“That’s a neglected, important part of life,” says the novelist, whose new book is “Lorna Mott Comes Home.”
What books are on your night stand?
Brian Dillon’s “Suppose a Sentence,” very amusing about sentences; a saucy French novel, “Partita” — for me, lots of new vocabulary; a novel, “The Margot Affair,” which the author, Sanaë Lemoine, just brought me; “Field Marshal,” a biography of Erwin Rommel by Daniel Allen Butler; “The Wreck of the Abergavenny: The Wordsworths and Catastrophe,” by Alethea Hayter; “A Safer World…?,” by my upstairs neighbor Luc Debieuvre.
What’s the last great book you read?
“The Leopard,” by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa.
Can a great book be badly written? What other criteria can overcome bad prose?
People talk about Dreiser and Zola. I might add “The Da Vinci Code.” Apparently an exciting plot or burning social message can overcome bad writing.
Describe your ideal reading experience (when, where, what, how).
Maybe on my porch at Lake Tahoe, summer, lemonade. Or, same location in winter, but indoors with snow coming down.
What’s your favorite book no one else has heard of?
I used to say Nigel Dennis’s” A House in Order,” but now I’ve talked about it quite a bit, so now I’d say Dodie Smith’s “I Capture the Castle.” This charming novel about an eccentric English family that lives in the ruins of a castle bears rereading every few years and has never lost its freshness.
What book should everybody read before the age of 21?
“The Count of Monte Cristo.” Although maybe reading it for the first time at any age would still produce the riveting suspense of a great story. One you would stay up all night, to read under the covers with a flashlight if your mother made you turn out the light.
What book should nobody read until the age of 40?
“Pride and Prejudice,” or “Emma.” Or, rather, read them in your teens for the stories, for one experience, and then later to appreciate Austen’s genius, rewarding both times.
Which writers — novelists, playwrights, critics, journalists, poets — working today do you admire most?
There are so many, but among journalists I can mention any book by Michael Lewis on any subject — somebody who can make the stock market or anything else fascinating. I look forward to any novel by Margaret Drabble.
Do you count any books as guilty pleasures, or comfort reads?
Lucas Davenport mysteries by John Sandford, especially when they have Virgil Flowers in them. Luckily for me, Sandford is prolific and endlessly inventive, so there are quite a few I haven’t read yet.
What’s the last book you read that made you laugh?
Molly Keane’s “Good Behaviour.” Or Elif Batuman’s “The Possessed: Adventures With Russian Books and the People Who Read Them.”
The last book you read that made you cry?
I’m a hardhearted professional writer — I’m always more interested in how it’s done. It was probably “Anna Karenina” when I was 16.
The last book you read that made you furious?
I’m always getting furious at exposés: how food isn’t getting to the African children, or waste in the Pentagon, the plight of Afghan women — you name it.
Which subjects do you wish more authors would write about?
My friend Bob Gottlieb has always said that more people should write about friendship, and it’s true that that’s a neglected, important part of life.
What moves you most in a work of literature?
Skill — a great, amazing style, or graceful erudition. I think of W. G. Sebald, or certain passages in L. P. Hartley and E. M. Forster and V. S. Pritchett that I copied out. I’m very susceptible to the Edwardians.
Do you prefer books that reach you emotionally, or intellectually?
I’m not sure I can separate the two. Intellectual excitement is an emotion.
Which genres do you especially enjoy reading? And which do you avoid?
Well, detective fiction; what are the others? Or if you mean fiction versus nonfiction more generally, I find I read less fiction than I used to.
How do you organize your books?
Alphabetically by author, though this is hard to stick to.
What book might people be surprised to find on your shelves?
The Quran? The C.I.A. manuals I found discarded in an alley, that led to my novel “Lulu in Marrakech”?
What kind of reader were you as a child? Which childhood books and authors stick with you most?
Voracious, like most kids who grow up to be writers. My childhood loves were Alexandre Dumas and Rafael Sabatini, after I outgrew Nancy Drew, Beatrix Potter and Winnie the Pooh. I didn’t really outgrow them, of course. I also had a book of poems called “Silver Pennies,” and of course, “A Child’s Garden of Verses.” Some childhood favorites are now forbidden for political incorrectness — for instance, about the brave little boy who saved his family from being eaten by tigers, and another about some children who lived in the South before the Civil War.
How have your reading tastes changed over time?
As I said, I read much more nonfiction, criticism, art history — history in general — and much less fiction now.
You’re organizing a literary dinner party. Which three writers, dead or alive, do you invite?
A relatively unknown but urbane and I imagine great talker, Mina Curtiss (“Other People’s Letters”), Proust and Henry James.
Disappointing, overrated, just not good: What book did you feel as if you were supposed to like, and didn’t? Do you remember the last book you put down without finishing?
“The Goldfinch.”
What do you plan to read next?
Cynthia Saltzman’s “Plunder: Napoleon’s Theft of Veronese’s Feast,” about Napoleon’s stealing a painting, “The Wedding Feast at Cana.”
"about" - Google News
June 24, 2021 at 04:00PM
https://ift.tt/3xN2Psv
Diane Johnson Wishes More Authors Would Write About Friendship - The New York Times
"about" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2MjBJUT
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Diane Johnson Wishes More Authors Would Write About Friendship - The New York Times"
Post a Comment