The Code of Pasternak: George Steiner

Overview

Interview with George Steiner, British literary critic and writer (in his home in Cambridge, Great Britain). Steiner talks about beauty, solace, fear, wonder, memory, his photographic memory and the extinction of collective memory: the fact that readers no longer recognize references in literature. In this context, Steiner reads a fragment from Ernest Hemingway's 'Fiesta: The sun also rises'. He also talks about Chinese wisdom following the excavation and reburial of terracotta statues from graves in Szetsjwan in China, Pasternak's code, the work of Sören Kierkegaard and Martin Heidegger, the innumerability/beauty of detail, the painting 'The Reading Philosopher' by Jean-Baptiste Siméon Chardin, falling in love, love and friendship, his passion for art, literature, music, philosophy, love for animals, humanity, self-knowledge, Franz Schubert, the dark side of life and atrocities such as those committed during the Second World War.

Episode Information

Guest Stars

Wim Kayzer

himself

George Steiner

himself