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"A friend asked yesterday if this blog is addressed to anyone in particular? I said yes– it’s a love letter to someone I haven’t met yet."
CarrollBlog 5.16
I'm just back from a book tour in Poland to promote my new collection of short stories there, THE WOMAN WHO MARRIED A CLOUD. Here's a link to one of the interviews I did while there:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMGzF1M5aEo&feature=colike
CarrollBlog 4.27
Polish readers-- I just heard from the publisher that the official release date of my new book is May 8. It will first appear in all Empik stores there. I'll be in Lodz/Warsaw/Krakow May 9- 12 to say hello and sign whatever you want.
The American, expanded edition of the story collection will be available in June. You can pre-order it now from The Subterranean Press.
CarrollBlog 4.25
Hey you, dragging the halo-
how about a holiday in the islands of grief?
Tongue is the word I wish to have with you.
Your eyes are so blue they leak.
Your legs are longer than a prisoner’s
last night on death row.
I’m filthier than the coal miner’s bathtub
and nastier than the breath of Charles Bukowski.
You’re a dirty little windshield.
I’m standing behind you on the subway,
hard as calculus. My breath
be sticking to your neck like graffiti.
I’m sitting opposite you in the bar,
waiting for you to uncross your boundaries.
I want to rip off your logic
and make passionate sense to you.
I want to ride in the swing of your hips.
My fingers will dig in you like quotation marks,
blazing your limbs into parts of speech.
But with me for a lover, you won’t need
catastrophes. What attracted me in the first place
will ultimately make me resent you.
I’ll start telling you lies,
and my lies will sparkle,
become the bad stars you chart your life by.
I’ll stare at other women so blatantly
you’ll hear my eyes peeling,
because sex with you is like Great Britain:
cold, groggy, and a little uptight.
Your bed is a big, soft calculator
where my problems multiply.
Your brain is a garage
I park my bullshit in, for free.
You’re not really my new girlfriend,
just another flop sequel of the first one,
who was based on the true story of my mother.
You’re so ugly I forgot how to spell.
I’ll cheat on you like a ninth grade math test,
break your heart just for the sound it makes.
You’re the ‘this’ we need to put an end to.
The more you apologize, the less I forgive you.
So how about it?
Jeffrey McDaniel
CarrollBlog 4.21
I've started doing interviews with various Polish publications in preparation for my trip there in May. Here's one of them
1.You said once that writing a 300-page book takes you about one year. But we’ve been waiting for your comeback for 5 long years… [Could you please tell us why?]
The novel I’m working on now is very different from the ones I’ve done in the past—it has many more characters and the story I’m trying to tell takes place in more than one dimension. I’ve run into difficulties telling this story and had to cut and change many things along the way. That is why it’s taken longer to finish. But here’s a secret—one of the stories in my new collection is the first chapter of the book I will write after *this* one is finished. So hopefully the wait for the next one won’t be so long. Just remember what Hannibal Lector said in SILENCE OF THE LAMBS—“All good things to those who wait…”
2. To paraphrase the sentence from your blog - is your newest book addressed to anyone in particular?
The book about to be published in Poland is a collection of short stories I’ve written in the last few years while working on this latest novel. I do that often when writing a novel—take time off from the novel and write an original short story to clear my mind of the longer work. Then I can return to that larger work refreshed. That said, the story collection is not for anyone in particular but the new novel is addressed to, well, someone special.
3. I’ve heard that trips to Poland are always a treat. [What exactly do you mean by that?
Book tours can be boring and annoying. But I’ve never felt either when visiting Poland because the audiences there are enthusiastic, their questions are informed, interesting or witty and usually fun to answer. The courtesy and generosity of spirit extended to me each time I have been there is humbling. Also the Poles were really the first to read my books with great devotion and seriousness of purpose. For that alone I will always be grateful and glad to go to say thank you.
4.Do you have any favourite places in Poland?
One of my favorite things to do in the world is sit in the great square in Krakow on a sunny day and drink as much coffee as I can while watching the world go by. I particularly love the contrast in Krakow between the ancient buildings and the young beautiful faces of the many students there. A perfect combination. I have done it often and hope to do it more in the future. Also one of the greatest meals I have ever eaten was at Restaurant Bazanciarnia in Poznan. I’m hoping to do that again too in the future—more than once.
5.You are mainly known for novels and short stories. However, you post to your blog many poems by various artist. [What’s the deal with you and poetry?]
I taught literature for many years and have my advanced degree in both writing and world literature. Before I start writing every day I read poetry because when it is good, it reminds me to be vigilant and careful with what I write. As a result, when I come across poems I like very much I often post them either on my blog or Facebook page. Judging by the enthusiastic responses of readers there, people like these poems too.
6.You are not a fantasy writer, that’s for sure. But years ago someone said that if you’d been a Latin American writer with a three-part name, your books would’ve been described as magical-realist. Do you agree? Wouldn’t that be “impossible realism”?
Categories like that are for bookstores and literary critics. In my career I’ve been called a Magic Realist, a fantasy writer, a horror writer, a mainstream writer, a Slipstream writer… the list goes on and on ad nauseum. But the criteria is simple—is the book and the writer any good? If they are, it doesn’t matter at all what “category” you think they belong in..
7.Do you have a favorite time of the day to write?
Early in the morning when my mind is freshest and full of coffee.
8.Do you know/like any Polish writers? I’m asking because few years ago [in 2009] you were mentioned in
Stanislaw Lem’s biography, written by his son, Tomasz.
I taught Tomasz when Lem and his family lived in Vienna. Tomasz read and liked THE LAND OF LAUGHS and gave it to his father. Lem was the one who gave the book originally to Fantastyka magazine and then his German publisher, Suhrkamp. We became quite friendly when he was here and had a lively correspondence. He asked me to write the screenplay of his novel FIASCO. Both he and Tomasz were very supportive and generous. I’m forever grateful for what they did for me. As to Polish writers, I have read many of them from Szymborska to Lec, Herbert, Milosz, Bruno Schulz, Anna Swir, Halina Poswiatowska.. many others.
9.Biography is an enormously popular genre now. Have you changed your mind about your biography, or is it still just “Jonathan Carroll lives in Vienna”? There are many women in Poland between age 18 and 30 waiting, you know…
I think women generally like it more when you’re a little mysterious than when you tell them everything about yourself. I have always been skeptical of these writers who say things in their biographies like “Carroll was at one time a lumberjack, a racing driver, an undercover policeman, a champion scuba diver AND bartender…” It always seems like they’re only showing off. To me the best way a writer can show off, tell a reader who they are, and make them fall in love with you a little bit is by writing a good book.
10.Nowadays many authors use Facebook to keep in touch with their fan community. Do you even consider that?
I’ve had a Facebook page for two years and have a very large following there. It can be found under either “Jonathan Carroll” or “Jonathan Carroll writer”
11.Can you give us a teaser about what are you planning to write next?
One night five people, friends and strangers, share exactly the same dream.When they wake the next morning all of their lives are changed forever. There are great dogs but they don’t talk, gods appear but they don’t interfere (much), love triangles, and otherworldly complications but hopefully they’ll all work themselves out in the end.
12.One last question – imagine yourself in hell from „The Jane Fonda Room”; which room would you choose?
Federico Fellini films. He’s my hero.
CarrollBlog 4.20
Polish readers-- Here's the schedule for my trip there in May. Some changes will probably take place but this is the general idea:
May 9
LODZ
18.00 –19.30 – meeting with readers in Srodmiejskie Forum Kultury - Dom Literatury (address: ul. Roosevelta 17)
May 10
WARSAW
18.00 – 19.30 – meeting with readers in EMPiK JUNIOR (address: ul. Marszalkowska)
May 11
KRAKOW
18.00 – 19.30 – meeting with readers in EMPiK Megastore (address: Rynek Starego Miasta)
May 12
WARSAW
15.00 – 16.00 – signing at REBIS stand (no 300) at the Warsaw Book Fair
CarrollBlog 4.16
Just got word that the wonderful e-book company 'Open Road Media' is going to publish eight of my backlist. More news on this as it comes in. For all those of you who have asked about available Carroll e-books in English, you're about to get flooded, in addition to the ones that are already available. I'm excited.
Here's their website: www.openroadmedia.com
CarrollBlog 4.14
I had forgotten completely about this until I read PC's new memoir:
“On my first night in Vienna, Jonathan Carroll walked me over to the Danube, where we sat on a flight of steps leading down to the river. The dog walkers were out in force. Greetings were exchanged with small movements of the eyes, and the dogs sniffed one another fondly…Jonathan kept his eye on a woman at the next bridge. She was moving so slowly I thought she might be leading a dogsled pulled by escargots. After an hour, the woman walked in front of us, and she bowed her head in acknowledgment of Jonathan. With great dignity, he returned the gesture. To my surprise, she was walking two enormous tortoises, displaced natives from an Ethiopian desert. The woman walked them every night, and Jonathan was always there to admire their passage.
‘That’s what writers do, Conroy,’ he said. ‘We wait for the tortoises to come. We wait for that lady who walks them. That’s how art works. It’s never a jackrabbit, or a racehorse. It’s the tortoises that hold all the secrets. We’ve got to be patient enough to wait for them.’”
Pat Conroy
from *My Reading Life*