No adult in my family would ever tell me anything about who my father was. I knew from an older cousin – only four years older than I am – everything, or what little I could discover about him. John Irving
Tag Archives: John Irving
When I feel like being a director, I write a…
When I feel like being a director, I write a novel. John Irving
When I love a novel I've read, I want to…
When I love a novel I've read, I want to reread it – in part, to see how it was constructed. John Irving
The principal event of my childhood was that no…
The principal event of my childhood was that no adult in my family would tell me who my father was. John Irving
I've always been a fan of the 19th century novel…
I've always been a fan of the 19th century novel, of the novel that is plotted, character-driven, and where the passage of time is almost as central to the novel as a major minor character, the passage of time and its effect on the characters in the story. John Irving
So, I don't work in terms of real time. I…
So, I don't work in terms of real time. I don't work in a timely fashion. John Irving
I believe in plot, in development of character…
I believe in plot, in development of character, in the effect of the passage of time, in a good story – better than something you might find in the newspaper. And I believe a novel should be as complicated and involved as you're capable of making it. John Irving
I think that writers are, at best, outsiders to…
I think that writers are, at best, outsiders to the society they inhabit. They have a kind of detachment, or try to have. John Irving
Your memory is a monster; you forget – it…
Your memory is a monster; you forget – it doesn't. It simply files things away. It keeps things for you, or hides things from you – and summons them to your recall with a will of its own. You think you have a memory; but it has you! John Irving
Sometimes that's a year, sometimes it's 18…
Sometimes that's a year, sometimes it's 18 months, where all I'm doing is taking notes. I'm reconstructing the story from the back to the front so that I know where the front is. John Irving