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
believe novel objective principal
I believe that, in any novel of mine, the principal objective is the construction of the whole.
accidents believe clear explore mapped mere necessary novel recognize route
I believe you have constructive accidents en route through a novel only because you have mapped a clear way. If you have confidence that you have a clear direction to take, you always have confidence to explore other ways; if they prove to be mere digressions, you'll recognize that and make the necessary revisions.
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.
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.
kids
I never wanted my kids to feel I was more interested in anything I was doing than I was in them.
adult event family principal
The principal event of my childhood was that no adult in my family would tell me who my father was.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
came fourth twenty
'The Fourth Hand' was a novel that came from twenty years of screenwriting concurrently with whatever novel I'm writing.