How to Write Like Tolstoy
A Journey into the Minds of Our Greatest Writers
(Sprache: Englisch)
A thought-provoking journey inside the minds of the world s most accomplished storytellers, from Shakespeare to Stephen King
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A thought-provoking journey inside the minds of the world s most accomplished storytellers, from Shakespeare to Stephen KingNAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE SPECTATOR Richard Cohen s book acted as a tonic to me. It didn t make me more Russian, but it fired up my imagination. I have never annotated a book so fiercely. Hilary Mantel
There are three rules for writing a novel, Somerset Maugham is said to have said. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are. How then to bring characters to life, find a voice, kill your darlings, or run that most challenging of literary gauntlets, writing a sex scene? What made Nabokov choose the name Lolita? Why did Fitzgerald use firstperson narration in The Great Gatsby ? How did Kerouac, who raged against revision, finally come to revise On the Road ?
Veteran editor and author Richard Cohen takes us on an engrossing journey into the lives and minds of the world s greatest writers, from Honoré de Balzac and George Eliot to Virginia Woolf and Zadie Smith with a few mischievous detours to visit Tolstoy along the way. In a scintillating tour d horizon, Cohen lays bare the tricks, motivations, and techniques of the literary greats, revealing their obsessions and flaws and how we can learn from them along the way.
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CHAPTER 1Grab, Invite, Beguile: Beginnings
LEONARD: So what were we talking about?
KATE: The first sentence.
LEONARD: Oh yeah, Christ.
THERESA REBECK, SEMINAR, 2011
Into the face of the young man who sat on the terrace of the Hotel Magnifique at Cannes there had crept a look of furtive shame, the shifty hangdog look which announces that an Englishman is about to speak French.
P. G. WODEHOUSE, OPENING OF
THE LUCK OF THE BODKINS, 1925
How to begin? I m thinking of that moment when a writer stares at a sheet of blank paper (or, today, a screen) like a weightlifter assessing a massive dumbbell; the effort of setting down any mark seems beyond him. A cup of coffee is appealing a second cup, a quick session of emailing, a short walk, even a phone call. After all such procrastinations, a final inspiration: Focus instead on something completely different to what was planned, and likely far better. What was it Douglas Adams said? I love deadlines. I love the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.
Gertrude Stein liked to look at cows in the intervals of her writing, and would be driven into the countryside to do so. Woody Allen takes constant showers to aid inspiration. Those grandes dames of postwar British fiction, Iris Murdoch and Muriel Spark, never set pen to paper until they had thought of a satisfactory opening. A novel is a long job, Murdoch explained, and if you get it wrong at the start you re going to be very unhappy later on. John Irving, on the other hand, begins each of his novels by writing the book s final sentence.Before he starts to write, George Steiner, the polymath and novelist, takes a page of top prose in the relevant language and reads it aloud, often until he knows it by heart. But it will have nothing to do with the subject. In The Plague Albert Camus has his character Joseph Grand rewrite the first sentence of his novel eternally, with only minimal variations.
Beginnings are notoriously difficult. E. L.
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Doctorow tells of being asked by his daughter to give her an absence note for her schoolteacher. He started to write, then thought, No, that s not it, and started again. The second version didn t hit the required note either. Further drafts followed, until his young daughter was in a state of panic and there was a pile of crumpled pages on the floor. Finally his wife came in and, with a look of disbelief, dashed off the required short letter. Doctorow concluded: I had been trying to write the perfect absence note. It was a very illuminating experience. Writing is immensely difficult. The short forms especially.
He is hardly alone. The American wit of the interwar period, Robert Benchley, was at his typewriter at The New Yorker agonizing over how to begin. He got up, talked with some friends, and an hour later returned to his desk. He gathered his thoughts once more and typed out the single word The. Then he left for a party that was in full flow down the hall, but conscience forced him back. He sat down, focused again, and typed three more words, . . . hell with it. With that he returned to the revelers.
In A. A. Milne s Winnie-the-Pooh, Christopher Robin s unnamed narrator starts his tale with the words, Once upon a time, a very long time ago now, about last Friday. . . . When that time is, exactly, is not generally the issue: All that matters is that we are about to escape into a world of make-believe.
The phrase Once upon a time can be traced to as early as 1380; not until 1600 did it become a stock opening for oral narratives. It occurs in other languages too, from the familiar to the more obscure: In Estonian it s Behind seven lands and seas there lived. .
He is hardly alone. The American wit of the interwar period, Robert Benchley, was at his typewriter at The New Yorker agonizing over how to begin. He got up, talked with some friends, and an hour later returned to his desk. He gathered his thoughts once more and typed out the single word The. Then he left for a party that was in full flow down the hall, but conscience forced him back. He sat down, focused again, and typed three more words, . . . hell with it. With that he returned to the revelers.
In A. A. Milne s Winnie-the-Pooh, Christopher Robin s unnamed narrator starts his tale with the words, Once upon a time, a very long time ago now, about last Friday. . . . When that time is, exactly, is not generally the issue: All that matters is that we are about to escape into a world of make-believe.
The phrase Once upon a time can be traced to as early as 1380; not until 1600 did it become a stock opening for oral narratives. It occurs in other languages too, from the familiar to the more obscure: In Estonian it s Behind seven lands and seas there lived. .
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Autoren-Porträt von Richard Cohen
Richard Cohen is the former publishing director of Hutchinson and Hodder & Stoughton and the founder of Richard Cohen Books. The author of By the Sword and Chasing the Sun, he has written for The New York Times and most leading London newspapers, and appeared on BBC radio and television.
Bibliographische Angaben
- Autor: Richard Cohen
- 2021, 352 Seiten, Masse: 13 x 20,2 cm, Kartoniert (TB), Englisch
- Verlag: Random House Trade Paperbacks
- ISBN-10: 081298773X
- ISBN-13: 9780812987737
- Erscheinungsdatum: 05.08.2021
Sprache:
Englisch
Pressezitat
The highest compliment one can pay How to Write Like Tolstoy is that it provokes an overwhelming urge to read and write, to be in dialogue or even doomed competition with the greatest creative minds . . . . That Mr. Cohen is an editor, that his love of literature comes in large part from awe in the presence of better writers than he, is no small matter. His love is infectious, and regardless of how well he ends up teaching us to write, that is miracle enough. Wall Street Journal[A] perfect tasting menu . . . the homage of a passionate reader to the writers who have provided his main pastime. The Sunday Times (U.K.)
This book is a wry, critical friend to both writer and reader. It is filled with cogent examples and provoking statements. You will agree or quarrel with each page, and be a sharper writer and reader by the end. Hilary Mantel
These twelve essays are like twelve perfect university lectures on the craft of writing fiction. The professor or, in this case, author succeeds in being not only knowledgeable but also interesting, charming, and engaging. . . . [Richard] Cohen reveals the possibilities that lie in wait when authors practice selection and intention, sparking the literary imagination. Library Journal (starred review)
Insightful . . . [Cohen] escorts his readers to Iris Murdoch for sage counsel on launching a novel, to Salman Rushdie for shrewd guidance on developing an unreliable narrator, to Rudyard Kipling for a cagey hint on creating memorable minor characters, and to Leo Tolstoy for a master s help in transforming personal experience into fictional art. Even readers with no intentions of writing a novel will relish the opportunity to join their favorite authors at the workbench. Booklist
An elegant, chatty how-to book on writing well, using the lessons of many of the world s best writers . . . [Cohen] draws on plentiful advice from past and present literary titans. . . .
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The process of gathering advice from prominent contemporary authors such as Francine Prose, Jonathan Franzen, and Nick Hornby gives Cohen the opportunity to tell any number of amusing, often discursive stories about great literature and authors, mixed with the writers own observations. Publishers Weekly
Lush and instructive . . . [Cohen] is a generous tour guide through his literary world. Kirkus Reviews
Lush and instructive . . . [Cohen] is a generous tour guide through his literary world. Kirkus Reviews
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