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That she was an adept of a theory of criticism whose highest values are uncertainty, anxiety, and ambiguity was a curious but somehow unameliorating facet of her formidable clarity, confidence, and certainty. During our meeting, her manner was engaging -- neither too friendly nor too distant -- and on a scale of how people should conduct themselves with journalists I would give her a score of 99. She understood the nature of the transaction -- that it was a transaction -- and had carefully worked out for herself exactly how much she had to give in order to receive the benefit of the interview. In most interviews, both subject and interviewer give more than is necessary. They are always being seduced and distracted by the encounter's outward resemblance to an ordinary friendly meeting. The meal that is often thrown around it like a cloth, to soften the edges; the habits of chat and banter; the conversational reflexes, whereby questions are obediently answered and silences too quickly filled -- all these inexorably pull the interlocutors away from their respective desires and goals. However, (she) never -- or almost never -- forgot, or let me forget that we were not two women having a friendly conversation over a cup of tea and a box of biscuits but participants in a special, artificial exercise of subtle influence and counterinfluence, with an implicit antagonistic tendency.
-- Janet Malcolm
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