On the 8 April, I went for the interview with Kent Meyers in Phelma, Grenoble, discussing a little bit about his latest published book, Twisted Tree. I am really honoured to be able to meet an author, who I read his work. There was a strange sensation at first when meeting someone who I read so much about online and after all those videos I watched about him. For the following, I would only touch a little bit about his book, and more focused on the interview and his talk.
Uncertain about the future
Surprisingly, he hadn't been involved in literature until he was around 23 or 24, when he suffered educational crisis. He had been in the field of science and maths before that and nearly quit school. Soon he changed his major into English, and graduated with a Master degree in English. I feel so related to him when he talked about this, since I am having a more or less similar dilemma now. I am not sure whether science is the right path for me, eventhough I consider myself quite good at it.
Secrets occupy a big part of our life
As he talked about the book, he mentioned that secret is a way to enrich our life, unless it moves to another level when the secret itself is going to hurt another people. For me, learning to keep secrets has somehow becomes a step to be an adult. Sharing a secret to someone, basically telling the person indirectly : I trust you, as if the secret is a gift. As we read through the Twisted Tree, we are also learning the darkest secrets of the characters. Most of the secrets might seem insignificant to us, but certainly it is a big deal for the person concerned. A secret is called secret for a reason or another, and for that reason, people won't tell their secret easily.
Why only classics and not contemporary?
When he graduated from university, he said he was still not into writing yet. He was kinda stuck when trying to come out with something to write. His friend then suggested him to read some contemporary literature. It was this time, that his mind was opened. He was introduced to different new ways to write, different formats for a novel, etc.. In fact, all he had learnt in university was all classical literature. So he said, why schools teach only classics while we are living in the modern times, constantly immersed in contemporary works. I think many subjects taught in schools have the same problem. Even for science and maths, we must learn the classical physics, Newton's three laws, Maxwell's classical electromagnetism, etc. in primary and secondary schools, without anyone telling us that these laws aren't quite true, that they are simply approximated laws to describe the real world. Most of us would have thought that those classics are the truest and the truest they can ever be, until university level, when quantum mechanics and Einstein's relativity are taught and shatter all the truths that we had learnt before. There are videos from minutephysics explaining many misconceptions we learnt since we were young. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGL22PTIOAM and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IM630Z8lho8)
Creativity = Imagination and Discipline
This is perhaps what I consider as the most important point he said during the talk. He said many people think creativity is equal to imagination. But wrong! Creativity involves an crucial word - create. It must involve the actual making and creating, from nothing to something, which takes a huge amount of self discipline to do so. Kent's routine is very rigourous, as a university lecturer, he wakes up at five everyday to write until nine, before he goes to work. Yes, everyone can write and everyone has some awesome ideas, but not many have the discipline to make it really happens. And so not everyone of us is an author.
Writing = translating life?
He mentioned this point when talking about translated version of his book. To my surprise, Twisted Tree is his first book to ever be translated into other language, and the first language to be translated into is French. This point he mentioned is quite interesting. In fact, I think not just writers, many artists are trying to do so also, translating life with different forms of art. However, it is more obvious in his case though, as most of his works are focused on capturing people's daily lives.
The power of a mustache
After reading the first chapter of Twisted Tree, the most creepy chapter of all, and seeing the photo of him at the back cover of the book, with his mustache, I expected him to be someone with deep voice and super serious. But it is totally the opposite. He has a lovely voice, and humourous at the same time. It is someone I want to sit down and listen to for hours. I think the mustache is all that made me think that he is a serious person. I wonder how he would look like without the mustache.
An index for chaos
A word of mine about Twisted Tree : puzzle, a criss cross puzzle more precisely. While reading, I lost track of characters and events for so many times. For this kind of work, Kent Meyers did say that he has an index for himself just to keep track of what seemingly called a chaos. However, among all the books I had read before, Twisted Tree is still not as complicated as The Golden Notebook from Doris Lessing. I am not trying to say which is better. They are both good, just that the puzzle feeling of Twisted Tree reminds me of The Golden Notebook.
At the end of the talk, everybody with his book lined up for his signature. When it was my turn, I asked him a question about the book : Why in some chapters we read the stories as the third person, while in the other as the first person? He was puzzled for a while, and gave me a blurred answer. Blurred may be because it was such a thrilling experience for me to be so up closed with an author, and I couldn't focus myself at all. But i did catch a sentence from him : It is a clever question. And that sentence from him basically made my day.
However, I did think about my question afterwards. I think, for some characters, Kent Meyers subconsciously want to be him or her, or he found some relatable characteristics between himself and the character, and so he used the first person. The other time, he used the third. Like the first chapter about the murderer, he used the third person, as I assume that it is just too hard for any sane mind to put himself in the shoes of a serial killer.
And here is the introduction to Twisted Tree, by Kent Meyers himself.
As he talked about the book, he mentioned that secret is a way to enrich our life, unless it moves to another level when the secret itself is going to hurt another people. For me, learning to keep secrets has somehow becomes a step to be an adult. Sharing a secret to someone, basically telling the person indirectly : I trust you, as if the secret is a gift. As we read through the Twisted Tree, we are also learning the darkest secrets of the characters. Most of the secrets might seem insignificant to us, but certainly it is a big deal for the person concerned. A secret is called secret for a reason or another, and for that reason, people won't tell their secret easily.
Why only classics and not contemporary?
When he graduated from university, he said he was still not into writing yet. He was kinda stuck when trying to come out with something to write. His friend then suggested him to read some contemporary literature. It was this time, that his mind was opened. He was introduced to different new ways to write, different formats for a novel, etc.. In fact, all he had learnt in university was all classical literature. So he said, why schools teach only classics while we are living in the modern times, constantly immersed in contemporary works. I think many subjects taught in schools have the same problem. Even for science and maths, we must learn the classical physics, Newton's three laws, Maxwell's classical electromagnetism, etc. in primary and secondary schools, without anyone telling us that these laws aren't quite true, that they are simply approximated laws to describe the real world. Most of us would have thought that those classics are the truest and the truest they can ever be, until university level, when quantum mechanics and Einstein's relativity are taught and shatter all the truths that we had learnt before. There are videos from minutephysics explaining many misconceptions we learnt since we were young. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGL22PTIOAM and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IM630Z8lho8)
Creativity = Imagination and Discipline
This is perhaps what I consider as the most important point he said during the talk. He said many people think creativity is equal to imagination. But wrong! Creativity involves an crucial word - create. It must involve the actual making and creating, from nothing to something, which takes a huge amount of self discipline to do so. Kent's routine is very rigourous, as a university lecturer, he wakes up at five everyday to write until nine, before he goes to work. Yes, everyone can write and everyone has some awesome ideas, but not many have the discipline to make it really happens. And so not everyone of us is an author.
Writing = translating life?
He mentioned this point when talking about translated version of his book. To my surprise, Twisted Tree is his first book to ever be translated into other language, and the first language to be translated into is French. This point he mentioned is quite interesting. In fact, I think not just writers, many artists are trying to do so also, translating life with different forms of art. However, it is more obvious in his case though, as most of his works are focused on capturing people's daily lives.
The power of a mustache
After reading the first chapter of Twisted Tree, the most creepy chapter of all, and seeing the photo of him at the back cover of the book, with his mustache, I expected him to be someone with deep voice and super serious. But it is totally the opposite. He has a lovely voice, and humourous at the same time. It is someone I want to sit down and listen to for hours. I think the mustache is all that made me think that he is a serious person. I wonder how he would look like without the mustache.
An index for chaos
A word of mine about Twisted Tree : puzzle, a criss cross puzzle more precisely. While reading, I lost track of characters and events for so many times. For this kind of work, Kent Meyers did say that he has an index for himself just to keep track of what seemingly called a chaos. However, among all the books I had read before, Twisted Tree is still not as complicated as The Golden Notebook from Doris Lessing. I am not trying to say which is better. They are both good, just that the puzzle feeling of Twisted Tree reminds me of The Golden Notebook.
At the end of the talk, everybody with his book lined up for his signature. When it was my turn, I asked him a question about the book : Why in some chapters we read the stories as the third person, while in the other as the first person? He was puzzled for a while, and gave me a blurred answer. Blurred may be because it was such a thrilling experience for me to be so up closed with an author, and I couldn't focus myself at all. But i did catch a sentence from him : It is a clever question. And that sentence from him basically made my day.
However, I did think about my question afterwards. I think, for some characters, Kent Meyers subconsciously want to be him or her, or he found some relatable characteristics between himself and the character, and so he used the first person. The other time, he used the third. Like the first chapter about the murderer, he used the third person, as I assume that it is just too hard for any sane mind to put himself in the shoes of a serial killer.
And here is the introduction to Twisted Tree, by Kent Meyers himself.
No comments:
Post a Comment