Alexander Theroux interview
I cracked open that copy of Darconville's Cat last month, but keep skipping back to other books.
Theroux has a new book, Laura Warholic: or The Sexual Intellectual, his first novel in twenty years, and it being put out by.... Fantagraphics? Interesting.
There's an interview over on Los Angeles City Beat. This bit tickled me:
Like his description of Eyestones, Theroux is possessed of an “assemblagist’s imagination” and an “encyclopedic knowledge of many unlikely subjects.” “Every writer writes the book he wants to read is a truism I would subscribe to,” he explains. Theroux’s books, for example, pullulate with lists. “I love lists, the taxonomy of a subject gathered in. The headline for the review of Darconville’s Cat in the New York Times Book Review was ‘Awash with Lists.’ It was a grudging review written by a peevish little cucurbit who spitefully and arbitrarily chose to blame me for a literary device – lists – that other writers of the encyclopedic novel, Francois Rabelais, Miguel de Cervantes, Laurence Sterne, James Joyce, Raymond Queneau, Georges Perec, to name but a few, were not only praised for but revered in the department of invention.”
Curcurbit? That's going in my vocabulary as soon as i can use it correctly. I suspect that he's calling the reviewer a pumpkinhead.
Lists have made me uncomfortable ever since Nick Honrnby. With this reminder, i now have an excuse.
What an arrogant bastard he is... i like him. It'll be interesting to see Bill's reaction.
