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Is it possible to be a good writer without being a good reader? I doubt it. Though I’d be happier saying it like this: “To be a good storyteller, you must first be an avid audience.” There have been (and no doubt still are) great storytellers who were illiterate. And I think writers can learn from all different kinds of storytelling: film, song, oral storytelling, theater, painting, dance, opera—and any other means of conveying story that you can think of. According to a report of the Independent Book Publishing Association, over five million American adults belong to reading groups. What, do you believe, is the basis for this country’s love for literature and books? The need for story seems to be hard-wired deep in the human brain: and for most of our history, storytelling has been a communal activity—spoken, danced, and acted. I’m not sure why Americans currently go in for reading groups with such zest—but my guess is that it’s a way to return privately-read, individually-experienced stories to communal life. Not that this is a conscious decision: but this notion may help explain the imaginative pull and power of such groups right now. The Reading Group may have evolved to meet modern American needs for shared story in the sort of grass-roots way that theater-in-the-round evolved to meet the needs/constraints/interests of Elizabethan England. Have you ever belonged to a reading group? Yes: both the kind that mostly serves as a reason for friends to come together and chat, and the kind that means literary and intellectual business. I like them both, so long as the group is clear on what its real nature is! Also, for what it’s worth, graduate school in English Literature is one big, marvelous reading group. What advice do you have for reading group members when it comes to selecting books for discussion? Choose a book that invites different points of view, or stirs controversy, or is layered and nuanced enough that you want to see what other people saw in its depths, because you’re pretty sure you didn’t catch everything yourself. What’s the point of discussing a fairly straightforward book? I’m quickly bored by conversations that merely run to everyone chiming in about what they liked (or disliked) in a book: I like books and discussions that challenge me to wrap my brain around new ideas about the world, about writing, and about the ways that stories and reality collide and interact. What book(s) are you reading now or planning to read? I have a whole stack of Shakespeare-related books pleading to be read. At the top of the list are Willby Christopher Rush, My Name is Willby Jess Winfield, and Shakespeare’s Wifeby Germaine Greer. I’d like to have more time to read the whole backlists of British thriller writer Phil Rickman and Spanish historical mystery writer Arturo Pérez-Reverte. In my all-over-the-map “to read” pile are Volk’s Shadowby Brent Ghelfi, The Enchantress of Florenceby Salman Rushdie, Dragonfly in Amberby Diana Gabaldon, Gertrude Bell, Queen of the Desertby Georgina Howell, and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Waoby Junot Díaz. Most of this is on hold until I finish my next book! If you were stuck on a deserted island and could only bring one book with you to read, what would it be and why? The Lord of the Rings. If I’m going to be trapped in a small place, I might as well have a vast and fascinating world to explore through imagination. Somehow, I never get tired of it. If you could have dinner with 3 writers (dead or alive) who would they be and why? Shakespeare (of course!), in hopes of learning some of what we don’t know about him. Isak Dinesen, for her courage to live life as an epic, and her exquisite skill in writing about similar adventurers. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (the heroine of my first book, The Speckled Monster), ditto. Have you ever read anything you're too embarrassed to admit (except in this interview)? Why be embarrassed about reading? I’ve read encyclopedias, comic books, bodice-rippers, “lizards and tits” fantasy, ad copy, the long jacket notes to classical CDs, sentimental verse, and web sites I consider to be rabidly wrong in their political and social views. The only writings I occasionally self-censor are stories that give life to cruel fantasies apparently for the sake of no better reason than the sheer fascination with cruelty: there are some images and ideas I just don’t want careening around in my head, taking up time and energy. I wouldn’t say that all books are worth reading: but certainly all different kinds of books are worth dipping into, for the sake of exploring what other people think and dream and desire and adore, if nothing else. In that respect, there’s nothing beneath my notice. Favorite book when you were a child? The Oz series. All of them. Can I count them as one book? If you have children, is this the same book you read to them? If not, what is your favorite book for your children? My son is 9 months old. Currently, his favorite book is Sandra Boynton’s Moo, Baa, La La La. I hope he will someday go for Charlotte’s Web, Stuart Little, the Narnia books, The Hobbit, Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Risingseries, Alice in Wonderland, Harry Potter, My Side of the Mountain, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, and yes, the Oz books. Favorite heroine in literature and why? Gudrun Osvifsdottir, from Laxdaela saga, because she lived with blazing courage and passion in an era when most women didn’t dare (she’s based on a historical woman who lived in Iceland around 1000 AD). Shakespeare’s Beatrice and Austen’s Elizabeth Bennett would be close runners up, for their intelligence and wit. In mystery fiction, I’m partial to Dorothy Sayers’ Harriet Vane. Favorite hero in literature and why? I think it would be a tie between Gus McCrae, from Lonesome Dove, and Francis Crawford of Lymond from Dorothy Dunnett’s Lymond series. Though different in most particulars, both are hilarious, generous, roughly kind, and exceedingly dangerous. They’re both gifted—or saddled—with an integrity that leads them far beyond the bounds of the law, all they way to hell and back. They’re cynical about the world as it is, but they measure themselves against ideals that most knights out of romance would be hard-pressed to uphold. As a result, they’re heroic and sexy to an extraordinary degree. Favorite first line from a book? ”In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.” As legend has it, this sentence simply popped into Tolkien’s head one day while he was marking undergraduate papers, and he turned the paper he was working on over and jotted down this sentence. Wouldn’t it be nice to have been that student? (If you’d had the presence of mind to understand that your professor wasn’t merely lunatic?) Favorite last line from a book? ”And on the way home, she met her brothers, and there was a rough-and-tumble, and the lovely crown was broken, and she forgot the message, which was never delivered.” In one sentence, Byatt ties all the loose ends of her plot together in a neat knot, and yet leaves the world and her characters at the mercy of random events, in this case, the beautiful, ruthless innocence of children. It’s an ending that is both satisfying and heart-rending. Book that changed your life? The Lord of the Rings: which led me, on a whim during my senior year in college, to take a class on Old Norse (one of Tolkien’s academic specialties), which led me to study Old Norse at Oxford University, which led me (in roundabout fashion) to a Ph.D. in Shakespeare, which led me to a writer’s life. Words to live by? There is a tide in the affairs of men, Like my characters Roz and Kate in Interred With Their Bones, I like the concept of serendipity—of looking out for and grasping the random chances that life tosses your way. (see, for example, the unlikely chain of events in my answer to the last question!) Copyright © 2008 Reading Group Choices |
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