Authors discussing the ups/downs/sideways of writing is usually equal to eavesdropping on Gen Y urbanites bemoaning their oh-so-tragic trust fund lifestyles.
This collection of novelists commenting on their craft features unusually frank appraisals that avoid navel gazing. Here's two great quotes, the first from
Hari Kunzru:
I get great pleasure from writing, but not always, or even usually. Writing a novel is largely an exercise in psychological discipline –- trying to balance your project on your chin while negotiating a minefield of depression and freak-out. Beginning is daunting; being in the middle makes you feel like Sisyphus; ending sometimes comes with the disappointment that this finite collection of words is all that remains of your infinitely rich idea.
The second from
Will Self:
That the transmogrification of my beautiful thoughts into a grossly imperfect prose is always the end result doesn't faze me: all novels are only a version -- there is no Platonic ideal. But I'd go further still: fiction is my way of thinking about and relating to the world; if I don't write I'm not engaged in any praxis, and lose all purchase.
No comments:
Post a Comment