Stranger on Earth

Q: It’s a sign of double madness when you’re interviewing yourself about a book nobody’s going to read. You do know that, right? A. You may have a point there, but we talk to ourselves all the time, and madness is the flipside of clarity. It’s true I have no intention of getting the book published, but as written texts go, the moment they come into existence they will be read. It’s just not the way you think they’ll be read. I’m planning to pull a Kafka. I’ve chosen my Max Brod. Q: So you’ve finally wrapped up your second novel called Goliath . Care to tell us what it’s about? A: That title… it does sound a tad fake, doesn’t it? I tried out several different ones but came back to it eventually. I see it as a sign. But who would want to read a book with such a self-important title? The author clearly has a Nabokov complex. I’ll leave that up to you Jungians and Freudians out there. The book, broadly speaking, is about seven young university students living in the 1960s at th...

In my book there are two kinds of writers: the kind that produces record-breakers in publishing history, and the kind that tinkers away in quietude, far away from the limelight, the award shows, and public adulation.  Generalisations are unavoidable in the categorising of writers. The first kind is rarely preoccupied with aesthetic matters or ideological revolutions, preferring to do it “straight” to widen public appeal. His aim is to entertain (a filthy, filthy word in Literature) and to thrill the reader, to provide – here comes another scatological term – escapism(!) from the awful ordinariness of everyday life. The second kind is rarely aware of the reader’s needs and wants. He is more interested in his own thought process, the “sound” of the authorial voice, and the mechanics of writing. The reader is an afterthought to him. Every aspiring writer must at one point arrive at this crossroads and wonder which way to turn.  Either direction poses a series of...

On May 10th of 1934, a month after the publication of his new novel, Tender is the Night, F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote to his friend, Ernest Hemingway, and asked for his honest opinion on the book — a tale about Dick and Nicole Diver, a couple based largely on mutual acquaintances of both Fitzgerald and Hemingway: Gerald and Sara Murphy. Hemingway certainly responded with honesty. His engrossing reply — a letter that contains plenty of advice for any writer — can be read below. (Note: Hemingway's spelling is shown accurately. For example, he twice wrote "write" where, presumably, he meant "right.") ( Source: Ernest Hemingway Selected Letters 1917-1961; Image: Ernest Hemingway, via. ) Key West 28 May 1934 Dear Scott: I liked it and I didn't. It started off with that marvelous description of Sara and Gerald (goddamn it Dos took it with him so I can't refer to it. So if I make any mistakes—). Then you started fooling with them,...

I am 100% sure I am not the first in this overcrowded world to bemoan the rapid disappearance of respectable penmanship. What was once perceived as a sign of distinguished education and privileged upbringing is now a lost art form, replaced by the mechanical tick-ticking of the keyboard. Style has been sacrificed at the altar of speed and convenience. What we now have is a lost generation of youths incapable of controlling the biro – a device, surely, a lot less challenging than the Blackberry. You have indecipherable scrawls and reckless scribbles instead of graceful swirls and confident strokes. You have digitally conditioned minds struggling to establish an affinity with aesthetics but failing miserably. This is because we prize expediency and economy above all things. Time is $ - that old cliché – so why should anyone waste time putting a pen to paper when the ticking of keys is so much more instantly gratifying? This is where the digital age has failed us. It has made...