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
writing interesting world
The world's large enough and interesting enough to take a different approach each time you sit down to write about it.
moving artist world
Artists freeze themselves into these weird postures that are meant to be impressive and involving, then they fling them out into the world like Polaroids, and then they move on. And I'm stuck in this intense relationship to the Polaroid.
lenses world forests
You discovered yourself and what really mattered only after you passed through the lens of the fairy tale, imposed on every human female and male alike, that someone existed out in the forest of the world for you to love and marry.
brain answers world
Tourette's is just one big lifetime of tag, really. The world (or my brain---same thing) appoints me it, again and again. So I tag back. Can it do otherwise? If you've ever been it you know the answer.
laptops cafes world
I work on a laptop specifically so I can work in cafes and pretend I'm part of the human world.
moving world want
I want what we all want," said Carl. "To move certain parts of the interior of myself into the exterior world, to see if they can be embraced.
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.
target-audience generations definitions
I'm not too embarrassed to say I'm the definition of the target audience. This is my generation, the one of exalting music in album form.