2017-11-26 - 12:24 p.m.
Moods, man. Maybe the most elusive thing, both as a reader and as a writer, I think, is probably the mood of a book. Maybe it just comes out of who you are, as a person, as a writer. Of course, if you're Cormac McCarthy, that mood's gonna be: beautifully brutal. Or if the plot is dark dark dark, no upbeat voice is going to make it anything other than dark. But a lot of the books that stay in my head stay there, I think, because of the mood. Never Let Me Go, Brooklyn, The Great Fire, My Sunshine Away. They're all melancholy but not just relentlessly so (well, Ishiguro is pretty relentlessly melancholy, isn't he) with just a little up, a little happy or potential for it. I guess what I'm saying is that I'd love to write a long thing that stayed with someone for at least a little while and that was mostly pretty sad but with a little tick up right at the end. And with really good language and a little funny.
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