Last night, P and I went to Books Inc to hear Michael Ondaatje read from his book Divisadero. I haven’t read the book yet, though P — who reveres Ondaatje’s work– has. I will, though. And I do, also, love Ondaatje’s poetic, nonlinear writing. It was lovely to hear his voice reading, the lull of his accent and the different from Americanized English emphases on syllables. I loved hearing him say “Petaluma” which is where the opening section of the novel is set. I liked hearing him say how he likes the Northern California landscape.
Some of the highlights from the Q & A part of things follow.
On method: He writes in longhand. No one else can read his handwriting, he joked.
On trusting the process: He doesn’t plot out his novels and doesn’t know where they will go or what will happen. He begins with a small situation. A few characters, very vague. He lets his characters develop.
On research: He does this simultaneously, only.
On writing poetry while making a novel: He can’t do this anymore.
On living with another writer: It’s “very good!” I could be a bank robber for all she knows, he joked.
On what his novel is about: Authors shouldn’t do book tours until their books come out in paperback — up till then they are still stammering answers, i.e. don’t fully know what their books are about.
On the title: Divisadero has more vowels than my name, he joked. He professed to finding it difficult to title his work. He liked the sound of Divisadero; he liked the concept behind the street’s name: divisions, which seemed to fit or work [or perhaps extend the idea of?] the divisions in the novel.
He said many other things. In much better ways than my notes let on. I felt most comforted by hearing how it is a walk in the dark when first we start putting something to the page. Sometimes I need to see manifest, be in the presence of a good result come from that willingness to bear the discomfort of not knowing, braving the blindness, the storms.
