I'm the author of the novels Solip, Say, Cut, Map, The Country, and The City. I've also written the nonfiction books EarthBound and Eat the Flowers. I'm currently publishing my novel A Task via Kickstarter in order to have an hourlong conversation with each of its first thousand readers. For a decade I published books through Sator Press, and for a decade I acted in film and television; now I help students at St. John's College. More info: kenbaumann.com.
WSJ: Does this issue of length apply to books, too? Is a 1,000-page book somehow too much?
CM: For modern readers, yeah. People apparently only read mystery stories of any length. With mysteries, the longer the better and people will read any damn thing. But the indulgent, 800-page books that were written a hundred years ago are just not going to be written anymore and people need to get used to that. If you think you’re going to write something like “The Brothers Karamazov” or “Moby-Dick,” go ahead. Nobody will read it. I don’t care how good it is, or how smart the readers are. Their intentions, their brains are different.
I’ve taken to writing blindfolded, rolling my head around. Speaking gibberish, sounding out vowels and mashes of consonants. All of this, by the way, for a novel (maybe). Disclosing some history: I wrote my last one, my first first one–as my true first novel is 50,000 words of cliches and will forever live inside a box neath my pillow & bed–in 72 hours, first draft, sleeping six hours total. I feel like the fugue created by my body struggling to maintain helped me be something really desperate, which fit what was happening in the narrative. Roundabout way of asking: You perform your writing? I like to. Yell at me some, please.
p.s. no sleep is midas touch
p.p.s. The Pirahã people have no history, no descriptive words and no subordinate clauses.
‘If it moves you to attentiveness, it is art. If it doesn’t, it’s something else.’
-from an excellent interview with Milton Glaser, just one of many
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ym0LaSAn5n8
