Yesterday I had the terrific pleasure of talking to my old friend and colleague Howard Jacobson. A Booker prize winner, we could have spent an age talking about his wonderful books, but instead, I confined him to a relatively brief chat (25 minutes) about the craft of writing. It was fascinating - as I expected.
Howard isn’t at all sure that writing can be taught - only reading can be taught, and by learning to read properly you can begin to hear the ‘music’ that informs the novelist’s imagination. Plot, Howard believes, is not crucial - the music, or voice, is what carries a book. His love of classic literature - particularly Jane Austen, George Eliot and Charles Dickens - shone through the interview. It was a thrill to talk to him. We had some problems with the sound as Howard’s Internet connection kept dropping out, but it’s mostly intact.
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