∞-lecture

Dandelion Wine

Première publication : 1975

Lu du 20/02/2022 au 13/03/2022, à Rennes

Dans la bibliothèque

« This book, like most of my books and stories, was a surprise. I began to learn the nature of such surprises, thank God, when I was fairly young as a writer. Before that, like every beginner, I thought you could beat, pummel, and thrash an idea into existence. Under such treatment, of course, any decent idea folds up its paws, turns on its back, fixes its eyes on eternity, and dies.
It was with great relief, then, that in my early twenties I floundered into a word-association process in which I simply got out of bed each morning, walked to my desk, and put down any word or series of words that happened along in my head.
I would then take arms against the word, or for it, and bring on an assortment of characters to weigh the word and show me its meaning in my own life. A hour or two later, to my amazement, a new story would be finished and done. The surprise was total and lovely. I soon found out that I would have to work this way for the rest of my life. »

New York : Bantam Books, 1976 (The Grand Master Editions), p. 7.