Claire Tomalin
Claire Tomalin
Claire Tomalinis an English author and journalist, known for her biographies on Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, Samuel Pepys, Jane Austen, and Mary Wollstonecraft...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionAuthor
Date of Birth20 June 1933
kept quite realised
When I kept a diary, I realised that it was all moanings and depression, and I think that is quite common.
attention children dreadful flickering programmes
Today's children have very short attention spans because they are being reared on dreadful television programmes which are flickering away in the corner.
later music nobody passages poetry prose radio tells time
'Words and Music' on Radio 3 is always a treat. Actors read passages of poetry and prose interspersed with music, and nobody tells you what it is. Later you can look it up online, but at the time you can't cheat.
charles
Writing Charles Dickens' biography is like writing five biographies.
adopt obliged writers
Writers often feel obliged to adopt some sort of public appearance.
directed good shut towards trying writers
Writers don't make good spouses. When I am writing, I'm not a good wife. I shut myself away, and all my emotions are directed towards what I'm trying to write.
deny dickens fascinated record relation though
I have been fascinated by Dickens worshippers who strenuously deny that he did anything wrong in relation to his wife, even though the record is clear that he did.
afterwards break full state work
If I'm in a state about a book, I'll get up at 6 A.M. and write before breakfast, but usually I'll start afterwards and then work a full day with a break for lunch.
sad
I always feel sad when I come to the end of a book.
belong good richmond society
I belong to the Richmond Concert Society, who put on very good concerts.
far films invent lives nature novels plots subjects whereas
Biographies are, in their nature, far more difficult to make into films than novels, because novels come with plots constructed and dialogue written, whereas I don't invent dialogue for my subjects or plot their lives for them.
evidence signs
Biographers search for traces, for evidence of activity, for signs of movement, for letters, for diaries, for photographs.
bad choosing equally models novels offensive people poems vulgar
People who attack biography choose as their models vulgar and offensive biography. You could equally attack novels or poems by choosing bad poems or novels.
shakespeare
Simon Russell Beale is an incomparable speaker of Shakespeare and a superb all-round actor.