Siri Hustvedt
Siri Hustvedt
Siri Hustvedtis an American novelist and essayist. Hustvedt is the author of a book of poetry, six novels, two books of essays, and several works of non-fiction. Her books include: The Blindfold, The Enchantment of Lily Dahl, What I Loved, for which she is best known, A Plea for Eros, The Sorrows of an American, The Shaking Woman or A History of My Nerves, The Summer Without Men, Living, Thinking, Looking, and The Blazing World. What I Loved and The...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth19 February 1955
CityNorthfield, MN
CountryUnited States of America
Years ago, when I was in Siena for the first time, I saw the works of Duccio, whose deeply emotional painting from the thirteenth century has never left me.
When I was an impoverished graduate student, I would sometimes spend $20 or $30 on a T-shirt or accessory I didn't need or even particularly want. What I craved was the purchase, not the thing itself. Of course, a sense of not being deprived may fill an emotional void without ruinous consequences.
When I don't get enough sleep, I am cranky, vulnerable to headaches, and my concentration is poor.
The history of fiction is about family - an inexhaustible subject for literature. We are creatures driven by emotions that are on high display in intimate relations - inside the family.
I found myself fascinated by neuroscience, attended a monthly lecture on brain science at the New York Psychoanalytic Institute, and was invited to become a member of a discussion group devoted to a new field: neuropsychoanalysis.
My parents were gigantic influences on me. I had a deep hunger to impress my father, who was a professor and an intellectual. I wanted his approval.
I published my first poem in 'The Paris Review' in 1980.
The computer model will be replaced by an organic model, in which the brain-mind is embodied - part of a whole, dynamic, living organism: one driven by emotional forces, not only cognitive ones.
Sigmund Freud makes people irritable. Whenever someone mentions Freud, say, at a dinner party, I see eyes roll and listen to the nasty remarks that follow.
I am an American, but a sense of otherness was part of my growing up. I spoke Norwegian before I spoke English. My mother is Norwegian.
I watched 'Holiday' in college, and that was when I had my first fantasy of being Katharine Hepburn, standing at the top of the staircase in a huge Hollywood mansion.
We all live in a culture that is continually isolating feminine and masculine aspects, even when they're not related to people.
There is a difference between using a made-up name and using real people as pseudonyms. People are not costumes you can wear. They are flesh and blood.
There's a phenomenology of being sick, one that depends on temperament, personal history, and the culture which we live in.