Open Page with Peter Goldsworthy

Why do you write? To find out what I know, to remember what I can, and to make sense of it all – but also to make nice patterns; to get less ignorant if not adequately wiser; and because, like all obsessives, I get morose if I don’t. Are you a vivid dreamer? Yes, but I have bored so many people close to me recounting them that it is a forbidden topic. Where are you happiest? See Bruce Dawe’s poem Homo suburbiensis. With my wife Lisa, my children, my grandson; eating with friends; listening to music, watching films, theatre. Writing itself is too much a mix of extreme happiness and extreme frustration. What is your favourite word? Pass. Which human quality do you most admire? Perhaps the ones that dogs do even better. Love, forgiveness. And perhaps one that dogs don’t do: scepticism. What is your favourite book? Usually the one I am reading at the time, if it is half good. My favourite this year is my daughter Anna’s Piano Lessons. My favourite book so far this century is Lloyd Jones’s The Book of Fame, less a novel, or novelised history, than a poem about men. Last century, possibly Coetzee’s Disgrace, or Bellow’s Herzog: complete stylistic opposites. And your favourite literary hero and heroine? Kim, and Lady Macbeth. What, if anything, impedes your writing? See the answer to ‘happiest’ above. How old were you when your first book appeared? Thirty-one; simultaneously that year, Angus and Robertson brought out my first book of poems, Readings From Ecclesiastes, and my first book of short stories, Archipelagoes. Oh, what bliss to be alive! Of which of your books are you fondest? Not sure if fond is the word. I still like those that I haven’t exhausted, consciously; that sprang from some deep trench inside that I don’t quite understand. The dark story ‘Jesus Wants Me for A Sunbeam’. The unfond novel Three Dog Night. Some poems. In a phrase, how would you characterise your work? I work across a lot of genres, so I doubt a unifying field theory is possible. Hard won, emotionally and intellectually? Who is your favourite author? See answer to favourite book. Les Murray in poetry. Shakespeare, of course, in theatre. This week, Kipling in prose. How do you regard publishers? Very highly. Mine have always been good to me; and I have always liked them personally. My novels helped send two broke in Europe – one in Holland, one in Germany – so I would never criticise their commercialism. What do you think of the state of criticism? A mix of the terrific and the cloth-eared. But that also applies to the state of fiction. If you had your time over again, would you choose to be a writer? I plan to do it again, backwards, once the universe begins to contract, and I look forward to it. If I suffer a downsize reincarnation as a cockroach, I’ll jump from the screen onto the keyboard with my head. Keyboards, fortunately, are a lot softer than in the days of Archy and Mehitabel. What do you think of writers festivals? I like catching up with writer friends and hearing from my readers. Do you feel artists are valued in our society? Our value is probably about right; it’s just that sportspeople, politicians, supermodels and Hollywood royalty are a tad overvalued. But they belong to the fifteen-minute Zeitgeist; they must seize it while they can. What are you working on now? A book of short stories at correcting page-proof stage; a book of love poems at submitting stage; a cycle of songs with the composer Graeme Koehne at humming stage; and another play script in treatment stage. Peter Goldsworthy’s most recent novel, Everything I Knew (2008) was shortlisted for the 2009 Prime Minister’s Literary Award for fiction. Previous books include Maestro (1989), Wish (1995) and Three Dog Night (2003). A new collection of short stories, Gravel, is due from Hamish Hamilton in March 2010.

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