the Florentine guy is not even supposed to be here. That was his justification.
So those wars were going on until it's still going on.
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Chapter 4: What defines a 'charm novel' according to Andrew Sean Greer?
And I've certainly had to do that. It is nice, though, that Italians find an American accent charming. Not sexy. Okay. They find... Because a British accent is their standard English accent. And so ours sounds sort of like a Swedish accent. Like it's kind of amusing.
Okay. Not sexy. Not sexy. There is... Being American is not all bad, though, in this novel. There's a lovely moment where the character, Giacomo, referencing Oscar, who you mentioned earlier, says, he says that you should always have a young person or an American around because they believe the future will be better, which I think is a very nice attitude to have. Is that...
Chapter 5: How does Greer incorporate humor and human pain in his storytelling?
I suppose, how you were treated when you were in Italy as a sort of an optimist.
I'm not sure. That feels like an invention on my part and an optimistic one. But I do find that, I mean, there is a sort of feeling in Italy that nothing's going to change. Our parliament is too big. We've been through so many wars and we're always the same at the end of them. But Americans seem to think... it's gonna turn out better after this war, as we've seen.
And there's, that can really, it's the naivete of a still young nation making like bold moves the way an adolescent would, you know,
put graffiti something on a wall and I think that there's I find my Italian friends are annoyed and charmed by that Oscar is a fantastic character and full of wisdom and there is a moment when he says to our protagonist don't be lazy in love And at that moment, he immediately, I think, misinterprets what he means by that. And as a reader, I was like, no, no, no, no, no, he doesn't mean that.
And he does eventually come to realise what is meant by that. But it's such a brilliant line. It's so simple and yet it means so much. Is that, I suppose, the main journey for your protagonist as a character to understand what is meant by that?
I think so because there's other sort of pendant remarks the Baronessa makes because don't be lazy in love could mean don't accept just whatever comes along or it could mean grab something as soon as you see it because it'll move along. It just means be active. It's not specific enough.
And I don't want to give away what it means too much, but there is a theme in the book about the possibilities in life and how to choose among them.
Moving very swiftly on so that we don't spoil it for anybody. As well as romantic love, I suppose that idea, One of the things that combines almost all of the characters and drives the story is really friendship, that kind of love. And I found that really, really touching that these slightly misfit characters are inextricably bound to each other.
Can you tell me a little bit about the differences, I suppose, about writing romantic love and then friendship?
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