Neel Mukherjee
Neel Mukherjee
novels people rather sit theory
I start with theory rather than people. I don't like novels which have no theoretical or philosophical underpinning. I hate the contemporary novel where people just sit and talk to each other about their relationships.
ate grew meat rare
I grew up in financially straitened circumstances and meat, which was expensive, was a rare thing at mealtimes. We ate meat about once a month, if that.
business defines given itself lives odd rest talk wealth work written
Given that all our lives rest on work that defines us, the business of labor, the wealth that work manifests itself to, I find it odd that not much is written about it. We talk about relationships, damage, adultery, revolution, but we don't talk about work.
work
Work defines our lives and our place in the world.
When a book is going well, it tells you where to go.
cause seems
Remember that what seems zeitgeisty today is the cause of tomorrow's bafflement or, worse, ridicule.
One writes what one can, or has to, write.
I'm much more attracted to the miscegenation of cultures than to harmony.
book call
I wouldn't call myself a 'literary critic,' just a book reviewer.
allow
I don't read my books, so I don't allow myself the dangerous luxury of toying with the idea of doing things differently.
clean either glass pane reflecting
Fiction can either be a mirror reflecting you back to yourself or it can be a clean pane of glass looking on the outside.
buy job privileged
Writing a book is as difficult or as easy as any other job. Everyone's job is difficult. So to fetishize difficulties in writing as something extra-difficult or something very privileged - I don't buy that at all.
bad experience gave outside publish reject understood
I have one very bad experience with a U.K. publisher, who gave it out to be understood that she wanted to publish my book and made me do a lot of changes, all outside a contract, only to reject it in the end.