@@jgrouse7201 English Translation -(from a non-french only): I wanted to live from my writing. I found that if you wanted to be a writer you must live from your writing. Otherwise it was not worth the pain. I did not want to be someone who wrote on weekends and after work… to take 15 days off to finish (something)…no, I wanted to live from writing only. And this was a gamble.. 0:50 I thought I should live in Paris. I don’t know how this came to my mind. I had more than when I went to New York or Montreal but it was almost nothing. I thought I would make decisions about that much later, and so when I turned 28 years old, I went to Paris. Why I was placed in a convent when I was 4 years old, I don’t know. If I knew that I would know why the earth turns and everything and all the mysteries. If I had had the same education like everyone else I knew, I would be like any other Anglo- Canadian - I would be incapable of expressing myself, my feelings I mean. But because I had had a strong Quebecois influence - I was not French, I was Quebecois - I had spent my life expressing myself. 1:51 Literature , it is characters. It starts with that. It does not start with a sunset. This must be avoided if you find that is the beginning, you must not read it. And you know all about them, that is what is extraordinary. Where they are going and where they are coming from, what their attitudes are to love, sex, religion, their parents. I don’t invent anything, it comes to me. It comes to me like a dream you see. 2:20 The beginning comes fast and at whatever moment…on a train, brushing teeth…and these ideas come with the characters all falling into place and if you don’t write it down right away, whatever is in your mind you lose it, so you have to be on your toes at all times. (taps on table) 2:40 Because you can't disguise it. Chekhov said..if you write that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, it should taken down and fired before the end of the novel…You should not have a detail for the sake of having a detail, or for decoration. Until just before 1996, I believed I had the desire to write overall, but I did not have the ability and I was not pleased with anything I did. The critics were reassuring for the first time of my life, and it was immense and sincere- I had the impression that I had not wasted my life.
Too bad I don't speak French. I wish this site had a translation in the transcript.
Just added english translation to interview with the amazing Mavis Gallant - Prix Athanase-David 2006.
@@jgrouse7201 English Translation -(from a non-french only):
I wanted to live from my writing. I found that if you wanted to be a writer you must live from your writing. Otherwise it was not worth the pain. I did not want to be someone who wrote on weekends and after work… to take 15 days off to finish (something)…no, I wanted to live from writing only. And this was a gamble..
0:50 I thought I should live in Paris. I don’t know how this came to my mind. I had more than when I went to New York or Montreal but it was almost nothing. I thought I would make decisions about that much later, and so when I turned 28 years old, I went to Paris.
Why I was placed in a convent when I was 4 years old, I don’t know. If I knew that I would know why the earth turns and everything and all the mysteries. If I had had the same education like everyone else I knew, I would be like any other Anglo- Canadian - I would be incapable of expressing myself, my feelings I mean. But because I had had a strong Quebecois influence - I was not French, I was Quebecois - I had spent my life expressing myself.
1:51 Literature , it is characters. It starts with that. It does not start with a sunset. This must be avoided if you find that is the beginning, you must not read it. And you know all about them, that is what is extraordinary. Where they are going and where they are coming from, what their attitudes are to love, sex, religion, their parents. I don’t invent anything, it comes to me. It comes to me like a dream you see.
2:20 The beginning comes fast and at whatever moment…on a train, brushing teeth…and these ideas come with the characters all falling into place and if you don’t write it down right away, whatever is in your mind you lose it, so you have to be on your toes at all times. (taps on table)
2:40 Because you can't disguise it. Chekhov said..if you write that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, it should taken down and fired before the end of the novel…You should not have a detail for the sake of having a detail, or for decoration.
Until just before 1996, I believed I had the desire to write overall, but I did not have the ability and I was not pleased with anything I did. The critics were reassuring for the first time of my life, and it was immense and sincere- I had the impression that I had not wasted my life.