New Zealander - Author | September 24, 1985 -
The readership of Victorian novels, when they were published, was much less diverse. People were probably white, and had enough money to be literate. Very often, there are phrases in Italian, German and French that are left untranslated.
Eleanor Catton
MoneyPeopleEnoughWhiteLeftMuch
Any description of a person that comes from the outside is very hard to deal with. People don't like being summarised. It's nice to receive a compliment, but it makes me feel a bit uncomfortable.
PeopleMeFeelUncomfortablePerson
An interesting thing about New Zealand, you know, literature is that it really didn't begin in any real sense until the 20th century.
InterestingLiteratureYouNewKnow
The challenge that I set for myself was to see whether or not plot and structure could coexist, and why it was that we had to always privilege one above the other.
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There are a lot of people of my generation in New Zealand literature, young writers on their first or second books, that I'm just really excited about. There seems to be a big gap between the generation above and us; it seems to be quite radically different in terms of form and approach.
PeopleGenerationLiteratureYoung
I think that writers of literary fiction would do well to read more books for children.
ChildrenThinkMoreFictionWell
The books that really made an impact on me were not set in New Zealand. Some were New Zealand novels, but the New Zealandness of them was not what carried me or excited me.
MeImpactNewZealandExcitedMade
There are so many ways of posturing that people associate with being a writer. They imagine you wearing a beret and drinking only red wine and being full of yourself, and so, for a long time, the way I felt about writing was too private. I felt it too important and didn't want to be teased about it. So I lied about it.
TimeYourselfRedPeopleWriting
I much prefer a plotted novel to a novel that is really conceptual.
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I had never read Victorian novels before going overseas. I read a handful of authors, but I had not immersed myself in the literature of the 19th century.
MyselfLiteratureNeverGoingRead
I can feel the public side of my life and the private side of my life sort of drifting away from one another.
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It's very brave going from a position of authority to one where you are an apprentice.
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