Monday, June 05, 2006

Paul Auster on the Physicality of Fiction

Paul Auster on the physicality of fiction:

Writing is physical for me. I always have the sense that the words are coming out of my body, not just my mind. […] Not only do you write books physically, but you read books physically as well. There’s something about the rhythms of language that correspond to the rhythms of our own bodies. An attentive reader is finding meanings in the book that can’t be articulated, finding them in his or her body. I think this is what so many people don’t understand about fiction.

From “Jonathan Lethem talks with Paul Auster” in Vendela Vida, ed., The Believer Book of Writers Talking to Writers (2005).

1 comment:

Rebecca H. said...

Wow -- I love the connection Auster makes between reading and writing and the body. I too often think of reading as purely mental, but it's not. The connections are mysterious, but they are there.