John Irving
John Irving
John Winslow Irving is an American novelist and Academy Award-winning screenwriter...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth2 March 1942
CountryUnited States of America
everybody hard plotting
Anybody can do research. The plotting of the novel, writing the ending before you write anything else, which I always do - I don't know that everybody can do that. That's the hard part.
hundred terrified until ways
I wasn't afraid of anything until I had a kid. Then I was terrified because immediately I could imagine a hundred ways in which I could not protect him.
almost attraction england extinct novelist novels victorian
My first attraction to writing novels was the plot, that almost extinct animal. Those novels I read which made me want to be a novelist were long, always plotted, novels - not just Victorian novels, but also those of my New England ancestors: Herman Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne.
believe novel objective principal
I believe that, in any novel of mine, the principal objective is the construction of the whole.
I don't really set out to explore grand themes. I set out to tell a story. And one I have to be able to imagine right through.
either except family pages written
I don't read anything electronically. I don't write electronically, either - except e-mails to my family and friends. I write in longhand. I have always written first drafts by hand, but I used to write subsequent drafts and insert pages on a typewriter.
affinity particular
I had a particular affinity for wrestling, and it did have a lot to do with being small and being combative - and being angry. And when you're small and you don't back down, you get in a lot of fights.
pay proper sentences whatever wondering
If you're still wondering about details - how am I going to get these two to meet, or whatever - when you're writing, you can't pay proper attention to the sentences themselves.
adult event family principal
The principal event of my childhood was that no adult in my family would tell me who my father was.
kids
I never wanted my kids to feel I was more interested in anything I was doing than I was in them.
anyone bed dog
I get up early. I like to read a little before anyone but the dog is up. I also like to read at night, not in bed but just before I go to bed.
century certainly follow form models produced
I'm not a twentieth-century novelist, I'm not modern, and certainly not postmodern. I follow the form of the nineteenth-century novel; that was the century that produced the models of the form. I'm old-fashioned, a storyteller. I'm not an analyst, and I'm not an intellectual.
books full grew history lived loved russian small teacher
I grew up around books - my grandmother's house, where I lived as a small child, was full of books. My father was a history teacher, and he loved the Russian novels. There were always books around.
accident automobile good suddenly suppose time turns until
I suppose I try to look for those things where the world turns on you. It's every automobile accident, every accident at a party, you're having a good time until suddenly you're not.