Class 12 English: The Interview — Literature Question Set

Correct option: (c). The opening line states the interview was invented "a little over 130 years ago".

Correct option: (b). Since every literate person has read an interview and thousands of celebrities have been interviewed, its effects are felt widely, so views about it naturally differ.

Correct option: (a). "Commonplace" here means something usual and unremarkable, found everywhere in journalism.

Correct option: (d). The passage says some claim it is "in its highest form, a source of truth, and, in its practice, an art".

Correct option: (c). The comparison illuminates the celebrities' feeling that the interview snatches something personal from them, just as a portrait was believed to steal the soul.

Correct option: (b). "One" stands for the person who takes the portrait — the one who would be stealing the soul.

Correct option: (d). The opening sentence attributes this view to V. S. Naipaul.

Correct option: (b). He is said to have had "a just horror of the interviewer" and a horror of being lionised, so he repelled all such people.

Correct option: (c). To be "lionised" is to be sought out, fussed over and idolised, which is exactly what Carroll dreaded.

Correct option: (d). The pronoun refers back to Carroll, who retold these stories with satisfaction and amusement.

Correct option: (b). His relish in these small victories shows he valued his privacy and enjoyed protecting it.

Correct option: (c). He repelled everyone who sought him out because of his fame, not merely interviewers.

Correct option: (d). He calls it "just as much of a crime as an offence against my person, as an assault".

Correct option: (b). His wife Caroline recorded the incident and his words in her diary for that date.

Correct option: (c). Her diary entry says the day was "wrecked by two reporters from Boston".

Correct option: (a). The man who called an interview an assault had himself perpetrated one on Mark Twain, making his outburst hypocritical.

Correct option: (d). "Perpetrated" means carried out (an act, usually a bad one), continuing the 'crime/assault' imagery.

Correct option: (c). Words like "immoral", "cowardly and vile" show righteous moral outrage, not calm argument or humour.

Correct option: (d). The extract says Wells "forty years later found himself interviewing Joseph Stalin".

Correct option: (b). A thumbprint pressed on the windpipe is an image of being stifled and intruded upon.

Correct option: (a). The comparison is introduced by "like", making it a simile.

Correct option: (c). Brian writes that since our most vivid impressions come through interviews, the questioner wields this power.

Correct option: (d). "Serviceable" means practical and useful, despite the drawbacks listed.

Correct option: (b). Wells called interviewing an ordeal yet gave interviews often and even interviewed Stalin, so his hostility was inconsistent.

Correct option: (c). The extract identifies him as "a professor at the University of Bologna in Italy".

Correct option: (a). The extract glosses semiotics in a bracket as "the study of signs".

Correct option: (d). The extract states he acquired superstardom with the 1980 publication of that novel.

Correct option: (c). The extract says the novel "sold more than 10 million copies".

Correct option: (d). His listed output is literary fiction, academic texts, essays, children's books and newspaper articles — not physics.

Correct option: (b). Both the volume ("staggeringly large") and variety ("wide-ranging") of his writing cause astonishment.

Correct option: (a). Mukund introduces him as "the English novelist and academic David Lodge".

Correct option: (c). Eco says, "in the end, I am convinced I am always doing the same thing."

Correct option: (d). He states he pursues them "through my academic work and my novels".

Correct option: (c). He says his children's books are about non-violence and peace — the same ethical interests.

Correct option: (b). The question asks Eco to identify the "same thing" he claims always to be doing.

Correct option: (a). His answer shows that one "bunch" of philosophical and ethical interests runs through everything he writes.

Correct option: (d). Eco says, "we have a lot of empty spaces in our lives. I call them interstices."

Correct option: (b). He says "The universe will become as big as my fist."

Correct option: (c). He declares that in that interstice "I have already written an article!"

Correct option: (a). Just as the universe's tiny empty spaces hold most of its bulk, life's small idle moments can hold enormous productive work.

Correct option: (b). His stated secret is "I work in empty spaces" — using every interstice.

Correct option: (d). The laugh shows he relates his own trick of time with amusement, not pride or regret.

Correct option: (c). Mukund describes the regular academic style as "invariably depersonalised and often dry and boring".

Correct option: (b). The Professor says scholars learn, make false hypotheses, correct them, and only at the end put the conclusions.

Correct option: (d). He says, "You, on the contrary, told the story of your research. Even including your trials and errors."

Correct option: (b). The Professor is addressing Eco about his first doctoral dissertation in Italy.

Correct option: (c). He notes the "playful and personal quality" of Eco's non-fiction is a "marked departure" from the norm, which prompts the question.

Correct option: (d). Mukund explicitly names this quality as what distinguishes Eco's scholarly work.

Correct option: (b). He says he started writing narratives "at the age of 50, more or less".

Correct option: (c). He says he understood "scholarly books should be written the way I had done — by telling the story of the research".

Correct option: (b). He links the narrative aspect directly to his realisation about telling the story of research: "This is why my essays always have a narrative aspect."

Correct option: (a). Barthes "wanted to do creative writing one day or another but he died before he could do so".

Correct option: (d). He says, "I started writing novels by accident. I had nothing to do one day and so I started."

Correct option: (a). The closing line says, "Novels probably satisfied my taste for narration."

Correct option: (c). Eco's one-line correction is "Over 40".

Correct option: (b). He says, "I consider myself a university professor who writes novels on Sundays."

Correct option: (d). He explains his annoyance by saying, "I identify myself with the academic community."

Correct option: (c). The discussion is about his non-fictional scholarly works, of which there are over forty.

Correct option: (b). The stress shows that the Sunday-novelist formula, far from being witty modesty, states his true priorities.

Correct option: (a). Mukund refers to "a seminal piece of work on semiotics" among his scholarly writings.

Correct option: (c). He says, "I know that by writing novels, I reach a larger audience."

Correct option: (a). He says, "I cannot expect to have one million readers with stuff on semiotics."

Correct option: (d). Mukund calls it "a detective yarn at one level".

Correct option: (b). Eco replies, "Journalists are puzzled. And sometimes publishers."

Correct option: (c). Eco gives this as the reason for their puzzlement at the novel's mass success.

Correct option: (d). Since he rejects the journalists' premise that readers want only trash, his lack of puzzlement reflects confidence in the reading public.

Correct option: (b). He sets the sales figure against the world's six billion people to show how small the readership really is.

Correct option: (c). The extract states the novel "sold between 10 and 15 million copies".

Correct option: (b). He says he wants to see either 'Miami Vice' or 'Emergency Room' after dinner.

Correct option: (b). He enjoys and needs light programmes, "But not all day" — the same, he implies, is true of readers.

Correct option: (d). "This" points back to "easy experiences", which his kind of readers do not always want.

Correct option: (d). He admits his own appetite for easy entertainment honestly while limiting it, showing a balanced, frank self-assessment.

Correct option: (d). She "didn't expect to sell more than 3,000 copies", and his advance was calculated on that figure.

Correct option: (c). Her exact reason was "a country where nobody has seen a cathedral or studies Latin".

Correct option: (d). Eco says "in the end it sold two or three million in the U.S."

Correct option: (d). The "she" is the American publisher he has just mentioned, who loved the book but doubted its sales.

Correct option: (b). He says, "I was given an advance for 3,000 copies".

Correct option: (c). Like a wise man of fables, he answers the question with a story — the publisher's anecdote.

Correct option: (d). He says plainly, "I think the success of the book is a mystery. Nobody can predict it."

Correct option: (c). He says that written ten years earlier or later, "it wouldn't have been the same".

Correct option: (b). If the subject alone explained success, the many earlier books on the medieval past would have been equally successful.

Correct option: (d). His repeated "mystery" and "Why it worked at that time is a mystery" point to something inexplicable, not a genre or a secret.

Correct option: (c). Admitting that even he cannot explain his own triumph shows an honest, humble assessment rather than vanity.

Correct option: (a). The extract's whole point is that the book's moment made it work in a way nobody — not even its author — can predict or repeat.

Some people make quite extravagant claims for the interview, seeing it in its highest form as a source of truth and, in its practice, an art. Others, like Denis Brian, hold that it is a supremely serviceable medium of communication through which our most vivid impressions of our contemporaries reach us.

Celebrity writers see themselves as victims of interviews. They feel that an interview is an unwarranted intrusion into their lives and that it somehow diminishes them, much as primitive cultures believed a photographic portrait steals a person's soul.

In some primitive cultures it is believed that if one takes a photographic portrait of somebody, one is stealing that person's soul. The author uses this belief to illustrate how celebrities feel that interviews take away something of their essential selves.

According to V. S. Naipaul, some people are wounded by interviews and lose a part of themselves. The experience of being interviewed, in his view, damages something inner and personal in a person.

Lewis Carroll, the creator of Alice in Wonderland, had what was called 'a just horror of the interviewer'. It was really his horror of being lionized — of being feted as a celebrity — that made him repel would-be acquaintances, interviewers and persistent autograph-seekers, and he later related with satisfaction and amusement how he had silenced such people.

Caroline Kipling wrote in her diary that their day was 'wrecked by two reporters from Boston'. She recorded her husband's words to the reporters, in which he called the interview immoral, a crime like an assault on his person, cowardly and vile.

Kipling condemned interviews in the strongest terms, calling them immoral, criminal, cowardly and vile. Yet he had himself perpetrated such an 'assault' on Mark Twain only a few years earlier, which makes his outburst hypocritical and self-contradictory.

H. G. Wells referred to 'the interviewing ordeal' in an interview in 1894, yet he was a fairly frequent interviewee himself. Forty years later he even became the interviewer, interviewing the Russian leader Joseph Stalin.

Saul Bellow, who had himself consented to be interviewed on several occasions, once described interviews as being like thumbprints on his windpipe. The image suggests that being interviewed made him feel suffocated and intruded upon.

Denis Brian wrote that these days our most vivid impressions of our contemporaries come through interviews, and almost everything of moment reaches us through one man asking questions of another. Since so much information and opinion passes through the interviewer, he wields unprecedented power and influence.

Umberto Eco, professor at the University of Bologna, was interviewed by Mukund Padmanabhan of The Hindu. The interview covered Eco's writing habits, his academic style, his identity as a scholar, and the spectacular success of his novel The Name of the Rose.

Semiotics is defined in the text as the study of signs. Umberto Eco had acquired a formidable reputation as a scholar for his ideas on semiotics, along with literary interpretation and medieval aesthetics, before he turned to writing fiction.

Eco means that all his varied work — academic books, novels, essays and even children's books — is guided by the same bunch of ethical and philosophical interests. His children's books, for instance, are about non-violence and peace; only the form of his writing changes, not the underlying concerns.

Saul Bellow used this expression to describe how an interview feels to the person being interviewed — as if someone's thumbprints were pressed on his windpipe. The metaphor conveys a sense of being choked, cornered and unable to breathe freely while answering an interviewer's questions.

Eco uses the interstices, the empty spaces in his life. He gives the example of waiting for a guest who is coming up in the elevator from the first to the third floor — in that short interval he has already written an article. He works in empty spaces.

Eco's scholarly writing had a playful and personal quality. Instead of the conventional method of stating hypotheses and conclusions, he told the story of his research, including his trials and errors. That is why his essays always have a narrative aspect.

Eco started writing novels by accident at about the age of fifty. He had nothing to do one day and so he began. He never felt the frustration his friend Roland Barthes felt about not being a novelist; novels probably satisfied his taste for narration.

Eco considered himself an academic scholar first. He described himself as "a university professor who writes novels on Sundays" — not a joke, he insists. He participates in academic conferences, not meetings of Pen Clubs and writers, and identifies himself with the academic community.

Eco points out that there are six billion people on the planet, while The Name of the Rose sold between 10 and 15 million copies. So in a way he reached only a small percentage of readers, though these were exactly the kind of readers who do not always want easy reading experiences.

Eco says nobody can predict a book's success. Many books on the medieval past had been written before his, his American publisher expected to sell only 3,000 copies, yet it sold two or three million in the U.S. He believes that had he written it ten years earlier or ten years later, it would not have been the same — why it worked at that time is a mystery.

Christopher Silvester shows that the interview evokes sharply divided opinions. At one extreme, some make extravagant claims for it, seeing it in its highest form as a source of truth and, in its practice, an art. At the other extreme are celebrities who see themselves as its victims, despising it as an unwarranted intrusion into their lives that diminishes them. Writers like Naipaul, Carroll, Kipling, Wells and Bellow expressed this hostility in varying degrees. Yet Silvester himself concludes that despite its drawbacks, the interview remains a supremely serviceable medium of communication.

V. S. Naipaul felt that some people are wounded by interviews and lose a part of themselves. Lewis Carroll had 'a just horror of the interviewer' and never consented to one, repelling interviewers and autograph-seekers alike. Rudyard Kipling, through his wife's diary, called the interview immoral — a crime like an assault, cowardly and vile. H. G. Wells called it 'the interviewing ordeal', and Saul Bellow described interviews as thumbprints on his windpipe. Together these reactions show how deeply many writers resented the practice.

The author, quoting Denis Brian, argues that today our most vivid impressions of our contemporaries come through interviews. Almost everything of moment — the important news, ideas and personalities of our time — reaches us through one man asking questions of another. No other medium gives the public such direct access to the minds of famous people. Precisely because of this, the interviewer holds a position of unprecedented power and influence, whatever celebrities may think of the practice.

Eco explains that just as the universe would shrink to the size of his fist if all its empty spaces were eliminated, our lives too contain many empty spaces, which he calls interstices. While ordinary people let these idle intervals pass, Eco works in them. He gives the example of a visitor coming to his place: while the visitor rides the elevator from the first to the third floor, Eco waits — and in that very interstice he has already written an article. This disciplined use of spare moments, more than any special genius, accounts for his staggeringly large output of over forty scholarly works and five novels.

The Professor observed that conventional scholars learn a lot about a subject, make many false hypotheses, correct them and finally present their conclusions — concealing the process. Eco, on the contrary, had told the story of his research, including even his trials and errors. The Professor recognised that Eco was right and published the dissertation as a book. From this, at age 22, Eco understood that scholarly books should be written by telling the story of the research, which is why his essays always have a narrative aspect.

The remark reveals Eco's humility and his clear ordering of priorities. Though the world knows him chiefly as the novelist who wrote The Name of the Rose, Eco insists — "It's not a joke" — that he is first a university professor. He participates in academic conferences, not meetings of Pen Clubs and writers, and identifies himself with the academic community. He is somewhat bothered that people who have read only his novels call him "the novelist", while he has written over forty scholarly works of non-fiction, including a seminal work on semiotics. At the same time, he accepts popular fame with a laugh and a shrug, knowing that novels, not semiotics, bring him a million readers.

Eco explains that he started writing novels by accident — he had nothing to do one day and so he started. Since his essays already had a narrative aspect and satisfied his taste for narration, he never felt a burning urge to write fiction. His friend Roland Barthes, in contrast, was always frustrated at being an essayist rather than a novelist, wanted to do creative writing one day, but died before he could fulfil that wish. Eco never felt such frustration; novels came to him late, casually, and as a natural extension of his narrative style.

The Name of the Rose is a detective yarn at one level but also delves into metaphysics, theology and medieval history — very serious subjects for a mass-audience novel. Journalists and some publishers were puzzled because they assume that people like trash and dislike difficult reading experiences. Eco was not puzzled. He argues that the 10 to 15 million readers who bought his book are exactly the kind of readers who do not want easy experiences, or at least do not always want them. He compares this with himself: after dinner he enjoys light television shows like 'Miami Vice' or 'Emergency Room', but not all day.

Eco points to his own habit of watching 'Miami Vice' or 'Emergency Room' at 9 pm after dinner — programmes he enjoys and needs, but not all day. By analogy, he suggests that readers, even intelligent ones, cannot survive only on light entertainment; they too need and enjoy serious, demanding experiences. Publishers and journalists are wrong to assume that people like only trash. Human taste is mixed, and there is a real audience — smaller as a percentage but large in numbers — for difficult and serious reading.

Eco's American publisher, though she loved The Name of the Rose, did not expect to sell more than 3,000 copies in America, "a country where nobody has seen a cathedral or studies Latin", and he was given an advance for only 3,000 copies. In the end the book sold two or three million copies in the U.S. The anecdote shows that even experts in the book trade cannot predict what will succeed, supporting Eco's larger point that the success of a book is a mystery that nobody can predict.

Eco offers several reasons for his conclusion. First, many books had been written about the medieval past long before his, so the subject matter alone cannot explain the phenomenon. Second, his own American publisher, who loved the book, expected sales of only 3,000 copies — yet it sold millions. Third, he believes that if he had written the novel ten years earlier or ten years later, it would not have been the same. Since neither the content nor expert judgement can account for its timing and scale, why the book worked at that particular time remains, in his words, a mystery.

Eco frankly admits that it bothers him when people say, "Oh, he's the novelist", because he considers himself a university professor who writes novels on Sundays. However, he immediately adds — laughing and shrugging — that if most people have read only the novels, he accepts it, since by writing novels he reaches a much larger audience than he ever could with stuff on semiotics. His attitude shows a realistic acceptance: fame from fiction is a door through which the public may later discover his scholarship.

Mukund's interviewing style is courteous, well-prepared and purposeful. He begins with a quotation from David Lodge to invite Eco to explain his productivity, and listens carefully to each answer before framing the next question. His questions are respectful but pointed — asking whether being labelled a novelist bothers Eco, or whether the mass success of a serious novel puzzled him. He also uses conversational linkers such as "Which brings me to my next question" to move smoothly from topic to topic, showing the structured, engaging quality of a professional interviewer.

Denis Brian's remark presents the interview from the public's point of view: it is through interviews that readers and viewers receive their most vivid impressions of contemporaries, and the interviewer thus wields unprecedented power and influence. The celebrities' complaints — Naipaul's "wounded", Kipling's "assault", Bellow's "thumbprints on my windpipe" — present the same practice from the interviewee's point of view, as intrusion and injury. The two views are not contradictory but complementary: the very intrusiveness that makes celebrities feel diminished is what makes the interview so informative and vivid for the audience.

Eco's life teaches that time is elastic in the hands of the disciplined. He identifies the empty spaces — interstices — that everyone wastes, such as waiting for a guest to arrive in an elevator, and fills them with work, writing an entire article in such an interval. He shows that a huge output of over forty scholarly works and five novels does not require supernatural gifts but the systematic use of fragments of time. Above all, his insistence that he is "always doing the same thing" shows the value of unified purpose: when all one's activities serve the same interests, no time is ever truly lost.

Part I shows that the interview, though only about 130 years old, has become a commonplace of journalism, and that opinions about it vary considerably. On one side stand extravagant claims: some regard it in its highest form as a source of truth and, in its practice, an art. Denis Brian goes further, calling it the medium through which our most vivid impressions of contemporaries reach us, giving the interviewer unprecedented power and influence. On the other side stand the celebrities who see themselves as victims. Naipaul feels people are wounded by interviews and lose a part of themselves; Lewis Carroll had 'a just horror of the interviewer'; Kipling called the interview immoral, criminal, cowardly and vile; Wells called it 'the interviewing ordeal'; and Bellow described it as thumbprints on his windpipe. Interestingly, the critics were often inconsistent — Kipling had himself interviewed Mark Twain, and Wells later interviewed Stalin. The essay thus leaves the reader weighing a supremely serviceable medium against the genuine discomfort of those it examines.

The complaints of the celebrity writers deserve sympathetic consideration. Naipaul's observation that people are "wounded" by interviews and lose a part of themselves suggests real psychological harm, and his comparison with the primitive belief that a photograph steals the soul captures how exposure can feel like a theft of one's private self. Kipling's wife recorded a whole day "wrecked by two reporters", showing how intrusive the press could be in an age without privacy norms, and Bellow's image of thumbprints on his windpipe conveys the suffocation of relentless questioning. However, their attitude also appears exaggerated and hypocritical: Kipling had himself interviewed Mark Twain, and Wells, despite calling it an ordeal, was a frequent interviewee who later interviewed Stalin. These writers also enjoyed the fame that publicity brought them. A balanced view would accept that while questioning can be humiliating, the interview is a legitimate, valuable form of communication when conducted with respect for the interviewee's dignity.

The interview reveals Eco as a remarkably modest, disciplined and witty man. Despite intellectual superstardom after The Name of the Rose, he insists he is "a university professor who writes novels on Sundays" — a self-description he says is not a joke — and identifies himself wholly with the academic community rather than with Pen Clubs and writers. He is candid and unpretentious, admitting that he started writing novels by accident because he had nothing to do one day. He is also strikingly industrious and clever with time: he works in 'interstices', the empty spaces of life, writing an article while a guest rides the elevator up to his flat. Intellectually, he is consistent, pursuing the same ethical and philosophical interests — peace, non-violence, narration — through academic work, novels and children's books alike. His humour and self-awareness show in his anecdotes about the Chinese wise man and his confession of watching 'Miami Vice' after dinner. Altogether he emerges as a scholarly, humble and original mind.

Eco's explanation of how he accomplishes so much is a striking lesson in the use of time. When asked how one man could do all the things he does, he revealed his "secret": he works in interstices, the empty spaces in our lives. Just as the universe would shrink to the size of a fist if its empty spaces were eliminated, Eco fills the countless small intervals others waste — waiting for a guest in an elevator, odd moments between tasks — with productive work. He claims to have written an entire article while waiting for his visitor to come up from the first to the third floor. The result of this habit is a staggering output: over forty scholarly works, five novels, essays, children's books and newspaper articles. The lesson is that great achievement is less about special talent than about the disciplined use of fragments of time. Students especially can learn that the minutes we waste between activities, if harvested like Eco's interstices, can add up to years of productive work.

Denis Brian's remark rests on his observation that almost everything of moment reaches the public through one man asking questions of another, so that our most vivid impressions of contemporaries are formed by interviews. Such a position carries real power: the interviewer decides whom to question, what to ask, what to publish and how to frame the answers — and can therefore make or damage reputations. Part I shows the misuse of this power from the celebrities' side: Naipaul's wounded victims, Lewis Carroll's repelled interviewers, Kipling's day "wrecked" by reporters and Bellow's feeling of being throttled. These complaints suggest that the interviewer's rights are not unlimited. In a democratic society the public's legitimate right to know about public figures must be balanced against every individual's right to privacy and dignity. A responsible interviewer, like Mukund Padmanabhan in Part II, prepares thoroughly, asks questions relevant to the subject's public work, listens respectfully and reports faithfully — informing society without humiliating the person questioned.

Eco refuses a definite explanation because the evidence itself is contradictory. His American publisher, who loved the book, expected to sell no more than 3,000 copies in "a country where nobody has seen a cathedral or studies Latin", yet it sold two or three million in the U.S. Many books on the medieval past had been written long before his, so the theme alone cannot explain the phenomenon. Eco also believes that had he written the novel ten years earlier or ten years later, it would not have been the same — implying that a rare fit between a work and its historical moment, not any calculable formula, produced the success. His explanation suggests that literary fame is finally unpredictable and undeserved in any scientific sense. It humbles both authors and publishers: neither talent nor expert judgement guarantees success, and a serious work may find a mass audience precisely because readers do not always want easy experiences — but why, and why then, remains a mystery.

The celebrity writers of Part I treat the interview with hostility or distaste. Naipaul sees it as wounding; Carroll repelled interviewers with satisfaction; Kipling called it an immoral crime and an assault; Wells called it an ordeal; and Bellow said it felt like thumbprints on his windpipe. Even those who cooperated resented the exposure, and their protests were often inconsistent — Kipling himself had interviewed Mark Twain. Eco, by contrast, is an entirely willing and cheerful interviewee. He answers frankly, even playfully, shares his "secret" of interstices, tells self-deprecating anecdotes, laughs and shrugs at being mislabelled a novelist, and accepts that his celebrity lets him reach a million readers he could never have reached with semiotics. The comparison suggests that public attention is better handled with openness and humour than with defensive hostility. The interview, as Denis Brian notes, is how the world knows its contemporaries; the wise course, as Eco demonstrates, is to engage with it on one's own honest terms — accepting loss of privacy as the price of a larger conversation with one's readers.