Okay, some backstory:

1. I lived in England for quite some time and was pretty miserable there for many reasons. In the end, a lot my negative feelings about the place boiled down to this one incident: I was in a pub in Keswick listening to two locals going on about life, etc. over their pints. One fellow was telling the other how all his life, he had wanted to live in Scotland, etc. He winged and moaned (as you say) about never having achieved his life’s ambition, and all I could think was, “jesus, man, do you realize how close you are to the border?”

The British, (imho) pride themselves on making do, getting on, etc. etc. I cannot tell you the number of times a man-on-the-street interview at the Beeb after an IRA bombing or another strike would end up with the MOTS saying “we lived through the Battle of Britain and we’ll live through this.”

In other words–life is short and they don’t give rewards at the end for sticking through something that made you miserable. It takes courage to say, “I Want X” and then go for it. It takes no courage to endure.

2. You are right, though. It isn’t arrogance that she’s exhibiting so much as passive-aggressiveness.

3. Self-analysis isn’t done according to a “set of rules.” Human nature has no rules. Self -analysis in this case might have resulted in Rendell knowing she had had enough and ending the interview. She’s a hot item ‘get’ and has the power to do that. She didn’t need to air her displeasure by squishing the reporter, who was only doing her job.

4. See, that gets into this point–the assumption that the reporter was some tiresome thing that went on and on. Rendell didn’t agree to the interview in the first place (which she did, and for which she laid down the ground rules) out of the goodness of her heart. She did it for the publicity…which drives her book sales…etc etc etc

5. “the deep, time-consuming, analysis of self and actions…” What is it you think you’re doing (we’re all doing) with our LJs???????!

I would imagine that a lot more had been asked, and responded to, at that interview. You know how journalists work so hard to gather TONS of information, and then whittle it down to an article that will grab the reader’s attention, and then a sub-editor will read it through and maybe put a different slant on it, ‘sex it up’ a little by making it seem a lot more controversial? I saw Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire recently, and the totally face-slappable reporter reminded me vividly of how the process goes.

Many authors are intensely shy on a personal level. That’s one reason they’re so good at writing – all their feelings and thoughts are poured into their books. But ask them a personal question and they shrink away like a tickled snail into their shells! Interviews are part of the publication deal. Media coverage is essential (or so publishers seem to think) for good book sales. Any shy author will dread being grilled, knowing full well that whatever they say, it’ll be twisted into something the magazine thinks the public want to know, but they’ll go through with interviews because they’ve been told by their agent that it is obligatory.

I’m interested that you have read arrogance and an ‘above it all’ attitude into the statement; ‘But you see, I don’t do self-analysis.’
She might have said it in a pleasant or even self-deprecating way.
The whole concept of self-analysis – of formally examining oneself and one’s actions in relation to a set of rules and value judgments – isn’t something that comes naturally to English people. The cultural assumption is that if you do something, it was for a good reason, and if not, you’ll get the results quite smartly, and you learn from that, but then you just get on and do better next time. We’re not encouraged to think too much about ourselves and how we work. Not always perhaps the wisest of approaches, but the deep, time-consuming, analysis of self and actions? Frightfully embarrassing, old chap, and really, what’s the point?

I wouldn’t necessarily call it arrogant. Schizophrenic, because someone does two different things, both well? Nonsense. If that was the basis for schizophrenia, every working woman in the world who deals with an office job and family life would be certifiable.

And the sort of self-analysis where one sits and contemplates one’s life and actions and considers possible whys and wherefores isn’t really compatible with, er, actually getting on and DOING it… Ruth Rendell may well consider from time to time where she is and how she got there, but that would be in an idle few seconds between doing one job and the next. Not important enough to be considered self-analysis. The Brits really aren’t keen on sitting around talking about what they’re doing and where they’ve been. Just not the done thing, y’know – might be considered boastful, old chap. Much better to get on with the next job.

I detect a hearty verbal ‘SLAP’ for an interviewer who had very thoroughly exhausted Ruth Rendell’s patience and good nature!

As for inconsequential… no, I won’t go there. Really no need, don’t you know.

You Americans spend far too much time staring at your own navels. At least we British aren’t as inconsequential as the French. Or the Germans, come to that.