Writing a poem is like having an affair, a one-night stand; a short story is a romance, a relationship; a novel is a marriage-one has to be cunning, devise compromises, and make sacrifices.
I often write about reconciling. Reconciling, or maybe half-reconciling between antagonists, between people who are deadly enemies. I write about reconciliation, but not as a miracle, as a slow, gradual process of mutual discovery - discovering one another. I write about sad, sober, sometimes heart-breaking compromises.
I write about reconciliation, but not as a miracle, as a slow, gradual process of mutual discovery - discovering one another.
The only way to keep a dream, any dream at all, to keep a dream perfect and rosy and intact and unsullied is never to live it out. The moment you carry out any of your dreams or your fantasies - travel around the world, climbing a high mountain, buying a new house, writing a novel, carrying out a sexual fantasy, traveling to an unknown country - the moment you carry out your dreams, it's always, by definition less perfect and rosy than it had been as a dream. This is the nature of dreams.
In writing a novel, the writer must be able to identify emotionally and intellectually with two or three or four contradicting perspectives and give each of them very a convincing voice. It's like playing tennis with yourself and you have to be on both sides of the yard. You have to be on both sides, or all sides if there are more than two sides.
D.H. Lawrence, I think, defined the difference between writing an article and writing a novel very well. He said, in writing a novel, the writer must be able to identify emotionally and intellectually with two or three or four contradicting perspectives and give each of them very a convincing voice. It's like playing tennis with yourself and you have to be on both sides of the yard. You have to be on both sides, or all sides if there are more than two sides.
When I need to take a side, I write a newspaper article and I tell my government, "You should not do that, you should do this." They don't listen to me, but I've been doing this for sixty years now. But, when I write a novel, I am not in that business. I follow the way people change. I follow the way people, who are very antagonized to one another become very close to one another and vice-versa. Sometimes I follow the way people who are intimately close to each other move apart.
The reconciliation is not based on the fact that one of the characters opens his eyes and says, "O brother! O sister! How terrible I was! How right and wonderful you were! Please forgive me! Let's hug and love each other from now until the rest of eternity!" This is not the kind of reconciliation I write about; I write about sad, sober, sometimes heart-breaking compromises.
That's my gutsy advice to any young writer: write only about what you know well.
I often write about reconciling. Reconciling, or maybe half-reconciling between antagonists, between people who are deadly enemies.
All my novels are rooted in their time and in their place. The place of my novels is Israel, almost without exception. Almost without exception, my novels are rooted in Israel because that's the place I know well. And, that's my gutsy advice to any young writer: write only about what you know well. Don't write about that which you don't know.
I write in words. And my words are Hebrew words.
I write in words. I don't write in sounds or in shapes or in flavors.
My musical instrument is Hebrew and, to me, this is the most important fact about my writing.
I don't write novels about expeditions to the planet Mars because I haven't been there and I don't know anything about it.
Don't write about that which you don't know.
When I need to take a side, I write a newspaper article and I tell my government, "You should not do that, you should do this." They don't listen to me, but I've been doing this for sixty years now. But, when I write a novel, I am not in that business.
My musical instrument is Hebrew and, to me, this is the most important fact about my writing. I write in words. I don write in sounds or in shapes or in flavors. I write in words. And my words are Hebrew words.
Each time I have the urge in me to make a statement or send a message or to issue a manifesto, I don't bother to write a novel. I write an article and publish it in a popular newspaper, or I make a television appearance.
Each time I have the urge in me to make a statement or send a message or to issue a manifesto, I don't bother to write a novel. I write an article and publish it in a popular newspaper, or I make a television appearance. I would not waste five years of my life in order to send to the Israeli readers a simple message such as, "Let us change a policy or stop the settlements," Or, "Let us strive for peace." This is not what it is about.
The moment you carry out any of your dreams or your fantasies - travel around the world, climbing a high mountain, buying a new house, writing a novel, carrying out a sexual fantasy, traveling to an unknown country - the moment you carry out your dreams, it's always, by definition less perfect and rosy than it had been as a dream. This is the nature of dreams.
