Interviews
The ability to situate a work in its context, to praise it without flattery, to argue against it without rancour, to be authoritative without being a know-all, to make difficult matters clear without condescending to the reader – and, of course, to be a good writer in his or her own right.
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Virginia Woolf wrote somewhere that the reason she resented death was because it was the one experience she’d never describe. Art gives shape to what’s happened to you, so it is therapy, but therapy plus form and myth and poetry. I like the double pay-off of writing alone, then handing it over to others to fill the images with living bodies.
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There are a few things that are obvious enough to sound platitudinous: intelligence, knowledge, attentiveness, insight, and so forth. But I think a certain forthrightness and clarity of expression goes a long way. A sense of humour doesn’t hurt, either.
... (read more)In So Many Words: Interviews with Writers, Scholars and Intellectuals by Cassandra Atherton
Most editors I have worked for have been helpful and communicative, although often overworked and unable therefore to devote generous time to individual reviewers. There isn’t much feedback from readers, as far as I’ve seen, presumably because the main conduit is letters to the editor, which many readers are disinclined to use.
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When not preferring silence, I like to listen to Leonard Cohen and Emmylou Harris, but a friend recently introduced me to the early music ensemble, Accordone (Marco Beasley and Guido Morini).
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I tend to reread The Sun Also Rises every year, if only to remind myself of what it was like to be eighteen or nineteen and overcome by the initial excitement, the shock, of something fresh and distinctive.
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I like words, though making music is even better. Writing is almost as good as playing the violin.
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