Writing is Hell - The Paris Review Interviews, vol. 4
As a young writer I was deeply encouraged to learn that even people like Philip Roth have to struggle hard to get things written. “I often have to write a hundred pages or more before there’s a paragraph that’s alive,” Roth says. One of the general messages of the Paris Review interviews is that even the best writers find writing a wickedly hard business. This may be why a lot of reviewers like and recommend the books. Reviewers are writers too, and these books can make a writer feel less alone. The subjects are all writers. Some of the interviews have been dug out from deep in the magazine’s archives, while some were done as recently as 2008. So we get long-dead figures like Ezra Pound alongside writers so contemporary that I bet you’ve never heard of them.
Nowhere Man - Invisible by Paul Auster
Paul Auster is nothing if not readable. I mean this as a compliment, but it could also serve as a rather unkind gesture towards his limitations. Beyond his knack for spinning superficially compelling plots, Auster doesn’t have many conspicuous strengths as a novelist. But let’s stay with Auster’s virtues for a moment.
Death and Detail - Kathryn Fox
Kathryn Fox, creator of forensic pathologist Anya Crichton, speaks of her scepticism about the Dalai Lama’s static energy, about growing up in the shadow of the Beaumont children, about reality fiction and its capacity to influence a reader, and about society’s tacit tolerance of violence against women - and about her latest book 'Blood Born'.
You Could be Happy - Optimism
'Candide' is a picaresque and Tom Wright’s ‘19 short scenes’ approach in 'Optimism' embraces the unrelenting, episodic momentum of the original. Some of the connective tissue is missing, which makes it a challenge to fully comprehend the sequence of events, but perhaps this is no accident.