Page 3 - Microsoft Word - LESSON NOTES THE INTERVIEW-CHAPTER 18

reaching a wider audience because one million people would not obviously be interested in
stuff on semiotics.
Umberto replied that he was not at all surprised. The only people who were surprised were
journalists and publishers. This was because it was commonly believed that people liked
easy-reading experiences and trash while the truth was that through his novel, he reached
that small percentage of the population who liked challenging reading experiences. He
understood this because he himself yearned to watch shows like ‘Miami Vice’ or ‘Emergency
Room’ after dinner but not all day long.

Umberto did not negate the possibility as he began to tell a story, which he thought that he
did like a Chinese wise old man. He mentioned that his American publisher expected not to
sell more than 3,000 copies as in a country like hers, no one had ever seen a cathedral or
studied Latin language. To their surprise, they ended up selling around two or three million
copies.
Umberto considered the success of his book a mystery. Had it been written ten years earlier
or later, the situation would have been different.