INTERVIEWEE: THOMAS M. KENEALLY Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing INTERVIEWER: Samuel c. McCulloch Emeritus Professor of History UCI Historian
DATE: April 8, 1994
SM: This is an interview with Professor Tom Keneally, a
Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing, on Friday, April
8, [1994], in HOB-360. The oral history program that I say there that I'll tell you about is very simple. They gave me
enough money to interview finally 107-you're the 108th
person-and this is for the oral history of UCI, and it involves the chancellors, the president of the university,
President Kerr and, oh, let me think, professors, students,
the Irvine Company president, the head of the local paper here, and so on. So we got a lot of coverage for my history
of UCI. And we' re very happy, Tom, that you' re on our faculty
and doing so well.
The first question is: Did the fall quarter of '85, when
I met you first, you were, I know, quite impressed, you told
me at the dinner, our dinner party, that you liked the students. Now, did that sort of persuade you to come back
here?
TK: Yes, I'll tell you, I can say exactly what I liked about UCI.
Oakley Hall and Donald Heiney, the novelist Macdonald Harris,
established a very professional attitude amongst the MFA
students, which led to a lot of them being published. And I
knew that if ever I was to work in a writing program, I would KENEALLY 2
be happiest in one which laid a considerable stress upon
excellence and publication. Or at least there's the freedom
to fail, to try hard and to fail. This is something that John
Calvin Batchelor, a novelist from New York who's just recently
been in the program, said to his writing students in the
Graduate Writing Program: "This is your chance to fail." SM: (chuckling) Also the chance to succeed.
TK: And the chance, a priori the chance to succeed. And so that
atmosphere in the UCI Writing Program made you feel that you
were doing good work. And the publishing record continues,
because only two days ago the first of the 1992 graduates
indicated to me that his novel had been accepted by a small
press. Now, a small press is fine. It's the future a lot of
novelists may have to take, given that it's so hard to
convince the mainstream publishers to accept first novels;
albeit many of them are accepting UCI first novels now.
SM: You might be interested about what happens to this tape. The
oral history law is that you and I own this tape. But I sign
it over, and you sign it over-there's a legal form-and it goes
over to our archives. And assuming that you don 't say
anything here that's blasphemous or libelous • . . Although
blasphemous is all right, but libelous, why then you hold it
back. And only one professor in all my 107 people have held
his back. He said he libeled his dean. I said, "Really, you
didn't. Please, what you said is important to me, and I want
it." (chuckling) KENEALLY 3
TK: Yes, for the history.
SM: Yes. Well, but I wondered, you must have had a very good
impression, though, in the fall quarter of 1985 when you were
here.
TK: Yes.
SM: And you went on to New York University, and I don't know how
you compared these. I've asked that in question three.
TK: Yes. Well, New York University has a very fine Creative
Writing Department. It was until recently administered by
Sharon Olds, who's an internationally-known poet, who recently
appeared, apparently, at the Adelaide Festival in Australia
and charmed everyone both with her personality and with her
poetry. But also at NYU was the great E.L. Doctorow, author
of Ragtime and Billy Bathgate and the Book of Daniel . . .
SM: You know he taught with us a year, 1969.
TK: Oh, good.
SM: We used to have one-year appointments, and X.J. Kennedy was
the first, and a fellow by the name of Galway Kinnell, who's.
a poet.
TK: I know Galway, yes. Well, again, he's at NYU. Galway teaches
at NYU.
SM: Oh, he's good. He's a good teacher.
TK: So NYU has an incomparable faculty. Now, the problem is that
it can't really provide the level of support that this
university does to graduate writers through the TA-ships.
And, of course, it has many more classes. I taught a class of KENEALLY 4
seventeen, eighteen graduate writers, and there were two or
three other classes of, say, fifteen or twelve running at the
same time just in fiction. So it has probably four or five
times the number of fiction writers as we do at UCI. But the
secret here is that there is some support for them through TA ships, so it is possible for them to become full-time writers.
The students at NYU were good, but you had a sense that it was
unrealistic that any of them would be able to give full-time
attention to their writing. Some of them were able to; others
had full-time jobs. Some were lawyers, others were
paralegals, others were legal secretaries, others were working
counselors, some were journalists. In other words, the NYU
system was more like an extension writing class. From it came
a number of published writers, and it was at NYU I went
there as a Visiting Professor, so-called, in 1988 for the
Australian bicentennial. And we got on so well that I stayed
on for two and a bit years, commuting between there and
Australia, you know, always going back to Australia in the New
York summer, which is a good time to get out of New York.
SM: Yes, you bet.
TK: But then after a couple of years, I simply stayed on in New
York without being associated with NYU. NYU and UCI both
offered me jobs, which was very flattering; but they didn't
have the resources that UCI has, which is interesting given
that UCI and the whole University of California system are
presently under great straightening. But I feel that, to an KENEALLY 5
extent, the students are in uproar about the raising of fees,
tuition, and
SM: Yes, tuition fees.
TK: But I think still, on the research level, the university is
putting a lot of priority into research and having people here
who produce new, novel-if you'll excuse the pun-documents.
And so altogether I like New York University, both for its
faculty, which is quite stellar in many cases, and for the
fact that you teach near Washington Square, and there's
probably a deli or a bar or a calzone shop on the lower floor,
which is not quite what you have at UCI. But I have to say
that, in terms of performance, the UCI students are better
because they're given a bit of space in which they can
perform.
The great problem with writers of talent is commitment.
The great problem with athletes is commitment, too. I mean,
we all know that the people who run in the Olympics are not
necessarily better than thousands of other people, but they
are committed. And that's true with published writers. I've
always found that the writers who've been published, both at
NYU and here at UCI, are not necessarily the best in the
class. They are often, however, the most motivated and the
bravest because they're willing to embark on long journeys and
not simply putter around in the small garden of the short
story. Now, the short story is a great place to be if you're
Grace Paley, if you're Raymond Carver, if you're Alice Monroe, KENEALLY 6
Katherine Mansfield, but for some people it's an excuse for
dilettantism.
It's amazing to me that the ultimate factor in the
success of these young writers is temperament. For example,
we have just had recently published here in California a work
by a graduate of the UCI Program called Jervey Tervalon. Now,
Jervey, you can tell, always wanted to be a professional
writer. He's now got a second book contract, he's got a film
option, he's done screenplays for Disney, and he graduated
from this program only 1992. And so he's a mover. But he
wasn't necessarily the best writer in the class. He may have
been . I mean, performance is what counts. But there
were brilliant writers in that class, of whom I fear nothing
may be heard, because they're frightened to undertake the
journey. It's a very scary journey, particularly before you
take it. To start a novel is a bit like applying yourself to
dying, you know: You can't imagine yourself making the
journey, and the only way to make it is to do it.
SM: Well, that's very interesting, and I'm glad to hear what you
say about our students.
TK: May I say that at the moment Judith Grossman, who is the
present director, a very nice Englishwoman This is an
historic . . . She's an American citizen. She's married to
a great poet and academic [named] Alan Grossman, who is a
Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. But it's
very interesting that the Writing Program at the moment is, at . KENEALLY 7
least at the fiction end, in the hands of a woman who grew up
in south London and an Australian. This may be an historic
phase. SM: Who's the Australian?
TK: Myself.
SM: Oh, yes, I see. I met her. She gives an interesting talk.
TK: She's a good woman. In any case, yes, I think that covers my
reflection on the students. But Judith Grossman and I, I was
going to say, have just vetted the new applicants, and the
standard of some of them is astounding. And what you get in
the program are people who are very accomplished writers.
Then it's a question of whether they're really going to "go
for it," to use that Australian phrase, or to shake the tree
and try to make the fruit fall.
SM: Well, that's very interesting. Now going on, Tom, have you
taught in Australian universities?
TK: Yes, I taught at New England University, which is a small
university in . . . SM: Armidale.
TK: Armidale, in rural New South Wales, in the middle of sheep
grazing country. Generally, though, writers, you might
notice, don't have as close an association with colleges,
universities, as they do here in America. It is normal for
American writers to have an association with a university, if
they want one. And you have, again, a writer as stellar as
E.L. Doctorow teaching at NYU, and you had Joseph Heller, I KENEALLY 8
think, at Berkeley. You've got Maxine Hong Kingston at / Berkeley. And so such an arrangement would be rather abnormal
in the British and Australian system, as you probably know,
Sam, and it's simply a different university culture, I suppose there, so I haven't done a lot in Australian universities.
I have to say that the major mechanism in putting writers
in contact with the universities in Australia was the
Australia Council, which provided money for Writers in
Residence. But the Writers in Residence System in Australia
only provides for one writer to visit a particular university
for one semester of the year. And so there isn't this ongoing
association, except in a few notable cases. Elizabeth Jolley,
who ' s a remarkable writer, much admired in America, much
taught on campuses, she is associated with the Western
Australian Institute of Technology and taught creative writing
there.
SM: That's in Perth, is it?
TK: In Perth. And then in Sydney now there's a Sydney University
of Technology, and there, there is a very active writing
program which is, again, staffed mainly by women writers,
including Kate Grenville and Glenda Adams. Now, Glenda used
to teach at Columbia, so she comes out of the American
tradition. But generally there isn't the option for
Australian undergraduates to do as much writing as some of the
kids do here, and therefore a different culture. KENEALLY 9
I think that it's not a bad thing at all to try to get
people to write excellently. It will serve them. It will
serve them as adequately in terms of the general humanizing of ·
the young Californian. It will serve them as well as, say,
writing a good essay on the poems of Yeats. I don't think the
two . one should exclude the other. I'm not saying
everyone should learn creative writing, but I do think it's a
worthwhile skill, even for those who aren't going to continue.
I think it's a refinement. As a mental exercise, it's a
refinement of a most precious skill, and that is the skill to
string a sentence together-an increasingly rare skill in
Western civilization.
SM: (chuckling) Well, I will say Australia will sort of come out
of this conservative mode and maybe give a major in creative
writing or something of this nature.
TK: It's just starting to happen, and it's just starting to happen
in Britain, too. An important novelist (named] Malcolm
Bradbury is taking classes at Anglia University, creative
writing classes, and it's a fully-accredited business. There
is a sense in Australian and British culture that writing ..
I compared it to dying earlier. It's like dying or falling
in love, or something like that: it's perhaps something you
can't take lessons in. I think it's characteristic of
American culture that they're a very forthright people from
the Puritan tradition. No matter what their background now
might be-it might be Episcopalian, it might be Jewish, it KENEALLY 10
might be Catholic, or whatever-nonetheless, there is a lot of
that kind of "can do" Puritan tradition in America. The fact
that there are simple rules of salvation, and you follow them,
and therefore you can work out simple rules of salvation for
writers. And to an extent, you can, as long as they've got
the talent.
I'm reminded of that story of the priest who sits at the
ringside and a particular boxer makes the sign of the cross.
And the man sitting beside the priest says, "Will that help
him, Father?" And the priest says, "Only if he can fight .. "
And I think it's very much a case of "only if you can write"
can this program do something for you.
SM: (laughter) That's right.
TK: One of it's most powerful aspects that's again different from
NYU is that through the Squaw Valley Summer School, which
Oakley founded, the writers in this program can get in contact
with publishers and editors and with agents, and therefore
have a direct entree. The agent will know that the manuscript
is coming. And I know we have two students at the moment with
manuscripts with a particular New York agent, both sweating on
an answer from her. And I called up this morning and tried to
find out what was happening with both of those manuscripts
without much success. But that's the sort of direct contact
with the publishing industry which we can set up here.
SM: That's very interesting. That's very good. Now, Tom, I did
ask you here about . You've been away a fair bit, and KENEALLY 11
what events in Australia are acting as a magnet? Are you
still heading the Australian Republican Movement?
TK: Well, the Australian Republican Movement is a constitutional
reform movement to turn Australia into a republic, but
following the institutions that we have, not the institutions
that the French or the Americans have. I'm not still heading
it. I retired last November, which has enabled me to be back·
here more consistently.
SM: Excuse me, are they wanting a constitutional amendment?
Because the Australian constitution has got to be the most
difficult constitution to amend.
TK: It's a very difficult constitution to amend, for this reason:
that to amend the Australian constitution, it's harder than
the American constitution actually.
SM: That's right, absolutely.
TK: To amend the Australian constitution, you have to have not
only a majority of Australians vote for it, but you have to
have a majority in a majority of states. And as a result, the
propositions that have been voted "yes" for, such as the
extension of civil rights and voting rights to aboriginals,
the transfer of social services, power over social services to
the federal government, etcetera, etcetera, those propositions
have been backed by both sides. Propositions that aren't
backed by all sides of Parliament are routinely defeated, and
the majority of propositions have been routinely defeated for
that purpose. So what the Republicans have to do in KENEALLY 12
Australia-this isn't Republicans in the American sense, but Republicans in the sense· of turning Australia from a
constitutional monarchy into a republic-what we have to do, if
we want to succeed, is win over the Liberal Party. Now that process is underway, but there is still a certain perceived
advantage in the Liberal Party to playing against it.
And it's not so much that Australians don't want to
become a republic. They used to say to me during my
incumbency as chairman, "We don't mind a republic, but we
don't want it to be a politicians' republic. We don't want to give more power to politicians and we don't want it to be
Keating' s republic," Keating being the present prime minister.
So we have to try to make this a trans-political issue, and
that's slowly happening. In the State House in our state, in
the most populous state in Australia, New South Wales, the
Liberals have come across to the Republican proposition. But
at the federal level, it is still being fought by the Liberal
Party. And until the polls persuade them to change their
mind, then it will not happen. We're hopeful that it will happen by the year 2000.
Now, we don't envisage a cultural revolution where the
British institutions that were laid down in Australia are
eradicated and thrown away in favor of some new, drastic
formula. We're not talking about burning copies of
Shakespeare on the cricket pitch in the middle of the Sydney
Cricket Ground. We're not talking about the sort of cultural KENEALLY 13
revolution which occurred in China, but we are talking about
getting our most visible institutions into line with the
reality of what Australia is now.
Australia, as you've no doubt taught, Sam, was once very
much a British nation. It identified itself as British. Even
Labor Prime Ministers of Irish descent, like Curtin and
Chifley-Curtin a great friend of General Douglas MacArthur, as
you've no doubt taught the kids here-even they used the phrase
"We British . " I think Chifley said, "We British down
there in the southwest Pacific . " It's no longer true
that we are primarily British; and, in fact, the ethnic
composition of Australia has changed a lot. And that's one of
the arguments of the Republican movement: get our public
symbolism in line with our ethnic diversity.
SM: Oh, yes. Tom, I was in Melbourne a few years ago just
visiting for a month, and I went over, naturally, to Melbourne
University where I had been a Visiting Professor back in 1986-
87. Anyhow, I was walking through the campus and I thought I
was at UCI: all these Asiatic students, you know, and every
And I couldn't believe it, you know. These were
apparently ordinary students in a Melbourne university going to class.
TK: Yes, and their parents were probably Australian citizens, or
many of them were. Yes, so we now have opening . I
notice that the Dodgers have a Korean pitcher.
SM: Oh, yes. He has to have an interpreter, too. (chuckling) KENEALLY 14
TK: So, similarly, we have an opening batsman for New South Wales who is Vietnamese, Quee Ouee, and this is in the tradition of ·
the great New South Wales batsman Don Bradman. Quee Ouee
wants to be Don Bradman.
SM: Oh, yes. As you know, I'm mad about cricket. I was so fascinated, I saw in the paper the day before yesterday,
Australia or some team got England out by 52, or some
incredible figure.
TK: Yes. Boy, yes. Well, I saw earlier this year Shane Warne,
the great spin-baller take 7 for 56, in one day, got South
Africa out by tea, 7 for 56. SM: Well, one likes to compare that with Bill O'Reilly, Tiger
O'Reilly.
TK: Tiger O'Reilly, yes.
SM: He was good. I used to watch him at the MCG.
TK: Yes, these men were great figures. They're like Babe Ruth in
America. They were bigger than sport. They had a sort of
political/cultural dimension to them as well. You were going
to ask what about the latest novel.
SM: Yes, that's the next question. I was interested, you were
saying when I heard you recently that you're always writing,
working on some book.
TK: Yes, the latest novel, Sam, I finished while I was in
Australia for the premieres of Schindler's List in Australia
in February 1994, and it is set in 1900, 300 miles north of
Sydney. So it's not going to be an easy book to sell here, KENEALLY 15
being set both in Australia and in 1900, but one hopes it's
all in the telling. My publisher says it's my best book, so we'll just see. SM: Oh, wonderful. What's the title?
TK: Now I've called it In a Valley Reached by Steamer, but they
don't want to call it that. It will, by the way, be out early
1 95, so I don't know what name we'll ultimately settle on.
But it is located in a town named Kempsey, a town which actually exists. And as you know, most Americans think of Australia as desert coast to coast, but that east coast is very much rained upon, very subtropical, and in 1900 when my·
grandparents owned a store in Kempsey, it could be reached only by steamer.
SM: Is that near Coffs Harbour?
TK: It's just south of Coffs Harbour. In 1900, there were a number of important external events: the Boer War was on,
which the Bulletin opposed, of course, and which the highly
pro-British Anglos desperately wanted us to take part in. And there was talk in Kempsey of raising a cavalry battalion to
send to South Africa. The only problem was that the army of
India had come to the Macleay that year to buy horses, and they'd seen about 300. It was like the writing program,
they'd seen about 300 horses and they only bought 5. So some
wag said, "It' 11 have to be an infantry bat.talion; we don't have the horses for it." (chuckling) KENEALLY 16
But in any case, there was the Boer War, and indicating
Australia's closeness to Asia, or, you know, it's connection to Asia, the Black Death broke out. It came from Calcutta in
ships, in the fleas on the rats in ships from Calcutta, and there was an outbreak of Bubonic Plague in Sydney in 1900. And the result was that these coastal towns had to make up
their mind whether they would let the ships come in anymore
into the rivers. And they had a choice between the risk of
Black Death and the abandonment of their contact with the
outside world. And that choice is a very interesting one: Would you rather risk death but keep your contact with the outside world, or would you rather be safe but claustrophobic?
This is about a family, a storekeeper and his wife,
[named] the Sheas, and they're immigrants. Mrs. Shea, Kitty Shea's sisters arrive one by one, as happens to immigrant
families. That obscure town in the New World, America or Australia or Canada, becomes the place to which the whole family goes. It's as famous as New York in that particular
family of immigrants. So it's about all that stuff.
SM: I think, Tom, if I may interrupt, that should go down well.
You notice that The Piano, how successful that was. It was
not the New Zealand that you and I know. TK: No.
SM: It was raining, raining madly, it's an odd time. It's
ridiculous, of course, that the piano would be in tune after
sitting on the beach. (chuckling) KENEALLY 17
TK: Sitting on the beach. SM: But nevertheless, that sort of a story fascinated me. I was just fascinated. TK: Yes. SM: What you do, I was fascinated, of course, you and Geoff
Blainey, he got the book, you and he signed it and sent it, and that was the Playmaker. That, of course, was the beginning of Australia, it was in Sydney, and it was fascinating and it made a good play. I saw the play. TK: Our Country's Good, yes.
SM: Our Country's Good. It was not only . . . I gave a preview. Did you know that? They wanted someone who was an expert in Australian history, so they paid me $50 for my transportation and two free tickets. And I think about 100 people came.
They're called previews, and I told them about the convict system and how it operated and so on, and then it came down here to our South Coast Rep[ertory Theater] and was very successful.
TK: To South Coast, and I did an intro over there, too. SM: I would predict that what you have got there is going to go down all right.
TK: I do hope so. On top of that, I would like to write a book about political transportation to Australia, a nonfiction
book. A book rather like Schindler in tone, in narration, a documentary book. My wife had a great-grandfather who was a political prisoner, and I had a great-uncle who was a KENEALLY 18
political prisoner. They were both transported to Australia for life, at different stages of history-her great-grandfather in the 1830s, my great-uncle in 1867. I would like to use those two ships as a bracket to look at what went on in
Ireland, in America, and in Australia. I'd particularly like to write about the convicts who escaped from Australia and
came to America and had a significant role here. People like
Meagher of the Sw9rd, Thomas Meagher. SM: Are there two Rs, M-A-R-R?
TK: No, he's an M-E-A-G-H-E-R.
SM: Oh, M-E-A-G-H-E-R. TK: He was a member of the Young Ireland Movement. He was transported to Australia. He gave his parole not to escape,
so he was sort of living at semi-liberty. And when he got a chance- to escape on an American whaler, he rode into town,
went to the police station and said, "I take back my parole."
Then he ran out, jumped on a horse, hid for three days, joined an American whaler, sailed to America, raised the 69th
Regiment of the Union Army in New York, became a major general, led divisions at Antietam and Gettysburg, post-war was a bit of a failure in business, and was made deputy
governor of Montana. A great champion of the Indians of
Montana. SM: This is a great story.
TK: Yes, he's going to be one of the figures. He's a great champion of the Indians of Montana. ' KENEALLY 19
SM: And this is going to be kind of a documentary, is it? TK: Yes, a nonfiction book. I just started. Just started.
SM: Well, the one you were telling me about, laid in south of
Coffs Harbour, that's finished? TK: That's all done and it'll be out early next year, yes.
SM: That's interesting, because here it is only April. Surely it
could have come out sooner, shouldn't it? Shouldn't it come out in the fall or Christmastime?
TK: Well, as you know, we've got to edit it yet. Generally, a novel takes about a year from acceptance to publication. SM: Is that right?
TK: Yes, you know, they want to mention it to their sales staff so
that the sales staff will mention it to the bookstores. Then
they've got to design covers, edit it, put it in the galley
proofs and all that stuff. Then talk some more to book sellers, interest the Publishers' Weekly, Kirkus Review, etcetera.
SM: Very interesting. Tell me, do you find the editor to be
pretty crucial to making it a good ... to helping it, making it a good novel? For example, in my work as historian, I
would hope that I'd always get a good editor. So the Oxford
Press did a book of mine. He was a lot of help, Frank Eyre. TK: Yes, like the explorer.
SM: Yes, that's right. Well, they were helpful. Now, the
McCulloch, the river boat book, River King, Geoff [Blainey]
himself gave me a little help. But they wanted it this way, KENEALLY 20
and the press, Melbourne University, they wanted this and
that, and I had to either say yes or no, and they helped a
lot.
TK: Yes, that's right, they do. A good editor does help, as long
as they . . . when the writer finally decides, "No, on calm
consideration, I don't think your suggestion is right." As·
long as they take that, you know, and most publishers do.
Most publishers, particularly in that sort of publishing, are
not dictatorial. They give the advice-they sometimes give the
advice passionately-but the writer doesn't always accept the
advice. But the writer is very rash in not accepting the
advice if it rings a bell, if it comes to the writer as a
revelation, if the writer says, "Ah! That's what the problem
is." To ignore that sort of voice out of pride is .
SM: I say, good on yer. Good on yer, and let's go your way. Now,
the last question that I would like to hear from you briefly
here: the impressions of the movie Schindler' s List. I
recall an article that said that Steven Speilberg consulted
you at times and that he definitely checked different parts of
the novel. He told his scriptwriter, "You must put the view
this way."
TK: That's right, and the scriptwriter was very cooperative with
that. Some scriptwriters believe that to establish their own
identity they have to make an utterly new thing, including new
dialogue and so on. But Steven Zailian was secure enough in
his craft to accept a fair amount of feed from the book, as KENEALLY 21
Steven insisted on. Yes, I went up to see Steven from UCI
when he decided he was going to make the film, and we spent a
long consultation, had lunch, worked deep into the afternoon
talking about Schindler and the sort of ambiguities which
could be (audio difficulty) talking about where the places
were. He had Leopold Pfefferberg, a survivor, to tell him
where the places were, but he also wanted to hear from me
where the locations were. During the filming I went to Poland
and we had further conversations. Altogether, it's been a
very genial relationship.
SM: How long were you in Poland?
TK: Oh, I was only there for . We could have stayed, my
daughter and I, for months if we'd wanted, but we only wanted
to stay a week; for this reason: that it's nice of him to
have us around, but the writer of the original work is a bit
of a spare wheel, a fifth wheel, on the . . .
SM: They were shooting at the time?
TK: They were shooting at the time. They were shooting a lot of
scenes which I recognize from the film, yes. And he was
shooting very quickly. He was doing about four or five scenes
a day. And the remarkable thing is that he produced that
enormous film, three and a quarter hours, and some further two
hours which he wasn't able to fit in, in just about less than
four months, about three and a half months. So he wasn't
dallying. He was filming with great certainty, and only
filming seven or eight takes of each scene, and that was great KENEALLY 22
fun to be there. I fit it in between a book tour of America. (chuckling) That journey began with a book tour of America, followed by an attendance at the Eritrean Referendum in the Horn of Africa, and I've given two undergraduate classes on Eritrea here at UCI. It's a new country in the Horn of Africa. And the war against the Eritreans was the engine that drove the famines of the eighties.
SM: Eritrea, E-R-I-T-R-E-A? TK: Yes, E-R-I-T-R-E-A. And then we went from Eritrea. My wife and I were in Eritrea. I joined my daughter in Europe and we
went on to see some of the filming for a week in Poland, and then ... SM: Boy, you've been busy. (chuckling) TK: Yes. That was last April, May.
SM: Say, that reminds me, do you take the New York Times? TK: Yes.
SM: You do? In yesterday's Section B, the second section, they had a big article that the world of Islam is just banning
Schindler' s List. There's a big article on it. If you don't ·. have it, I've kept it for you. TK: Oh, thank you. Yes, this is one of the problems of the
p~rception of the Holocaust. There are people who believe that if you acknowledge the Holocaust occurred, you're encouraging the beating up of, the attacks on, the dispossession of, the Palestinians. And I don't think you can deny the Holocaust, as much as anyone, I think, ·I would like KENEALLY 23
to see peace in the Middle East and an equitable settlement.
However, I'm also aware that Israel exists in its present form
because of the Holocaust, because Europe gave those people an
emphatic message that it would not tolerate their continued
presence, and an emphatic message in the form of the S.S. But
I don't think you can deny the past for the sake of a present
political situation. However, for example, Mahatir of
Malaysia banned it, and then later lifted the ban. And his
argument was that it dealt preferentially with the suffering
of the Jews and it encouraged hatred against Germans. But I
think the real motivation was that Malaysia is a Muslim nation
and it felt it had to demonstrate solidarity with the PLO.
SM: Well, if you take the New York Times, I won't do it, but if
you don't . . . yesterday's, I'll put it in your box.
TK: Oh, thank you. That would be good. That would be good.
SM: Now, I have one last question, and I hope that it's not true
that you might not be continuing here at UCI.
TK: Well, all I can tell you, Sam, is that I will certainly be
here through this academic year and through the next, right
through the next.
SM: Well, I hope we can somehow twist your arm to continue.
TK: So, even if ultimately I go, I look forward to a long
association with the place.
SM: Then why can't you do what Hazard Adams does? He comes for
one quarter.
TK: That's what has been suggested. KENEALLY 24
SM: Why couldn't that be worked out? You can do it. When I was
dean, it was not possible to appoint 33 percent, 33.3. Now we
can, and Hazard gets all the things, such as health things and
all the things that we get, only it's cut back to his salary,
and it's a wonderful exchange. We've got this fellow in the
Department of French who comes from France [Jacques Derrida],
and a guy from Germany [Wolfgang Iser], and you may have met
them. I don't know them, so I can't recall their names, but
they're big, big names like yourself, and they are on one
third time. Now, I would urge you to consider very strongly
that arrangement.
TK: Thank you. Yes, if I go, that's probably what I'll do.
[Jacques] Derrida comes back here.
SM: Derrida, that's one. The other fellow is in German.
TK: Wolfgang Iser, yes.
SM: See, those are the two. Well, that was a big breakthrough.
In fact, I'm told that Iser might come more often than just a
quarter. Anyhow, it's a great arrangement that the university
has finally broken down. It's just a bureaucratic thing.
TK: Yes. And you were Dean of Humanities at one stage?
SM: I was the founding dean.
TK: That's remarkable.
SM: I was appointed in December '63; I recruited Hazard, my first
appointment as chair. I recruited the first four chairs, and
then I went on to help the chairmen. I had a whole year to
work with them to put together thirty-one faculty. Foreign KENEALLY 25
Languages had 10, Hazard had 9, and so on. History had, I
think, 6, and Philosophy 3.
TK: My God, no wonder you're the historian of the place.
SM: Yes. Well, you know, I said, "Look, please, we've got "
I went and had a meeting. I said, "We've got to have a
historian appointed and make these proper interviews." They
said, "Well, we can't afford anything, but you're it. You're
the unofficial historian." (chuckling) So I have, from that
day to this, made all these tapes. I've got one whole filing·
cabinet full of notes, so now the last year and a half I've
been sitting down and writing. I'm on chapter fifteen now.
I'm about finished. [I was dean from 1963 to 1970.] TK: Great, great.
SM: Well, thank you very much, Tom.
TK: Well, Sam, may I put on tape ...
END OF INTERVIEW