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 silence horror
I have a horror of silence while I'm writing. It's like the universe is howling at me if I don't have it.
communication writing language
What I'm constantly striving for in my prose is clarity. So that, ideally, the writing will become so transparent that the reader will forget that the medium of communication is language.
book writing years
I want to write books that can be read a hundred years from now, and readers wouldn't be bogged down by irrelevant details.
beautiful writing luxury
I don't want to indulge myself in the luxury of writing beautiful paragraphs just for the sake of making beautiful writing. That doesn't interest me. I want everything to be essential.
writing effort want
So much of the effort that goes into writing prose for me is about making sentences that capture the music that I'm hearing in my head. It takes a lot of work, writing, writing, and rewriting to get the music exactly the way you want it to be.
struggle writing pleasure
Writing is a necessity and often a pleasure, but at the same time, it can be a great burden and a terrible struggle.
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.
writing sometimes screwed-up
I don't write about anything I don't love even if that love sometimes gets all screwed up and tormented.
reading writing flow
Reading and writing are the same thing; it's just one's the more active and the other's the more passive. They flow into each other.
art writing listening
I listen to music all the time. I write while listening to music. And I tell myself that the music nourishes the art forms that I do master and domesticate, and have authority over.
writing littles esoteric
As much as I revere great writing, and am still humbled by it, literary activities are no longer esoteric to me. When I read a great novel - something that I could never have written myself - I'm still looking at it a little bit like a technician.
song writing form
When I write lyrics, I really do go into an automatic folk appropriation mode. I see the vernacular register of 20th century song as being a bunch of forms to adapt and reconfigure.
book writing hands
I try to write every day. I don't beat myself up about word counts, or how many hours are ticking by on the clock before I'm allowed to go and do something else. I just try to keep a hand in and work every single day, even if there are other demands or I'm on a book tour or have the flu or something, because then I keep my unconscious engaged with the book. Then I'm always a little bit writing, no matter what else I'm doing.
writing order paint
I don't paint anymore. I haven't since I abandoned it at 19, in order to begin writing seriously.