As far as what I do, my value as a writer is certainly not to try to recapitulate a 19th century form. Certain styles of narrative don't conform to my style of experiencing the world.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
What I find remarkable is that so much of the 18th century literature that I read is more accessible than reading your alternative weekly from ten years ago. People really aspired to write clearly.
When I write an original story I write about people I know first-hand and situations I'm familiar with. I don't write stories about the nineteenth century.
However, the difficulties and pleasures of the writing itself are similar for a novel with a historical setting and a novel with a contemporary setting, as far as I'm concerned.
However, please allow me to say that the fundamental style of my writing has been to start from my personal matters and then to link it up with society, the state and the world.
It seems that so much writing is being done in the nineteenth-century model, where every connection has to be thoroughly explained.
After closely examining my conscience, I venture to state that in my historical novels I intended the content to be just as modern and up-to-date as in the contemporary ones.
I feel that I belong to the 19th century. Some composers' music is very topical. It almost says, 'This is about what I read in newspapers yesterday.' Not mine.
I was brought up in the great tradition of the late nineteenth century: that a writer never complains, never explains and never disdains.
I'm not a twentieth-century novelist, I'm not modern, and certainly not postmodern. I follow the form of the nineteenth-century novel; that was the century that produced the models of the form. I'm old-fashioned, a storyteller. I'm not an analyst, and I'm not an intellectual.
My view of an excellent novel was probably set in the golden age of fiction in the 19th century: narrative, character and voice are of equal importance.