THE INTERVIEW WORKFILE

DON BOSCO SCHOOL OF EXCELLENCE SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOL, EGMORE

STD 12 THE INTERVIEW – WORKFILE

• Christopher Silvester, Umberto Eco

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Christopher Silvester has been a freelance journalist and author since the early 1980s. He cut his teeth on the fortnightly satirical magazine Private Eye, where he wrote the “New Boys” profiles of newly elected MPs during the Thatcher years. He also contributed to the Eye’s “Street of Shame” and “Grovel” columns as well as writing investigative reports on business.

Umberto Eco (5 January 1932 – 19 February 2016) was an Italian medievalist, philosopher, semiotician, novelist, cultural critic, and political and social commentator. In English, he is best known for his popular 1980 novel The Name of the Rose, a historical mystery combining semiotics in fiction with biblical analysis, medieval studies and literary theory, as well as Foucault's Pendulum, his 1988 novel which touches on similar themes.

THEME

The chapter explores the importance of interviews in many aspects of life, including career opportunities and personal interactions. It also aims to prepare students to face interview situations with confidence.

The chapter covers the following topics:

• The advantages and disadvantages of interviews

• The importance of interviews in journalism

• How interviews have become a vital part of people's lives

• How celebrities view interviews

• The skills needed to excel in interviews, such as preparation, effective communication, and presentation.

ANSWER WITH REFERENCE TO THE CONTEXT:

1. “Rudyard Kipling expressed an even more condemnatory attitude towards the interviewer. His wife, Caroline, writes in her diary for 14 October 1892 that their day was ‘wrecked by two reporters from Boston’. She reports her husband as saying to the reporters, “Why do I refuse to be interviewed? Because it is immoral! It is a crime, just as much of a crime as an offence against my person, as an assault, and just as much merits punishment. It is cowardly and vile.

1. How is Caroline associated with Rudyard Kipling?

2. What was Caroline’s view about being interviewed?

3. What does the word ‘vile’ mean?

4. Despicable

5. Slimy

6. Ugly

7. All of these

d. Who of the following ruined Caroline’s day?

1. News anchors

2. News reporters

3. News readers

4. News makers

2. “Which brings me to my next question. The Name of the Rose is a very serious novel. It is a detective yarn at one level but it also delves into metaphysics, theology and medieval history. Yet it enjoyed a huge mass audience. Were you puzzled at all by this?”

1. Who wrote “The Name of the Rose”?

2. How many copies of “The Name of the Rose” was sole?

3. Who was taking Umberton Eco’s interview?

4. What does the word ‘yarn’ mean?

5. Narration

6. Recital

7. Both 1 and 2

8. Neither 1 nor 2

ANSWER IN BRIEF:

1. Write down the opinions that disfavour the cause of the interview.

2. How does V.S. Naipaul feel about interview?

3. Umberto Eco says: “I am always doing the same thing but that is more difficult to explain.” Why does he say so?

4. How does Umberto Eco explain his capacity of doing so much work? What are ‘interstices’ and how does Eco use them?

5. “In spite of the ‘drawbacks’ the interview is a ‘supremely serviceable medium of communication’. Justify the statement.

ANSWER IN DETAIL:

1. What picture do you form of Umberto Eco after reading the extract of the interview of Eco that was taken by Mukund Padmanabhan?

2. Several thousand celebrities have been interviewed over the years, some of them repeatedly.’ But still many of them ‘despise the interview as an unwarranted intrusion in their lives’. Describe opinions for and against the interview as mentioned in the lesson.

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