Do you find that as someone whose job it is to create fiction that that affects the way you experience the world? In other words, is there a kind of opportunism that is peculiar to fiction writers, whereby experiences are seen as raw material for your work?
I actually hate that idea. I hate it.
Okay, but does it happen to you?
No. I never want to interact with somebody and think how they would be as a character in a book, because I care more about the interaction than I do the book. If I had to choose between writing books and being out in the world and having friends and talking to people, I would choose the world. I never want my writing to condescend to the world. It doesn’t have to. I don’t have to say, ‘Here’s a set of observations I’ve made about how things are, and now I’m going to express it in such a way that I can make a point.’ I like much more the idea of writing being a continuation of the world, rather than an observation of it. I want to write something that is itself more life. There’s nothing I want to explain, and I don’t trust writers who explain things about life and make those astute observations. People who write about, like, the environmentalist who drives an SUV. Like, ‘Isn’t that great how I just made an observation that proved some irony in this person’s life?’
So you don’t see writing as a pinning down of experience?
No, I see writing as experience. I want my book to be experience. When somebody reads it I don’t want them to be saying ‘Oh, yes, I’m reflecting on life,’ I want them to say ‘I am feeling a life.’
