Lev Grossman
Lev Grossman
Lev Grossman is an American novelist and journalist, notably the author of the novels Warp, Codex, The Magicians, The Magician King, and The Magician's Land. He is a senior writer and book critic for TIME...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth26 June 1969
CountryUnited States of America
nerd paper fans
I recognize that on paper, you can't really tell that I'm a fan or a nerd.
good particular
What surprised me about 'The Casual Vacancy' was not just how good it was, but the particular way in which it was good.
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I've read plenty of J.G. Ballard, but I'm not really a Ballardian. I've met Ballardians, and I know when I can't compete. I like Ballard in his relatively unchallenging apocalyptic mode: 'Vermilion Sands,' 'The Drowned World,' 'The Burning World,' 'The Crystal World.'
bubble claimed fact inside key languages learn life literally several speak spent though trapped trying
Even though I have spent literally years of my life trying to learn another language, any other language - and even though I have in the past claimed in several key professional contexts that I speak other languages - I am in fact still trapped inside the bubble of English.
current figure guess healthier literary publishers retailers run
Which is the healthier kind of literary diversity: an un-gate-kept self-published book world, run substantially through Amazon? Or our current book world, which is part-gate-kept, part-not, with many different publishers and retailers and platforms? I'm not smart enough to figure it out, but if I had to guess I'd guess the latter.
ahead author except fact hating human tempting unlike
Hating a book is not unlike hating a person; in fact it's tempting to just go ahead and hate the author personally, by proxy, qua human being, except that I know that would be a mistake.
hours known spent work
I have spent many, many hours reading J.K. Rowling's work. I am a known 'Harry Potter' fan.
both casual crashing distorting high low open possible pretending
It's not really possible to open 'The Casual Vacancy' without a lot of expectations both high and low crashing around in your brain and distorting your vision. There's no point pretending they're not there.
low medium novel novels seems vast
It seems to me that the novel as a medium has a very low signal-to-noise ratio. By which I mean: there are a lot of novels published, but the vast majority of them don't represent major contributions to the medium.
ahead courses decided french simply speak spend taught time took
When I got to college I simply decided that I could speak French, because I just could not spend any more time in French classes. I went ahead and took courses on French literature, some of them even taught in French.
based inadequate might understanding worked
When I left college I thought - based on a staggeringly inadequate understanding of how the world worked - that I might like to go into book publishing.
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It's no longer possible to simply build English country houses out of words, because they've already been so thoroughly described that all the applicable words have been used up, and one is forced to build them instead out of words recycled and scavenged from other descriptions of other country houses.
business company diet drunk profitable trying
I've drunk Amazon's free Diet Coke. Nothing makes more sense to me than a company trying to make bookselling into a profitable business. I'm not anti-Amazon, and I'm not pro-publishers either. I'm pro-books.
attached devoted felt fiction punished science stigma
Growing up in the '70s and '80s, science fiction and especially fantasy had such a stigma attached to them. I felt so punished and exiled for being devoted to these things.