Mr. Ravenhill suggests artists are essentially setup by the time they are thirty; afterwards they refine their vision or prove their inability. “Great artists such as Bacon and Beckett distil; lesser artists become self-referential and self-conscious as their work goes on. A personally defined landscape can easily become an enclosed and introverted prison, referring only to itself.” When he picks up a novel that begins with a writer struggling over his novel, he pitches it. (via ArtsJournal)
The only novel I didn’t hate that began with a struggling writer was Enger’s So Brave, Young and Handsome.