0:00:02.724,0:00:06.502 Well, people often talk about the death of literature. 0:00:06.502,0:00:09.021 People have been speaking about it since shortly 0:00:09.021,0:00:11.880 after the first work of literature was ever made 0:00:11.880,0:00:15.368 but there's more and more talk about it. 0:00:15.368,0:00:19.136 It's been propelled by diminishing readership, 0:00:19.136,0:00:23.213 by what feels like an increasing apathy, 0:00:23.213,0:00:33.551 or even anxiety or even mistrust of literature 0:00:33.551,0:00:36.135 and the movement towards screens, everything being 0:00:36.135,0:00:40.476 on a screen and what would that mean for books which 0:00:40.476,0:00:42.059 aren't very well served on a screen. 0:00:42.059,0:00:43.352 It's not that you can't read a book on a screen 0:00:43.352,0:00:45.475 perfectly well but you can't read a book on a screen 0:00:45.475,0:00:50.494 that also has email and your calendar and texting. 0:00:50.494,0:00:52.665 Books can't compete with those kinds of media. 0:00:52.665,0:00:56.384 So we wonder will people read books? 0:00:56.384,0:01:02.128 There are still things and there will always be things that 0:01:02.128,0:01:06.060 only literature can do, only literature can communicate. 0:01:06.060,0:01:10.510 I don't think that literature is necessarily any better, 0:01:10.510,0:01:10.712 whatever than means, than film or dance or music. 0:01:10.712,0:01:16.706 In fact, I'm often drawn personally more 0:01:16.706,0:01:19.061 to film and dance than I am to literature 0:01:19.061,0:01:21.056 but I know that there are moments in my life 0:01:21.056,0:01:25.361 when I feel the need for literature and only for literature. 0:01:25.361,0:01:28.419 So for example, the mother of my oldest friend 0:01:28.419,0:01:30.721 passed away about week ago. 0:01:30.721,0:01:32.156 And I went down to visit her in Washington DC. 0:01:32.156,0:01:37.737 I live in New York. I was quite worried about what to say 0:01:37.737,0:01:40.684 and how to fill what I thought might be very awkward, 0:01:40.684,0:01:46.204 or even painful silences. And I brought poems, 0:01:46.204,0:01:49.364 about 20 poems. I read them to her and we talked 0:01:49.364,0:01:51.483 about them. And in that moment when we, together, 0:01:51.483,0:01:57.684 mostly just her, of course, but together, were confronting 0:01:57.684,0:02:05.678 this, the biggest moment of life which is death. 0:02:05.678,0:02:07.608 We relied on poetry. 0:02:07.608,0:02:12.920 Poems and stories and novels are very helpful 0:02:12.920,0:02:18.207 exactly when we most need language the most, 0:02:18.207,0:02:25.773 sort of dire, or urgent or existential moments of life. 0:02:25.773,0:02:27.151 Novels are meant to be read over the course of many 0:02:27.151,9:59:59.000 hours or many days. And even a story takes half an hour 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 to read. And I just wasn't sure, in this case, what her 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 energy level would be, so I wanted them to be quite 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 small, but even though that's the case, it's also true 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that poetry is the most condensed form of literature 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and in certain ways, it's the most pure form. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I don't think that novels are any less good than poetry 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 but novels has a lot to learn from poetry 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 in terms of what's possible, how direct one can be, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 how concentrated language can be, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and how evocative and resonant. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Sometimes I think novels make the mistake 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 of being too much like their own description. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Somebody says, ''What is this book about?'' 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 My dream is to write a novel where somebody would 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 have to say, "I could tell you, I suppose, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 but that would really miss the point. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 You'd just have to read it." 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 That, to my mind, is a good novel. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 A novel that is its own synopsis, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 just an expanded version of its synopsis, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 comes awfully close to television actually. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Novels can still do something that poetry 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 does in terms of being kind of ineffable or mysterious 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 or not quite graspeable, just on a much larger scale. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 All of my life, I have been more drawn to the visual arts 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 than to literature. And even still, when I'm feeling like 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I can't remember why I wanted to be a writer, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I don't go to books, I actually go to paintings 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 or to sculpture. To me, the distinctions have been drawn 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 too sharply. The difference between a musician, a writer, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 an artist, a dancer. We've categorized them, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 segregated them, so that there's very , very little overlap 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 but in fact they're all just people who want to make 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 things that you could say have no use. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Everything in life has a use. The person who made 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the camera that this is being shot with, made it 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 so that it could record something like this. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And a television or a computer that someone's watching 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 it on was made with specific functions in mind. A bridge 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 is made so that people can get from one land mass to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 another. But novels and paintings and songs really ... 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 They might have effects in the world -- 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 they might be political, they might be entertaining, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 they might be objects of commerce, but they're not really 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 really made for any of those reasons. They're just made 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 for their own sake. Anyone who makes something 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 for its own sake, whether you try to have it published 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 or whether you're just rearranging twigs 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 on the ground because it pleases you, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 people who do that are artists. And because we live 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 in a world in which you have to have a job and in which 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 it's expected that you will grow within your job 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and because we like to have an answer to the question 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 'What is it that you do?' 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 You meet someone at a party. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 They say ''What do you do?'' 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It makes us uncomfortable not to have an answer. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 But the truth is, the different art forms are much, much 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 more similar than they are different. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 When I'm not working on a book, I am somebody 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 who just moves through the world and sees nice things 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and tries to remember them, but usually doesn't, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and hears jokes and tries to remember them but usually 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 doesn't and so on and has ideas that disappear, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 But when I'm writing, I save those things 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 so that I can use them, rearrange them. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Nothing comes from nothing. I think that there's an 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 impression that books or art, making art is a much more 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 romantically creative act than it is, as if inspiration 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 strikes and suddenly, something appears 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 but that hasn't been my experience at all. It's much more 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 about being attentive to what's around and starting to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 get to know what you like and what you find useful 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and then collecting those things instead of everything. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Collecting those things and then figuring out what 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 what the most pleasing arrangement of them is for you. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 There's nothing objective about it. It's not the case that 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 someone else will necessarily like it 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 but it really does feel like making collages with the 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 whole world as your cupboard of things to arrange. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Certainly in art, the most important things happen 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 on a subconscious level. When I approach a writing 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 project, I don't think of it like that. In fact, and I say this 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 not as a joke or to disparage myself, I really don't think about much at all. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 about much at all. I'm just very open to what do I feel like 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 working on, what's interesting to me right now, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 what am I curious about? But I never think about 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 what the potential use of something would be. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Like I was saying before, there's a quality of art 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that is useless in the very, very best way. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 That is the very highest compliment I can pay. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And if I started thinking about what I would achieve 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 for myself psychologically or in search of meaning 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 or in search of meaning or catharsis, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that's just another kind of use. Just in almost the same 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 way that trying to make something you could sell 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 for money is a kind of use. It's not to say that those two 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 thing might wouldn't be good in your life but I don't think 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that they make a good work of art. They're not a good 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 starting point. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 John [Delulo?] once said,"Nobody writes his first book. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It just happens. At a certain point, you find 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that a printer is ... all these pages are coming out. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Oh my God, I can't believe I did this! I believe that. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Maybe it's a little different if you start late in life 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 incubating an idea for a long time but most people 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 when they write their first book, at a certain point, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 they realize they have a book on their hands. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And the second book is different because then, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 you have something that you're responding to, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 you have your own expectations -- 'if you published 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 your first book, you have the world' expectations. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 So I found the second book somewhat more difficult 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 because of that but I started the second book 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 before my first book was published so in a way, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I was able to escape some of those traps. But 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 then after I have written two novels, I wrote a work 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 of non-fiction about eating animals,about animal 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 farming. I think this is not a coincidence 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that I decided to move in a different direction 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 because I was starting to feel the weight 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 of momentum. I didn't want to do a third thing 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 because I've done two previous things. I didn't want 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 to make a choice about tomorrow because of what 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I did yesterday. So maybe even to a fault, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I resisted that and decided to move off 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and try something else. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 There are a lot of ways of talking about 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 choices in art. It's a mistake to think that 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 the way we talk about it retrospectively 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 as critics, which is very useful and interesting 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 but it's a mistake that that's the same language 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 of creation. Somebody once said, I can't remember 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 who, maybe it was Oscar Wilde, I can't remember. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 He said, "There are only two kinds of objects 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 in the world: those that charm us and those that don't 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 charm us." Something can be charming in the most 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 completely simple way and for whatever reason, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 it speaks to us. We like it. It is for us. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 If it isn't charming, it's mundane. It's not that 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 we hate it, it's just that it has no great effect on us. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 And each person, of course, has his own or her own 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 sense of what is charming. In a way, writing just 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 boils down to asking that question again and again 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 because it's charming or not. Something charming 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 can mean that it's very painful. It doesn't mean 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that it's happy and beautiful. It can mean it's very 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 ugly, that it is funny. It can mean that it is serious. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 It can be tragic. It can be comic. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Charming just means in a certain way, 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that it's authentic and exceptional to you. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 People often ask me, why don't I write about family 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 so often. I find that such a weird question. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 I don't even know how to answer because the answer 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 feels so obvious to me. Nobody asks J.K. Rowling 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 why she writes about wizards so much. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 That, to me, is weird. That's a weird choice she made 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 that requires some explanation because nobody 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 knows wizards. Nobody interacts with wizards. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Nobody can't fall asleep at night because of their 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 relationship to wizards but everyone has a family. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Even people whose families are absent. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Maybe especially people whose families are absent. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 These are the main themes of life 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and the main themes of literature since Genesis 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 so I assume I will always write about family. 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 Families is also especially important to me but 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 whatever will take the form of fathers 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 and sons-in-laws. Or it will take the form of 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 a married couple in a comedy. That I don't know.