I think some people wished I'd kept myself out of the book. But I kind of insist on it because I want the reader to share my engagement with the material, if you like, not pretend that I'm doing it completely intellectually.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I'm always imposing my taste in books on others. I hope that people enjoy being surprised by a book they might not otherwise read - I enjoy the surprise myself when others do this to me.
I wrote the book because I wanted to be able to share some things that I had learned and as pompous as that may sound, as you get to a certain point in life, you figure so what am I doing?
I have spent more time with other people's books than with my own. I do not regret it.
When I have a book I enjoy, I'm partly in the book. I'm not just observing it.
I often think I can see it in myself and in other young writers, this desperate desire to please coupled with a kind of hostility to the reader.
I'd pretty much given up hope of being published, so I just wrote the book I wanted to read.
Even though I may not intend it when I set out to write the book, these places just emerge as major players in what I'm doing, almost as if they are insisting on it.
It's a fantastic privilege to spend three or four hundred pages with a reader. You have time to go into certain questions that are painful or difficult or complicated. That's one thing that appeals to me very much about the novel form.
When I write a book, I write a book for myself; the reaction is up to the reader. It's not my business whether people like or dislike it.
I get to show the reader the essence of the book without giving anything away.