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Let's cheer ourselves up!
Dec. 29th, 2012 06:59 pmInstead of working, I'm enjoying one of my Christmas presents, my DvD box set of Breaking Bad's season 4. Sue me!
By the way, Dean Norris has been quite active on twitter and revealed that HE IS THE ONE WHO WIPES !
Also, I just have to share this interview with Daniel Mendelsohn. I love that man!!! I don't agree with everything he says but the interview is just so quotable.
Here are some bits I do approve of. They are worth reading, people!
"I think criticism is potentially just as legitimate a literary genre as any other kind of writing. Writing is writing. But I don’t know what people think in the abstract of writers—critics vs. novelists vs. memoirist or any kind of writing. I think it depends on what you write."
[...]
"Critics are trying to illuminate texts that they find interesting, and to educate readers. I have a friend, who’s also an editor, and he always says that “criticism is a service industry.” Really your job is to illuminate whatever it is that you’re looking at—movies, or books, or novels, or non-fiction, whatever it is. And because you’ve done the homework, and you’re sharing your impressions—now, they’re your impressions and people might not agree with that—but you have to lay groundwork of what you’ve learned about the writer, the other books that they’ve written, you’re the one who has to synthesize it all."
[...]
"I mean novels are like that, novels are written by people who have a story they want to tell. And they’re not trying to package it to a certain group. If it’s a good novel, it will mean something to everybody. That’s the difference between a good novel and a mediocre novel. So, I am who I am, I write about what’s interesting to me. I’d like to think that my thinking out loud benefits the reader to perceive things that she or he might not have thought of alone."
[...]
"Barnes & Noble is interested in genre because they have to figure out where to put your book in the store. Why bother? I write narrative nonfiction that incorporates lengthy analyses of literary texts as part of the fabric of the book. It’s just what I do. I don’t know what the name for it is. I don’t know if it has a niche in the Barnes & Noble worldview, but it just is what it is. These people wrapping themselves in knots trying to give a name to what they’re doing, it’s not interesting to me personally what the “name” is: a piece of writing is a piece by whichever writer produced it. Period. That’s what it is."
[...]
"I think people whose orientation is essentially critical, who write primarily as critics, have a harder time being novelists. I don’t think that’s a rule, I just think that’s probably a fair summary of the available evidence. Being a critic is not a day job, it is an orientation to the world. Your orientation to reality is to analyze, break it down, figure it out, and present your findings. That’s how you do things, and that is where you live as a writer. And being a novelist, I’m sure, is a different orientation to the world. I just think these things are different. I think all comparisons are invidious. I think it was John Banville who was interviewed in some French magazine about me, and he said something along the lines of, “Oh, well his writing is so interesting, and his criticism is so sharp, but it would be nice to see what he could really do as a writer, with a novel.” And I’m just like, “Yeah, and it would be nice to see what you could do as an Abstract Expressionist.” The sort of fallacy that everyone is gearing up to write their great novel is just a kind of holdover prejudice from a different era."
[...]
"The book that is only meaningful to the gay reader cannot be a great book. It is precisely the gay book’s ability to be interesting to a straight reader that makes it a great book. What makes Things Fall Apart a great novel is the fact that it can say something to me, a middle class white person in the USA, that is meaningful and rocks my world. If it only speaks to its black audience it is a more limited book. What makes literature literature is precisely its ability to go beyond borders, beyond identities. "
By the way, Dean Norris has been quite active on twitter and revealed that HE IS THE ONE WHO WIPES !
Also, I just have to share this interview with Daniel Mendelsohn. I love that man!!! I don't agree with everything he says but the interview is just so quotable.
Here are some bits I do approve of. They are worth reading, people!
"I think criticism is potentially just as legitimate a literary genre as any other kind of writing. Writing is writing. But I don’t know what people think in the abstract of writers—critics vs. novelists vs. memoirist or any kind of writing. I think it depends on what you write."
[...]
"Critics are trying to illuminate texts that they find interesting, and to educate readers. I have a friend, who’s also an editor, and he always says that “criticism is a service industry.” Really your job is to illuminate whatever it is that you’re looking at—movies, or books, or novels, or non-fiction, whatever it is. And because you’ve done the homework, and you’re sharing your impressions—now, they’re your impressions and people might not agree with that—but you have to lay groundwork of what you’ve learned about the writer, the other books that they’ve written, you’re the one who has to synthesize it all."
[...]
"I mean novels are like that, novels are written by people who have a story they want to tell. And they’re not trying to package it to a certain group. If it’s a good novel, it will mean something to everybody. That’s the difference between a good novel and a mediocre novel. So, I am who I am, I write about what’s interesting to me. I’d like to think that my thinking out loud benefits the reader to perceive things that she or he might not have thought of alone."
[...]
"Barnes & Noble is interested in genre because they have to figure out where to put your book in the store. Why bother? I write narrative nonfiction that incorporates lengthy analyses of literary texts as part of the fabric of the book. It’s just what I do. I don’t know what the name for it is. I don’t know if it has a niche in the Barnes & Noble worldview, but it just is what it is. These people wrapping themselves in knots trying to give a name to what they’re doing, it’s not interesting to me personally what the “name” is: a piece of writing is a piece by whichever writer produced it. Period. That’s what it is."
[...]
"I think people whose orientation is essentially critical, who write primarily as critics, have a harder time being novelists. I don’t think that’s a rule, I just think that’s probably a fair summary of the available evidence. Being a critic is not a day job, it is an orientation to the world. Your orientation to reality is to analyze, break it down, figure it out, and present your findings. That’s how you do things, and that is where you live as a writer. And being a novelist, I’m sure, is a different orientation to the world. I just think these things are different. I think all comparisons are invidious. I think it was John Banville who was interviewed in some French magazine about me, and he said something along the lines of, “Oh, well his writing is so interesting, and his criticism is so sharp, but it would be nice to see what he could really do as a writer, with a novel.” And I’m just like, “Yeah, and it would be nice to see what you could do as an Abstract Expressionist.” The sort of fallacy that everyone is gearing up to write their great novel is just a kind of holdover prejudice from a different era."
[...]
"The book that is only meaningful to the gay reader cannot be a great book. It is precisely the gay book’s ability to be interesting to a straight reader that makes it a great book. What makes Things Fall Apart a great novel is the fact that it can say something to me, a middle class white person in the USA, that is meaningful and rocks my world. If it only speaks to its black audience it is a more limited book. What makes literature literature is precisely its ability to go beyond borders, beyond identities. "
