Jonathan Lethem
Jonathan Lethem
Jonathan Allen Lethemis an American novelist, essayist and short story writer. His first novel, Gun, with Occasional Music, a genre work that mixed elements of science fiction and detective fiction, was published in 1994. It was followed by three more science fiction novels...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth19 February 1964
CountryUnited States of America
character way littles
I suppose in a way most of my characters are non-consumers, not terribly interested in all the little baubles and artifacts of contemporary life.
perfection way illusion
I'm gregarious with writers and never with manuscripts . . . I [like to] create the illusion of seamless perfection, so I alone know the flawed homely process along the way.
book thinking way
The computer is the way I'm making books, but I still think about the physical properties. I visualize the length of a book, the proportions of a book, in material terms.
art want way
For me, music is sort of the art that I can't incorporate into my person the way I want to.
way bluffs destination
It was often this way, life consisted of a series of false beginnings, bluff declarations of arrival to destinations not even glimpsed.
book good-luck way
I've had the odd good luck of starting slowly and building gradually, something few writers are allowed anymore. As a result I've seen each of my books called the breakthrough. And each was, in its way.
writing bored way
I learned to write fiction the way I learned to read fiction - by skipping the parts that bored me.
influenced information obvious offer seems though tremendous visual
My fiction has been influenced by the visual arts, though not in obvious ways, it seems to me. I don't offer tremendous amounts of visual information in my work.
beginning book following move rule simple straight
I keep one simple rule that I only move in one direction-I write the book straight through from beginning to end. By following time's arrow, I keep myself sane.
actual black hole novel third
In my third novel there is an actual black hole that swallows everything you love.
emotional thinking want
I'm not planning what I listen to, except when I think the music can guide me to some emotional place I want to be reminded of.
block thinking essence
Being blocked, being uncertain, sitting there not knowing, waiting, abiding with it: this is the work. If you don't have the tolerance for that you're in great trouble. If you want to call it a writer's block... that doesn't seem a very useful name for that kind of abiding that I think is the essence of the work.
unique thinking views
I've been an advocate against the view of the writer as a partitioned genius hanging in conceptual space, or up on a mountain, a bringer of Promethean fire, some unique transmission that comes out of nowhere. I prefer the opposite view - that writers come from somewhere. They read things, and they think about them, and they incorporate other people's thoughts.
song ipods records
I had an all-Fear of Music iPod, just versions of the 11 songs from the record. No other songs allowed.