kate atkinson

Good morning.  Well, this is an experimental post to see if it works, I have only a faint grasp of this technology.  Of course. i guess no one's awake where you are.  Since signing up to do this i realise i am exactly the wrong person as i no longer have much interest in discussions about books and authors, but most particularly about myself.  You have to understand that i'm coming from a media culture here which attempts to trivialize or demean at every turn and the only way to survive is to disassociate.  But first of thank you for choosing me to be your first book, i am very flattered, and, yes, i am aware that this is 'controversial' because everyone keeps telling me so, i have tried to ignore the argument because of reasons cited above, here controversy is nearly always manufactured to fill newspaper pages and also because there is nothing to be gained from reading negative things about yourself.  i try very hard not to read reviews and never write them, except one a piece on Richard Yates, which was more of a eulogy than a review.  i have very vicious thoughts about writers in private but would never air them in public, there is something demeaning in that, i think.  Having said that, i started looking at one 'minority opinion' and discovered what - for me - was a total misinterpretation of the first chapter - this is exactly the kind of thing that curdles the morning coffee (I have obviously been too subtle in my writing.  Note to self).  That's the thing avout books, every reading is valid, every reading is authentic, but the only true reading is that of the author. My dream/goal is to have enough money to write without publishing.  i am going to try and post this now and see what happens.

Comments

[Gwenda]

Welcome, Kate -- thanks for doing this.

I have a question. How does technology usually affect your writing? Do you use a computer or do you write longhand? Do you follow newspapers or other sites on the web?

[TEV]

No, not "unknown" per se - but "struggling to be noticed" is part of our "credo" ... Our readers appear to have been divided on just how much C.H. was struggling. (And we should note that most of the criticism was not of the book itself - which even dissenters seemed to generally like - but from our having chosen it.)

[Sam]

Here's KA's piece on Richard Yates from the Guardian (2002):

http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/generalfiction/0,,642941,00.html

"Yates is ruthlessly unsentimental in his investigations of the false self. His characters are unsure how to live, and continually anxious about the impression they are making on others. Just as Frank Wheeler in Revolutionary Road complains that 'all the people who knew how to live had kept their tantalising secrets to themselves', so the characters in these stories fret about the images they convey. In 'A Compassionate Leave' Paul Colby wonders 'how he must look to casual observers; that, for as long as he could remember, had been one of his most secret, most besetting, least admirable habits of mind'.

Veracity is everything for Yates; even when, at last, all that remains is 'stunted thought and shrivelled hope', it must be viewed with an unrelenting, truthful eye. In the hands of a lesser writer, this would be morbidly depressing, but there is something curiously and quite contrarily uplifting about Yates's pursuit of honesty. Read and weep."

[genevieve]

Kate, I wish you well in your dissident quest for personal readings. Doesn't augur well for the rest of us though!