fromThe Guardian (2 October 2021), an interview with Paul Auster about his new book on Stephen Crane, the novelist and poet.
Why did you choose to write about Stephen Crane?
I read him early, as a high-school student, as many of us did back then. The Red Badge of Courage was required reading for most high-school students. But then I lost contact with Crane and hadn’t thought about him too much. After I finished 4321, I was really exhausted and knew that I wouldn’t be able to write for some time so I took several months off to regroup. During that time, I read a lot of things that I had been meaning to read all my life. I started reading Crane again. The first thing I read was The Monster, which I’d never even heard of. I was so overpowered by its brilliance - it took me by storm and I was shocked at how good and deep and resonant it was. That inspired me to read everything else he’d written. My admiration kept growing. By the time I was done with his work I started investigating his life and realised how deeply fascinating that was. Finally, I decided to write a short appreciation of Crane.
Short?
That was my plan: 150 or 200 pages. Then one thing led to another and it turned into this new member of the Rocky Mountain chain. It’s an enormous book, I know. For a life that was that short, it’s pretty strange that I should have written so much. But it’s not just a biography, it’s also a reading of his work: it’s about evenly split between the two.
It’s a book that teaches us how to love Crane. Do you recognise yourself as a teacher?
I taught for five years at Princeton. These were writing workshops. I had a horror of them. Five years of teaching and I still have a horror of creative writing. Either you have an imagination or you don’t; either you have a feel for language or you don’t. I did have the feeling that I was an old man talking to younger people in this book. Not in a classroom, but around a dinner table and sharing my insight and enthusiasm for this writer and his work.
It feels like you admire Crane partly for how seriously he takes writing.
It’s the only way I understand writing. It’s certainly the way I’ve been all my life and it’s how every other writer I admire is – a kind of monomaniac. I’m not sure how you can make any art if you don’t treat it very seriously, if you’re not obsessed with doing it better each time.
Crane was very poor. Do we need to suffer for our art?
In order to unleash good work, there has to be something in you that feels out of balance. It doesn’t have to be financial distress - it could be emotional or amorous. Whatever the source is, the thing that has shaken life up for you, it’s distress that generates art.
Which book would you give to a 12-year-old?
I think I would give that 12-year-old Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. This person would be old enough to read it without the filter of a parent and to understand how wonderful and imaginative and absolutely crazy it is. The main thing about giving books to young people is that you really need to show them the sheer joy of reading, the pleasure it can bring you. Nothing too heavy. Books that are effervescent – that’s what creates a love of reading. If I were to give a 15-year-old a book, I’d give them Candide. That’s when I read it and it changed my life. I laughed, I was shocked and I was inspired by it. That’s what a great book can do when you’re young.
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