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Well, people often talk about the death of literature.

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People have been speaking about it since shortly

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after the first work of literature was ever made

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but there's more and more talk about it.

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It's been propelled by diminishing readership,

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by what feels like an increasing apathy,

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or even anxiety or even mistrust of literature

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and the movement towards screens, everything being

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on a screen and what would that mean for books which

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aren't very well served on a screen.

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It's not that you can't read a book on a screen

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perfectly well but you can't read a book on a screen

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that also has email and your calendar and texting.

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Books can't compete with those kinds of media.

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So we wonder will people read books?

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There are still things and there will always be things that

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only literature can do, only literature can communicate.

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I don't think that literature is necessarily any better,

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whatever than means, than film or dance or music.

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In fact, I'm often drawn personally more

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to film and dance than I am to literature

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but I know that there are moments in my life

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when I feel the need for literature and only for literature.

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So for example, the mother of my oldest friend

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passed away about week ago.

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And I went down to visit her in Washington DC.

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I live in New York. I was quite worried about what to say

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and how to fill what I thought might be very awkward,

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or even painful silences. And I brought poems,

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about 20 poems. I read them to her and we talked

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about them. And in that moment when we, together,

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mostly just her, of course, but together, were confronting

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this, the biggest moment of life which is death.

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We relied on poetry.

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Poems and stories and novels are very helpful

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exactly when we most need language the most,

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sort of dire, or urgent or existential moments of life.

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Novels are meant to be read over the course of many

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hours or many days. And even a story takes half an hour

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to read. And I just wasn't sure, in this case, what her

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energy level would be, so I wanted them to be quite

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small, but even though that's the case, it's also true

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that poetry is the most condensed form of literature

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and in certain ways, it's the most pure form.

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I don't think that novels are any less good than poetry

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but novels has a lot to learn from poetry

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in terms of what's possible, how direct one can be,

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how concentrated language can be,

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and how evocative and resonant.

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Sometimes I think novels make the mistake

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of being too much like their own description.

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Somebody says, ''What is this book about?''

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My dream is to write a novel where somebody would

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have to say, "I could tell you, I suppose,

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but that would really miss the point.

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You'd just have to read it."

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That, to my mind, is a good novel.

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A novel that is its own synopsis,

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just an expanded version of its synopsis,

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comes awfully close to television actually.

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Novels can still do something that poetry

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does in terms of being kind of ineffable or mysterious

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or not quite graspeable, just on a much larger scale.

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All of my life, I have been more drawn to the visual arts

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than to literature. And even still, when I'm feeling like

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I can't remember why I wanted to be a writer,

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I don't go to books, I actually go to paintings

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or to sculpture. To me, the distinctions have been drawn

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too sharply. The difference between a musician, a writer,

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an artist, a dancer. We've categorized them,

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segregated them, so that there's very , very little overlap

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but in fact they're all just people who want to make

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things that you could say have no use.

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Everything in life has a use. The person who made

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the camera that this is being shot with, made it

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so that it could record something like this.

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And a television or a computer that someone's watching

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it on was made with specific functions in mind. A bridge

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is made so that people can get from one land mass to

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another. But novels and paintings and songs really ...

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They might have effects in the world --

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they might be political, they might be entertaining,

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they might be objects of commerce, but they're not really

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really made for any of those reasons. They're just made

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for their own sake. Anyone who makes something

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for its own sake, whether you try to have it published

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or whether you're just rearranging twigs

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on the ground because it pleases you,

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people who do that are artists. And because we live

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in a world in which you have to have a job and in which

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it's expected that you will grow within your job

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and because we like to have an answer to the question

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'What is it that you do?'

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You meet someone at a party.

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They say ''What do you do?''

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It makes us uncomfortable not to have an answer.

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But the truth is, the different art forms are much, much

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more similar than they are different.

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When I'm not working on a book, I am somebody

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who just moves through the world and sees nice things

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and tries to remember them, but usually doesn't,

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and hears jokes and tries to remember them but usually

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doesn't and so on and has ideas that disappear,

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But when I'm writing, I save those things

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so that I can use them, rearrange them.

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Nothing comes from nothing. I think that there's an

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impression that books or art, making art is a much more

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romantically creative act than it is, as if inspiration

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strikes and suddenly, something appears

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but that hasn't been my experience at all. It's much more

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about being attentive to what's around and starting to

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get to know what you like and what you find useful

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and then collecting those things instead of everything.

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Collecting those things and then figuring out what

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what the most pleasing arrangement of them is for you.

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There's nothing objective about it. It's not the case that

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someone else will necessarily like it

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but it really does feel like making collages with the

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whole world as your cupboard of things to arrange.

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Certainly in art, the most important things happen

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on a subconscious level. When I approach a writing

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project, I don't think of it like that. In fact, and I say this

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not as a joke or to disparage myself, I really don't think about much at all.

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about much at all. I'm just very open to what do I feel like

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working on, what's interesting to me right now,

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what am I curious about? But I never think about

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what the potential use of something would be.

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Like I was saying before, there's a quality of art

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that is useless in the very, very best way.

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That is the very highest compliment I can pay.

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And if I started thinking about what I would achieve

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for myself psychologically or in search of meaning

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or in search of meaning or catharsis,

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that's just another kind of use. Just in almost the same

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way that trying to make something you could sell

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for money is a kind of use. It's not to say that those two

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thing might wouldn't be good in your life but I don't think

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that they make a good work of art. They're not a good

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starting point.

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John [Delulo?] once said,"Nobody writes his first book.

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It just happens. At a certain point, you find

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that a printer is ... all these pages are coming out.

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Oh my God, I can't believe I did this! I believe that.

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Maybe it's a little different if you start late in life

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incubating an idea for a long time but most people

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when they write their first book, at a certain point,

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they realize they have a book on their hands.

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And the second book is different because then,

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you have something that you're responding to,

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you have your own expectations -- 'if you published

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your first book, you have the world' expectations.

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So I found the second book somewhat more difficult

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because of that but I started the second book

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before my first book was published so in a way,

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I was able to escape some of those traps. But

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then after I have written two novels, I wrote a work

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of non-fiction about eating animals,about animal

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farming. I think this is not a coincidence

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that I decided to move in a different direction

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because I was starting to feel the weight

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of momentum. I didn't want to do a third thing

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because I've done two previous things. I didn't want

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to make a choice about tomorrow because of what

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I did yesterday. So maybe even to a fault,

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I resisted that and decided to move off

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and try something else.

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There are a lot of ways of talking about

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choices in art. It's a mistake to think that

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the way we talk about it retrospectively

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as critics, which is very useful and interesting

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but it's a mistake that that's the same language

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of creation. Somebody once said, I can't remember

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who, maybe it was Oscar Wilde, I can't remember.

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He said, "There are only two kinds of objects

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in the world: those that charm us and those that don't

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charm us." Something can be charming in the most

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completely simple way and for whatever reason,

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it speaks to us. We like it. It is for us.

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If it isn't charming, it's mundane. It's not that

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we hate it, it's just that it has no great effect on us.

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And each person, of course, has his own or her own

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sense of what is charming. In a way, writing just

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boils down to asking that question again and again

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because it's charming or not. Something charming

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can mean that it's very painful. It doesn't mean

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that it's happy and beautiful. It can mean it's very

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ugly, that it is funny. It can mean that it is serious.

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It can be tragic. It can be comic.

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Charming just means in a certain way,

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that it's authentic and exceptional to you.

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People often ask me, why don't I write about family

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so often. I find that such a weird question.

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I don't even know how to answer because the answer

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feels so obvious to me. Nobody asks J.K. Rowling

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why she writes about wizards so much.

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That, to me, is weird. That's a weird choice she made

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that requires some explanation because nobody

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knows wizards. Nobody interacts with wizards.

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Nobody can't fall asleep at night because of their

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relationship to wizards but everyone has a family.

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Even people whose families are absent.

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Maybe especially people whose families are absent.

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These are the main themes of life

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and the main themes of literature since Genesis

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so I assume I will always write about family.

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Families is also especially important to me but

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whatever will take the form of fathers

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and sons-in-laws. Or it will take the form of

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a married couple in a comedy. That I don't know.