Friday 10 September 2010

"I’m tired, and all I want to do now is read"




I enjoy my work more than ever, but must admit that I, in the rush of exhibitions and new books filling my autumn days, long for peaceful hours with my favorite authors, e.g.: Annie Dillard



Pulitzer winner Annie Dillard’s second novel, The Maytrees, came out in 2007. She’s written over ten other books, but she says The Maytrees, her first book in eight years, will probably be her last. “I’m tired,” declared the 62-year-old Dillard, who says that she won’t be doing any more touring, public readings, blurb writing, or letter answering. “I worked so hard all my life, and all I want to do now is read. I’m glad to go out on this book,” she says. (The Maytrees tells the story of two married artists in Provincetown, Massachusetts, after World War II.) She did mention one, possibly tongue-in-cheek idea for further work: “To take all my never-used metaphors and just throw them up in the air for other writers to use.” Grab Bag, by Annie Dillard? “I like the title Free-for-All,” she says.

(Dillard has told Publishers Weekly that the first draft of The Maytrees was 1,400 pages long and that she ruthlessly cut the manuscript down section by section, character by character, syllable by syllable, until only 216 pages - nothing superfluous - remained).

1 comment:

femiknitter said...

...I want to have time and peace to read, too!