Year: 2016
Type: article
Abstract: The etymology of the word interview!entreverpermits an alternative definition to that of a two-way verbal exchange.To interview (from Latin, INTER-+ videre , via Old French entrevue) could also be considered as the act of viewing between things: scrutinising the spaces amongst the obvious, the superficial, the familiar in order to perceive what remains undiscovered.When Jose Saramago describes the experience of being interviewed as one of being besieged in the "Encerramento" that he contributes to Didlogos com Jose Saramago , he appears to entertain such a definition: "[a]s perguntas, ou batem no muro que todo o entrevistado e, e ressaltam trazendo mecanicamente a resposta, ou abrem nele uma brecha" ( 161).An interviewer's key skill, Saramago indicates, is the ability to look between those parts of the wall already tested, to single out the less stable areas and to dispatch address questions which that the besieged interviewee cannot deflect.Where a wall is breached, "o entrevistado tera de olhar devagar para o interior da ferida, nao porque nao tenha apreendido a pergunta, mas porque necessitara apreender-se a si mesmo" (16 1): effectively, the interviewee must inter-view himself/herself.When Carlos Reis's interrogatory skills extend to leaving his "defesas ... em campo raso," Saramago finds himself "a perder-se tanto mais quanto mais supusesse ter-se achado" (162), and forced to contemplate formerly unrecognized aspects of himself and comment thereupon.Casting Reis's volume as a blow-by-blow History of the Siege of Jose Saramago, Saramago evokes Raimundo Silva's discovery (in The History of the Siege ofLisbori) that each successive seizure of the citadel of History must be
DOI: 10.62791/nabm9317
Author: Mark J. Sabine
Language: English
Subfield: Literature and Literary Theory
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W2782755509