Yes, I’m under-read in memoir, but your feeling resonates with me. I think that’s why I liked Rachel Cusk’s A Life’s Work as much as I did: it felt like it already was a novel while still being memoir-like or essay-like
Faulkner said every novel was a failed short story, but I've always felt like anything I write that is not a novel is a failed novel, that it saps the energy from what could have been a novel. Ideally I would say nothing to anybody and just swirl with pent-up thoughts and feelings until novels shoot out of me in all directions
I identify with your desire to explode into many novels. That does seem ideal. Sometimes this is exactly why I like writing things that aren’t novels, though: they feel a little wrong and inappropriate and yet still compulsive, like proof of excess energies and somehow also fuel for more energy. But that’s just a little self-myth…
gorgeous, yes
Thank you!
I've often though this when I read memoirs. Should have been novels.
Yes, I’m under-read in memoir, but your feeling resonates with me. I think that’s why I liked Rachel Cusk’s A Life’s Work as much as I did: it felt like it already was a novel while still being memoir-like or essay-like
Faulkner said every novel was a failed short story, but I've always felt like anything I write that is not a novel is a failed novel, that it saps the energy from what could have been a novel. Ideally I would say nothing to anybody and just swirl with pent-up thoughts and feelings until novels shoot out of me in all directions
I identify with your desire to explode into many novels. That does seem ideal. Sometimes this is exactly why I like writing things that aren’t novels, though: they feel a little wrong and inappropriate and yet still compulsive, like proof of excess energies and somehow also fuel for more energy. But that’s just a little self-myth…