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- Gateway to ideas
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- 00:29:07
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Two ideas.
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Two ideas. A new series of conversations in which ideas are discussed in
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relation to reading. Today's program. Books that formed my
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opinions is moderated by Ralph Backlund managing editor of Horizon
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magazine.
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To discuss the books that that have formed their opinions today we our guests are the
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honorable John Lindsay a member of the House of Representatives from New York City and Leoni
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Del well-known author and critic whose biography of Henry James has received both a Pulitzer Prize and National
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Book Award. The straight bell is a professor of English at New York University and is also the author of
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not only books about him he James but a literary biography and a psychological novel.
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Well as a writer I suppose Mr. Dell you'd be awfully happy to have your books form the opinions of a
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congressman wouldn't you. I guess a plane that delayed.
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I did like it I don't know how Henry James could do that.
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Well perhaps not Henry James but certainly would agree that books could certainly we all know the books
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and it can change the world. Obvious example comes to mind as is if
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capital from the 19th century is to be the world to be different David hadn't written.
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So that if you change the mind of only a congressman of the man in the street or farmer's opinion
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you've done something rather important.
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Since we have a congressman with us we might ask him which books have had some
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effect on his opinions starting start out very early Mr. Lindsey.
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Oh I don't know I suppose that the books that I'd love the most
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as a youngster were Mark Twain's Oz
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books you know about those remember the book Oh I think we all know about the
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problem. Adventure stories such as the boy allies which is which were gun and
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blood and guts books about World War 1.
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Various Western books. Well no no you like those what to do for the wave about
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what you're thinking of the way you thought. I mean does a book like that form someone's mind.
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Well I think they do I think that they form impressions and I found a young boy's mind I think young
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boys tend to be dreamers more than the adult world think they are.
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These make very firm impressions and I can't remember I can't remember even what the books were that
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made me want to go out West as I did. You mentioned Western books that you read as a
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boy suppose they did because after all they are full of glorious Westerns Jory read all read all kinds
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of adventure stories of cowboys and Indians as a kid. They make definite impressions in your
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mind.
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Do you think the books we read first Mr. Odell early in life are the most influential or.
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I think they are in a kind of mysterious way you know they they they give us they set us an
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ideal of achievement or power drive to power a wad to make us want to
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be this that or the other thing as the congressman said. And thats days
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that sticks and even though its sometimes forgotten or submerged in the past in all kinds of atmospheres remain
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with us.
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Out of all those books I was thinking of my early reading of Longfellow's Hiawatha
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one sort of sense of waterfalls and open spaces and
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tepees and so on and these kind of obsessive rhythm of that
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poem.
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Do you think that Hiawatha probably created for you your image whatever it is of the American Indian.
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I certainly do. Probably a wrong way probably.
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Well beyond that of course it's a common place used to be in American politics that
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for successful men presidents to mention the books that influence them as children. Like
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it was a classic example.
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But I wonder whether it was because in those days one of the books was so much less accessible in the eye now
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and you read the same book over and over. That's true. If it happened to
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be Pilgrim's Progress You probably read it many times. Nowadays the books
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and small children that we have books flung at them from the time they're able to look at them.
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When I grew up in a small Western town there wasn't a library so I read everything I could lay my hands on
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and read it over again again and again. Yes.
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What do you think this means the books have less influence on young people. They only had one when
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people of our generation or earlier generations were growing up.
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Perhaps when one has access to so much as an embarrassment of
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riches a kind one takes them for granted you know that nostalgia and longing that you have to get in
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the West for far things in remote places. I mean for the East for the
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big cities for culture and all that sort of thing when you're no little town. It's.
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It isn't there it's somewhere else it was in the books he wrote about some of you growing
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up in the West felt nostalgia a longing to go to Mr. Lindsey going
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to go west.
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Boy it worked every way than when I was in high school later on. I
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think the adventure book that made the deepest impression on me when in high school years
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was John Buchan's Prester John.
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Every president John knowing that I have a book just just shook
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me to foundation it was the spookiest book I've ever read at that age and
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mysterious wonderfully remote but the deepest part of Africa
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and weird goings on and it was a conflict
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of a guy who was trying to survive under these circumstances and they were the bad guys and the good guys.
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And it was it had it had a touch of history and a little bit
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of the problem of colonialism. But I wasn't sure I recognize it fully at the time as a high school kid
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but it was very exciting and then that led me to read The 39 Steps and so on.
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One thing led to another.
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He was a marvelous storyteller. She's a great storyteller really was and beyond that he had as
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you said something more than mere story books.
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He had good historical sense yes.
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Read President Johnson I read it later on. Yes I was trying to persuade my oldest
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daughter to read it and so I was flicking through it and the next thing I knew I was at it again.
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Well I think that's a good sign of a book that stands up because written until quite a
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while ago.
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What about books that actually though shape your career. I mean have you
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become a critic and a biographer missed a deal because of any book that you read. Any one book.
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Anyone Well any five or six thousand five hundred.
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I know that to be very hard to trace.
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I think it began in high school where there were a few books you know Dickens
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Tennyson In other words a high school you discover what books can do for you which are
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what.
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Yes things like that a lot of the Victorians were around to see. We see
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we already Victorian I was living very near Victoria here even though I was only a boy. I
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mean because you have been much nearer than that. Well we all of you I grew up during the
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first voice which was which of the joiner was still hanging on.
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Also of course Victorian literature was much more available to us even 20 years ago until you
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were 25. It was being read in a way that The Today
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was a pity I think. What about you Mr. Lindsey. What was the
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question again is whether or not any book really shaped your career as it is I don't mean your mind but your career
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Yeah.
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Well I think that I'm not sure that I would have gone to law school if it had not
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been for gas and drink and Barnes Yankee from Olympus was the name
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I was a book about Oliver Wendell Holmes.
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They said he was a young guy and then he went along and became famous jurist and
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Boston as well as teacher and then he eventually went on the Supreme Court. The book was very
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readable it had made a big impact on me I read it
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I did it right at the end of college or during the war forgotten. And that made
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a large impact. I am not sure I would have gone to law school but for that special
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book.
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Was it because he himself was such an impressive and towering figure.
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Interesting yes and more than that enormously human. No honestly human
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if anybody had doubts about his own qualifications to go to law school or eventually
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be a lawyer.
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That book would settle it because Holmes had a great sense of the ridiculous and
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wonderful humor and he hated stuffed shirts. First of all
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human being. Yeah. And so immediately I got a different impression of what
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lawyers could be or could not be from the very early impression I had from
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watching the weskit the gentlemen around New York.
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Well I think that both will tell me more of the books and then too annoying can some bigger bones other books
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she has of interest and feeling almost well some respect almost a poetic feeling for the
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law and I'm sure I know it's in that book I'm sure that came across too.
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Yes did come across because there's a good deal of Holmes's writings but if you ever read Holmes
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his opinions at any length understand me this is a very readable commonsense
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guy. There was no baloney about it. He wrote exactly what
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what people could understand. This is how he wrote and the points that he made were
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quite solid and when he was confused about an issue. So this is too
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complicated for us to fuss with at the moment maybe time will give us some light where we don't have it now.
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So what if you hadn't read the letters but have come across his own books
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books of his writings you would also felt the same way about.
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Probably but no kid was thinking about going to law school goes to
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pull out the Supreme Court reports and he just reads the opinions of the Supreme Court of the United States in
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his spare time doesn't know where to find them.
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Well that made you a lawyer what turned you into storm politics. If anybody
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did was I just inevitable.
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Oh I don't know I think that it came along I read a lot of history and recent years
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I've read more and more history and a lot's of biography.
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During the war I started turning more to history and biography. I don't think we all think else.
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During the war. Well I mean don't you think people read more history and biography. And so
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the fiction today. Yes since the war since the war. Yes I think so I think it began about that time.
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It's gotten so that you read I read good novels that come out I read them very
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fast zoom through them and then they were kind of forgotten along I love some of these
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what was it seven days in May for example and quite recent one and it's been a bestseller a
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mystery or adventure story it's been a bestseller. This biochemist bio came out of who
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came in from the cold and from the cold you know you can read that on an airplane ride between here
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and Chicago without any trouble at all. And you and give you a very chilling right to his great
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music and it's wonderful and so relaxing and you look forward to climbing into bed at
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11:00 12:00 at night if you've got two chapters left you really got time to look forward to. But then it's forgotten
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and you don't come on if you have two chapters left of the book and going to sleep. Oh yeah sure and then you then
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you wait through it but I don't think that that's I don't think at least to me a book like that
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doesn't make this sinking impression that.
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I've been reading biography of John Adams recently Jacobean pageant the
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story of James the first beautifully written book and some of these other
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biographies of historical books seem to make a deeper dent on me at the
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moment. Why I don't know.
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Well I think there are many reasons of what I one of them might be the kind of novels we read now and I think there
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are novels that can make an impression on you almost as deep Don't you think so. Oh yes. For example but I don't know about
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the recent novels. No I don't think so either. But I mean anybody who's ever read
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War and Peace for instance. Yes.
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Has got something or I would not have you know kind of entertain me get a little I mean try thinking as
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I listen to the congressman but they have what book would I name that would be
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comparable to Yankee from Memphis and the only one that seems to me to fit is of all things James Joyce's
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Ulysses. You see that came out when I was an undergraduate I think that would be the book.
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Well now can you tell us the nature of the importance for you why that.
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Well when I came out it was a book no one understood it and it was banned at the time.
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I got somebody smuggled a copy and we look at it what did you think of it. Value with your doctor about it
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was all mysterious and so on. And here it was as I had as big as a telephone book
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and I didn't see why it should be banned I started reading parts of it I. Some parts
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I understood some parts I didn't but I was fascinated by the way in which he was conveying the
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inner workings of the mind. And I think that's the book that set me off to wanting to
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go to Paris Joyce was living there he was the center of this the 1920s.
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And so I determined to get over to Paris and be a student over there and hang around
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these literary circles and hope to meet Joyce. I did.
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And so that this Hemingway's new book you know the movie feast describes Of course a little earlier
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I got there at the tail end of it. But I did get to the tail end of that period in Paris and that was
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really what started me focused be on contemporary literature and then the predecessors James
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being one of them.
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And so that's that's how I had you read James before you read Ulysses.
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Yes. No I read Ulysses first and I actually came to my
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professor saying I wanted to write a dissertation on him and he laughed and said Well isn't this kind of you a nobody we haven't
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even read this book. You want to write a dissertation on why don't you write about some of the previous
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essays of joys. And I so I did. I ultimately wrote a dissertation on modern
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psychological fiction which became my book. And Joyce was just
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a chapter in it. That's how that's how it started.
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At one point a gorilla mystery. Did you did you discover Henry James.
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Just have to read to you just you just have to read yes.
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Yes because that was before before what we call the James revival began well long
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before us so that in a way we can thank James
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Joyce and for the discovery of Henry James.
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My discovery and well through you know many of us have discovered and thank you.
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I am in Paris of course and that was where I was right there when read sheet and
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Proust was just dead. It was very much alive and
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I really was exposed to a lot of contemporary French literature.
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Those late 20s. Those are the good years just before the Depression.
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So none of the Fitzgerald was there that I was Miss I myself must share and I
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saw I think even that Fitzgerald must've been exciting years for they were very excited when I
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hear both of you whose careers are in somewhat different worlds Mr.
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Lindsey's and in government politics law. You know Mr. Dell's only
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academic and literary world. We know that there are books that are
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directly germane to whatever you do know that are important but you get pleasure in the kind of reading which has nothing to do
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with politics or with them. What do you look for the kind of read.
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Well I look for all kinds of things I look for I do get pleasure out of out of all
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readings a dull reading matter whether it's associated with
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the law of politics or science or what it is.
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I look for. I look for relaxation and I look for education
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and I look to see parallels in history and with people
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and I also you know the old story that he who does not
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understand and take lessons from history is condemned to repeat it.
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I always see whether or not the mistakes that I make today or others make
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today have been made before and why.
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And I like the history of people I like. I like their humanness.
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Can you think of a recent book which laid bare some mistakes of history you don't tend to repeat.
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Well that's a hard one. Recently I've been on an English history kick
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more than anything else.
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It seems to me fairly clear that if if
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James the First had not taken better care of his eldest son instead of letting
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him die at a fairly young age in those days it was easy to let kids die one thing led
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to another.
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CHARLES The first would have been King would have been executed in the Cromwellian revolution would have been if you
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would have made some difference this is a matter of fact was a point that a good many
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have of the government or they might think about the problem of their succession.
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Yeah so that would it just immediately comes to mind a little bit here.
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I've been interested to see some of the quirks of fate I've been reading a biography of John Adams.
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Some of the little twists of fate that took place in those days that made all the difference
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in the world. No doubt about it. Very
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substantial difference. Just one just one decision on the part
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of John Adams would have prevented him from being second stage very
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easily done he could have gone either way you know. What was the point in his life. Well that was really
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when he was brought up was he was first in France for many many years
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at the court of Louis the fourteenth and
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fifteenth fifties which is 50 to 60 68 and
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then. Then he went to England and
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funnily enough he thought that he really campaigned to get the job as a bass to the Court of St.
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James he was terribly jealous. Franklin was the hero of Europe
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and struck struck Adams as being a lazy fellow too and a bit of a
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lightweight for a special favorite with the women from
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Paris. You'll recall and it's jealousy really drove him into
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the business of going to England. Except he figured that would destroy any career he might have
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United States he'd been away ten years separated from his wife during that period too because of the
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hazards of crossing the ocean. And yet if he had and if his personal
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urges had not driven him into the court of St. James he never would have emerged as
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president United States later on. This is a clear case like large today where absence made the heart
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grow fonder and become embroiled in some of the growingly
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antagonistic politics of the new country back home.
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It would have been as fortunate as we better off to stay abroad. It also
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causes image library is building up. Took a long time to be reflected back here in those
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days and it does now.
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That question of historical probability of course that's what fascinated Tolstoy remember. Yes should
[19:05 - 19:10]
Napoleon have crossed a very senior Not so on is this one of the reasons we all read history
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because it's the one question about history and many asking its most fascinating because history
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is what makes it happen and why does it happen.
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What little I was going say we mentioned earlier that that people are reading
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more biographies more nonfiction today I think the reason is that we're reading for information
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for whatever reason we get more information anybody ever has before we don't know what to do with the blood. But maybe that
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just increases the appetite.
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I think people read less for style today for the style of the individual and the individual way
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of saying things that right. Well I'm sure that I suppose that's the that's the inevitable result of reading for
[19:46 - 19:51]
information what you want is the facts you get out of it not you know it's sad and I suppose too it's the influence of
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so many journalistic media which I have to tell the story fast and tell at its simplest
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way.
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He says some books you can read you have to read it really again and again do you comment do you
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find that you have to read Dickens over and over again in order to really relax about it.
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No because I grew up with him.
[20:09 - 20:14]
I find it I've read Pickwick Papers I think are parts of it maybe a half a dozen times and I always feel
[20:14 - 20:19]
as I'm reading it all over again. Well that's because each time you know I mean it I feel so fresh
[20:19 - 20:24]
thinking fresh Yeah it's good it's good. You don't get that feeling and I always find something funny and new
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and it almost every time.
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Well I think that's a test of the good writers the test of a classic is a minute that comes back to
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suddenly or four whole generations can come back to a book and see something new in it.
[20:34 - 20:39]
That's why that's why a book like that last I think I'm never quite sure whether my memory is going
[20:39 - 20:41]
completely to pieces.
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For this I have no I did not make sufficient imprint at the time.
[20:46 - 20:51]
Well the fact is that when people had fewer books and had to read them over and over again they'd probably got a little more out of
[20:51 - 20:56]
them as a book was worth getting anything out of than we do today who have shelves full of
[20:56 - 21:01]
books and always plan to go back and read one of these again and then don't do it because there's a new pile on the desk
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and the language of those books put put its stamp on their minds too they remembered yess.
[21:07 - 21:11]
So that's why that's why the Bible is so important.
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My childhood well was I courses. Probably if we're talking about books that had influence on
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people's head more than any other. Not only on the thinking but on their style but
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that's why I think they were less concerned with style than more concerned with information which is
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unfortunate but unfortunately as to reading history of course
[21:30 - 21:35]
people read it because they also want to find some clues as. To present
[21:35 - 21:39]
and would like to understand history I'm sure this is one of the reasons why.
[21:39 - 21:45]
The one volume kind of station of toime Beatles study of history is so popular because it seemed to provide an
[21:45 - 21:47]
answer wouldn't you think.
[21:47 - 21:51]
But it's all all it all that you've always had that kind of book. Think of the popularity of
[21:51 - 21:56]
Wells's outline of his exactly what spring that came out when I was at college. I read
[21:56 - 22:00]
that I remember yes or spank to Same time same period
[22:00 - 22:04]
didn't seem to give me an answer to the problems of history.
[22:04 - 22:08]
No I was young then and I didn't think I was looking for answers I was just reading history.
[22:08 - 22:13]
Well I was thinking about experience in this collection and that many other people to read one of these
[22:13 - 22:19]
books because you hope it will supply answers to hard questions and for a while it does.
[22:19 - 22:24]
But then you read somebody else who comes along to refute it or with another scheme and you see that you are wrong
[22:24 - 22:29]
to accept an easy answer to the problem of history. It's harder than you think but here's another answer. This just leads you
[22:29 - 22:34]
right down the path of the next thing you know you've been reading history for the last.
[22:34 - 22:35]
10 or 15 years I have.
[22:35 - 22:40]
Course there's also there are other kinds of history this literary history I read a great deal of that
[22:40 - 22:47]
and the history of science now which is as I think a fascinating new field. I regret to say
[22:47 - 22:50]
I read very little of that. Perhaps I should read more.
[22:50 - 22:55]
Well we know them and we know we've been on this for a long time that books can have varying
[22:55 - 23:00]
degrees of influence on our opinions and thoughts. Sometimes they can change your
[23:00 - 23:05]
life they can mold your life your attitudes. What recent books have you read
[23:05 - 23:09]
in any field which seem to you to have something new to say
[23:09 - 23:15]
whether changed your mind about something Mr.
[23:15 - 23:20]
Ebell. I suppose that if you're reading Henry James I mean a lot of you come across.
[23:20 - 23:25]
No I don't know I've reviewed a number of books this winter but I'm not sure
[23:25 - 23:30]
that any of them have changed my mind I found them very interesting I've just written a review of
[23:30 - 23:35]
the memoirs of Lady Ottilie Morrell it's full of all sorts of interesting pictures of the
[23:35 - 23:40]
of the Edwardian the Edwardian period change of view of the audience.
[23:40 - 23:43]
Nope it really made it much richer. There's a new biography of.
[23:43 - 23:51]
That was the seventh to which was supposed to change or not change have you become firm of you I think really had already and
[23:51 - 23:52]
which it has.
[23:52 - 23:57]
This book I want to read very much my wife told me not to get it because she's
[23:57 - 24:02]
going to give it to me for some kind of anniversary present of some kind. I'm looking forward to reading this.
[24:02 - 24:06]
Well it's a very it's a very solid portrait of 7th although it's not as
[24:06 - 24:09]
lively as one might like.
[24:09 - 24:14]
Probably because I've been to many levels I think in too many documents and burned that's
[24:14 - 24:19]
sometimes a good thing you know in biography you know it's a heresy for me to say so.
[24:19 - 24:23]
I've read 12000 James letters I wish some of them to burn.
[24:23 - 24:27]
I mean they're offensive or boring to too many of them just just plain to many.
[24:27 - 24:32]
Yes and also I suppose anybody who's written he wrote many more than 12000 letters in his life no one could write
[24:32 - 24:33]
12000 important letters.
[24:33 - 24:38]
Well that's right a lot of them are just wonderful ways of saying thank you for dinner.
[24:38 - 24:44]
You had fun I'm sure with the Boswell letters as all put together by
[24:44 - 24:45]
what's his name in New Haven.
[24:45 - 24:50]
Yeah and I've been reading you know the various volumes Yes yeah of course.
[24:50 - 24:55]
So there you've got the history of the whole period. This is good stuff this is very good reading. Yes.
[24:55 - 25:00]
Of course when you read Love Letters we're not really reading books that were
[25:00 - 25:02]
composed of such nor intended to be read.
[25:02 - 25:07]
This is sort of peeking behind the curtains at the inside of a man's mind
[25:07 - 25:09]
isn't it.
[25:09 - 25:14]
Yes it's sort of listening in on a conversation you weren't supposed to hear I suppose but the truth is
[25:14 - 25:18]
that these people did express themselves in a characteristic way. So their
[25:18 - 25:24]
greatest letters are literature I think. Why did I end up they end up belonging to literature.
[25:24 - 25:29]
And probably one of the reasons is that they're written about people who are sensitive to style this is
[25:29 - 25:34]
one reason perhaps why a lot of the future and I be so avidly read as a lot of that well will there
[25:34 - 25:36]
be any letters in the future.
[25:36 - 25:40]
Well there just be tape recordings or recorded telephone conversations.
[25:40 - 25:45]
I don't know but you can answer questions that you've been investigating let us Mr. Dell as did everyone
[25:45 - 25:49]
in those days save a copy of the letter you know about as well as a letter he received.
[25:49 - 25:54]
No I mean if they're owed him money or long had they didn't keep copies. No but
[25:54 - 25:59]
often they made fair copies didn't they after they had drafted a letter. Not when you're writing 12000 letters. I suppose you
[25:59 - 26:03]
don't. So in other words you get both ends of a correspondence if you're lucky to put them together and many
[26:03 - 26:07]
cases you want to get one into the close of course.
[26:07 - 26:11]
But today with the typewriter and the carbon there's a reason why if we think we get a lot of writers we can provide a future
[26:11 - 26:14]
biographers with all the raw material they need.
[26:14 - 26:16]
Well that means you're always writing for the record.
[26:16 - 26:22]
Right away it's going to be bad like it's going to be pompous and there's a rule
[26:22 - 26:26]
in the House of Representatives it goes as follows Thou shall not demagogue by colleagues you know
[26:26 - 26:33]
ever only the never going to vote was yeah that's right. So soon as you start writing letters with
[26:33 - 26:38]
12 copies and all the rest of it it's like a government letter that they write within the government establishment with
[26:38 - 26:41]
12 copies. They say absolutely nothing.
[26:41 - 26:45]
Well perhaps one of the established rules and a lot of the records should really be destroyed
[26:45 - 26:51]
right in disappearing ink that would make a lot of politicians feel more comfortable because we don't have an 18th Century
[26:51 - 26:56]
Link has disappeared been a lot of it anyway we can with other divisions we can in the 18th century wrote
[26:56 - 27:01]
on rag paper it's all very well preserved much better than the paper of our time
[27:01 - 27:06]
are probably crumpled it does well in the meantime we hope to
[27:06 - 27:11]
have plenty of paper on which to print and publish more books which will. We
[27:11 - 27:16]
can all read and have our opinions formed by. I'd like to thank both of you
[27:16 - 27:20]
for coming here today and I think we should all be grateful not only to you but to the books that formed your
[27:20 - 27:21]
opinions.
[27:21 - 27:27]
You have been listening to gateway to ideas a new series of programs in which
[27:27 - 27:32]
ideas are discussed in relation to reading today's program. Books that
[27:32 - 27:37]
formed my opinions as presented Leon Adele Pulitzer Prize and National Book
[27:37 - 27:42]
Award winner for his biography of Henry James and author of literary biography
[27:42 - 27:47]
and the psychological novel and Representative John Lindsay. Congressman
[27:47 - 27:52]
from New York City the moderator was Routh Backlund managing
[27:52 - 27:56]
editor of Horizon magazine to extend the dimensions of
[27:56 - 28:01]
today's program for you a list of the books mentioned in the discussion as well as others
[28:01 - 28:06]
relevant to the subject has been prepared. You can obtain a copy from your local
[28:06 - 28:10]
library or by writing to the Post Office Box 6 for 1
[28:10 - 28:16]
Time Square Station New York. And please enclose a
[28:16 - 28:20]
stamped self-addressed envelope right to box 6 for 1
[28:20 - 28:25]
Time Square Station New York gateway to ideas
[28:25 - 28:30]
is produced for national educational radio under a grant from the National Home Library
[28:30 - 28:35]
Foundation programs are prepared by the National Book Committee and the
[28:35 - 28:40]
American Library Association in cooperation with the National Association of educational
[28:40 - 28:44]
broadcasters technical production by Riverside radio
[28:44 - 29:05]
WRVO in New York City.
[29:05 - 29:09]
This is the national educational radio network.
[29:09 - 29:13]
Time Square Station New York.
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