Feb. 21, 2019
The fashion designer and author of the new memoir “I.M.” likes his literature “sort of plain”: “Style is suspicious to me in general. I think that’s true about my taste in everything. Food. Décor. Clothes.”
What books are on your nightstand?
The complete works of Shakespeare.
“The Portrait of a Lady” and all the rest of Henry James, including a ravishing novel about him called “The Master,” by Colm Toibin.
“I, Claudius,” by Robert Graves.
“Dr. Faustus,” by Thomas Mann. (A lot of Thomas Mann on my nightstand. “Buddenbrooks.” “The Magic Mountain.” Short stories.)
“Austerlitz” and “The Rings of Saturn,” by W. G. Sebald.
I have a huge nightstand! Also I’m very possessive about books and I don’t necessarily edit. Things just pile up. I keep a broad selection of Mark Twain. Volumes of Tolstoy and Flaubert. Dawn Powell and Philip Roth. Some Seamus Heaney and Whitman. And I change my mind a lot. I like things and then I remember I like other things better.
What’s the last great book you read?
“In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower” (Vol. 2 of “In Search of Lost Time”), by Marcel Proust. I’m in the midst of reading the entire series and it’s really daunting and inspiring, not to mention time-consuming. So in between volumes I read stuff that collects and I’m a little late. I’m just getting to what everyone was talking about last year. For instance I just read a beautiful novel about Lorena Hickok and Mrs. Roosevelt called “White Houses,” by Amy Bloom. Also “A Little Life,” by Hanya Yanagihara.
What should we read if we want to learn something about fashion?
“D.V.,” by Diana Vreeland.
What’s your favorite book no one else has heard of?
There’s a series of novels by E. F. Benson about Mapp and Lucia, set in the fictional town of Tilling, which comes to mind as being obscure-ish. But then I found out there was a monthly newsletter published by the Tilling Society, which I subscribed to for a while until the society ceased publishing it. But I guess that means masses of people know about these books already!
Which writers — novelists, playwrights, critics, journalists, poets — working today do you admire most?
Impossible to really narrow this down, but here’s one pass: Colm Toibin. Anne Carson. Haruki Murakami. A. M. Homes. Dave Eggers. Tony Kushner. Andrew Solomon. Pete Wells. Alex Ross. Maira Kalman.
Whose opinion on books do you most trust?
I trust my friends who talk about books they’re reading. My best friend, Mark Morris, who gives me books to read when we collaborate, some of which I have yet to return.
I also listen to my friend the interior designer Robert Couturier, who reads everything printed. He’s another insomniac with very similar tastes in literature to mine. He recommended the beautiful Patrick Melrose novels, which I devoured a few years ago. Also he introduced me to someone called Caroline Weber, whose book about Marie Antoinette, “Queen of Fashion,” I’d enjoyed 10 years ago and who’s recently been a guiding light in my pursuit of Proust. Her book “Proust’s Duchess,” about three women who were models for the Duchesse de Guermantes, is a masterpiece.
Also I listen to my bridge-playing friends Choire Sicha, Dale Peck and Richard Desroche. As bridge players we share a careful skepticism about everything, including literature. Rather than recommendations, those guys tell me which books I don’t have to read.
When do you read?
I read at night when I’m supposed to be asleep. I read in the car on my way to QVC. I know a lot of people get carsick from reading, but I get carsick if I’m not reading.
What moves you most in a work of literature?
For me literature is most effective when it’s sort of plain. I like “unstylish” writers. I think of how much I love the book “Stoner,” by John Williams. And Raymond Carver makes me cry. I make exceptions to this rule about stylish writers: I love Joyce Carol Oates. And Fitzgerald. And Gertrude Stein. Also brevity and simplicity are not the same things. I never adored Hemingway. And often lengthiness can be the absolute soul of wit, as in Proust or Dickens.
I have a difficult time reading poetry (I’m much better when someone reads it to me) but when I do, usually those ideas about unstylish writing apply. I love Mary Oliver. I love Anne Carson. Style is suspicious to me in general. I think that’s true about my taste in everything. Food. Décor. Clothes.
Which genres do you especially enjoy reading? And which do you avoid?
I never thought of myself as someone who reads within genres but since you asked, it occurs to me that I really love diaries. One of the most perfect books ever written is Dawn Powell’s “Diaries.” Noël Coward’s “Diary” is so funny. Samuel Pepys. Leo Lerman’s “The Grand Surprise.” Also I adore reading about food. I love cookbooks. I love compilations of old food writing; A. J. Liebling, Ruth Reichl; one of my “nightstand” books is something called “Life Is Meals,” by James and Kay Salter. I just read a wonderful book called “The Gourmand’s Way,” by Justin Spring. The only upsetting thing about it was how good a case he made to discredit certain aspects of M. F. K. Fisher, whom I revere as a god.
I stay away from popular novels. Many of them seem like premeditated screenplays. Unless three or four people recommend it, it’s best to wait for the streaming series.
How do you organize your books?
I have massive piles of books, things people send me or that I come across in bookstores, like everyone’s favorite place Three Lives. These books collect either in my bedroom in N.Y.C or on the coffee table in Bridgehampton. I rifle through those piles till I’m sufficiently intrigued to start reading. For every three books in that pile, one gets read.
Do any writers bring an especially strong sense of fashion or style to their literature?
Proust refers a lot to clothes and décor and food. But especially color, which I think a lot about when I read. Whether it’s a color specifically described as in the color of Odette’s lingerie, or a color suggested by the subtext of any book, it’s something inexplicable, like music that suggests colors which come to define a work. I see color a lot when I listen to music and when I read.
What book might people be surprised to find on your shelves?
I have an enormous number of books about the game of bridge (which might surprise some people who think I’m a lousy bridge player!).
Who is your favorite fictional hero or heroine? Your favorite antihero or villain?
I love “ Memoirs of Hadrian,” by Marguerite Yourcenar. In that book the emperor Hadrian talks about being an insomniac, sitting up nights writing while everyone else is asleep. Years ago when I read that I stopped hating being awake at night. I also remember being very inspired by Becky Sharp when I read “Vanity Fair” a long time ago. She’s my opposite in that she never worries. Also she’s very three-dimensional as a character. Neither good nor villainous.
As for antiheroes. I love Lady Macbeth. I love Professor Moriarty in the Sherlock Holmes novels, elusive as he is. Dracula is one of the great characters of all times. Just a fun guy. I love “The Master and Margarita.” In that book, which on the surface is about good and evil, there seem to be no bad or good characters, just images.
What kind of reader were you as a child? Which childhood books and authors stick with you most?
I don’t remember reading as a child. When I was 3½ I was hospitalized with spinal meningitis and there was one book (ironically I can’t remember which one) that was read to me so many times that I memorized it. I even memorized where the pages were turned. I fooled the adults, who were astonished because they thought I could read.
I remember the “Madeline” series by Ludwig Bemelmans because my mother read it to us when we were really young. Also the Dr. Seuss books which I consider masterpieces. Also the wonderful books about Eloise. But they were read to me. I do remember not liking Maurice Sendak as much as everyone else. I read Roald Dahl late in the game as a young adult to see what I missed and I adored it. When I was in grade school my mother started giving me grown-up books to read. I remember she gave me “The Godfather” when I was 11, which I loved, and a book called “Earthly Paradise,” by Colette, when I was 12, around the time of my bar mitzvah.
If you could require the president to read one book, what would it be?
Are we sure he can read?
You’re organizing a literary dinner party. Which three writers, dead or alive, do you invite?
Humor is really important to me, especially at dinner, so I would invite Mark Twain and Oscar Wilde. And David Sedaris. I think he cooks too.
Disappointing, overrated, just not good: What book did you feel as if you were supposed to like, and didn’t? Do you remember the last book you put down without finishing?
I never quite grasped Kurt Vonnegut. I tried a few books and couldn’t do it. I think you have to be heterosexual. Recently I tried “The End of Eddy,” which was gripping, but there was a lot of graphic violence so I abandoned it.
Whom would you want to write your life story?
Maira Kalman. Paintings and writing.
What do you plan to read next?
Before I embark on “The Guermantes Way” (Volume 3 of “In Search of Lost Time”), which will preclude me from reading anything else for four or five months, I have these books lined up: “The Charterhouse of Parma,” by Stendhal; “Upstream,” by Mary Oliver; “The Mighty Franks,” by Michael Frank; “South and West,” by Joan Didion. Also, I’ve had “The Origins of Totalitarianism,” by Hannah Arendt, on my pile for years. I might save that till after Proust entirely. The New York Times
An expanded version of this interview is available at nytimes.com/books.
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A version of this article appears in print on Feb. 24, 2019, on Page 7 of the Sunday Book Review with the headline: Isaac Mizrahi. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe
