You are a human animal.

You are a very special breed.

Or you are the only animal.

Who can think, who can reason, who can read?

Hi, I'm Michael Silverblad, and welcome to Bookworm.

This week, my guest is Edmund White, and I'm taking advantage of his presence in the studio,

which was occasioned by the publication of his new biography of Jean-iné to talk to him

about the evolution of his own work and style and present and future, and I'm glad

to have you with us.

Thank you.

You know, forgetting Elena was a monumental event in my life because it was a book that went

from a kind of Kafka Beckett beginning, that, you know, if I don't turn to the left, I must turn to the right.

If I don't turn to the right, I must turn around.

If I turn around to something ecstatic and primitive and ceremonial.

How do you describe the movement of that novel?

It's certainly odd, isn't it?

It's terrifically odd.

Well, one thing that had impressed me is I have a very good girlfriend who is a painter, and I

remember she once said to me, isn't it funny that people just assume that if something is

abstract and cerebral, it should be gray.

There's actually no logical reason why it couldn't be

gorgeous. And that was a remark that sort of stuck in my mind. For instance, she said, why did the

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