I do have complicated feelings about Hollywood, but I also have tremendously affectionate ones. Matthew Specktor More Quotes by Matthew Specktor More Quotes From Matthew Specktor Hollywood is famous for breeding monsters, and having worked in the business, I've known a lot of them. But only intermittently have I ever found them monstrous. They have many other qualities. Matthew Specktor quality A Good Soldier is one of my favorite novels, for various reasons. But the class question is a good one, because it's not always easy to empathize with privileged people. Matthew Specktor my-favoritesoldierpeople The '90s were a time when not just the movie business, but every aspect of American life, became a lot more corporate. There's a line in Jonathan Franzen's essay "Perchance to Dream" about how "the rich lateral dramas of local manners have been replaced by a single vertical drama, that of commercial generality." I wanted to examine that great homogenizing force that came in during the '90s, since Hollywood seemed a place where it was particularly active. Matthew Specktor richdreamdrama Good fiction necessarily encompasses our limited understandings of one another, and of ourselves. Matthew Specktor understanding I think it's what fiction is for: to illuminate that gap between our secret selves and our more visible and apparent ones. Matthew Specktor secretthinking We're a culture that's obsessed with people who make and who squander ridiculous amounts of wealth, which seemed an obsession well worth interrogating in a novel. That probably accounts for what some have called the book's "sweeping" feel, but I don't know that I set out to be cinematic. I wouldn't know how to do that in a novel, specifically. Matthew Specktor ridiculousculturepeople I've always felt that the basic unit of writing fiction is the sentence, and the basic unit of the screenplay is the scene. Matthew Specktor scenewriting I like writing sentences. It's tactile and exciting. Whereas working at the level of the scene is a more cerebral pleasure. Matthew Specktor pleasurescenewriting I grew up with such mixed feelings about LA, but I do love it. I grew up lectured by Woody Allen, for example, that LA was absurd, worthy of ridicule and contempt. Most people seem to describe Los Angeles as elementally despicable, or as someplace that requires an apology. Matthew Specktor apologyfeelingspeople People don't seem to have a problem with a romanticized New York, in fact that's almost all they ever do, in some sense, is romanticize that place. Los Angeles deserves the same courtesy. Matthew Specktor los-angelesproblempeople My parents were very patient with my pretentious little adolescent snobberies. It took me awhile to accept them. Matthew Specktor patientparentlittles I think the publishing industry is dismayingly like the movie business. It grows more corporate by the day. Matthew Specktor publishinggrowsthinking It's hard to imagine there's a place for great writing inside a multinational conglomerate. Matthew Specktor multinationalsimaginewriting I heard a story the other night about an editor who visited the Iowa Workshop and, when asked what sorts of books she published, replied, "Classic books." One of the students asked her, "You mean like Kafka?" Apparently she said, "Oh, I don't think I would publish Kafka." Matthew Specktor nightmeanbook There was a moment when the Berlin Wall came down and some people felt, "Oh capitalism won. That's the ideology we can believe in now." Matthew Specktor wallbelievepeople During the 90s, I watched a lot of people getting fat and prosperous, and I thought, culture itself is the casualty of this. Matthew Specktor casualtiesculturepeople These are the kind of movies that only a real apparatchik, someone who thinks that corporations are people, could love. Matthew Specktor realpeoplethinking I sometimes get asked if I think about film stuff while I'm writing fiction, and the answer is, of course not. Matthew Specktor writingfictionthinking It's hard enough to make a novel a novel. I wouldn't know how to make it something else at the same time Matthew Specktor know-hownovelenough Jay-Z isn't actually any better than James Joyce even though more people understand him. I'm more interested in what's meaningful within the lives of individuals. And fiction will always be central to the lives of certain people, which is all that matters. Matthew Specktor meaningfulpeoplefiction
