University of Virginia Library

Taylor: 'Southern Fried Realism'

By Paul Larsen
Cavalier Daily Staff Writer

When Peter Taylor came to the
University three years ago, he
brought with him a reputation as
one of the finest short-story writers
of our time. It is a reputation which
has been built over thirty years of
writing that have produced five
collections of short stories (his
latest is The Collected Stories of
Peter Taylor, 535 pp. New York:
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $10),
numerous plays and a novel. His
work has recently been compared
to that of Faulkner, Warren,
Williams, and Capote by literary
critics who have used these
comparisons to indicate Taylor's
expertise in the Southern genre of
literature. He has also been ranked
with Chekhov, James, and
Hawthorne for stylistic and
technical brilliance.

In a recent interview in the
writer's office, Taylor talked on a

variety of subjects ranging from his
life to his views on such disparate
issues as creativity, the value of
literary criticism, his own favorite
writers, and fiction today. He
would not allow a recorder to be
used because of what he termed the
somewhat pretentious "grand pronouncements"
writers often issue
when confronted with a tape. He
also implied he might be wary of
any mechanical intrusion into his
privacy, recounting the controversial
September Esquire article
"Dinner At The Lowell's" which
offered the poet's head from the
top of a platter and his words from
the bottom of a wine glass. Since
then members of the literary world
have approached recorded interviews
with a grant deal of caution.

Began As Child

Taylor's evolution as a writer
began when as a child he simply
recounted on paper the many
stories which were exchanged in his
family. He explains that while the
direction towards a career in
writing was side-tracked once by a
momentary impulse to become a
preacher and often by a frequent
inclination to study painting, the
influence of his early life in a
family of raconteurs began to make
itself known early in his youth. The
more he wrote down the stories his
parents and grand-parents told, the
more he began to discover his own
attitudes about living in the South
and to study and understand the art
of writing.

Art School

Although he attended art school
and still produces canvasses today,
Taylor decided in his teens to study
writing in college. He attended
Southwestern College where he met
poet Allen Tate. Tate recognized
Taylor's, talent and persuaded him
to transfer to Vanderbilt, where he
could study under John Crowe
Ransom. But before Taylor got
settled at Vanderbilt, Ransom accepted
a position on the faculty at
Kenyon College and the young
writer transferred once again.

At Kenyon Taylor roomed with
Robert Lowell, who he recalls
played varsity football and became
infamous for turning up at practice
with poems scrawled across the
sheets of secret plays he was to
have learned the night before.
Besides Taylor and Lowell, Ransom's
name and skill attracted
Randall Jarrell, Rob McCauley
(currently Fiction Editor of Playboy
Magazine), Harry Brown (now
a highly acclaimed Hollywood
screenwriter) and several other
talented young writers. This small
group lived and studied together,
criticizing each other's work and
developing new ideas. Today Taylor
reviews those days as among the
most rewarding of his life, believing
be learned from his time at Kenyon
what would have otherwise taken
him ten years.

Five Years In Army

After graduating he and Lowell
traveled to LSU for graduate work,
but neither stayed beyond Christmas
of their first year. Before
Taylor was able to settle down to
devote his time and energy to
writing, he spent five years in the
Army, not returning to New York
until 1946.

While at Kenyon he had published
two stories in "River," a
now-defunct Mississippi literary magazine
whose first issue introduced
stories by Taylor and Eudora
Welty. But it was not until after the
war that Taylor could again resume
writing as a full-time occupation.
He then began to publish his stories
in literary quarterlies and in such
magazines as "The New Yorker."
The story which brought him to
public recognition, "A Long
Fourth" (also the title of his first
collection) is often cited by critics
as the story most demonstrative of
the author's talent. But Taylor feels
that "Venus, Cupid, Folly, and
Time" and "Mrs. Leonore When
Last Seen" offer "the fullest
statement of what I am trying to
write about."

Writes About South

What Taylor writes about is the
South and the changes in the mores
and manners of the Southern
people which have taken place as a
result of the economic and cultural
transformation this region has undergone
in the past fifty years.
Taylor believes that in these past
fifty years the two geographical
regions of the world which have
produced the greatest literature are
the South and Ireland. He reasons
that this is a result of the swift and
often violent changes which are
such a great part of life in these
areas which produce within writers
a greater opportunity to understand
life and create from it.

Teacher Also

Taylor has throughout his
mature life combined his writing
career with teaching. Before joining
the English Department at Virginia
he taught at Chicago, Harvard,
Indiana, Ohio State, and, with
Jarrell, at University of North
Carolina at Greensboro.

When asked if he gives attention
to critics Taylor replied that he
can't remember when he has ever
learned from them. He feels that a
writer learns only from analyzing
his own work and from other
writers. Replying to a recent
criticism of his work which branded
it as "old-style, southern-fried realism"
which was today out of date
Taylor replied that critics who
think that a particular genre of
literature can ever be exhausted are
"politicos who think in political
terms and interpret literature from
a sociological standpoint." It is
interesting to note that this particular
criticism was made in the
politically-oriented "The New Republic."

Personal Idols

While Taylor has often been
called the finest short-story writer
of today, his own list included Saul
Bellow, Bernard Malamud. Jean
Stafford, and J.F. Powers. He
remembers that as a young writer
he was greatly influenced by
Joyce's The Dubliners, the stories
of Thomas Mann and the work of
Henry James. He also finds himself
returning to the work of Faulkner,
Porter, Hemingway, and probably
his favorite, James.

When asked if any of his friends
have ever recognized themselves in
his stories, he told of a time when
he stepped off the plane in Atlanta
to meet the glare of his father. As
he approached, his father welcomed
him with the greeting "if you had
been home when I read your last
story I would have shot you."

Plays Unrecognized

While Taylor's short-stories seem
to be assured a place among the
great literature of this age, his plays
have never received popular recognition.
When asked what he would
like to do that he never had done
before, the writer smiled and said
he would like to see his plays
produced and receive more attention
than has been granted them in
the past.

Taylor believes that creativity
stems from a great and continually
active imagination and the need to
tell a story. When asked why he
writes fiction, he quotes Freud's
idea that in fantasies man achieves
what he can't otherwise achieve and
refers to the fiction-writer's standard
that there is more truth in a lie
than in truth. Such are the ploys of
many writers, whose reasons for
writing are as varied as their plots.
But Taylor did concede that the
preparation for writing often is as
difficult as the process itself.
Hemingway is known for his habit
of sharpening pencils, Frost for his
morning walk. Taylor's preparation
takes the form of pacing about the
room and moving furniture. After
reviewing this statement, he added
that perhaps a touch of peculiarity
should be mentioned as a part of
creativity.