Just listened this interview at Guardian Online - I wish A. S. Byatt was my beta reader!
Apologies for being a blog pest - will no doubt go back to my once a month posting before too long!
(for those of you who like to decode my post headings - the "t'" is meant to be read as Yorkshire dialect!)
14 comments:
That interview is awesome. I just watched it over breakfast and I feel like it was a very bracing and invigorating experience, like a cold shower for the brain.
Ta for the link.
Cool - glad to have posted something zingy and inspiring!
Byatt makes much sense to me, and even if I'm not inclined to agree with a point/opinion of hers, I feel not entirely justified in disagreeing with it either as it's often so well thought out and reasoned.
I enjoyed it too, Rachel. Although I do not agree with many of her points. I do not think that any form of self expression is necessarily the artificial creation of an identity that does not exist, a scream into existence. And even if that is the case, what is so bad about that? The writers writing is nothing else, nothing more, right? Thinking out loud is freeing. If we never intently looked into a mirror (even a distorting, circus one), the world might just be filled with real monsters.
I don't know.
I liked what she says about no one walking the streets quietly thinking anymore. I was quite interesting to listen, so thanks, Rachel.
Absolutely, Lori - but I see her opinions as really great debate or just self-thinking initiators.
I particularly liked what she said about the blogosphere - I have written a novel where the protag blogs - so it was very relevant to me.
And I like how she arrives at an opinion. She doesn't merely state something and have a god like stance - she's thinking always and that to me is very pleasing. So many writers (and politicians and people in general) are so set in their thinking that they virtually parrot opinions as if from a script. You get the feeling they have learnt their opinions off by heart rather than evolving constantly shifting thoughts...I am envigorated when I see a writer actually thinking about something and describing it for the first time, to themselves as well as to the listener.
And just read your response - how smart is that?!
Thanks for taking the time to listen to it.
Wow, Rachel, thanks! I liked the sense of being in the presence of thinking.
Have posted reading list as requested now.
P.S. Will you be my tutor. This is just the kind of stuff I need to expand my consciousness...
Ooh, thank you, Titus - will be over for a look!
I will gladly share my learning resources with you!! (But I'm not clever enough to be your tutor!)
So excited for you!
Glad you enjoyed the interview. Things like this just make me want to read more.
Thanks so much for this, Rachel. Wednesday was the one day last week that I didn't buy The Guardian! I read 'The Children's Book' earlier this year and was swept away by it, much as I had been by each and every one of ASB's preceding novels. For me she stands alone amongst British novelists.
I find her curiosity enthralling and her observations really brilliant.
Glad to have posted something of interest, Dick - thanks.
HI Rachel,
I read this post the other day and thought of you. I thought you might enjoy reading an editor/literary agent's advice to authors. Here's the link.
http://americandigest.org/mt-archives/frequently_answered_questions/the_330_word_guide_to_wri.php
Hi GW - thanks so much for thinking of me!
The link had a bit missing so here's the full link for anyone else who's interested in knowing how to write a book proposal (from an editor/agent).
http://americandigest.org/mt-archives/frequently_answered_questions/the_330_word_guide_to_wri.php
Always happy to see you pop back into the blogosphere - post away! I'll have to listen to this - but like you've been finding lately it's a time thing - need more time for all this great stuff :)
I got a lot out of that too, mostly the feeling of regret that I spend too much time in the 'blogosphere' and not enough in the real world. I try not to use my phone in the street though.
All that stuff about self-analysis, searching for who we are, defining ourselves hit the spot with me. Imagine if she was your grandmother. Amazing.
PS got t'Yorkshire ref - I talk a bit like that, tha knows.
Andrea - I know, I need a filter on my brain! So much on my "to read" pile without even going into the "want to investigate" pile!
Thanks!
Teresa - it brings up some really "now" questions, doesn't it. I was thinking yesterday how poetry used to be an individual's way of figuring out her place in the world, and maybe that poetry would be shared and would reach out and connect to someone somewhere...and now, we have all these connections at our fingertips all the time and no one is ever really alone (supposedly) and yet there seem so few real meaningful connections....my thoughts get very deep after that and I haven't had my breakfast yet...
I got very excited by what she said as I wrote a novel about the blogosphere, the one I wrote last June, the one I'm adapting to a screenplay!! The one I have yet to find representation for - driving me bonkers!!!
Anyway, you read it here first! HA!
She did remind me of my grandma, as it happens! Probably one reason I find her endearing!
Yay for talking Yorkshire!!!
Ta, lass!
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