From Lev Grossman’s blog, “A Brief Taxonomy of Writers”: “As far as I can tell there are two kinds of fiction writers: those who read no fiction while they write, and those who constantly read fiction while they write. Let’s have cute names for them. We’ll call them Soloists and Thieves.”
Fiction Writers: Soloists or Thieves?
“It was as though the novel had outstretched arms and I fell in.”
Recommended Reading: Anna Wiener on Speedboat by Renata Adler. Adler’s book, which David Shields recommended on our site two years ago, will be reissued by NYRB Classics in March, 2013.
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The Voyage of the Poet
“I think what I would really most like to write about is palm trees and bougainvillea and hummingbirds. I would like to go into the desert and write about salamanders and the Grand Canyon, but history keeps rupturing my experience because politics are everywhere.” National Book Award winner Robin Coste Lewis on overcoming brain damage and becoming a poet. Pair with Andrew Kay’s Millions essay on the power of poetry.
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Lost and Found
“I lost the first good novel I ever wrote to a computer disaster. It happened at a crucial time in my life. I was working nights, living in a mouse-infested tenement in Giuliani-era Harlem and still figuring out if I could even do this thing — become a writer for real.” Mat Johnson on NPR’s All Tech Considered blog about the ultimate authorial nightmare, and how he recovered from it. Pair with our review of Johnson’s latest novel, Loving Day.
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Tuesday New Release Day: Bezmozgis; Pratchett; Simpson; McCabe; Oliver; Moran
Out this week: The Betrayers by David Bezmozgis; A Slip of the Keyboard: Collected Nonfiction by Terry Pratchett; Ballroom by Alice Simpson; Hello Mr. Bones & Goodbye Mr. Rat by Patrick McCabe; Rooms by Lauren Oliver; and How to Build a Girl by Caitlin Moran, who released an essay collection two years ago. For more on these and other new titles, check out our Great Second-half 2014 Book Preview.
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Odd Jobs
Recommended viewing: The New Yorker‘s Adam Gopnik talks about his early years in New York writing for the magazine “though they simply weren’t aware of it, or when they were aware of it they were extremely unenthusiastic,” and about all the odd jobs that often make up a writer’s early career, something our own Emily St. James Mandel has written about before.
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Fair enough, but are you saying their are writers out there who don’t read books? That’s pretty amazing. How good can these ‘soloists’ be? There’s not really that much in the way of truly original characters/plots etc in the world; whats interesting and original is typically a handful of so-so ideas combined in a very clever way. People who read alot of fiction might have more ‘soso’ ideas (borrowed) from which to pick.Then again, most of what we write is heavily influenced by our own lives. So the soloists could be just writing from their own life. Not exactly fiction.
Bottom line: I don’t think we should chastize those who ‘borrow’ ideas, as I think originality is kind of overrated. The point is not to be clever or cute, but to be good. The thing with writers who read alot of great books, they tend to absorb not only writing styles (what you might consider influencing styles) but other people’s ideas for plot/characters, subconsciously. Writers who read alot tend to be much better writers.
It’s amazing to me too, but I met a novelist at a literary festival once who claimed he never read books. I haven’t read his work yet, but he was shortlisted for the Giller prize (one of the top awards in Canada) so I’m assuming he must be good.