But that incessant drive to be out there in the literary universe that was important to me when I was in my twenties, like going to a Paris Review party or whatever, that seems totally irrelevant now.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
My twenties were entirely taken up with literature. Entirely.
Literary readings aren't going to shake their reputation as the added-fibre of our entertainment diet until the people who organize and participate in them snap out of this mentality.
If I'd stayed on in London and carried on going to literary parties, it would have wrecked me as a writer.
In my early 20s, connecting with fiction was a difficult process. There seemed to be little rhyme or reason to what was meaningful, what convinced, and what made sense.
I'd always read omnivorously and often thought much literary fiction is read by young men and women in their 20s as substitutes for experience.
I hate to sound blase about it, but literary status is not important to me. Being happy is important to me.
Literature is a luxury; fiction is a necessity.
I thought that I would have a huge literary novel coming out when I was, like, 29. I quit my banking job, and I was halfway through my second novel - and I will never publish it, because it's very mediocre.
You're more likely to finish a book you enjoy, than one that feels like literary drudgery.
I do think that part of literature's job is to comment on and participate in the social issues of the time.
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