How does a novel turn into a long book?
Earlier this year, Vikram Chandra told us how he immersed himself in his most recent novel, and he didn't notice the length until he finally did a word count on his Microsoft Word document.
Today I found a thoughtful post about book length from the blog, Conversational Reading. Over there, author Scott Esposito dug through the Harper's magazine archives and discovered a priceless interview with novelist (of long, stunning novels) William Gaddis.
In this age of fluffy, short blog posts, it helps to remember why you might want to write something long--and think about the mental processes involved in writing long.
"GADDIS: If one is involved with a complicated idea, and spends every day with it, takes notes, and reads selectively with it in mind, ramifications proliferate. If one has what could be called an obsessional wish to exhaust an idea, understand it on six, seven, or eight levels, the book gets longer and longer."
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Work, right? The mental processes (which is a great phrase) are work that enables length or development and yet also enables brevity right? Gass my recommendation this morning spent 30 years on The Tunnel and both concision and 700 pages resulted. Amy Hempel, Lydia Davis another scene, I guess.
The Hood Company
Posted by: Brian Hadd | April 18, 2007 4:07 PM | Permalink to Comment