I only recently discovered British novelist Ian McEwan [wikipedia], but he’s quickly become one of my favorite author-speakers. While I have yet to finish one of his novels, as the author of Atonement and Solar and 30 other books, I expect it will happen soon.
This talk is outwardly about how to write about love in fiction, but becomes a wide-ranging 14 minutes on everything from what makes Anna Karenina special to why writers don’t need to retire early. He speaks more articulately than I write, and I found myself taking extensive notes.
Here are some of my favorite quotes:
“it’s very difficult to do happiness in novels in a sustained way, we really leave that to poetry, lyric poetry, which can see our moments. its the nature of the human condition that we’re only truly happy in bursts, we can’t be constantly happy”
“literature loves difficulty, thrives on conflict”
“its the fleetingness that gives love its precious quality”
“the slow collapse of your body becomes a subject in itself”
“writers don’t have to retire early, they accumulate more life, more love, more disappointments, more of everything”
on novels:
“we have not yet invented another art form that allows us such access to the minds of others”
PS. I am starting a new project, tentatively called “A Good Life” (maybe “A Better Life”), where I explain what we can learn from books, philosophers, works of art, etc about how to live a good life. To me, good = meaningful = fulfilled = happy. Expect the first video soon!