You wrote recently, “Life is so interesting, I’d like to stick around forever”. How do you reconcile yourself to the fact that you can’t? Do you just try not to miss a minute?
Hmm, big questions! In some ways, by the time you get to your mid-fifties, you are reconciled to the way that the best times are in the past, especially if, like me, your idea of a good time has not changed that much–has not been replaced, for example, by the alleged pleasures of seeing your kids grow up. This is rendered quite profoundly I think in that recent film The Great Beauty. Many of our minutes on this earth are a bit of a bore and then something amazing comes along so it’s not about not missing a minute; it’s more about one’s capacity to recognize and respond to moments of amazingness when they happen along: which means it’s also about living in such a way as to generate or maximize the frequency with which they come along.
You seem to have always had a fairly good degree of self-awareness and knowledge. But do you think the act of writing has changed who you are away from the desk?
Yes, because it’s only writing that’s enabled me to lead the life I have with its peculiar freedoms, satisfactions and demands. But I don’t subscribe to that archetypal role of the writer as someone who is always somewhat of a spectator, observing rather than fully participating. In many ways writing has increased my opportunities for being able to join in. You know how in meetings people take ‘minutes’–i.e. make a record of what was said at these meetings? These are typically very thorough. I’ve taken the minutes from my life while in the process of leading it, very selectively and not at all reliably from the point of view of a legal record of what’s happened. In some ways the books are records of longings–which are, of course, fairly reliable indicators of the reality of a person’s life if you read them in the right way.
Catch Geoff Dyer at these SWF events: Conversation with Robin Hemley (Nov 8,4pm). Unlocking the Story in a Photograph (Nov 9, 11:30am) and Meet the Author (Nov 9, 4pm). For more details on the Singapore Writer’s Festival, click here.
