Alles gesagt? T.C. Boyle: Is There Still Hope?
T. Coraghessan Boyle, ein berühmter US-amerikanischer Schriftsteller, spricht über seinen Werdegang von einem Drogenabhängigen zum erfolgreichen Autor. Er reflektiert über seine Kindheit, die ihn prägte, sowie über die Bedeutung öffentlicher Bildung. Boyle thematisiert den Einfluss von sozialen Medien auf die Lesekultur und zeigt sich pessimistisch, jedoch hoffnungsvoll. Zudem teilt er humorvolle Anekdoten über sein Leben, seine Erfahrungen im Verlagswesen und gibt angehenden Schriftstellern wertvolle Tipps.
02:45:40
Vom Saxophon Zur Schreibkarriere
- T. Coraghessan Boyle erzählt, wie er als junger Mann fast Rockstar werden wollte, aber das Schreiben ihn fand.
- Er beschreibt, wie das Writers' Workshop und frühe Publikationen sein Leben umgekrempelt haben.
Als Die Thomas Fire Drohte
- Boyle berichtet, wie er während der Thomas Fire sein Haus verteidigen und evakuieren musste.
- Er schildert die Angst vor Feuerstürmen und die Verwundbarkeit hölzerner Häuser in Kalifornien.
Schreiben Lernt Man Durch Lesen
- Lese viel, statt zu glauben, man könne Schreiben an der Uni lernen; Lesen bildet das Handwerk.
- Nutze Workshops als Labor: lass Gleichaltrige Feedback geben und ziehe Schlüsse daraus.
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Intro
00:00 • 2min
Boyles Anfang: Name, Rekorde und Touren
02:07 • 2min
Das Escape‑Wort und Anekdoten zu Touren
04:00 • 3min
Beliebtheit in Deutschland und Verlagsfragen
07:29 • 3min
Frühes Leben: Herkunft und Namenswahl
10:41 • 3min
Das Haus in Montecito und Feuergefahr
13:53 • 11min
Kindheit in Peekskill und Naturerlebnisse
25:10 • 3min
Familie, Alkohol und öffentliche Bildung
28:14 • 3min
Iowa Writers' Workshop und Mentoren
31:22 • 6min
Lehren, Schreiben und USC
36:57 • 3min
Vom Junkie zum angehenden Autor
39:56 • 1min
Leseeinflüsse: Tierbücher bis Flannery O'Connor
41:23 • 5min
Musik, Saxophon und Entscheidung fürs Schreiben
46:37 • 4min
Descent of Man als Dissertation
50:36 • 3min
Durchbruch mit World's End
53:33 • 4min
Niedergang der Lesekultur durch Technologie
57:40 • 3min
Schreibprozess und Disziplin
01:00:20 • 4min
Recherche und thematische Vorbehalte
01:04:49 • 1min
The Road to Wellville und Dr. Kellogg
01:06:04 • 3min
Düstere Themen: Pessimismus und Hoffnung
01:09:30 • 9min
Existenz außerirdischen Lebens und Humor
01:18:10 • 3min
Spiel: A oder B – Werte und Vorlieben
01:20:56 • 15min
Familiäre Grenzen in der Fiktion
01:35:42 • 3min
Über Lesungen, Hörbücher und Schauspieler
01:38:56 • 11min
Rattenroutine und Tierschutzgedanken
01:49:29 • 6min
Künstliche Intelligenz als Recherchetool
01:55:32 • 4min
Waffen, amerikanische Kultur und Humor
01:59:31 • 3min
Wie wird man Schriftsteller? Bildung und Entdeckung
02:02:07 • 8min
Verlagswesen, Agenten und Slushpile
02:09:58 • 29sec
The Tortilla Curtain und Einwanderungsdebatten
02:10:27 • 5min
Buchverbote, Proteste und literarische Freiheit
02:15:10 • 5min
Lesung: Auszug aus The Descent of Man
02:20:30 • 5min
Audioaufnahmen und Publikationsarchive
02:25:55 • 3min
Musik beim Schreiben und John Coltrane
02:28:42 • 13min
Empfehlungen für angehende Schriftsteller
02:41:34 • 3min
Outro
02:45:00 • 22sec
#90459
Hot Water Music
Charles Bukowski
#41431
Pricksongs and Descants
Fictions
Robert Coover
Kate Atkinson
First published in 1969, "Pricksongs & Descants" is a celebrated collection of short fictions that helped establish Robert Coover as one of the most innovative American writers of the postwar period.
Mixing metafiction, black comedy, and formal experimentation, the book includes such widely anthologized pieces as "The Babysitter" and the "Seven Exemplary Fictions", in which Coover fractures and rewrites familiar narratives—from fairy tales like "The Gingerbread House" to biblical and mythic stories—exploring how stories themselves shape reality.
Critics have praised the collection as a cornerstone of Coover’s career and a landmark of postmodern American fiction, distinguished by its audacious narrative strategies, sensual and musical language, and playful yet unsettling treatment of sex, violence, and domestic life.
#35151
Budding Prospects
A Pastoral
T. Coraghessan Boyle
“Budding Prospects: A Pastoral” is a 1984 novel by T. Coraghessan Boyle that follows Felix Nasmyth, a self-described lifelong quitter who agrees to help run an illegal marijuana farm in remote Mendocino County, California, lured by the promise of a tax‑free half‑million‑dollar payoff.
What begins as a laid‑back get‑rich‑quick venture with his equally hapless friends turns into a series of escalating mishaps involving hostile neighbors, wildlife, unreliable infrastructure, and their own incompetence, as Boyle uses sharp humor and irony to explore themes of capitalism, idealism, and bad decision‑making on the fringes of 1970s–80s California counterculture.
#40766
World's End
T. Coraghessan Boyle
Published in 1987, "World's End" is a historical fiction novel set primarily in New York’s Hudson River Valley, moving non‑chronologically between the late seventeenth century, the anti‑communist unrest of the 1940s, and the counterculture 1960s.
At its center is Walter Van Brunt, a drifting young man haunted by his family’s traitorous legacy, numbed by pot, cheap wine, and sex, and increasingly disturbed by encounters with figures from the past, which propel him on a search for his missing father.
The novel traces the intertwined destinies of three groups—the powerful Dutch landowning Van Warts, the Mohonk (Kitchawank) people, and the Van Brunt tenant farmers—exploring how betrayal, violence, and class injustice echo across generations.
Blending elements of magic, fable, and dark satire with vividly evoked landscape and meticulously researched history, Boyle dismantles romanticized visions of early America and shows how the past relentlessly shapes personal fate and social conflict.
#52740
The thirsty muse
Alcohol and the American Writer
Tom Dardis
“The Thirsty Muse: Alcohol and the American Writer” explores the central role that drinking played in the personal lives and artistic output of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, and Eugene O’Neill.
Drawing on biographical research and an understanding of alcoholism as a progressive disease, Dardis traces how alcohol initially seemed to offer these writers inspiration and camaraderie but ultimately contributed to creative decline, physical and psychological deterioration, and in some cases premature death.
The book combines literary criticism, biography, and addiction studies to show how deeply entwined the myth of the hard‑drinking writer was with American literary culture in the twentieth century.
#4088
• Mentioned in 10 episodes
A Good Man is Hard to Find
Flannery O'Connor
Published in 1955, 'A Good Man Is Hard to Find' is a short story by Flannery O'Connor that follows a Georgia family on a road trip to Florida.
The grandmother manipulates the family into taking a detour to visit an old plantation, leading them into a fateful encounter with The Misfit, a violent escaped convict.
The story critiques superficial religious attitudes and explores the conflict between appearance and reality, particularly through the characters of the grandmother and The Misfit.
It is a tale of moral and philosophical introspection, set against the backdrop of the Southern Gothic tradition, characterized by dark humor, violence, and a sense of foreboding.
#189
• Mentioned in 107 episodes
The Road
Tom Stechschulte
Cormac McCarthy
The Road is set in a world that has been devastated by an unspecified cataclysmic event, resulting in the extinction of nearly all life on Earth.
The story follows an unnamed father and his young son as they travel south along the road, carrying their meager possessions and a pistol with only two bullets.
The father, suffering from a worsening respiratory condition, is determined to protect his son from the dangers of their new world, including cannibalistic marauders.
Along their journey, they encounter various survivors, some of whom are cruel and others who show kindness.
The novel explores themes of love, survival, and the preservation of humanity in a world devoid of hope.
Ultimately, the father's health fails, and he dies, but not before ensuring his son's safety with a new family who may offer a chance for a better future.
#1670
• Mentioned in 23 episodes
The descent of man
Charles Darwin
In 'The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex', Darwin extends his theory of evolution to humans, discussing how humans evolved from pre-existing forms and the role of sexual selection in this process.
The book compares human physical and psychological characteristics to those of other animals, arguing that humans and other species share a common ancestry.
It also explores the differences between human races and sexes, and the evolutionary basis of human behaviors and moral qualities.
The work challenges the idea of special creation and argues for the continuity between humans and other animals in both anatomy and mental faculties.
#1670
• Mentioned in 23 episodes
The descent of man
Charles Darwin
In 'The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex', Darwin extends his theory of evolution to humans, discussing how humans evolved from pre-existing forms and the role of sexual selection in this process.
The book compares human physical and psychological characteristics to those of other animals, arguing that humans and other species share a common ancestry.
It also explores the differences between human races and sexes, and the evolutionary basis of human behaviors and moral qualities.
The work challenges the idea of special creation and argues for the continuity between humans and other animals in both anatomy and mental faculties.
#13327
• Mentioned in 3 episodes
The Tortilla Curtain
T.C. Boyle
Thomas Coraghessan Boyle has written widely read books such as World’s End, The Tortilla Curtain, Dr. Sex, Water Music, The Road to Wellville and—so far published only in Germany—No Way Home. His works have been translated into two dozen languages, and some have been adapted for film.
This is the the freely accessible original English version of the podcast. An AI-translated version is available exclusively to ZEIT podcast subscribers. A free trial subscription is available at https://www.zeit.de/podcastabo.
T.C. Boyle was born in New York and grew up in precarious circumstances: both of his parents, immigrants from Ireland, were alcoholics; as a young man he struggled with drug problems himself and barely managed to finish school. During his studies, he discovered his love of writing.
Boyle initially worked as a teacher at his former problem school in order to avoid being drafted into the Vietnam War. His first published short story, about his experiences with heroin use, secured him a place in the prestigious Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa. Among his teachers there were John Irving and John Cheever.
Boyle earned a doctorate in nineteenth-century English literature, although his dissertation was a collection of short stories, Descent of Man. Shortly thereafter he received a position at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, where he founded the creative writing program. He taught there until his retirement.
Since his debut novel Water Music, T.C. Boyle has published almost every year—either a novel or a collection of short stories. He lives with his wife Karen Kvashay in Montecito, near Santa Barbara, and has three children.
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