Monday, March 02, 2009

"It would be mad, unnecessary"

At the Guardian, Alison Flood reports on M. J. Hyland's interview of Colm Toíbín:
"I write with a sort of grim determination to deal with things that are hidden and difficult and this means, I think, that pleasure is out of the question. I would associate this with narcissism anyway and I would disapprove of it."

Toíbín said he hadn't enjoyed writing any of his books, from his debut The South to his two Booker-shortlisted novels The Blackwater Lightship and The Master. "After a while [writing is] not really difficult, but it's never fun or anything. With a few of the books, especially The Heather Blazing and The Master and the new novel Brooklyn, there has been a real problem in not having a sort of breakdown as I worked on a particular passage," he said. "I don't want to go on about this too much, but there is a passage in each of those books which I found almost impossible to write and then harder and harder to re-write. I hope never to have to look at those passages again.["]

4 comments:

  1. Oh my god. I feel this way more and more too. In fact, I am deeply suspicious of anyone who says they "love to write."

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  2. Julie, I'm not sure Toibin is talking seriously. To me it sounds as though he's often sending up the interviewer, albeit subtly.

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  3. Faulkner said writing a novel is like being a one-armed man trying to nail together a chicken coop in a hurricane. I wonder if Toibin is either a) kidding b) not trying hard enough c)finds it easy to nail together chicken coops in hurricanes.

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  4. I'm not sure why it would seem inconceivable that he could be even partly serious. Perhaps most people want to disavow that sort of relationship with writing.

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