A writer can create a more just world in books by shining a light on that injustice.
But there is no doubt that to attempt a novel of ideas is to give oneself a handicap: the parochialism of our culture is intense. For instance, decade after decade bright young men and women emerge from their universities able to say proudly: 'Of course I know nothing about German literature.' It is the mode. The Victorians knew everything about German literature, but were able with a clear conscience not to know much about the French.
It is usually unbearably painful to read a book by an author who knows way less than you do, unless the book is a novel.
In addition I wanted to write a Southern novel, because I'm a Southerner.
Generally, I'm not anti the novel.
England produced Shakespeare, and the British Empire the six-shilling novel.
The fire burns as the novel taught it how.
'The Cauliflower' is not strictly a novel, as Barker says in her indispensable afterword.
When you write a movie, you have a hundred collaborators. But when you write a novel, it's yours.
I completed my first novel when I was 19 years old.
The novel is born of disillusionment; the poem, of despair.
The novel is an artifact, which is why antiquarians cling to it so fervently.
I was saving the name of 'Geisel' for the Great American Novel.
With a novel, there is no hurrying it. You're constantly walking into the unknown.
I'm working on a nonfiction book on Nepal and a novel about diasporas.
In a novel you have to resist the urge to tell everything.
I'm skeptical that the novel will be 're-invented.'
'The One-Eyed Man' is a novel that was one I never intended to write.
I'm not sure I have the physical strength to undertake a novel.
Narrative art, the novel, from Murasaki to Proust, has produced great works of poetry.