>I am in awe of Ondaatje's creative journey ... I've only recently read Billy
>the Kid and found it brilliant ... I've read everything else of his. A poet
>in novels like Coming through Slaughter and Skin of the Lion ... Ah, I would
>love my novel to be like Billy the Kid, but sadly it is turning into a plain
>ordinary chronological narrative.
Not to chime in on your conversation with Alison, but I like Ondaatje very much
too and was glad to see you mentioning _Billy the Kid_ Ondaatje's a very good
poet, I read with him at the Key West Literary Seminar and would have liked to
hear more. He doesn't talk a great deal about his work, he moves around like a
restless lion, though he was quite patient in trying to have a conversation with
Annie Proulx on stage at the seminar, she's very sparse of words, a true
Wyomingite in that sense, and it was almost excruciating to watch him try and
open the conversation and have her monosyllable it closed. Though I remember
something about his beginning _The English Patient_ with an image in his mind
of a plane crashing into the desert and horribly burned man within it and
everything developed from his questions. He does seem a most poetic novelist
in that the narrative always develops associatively,
best,
Rebecca
---- Original message ----
>Date: Sat, 15 Jan 2005 09:22:10 +0800
>From: Andrew Burke <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Novel writing
>To: [log in to unmask]
>
>Alison - I hit the 'delete' button instead of the reply button, and I would
>have replied b/c but I seem to have your email address under some mysterious
>combination ...
>
>So, I wanted to say I sympathise with you 100%, but would offer the virtual
>grapes and chocolate ... I need mouth food when I write, or at least a
>healthy willing woman afterwards ... Both is pleasant. In your case, you can
>change the healthy woman to a healthy man, if this be your pleasure.
>
>For some reason, writing poems is almost a secular version of a sacred act
>for me, and I go into a different state. That is why I have to banish such
>states while I am writing a novel. Do you find this? (Perhaps I see novel
>writing in a classical sense and poems in a romantic way - that'd explain
>it.)
>
>I am in awe of Ondaatje's creative journey ... I've only recently read Billy
>the Kid and found it brilliant ... I've read everything else of his. A poet
>in novels like Coming through Slaughter and Skin of the Lion ... Ah, I would
>love my novel to be like Billy the Kid, but sadly it is turning into a plain
>ordinary chronological narrative.
>
>More grapes! More chocolate! (Can you get decafeinated chocolate?)
>
>Andrew
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