She understood that her heart operated on its own instructions, that she had no control over it or, indeed, anything else. Jeffrey Eugenides More Quotes by Jeffrey Eugenides More Quotes From Jeffrey Eugenides When I'm creating a character, it's a little bit like what my theater teachers used to tell me about Stanislavsky, like if you're using sense memory to do a scene - if you have to cry in a scene, you try to remember something in your life that made you cry and you use that in order to get the tears. Jeffrey Eugenides teacher character memories There's a kind of acting that goes on in my head when I'm writing a character where I put myself in their place. Jeffrey Eugenides acting writing character If I write a character, instead of looking from the outside, like maybe a journalist would, trying to describe them physically and figuring out what kind of things they might be interested in or have in their house, I don't really do it that way. I try to feel what it would be like to be inside this person, to be them. Jeffrey Eugenides house writing character Detroit's a great music town. If your interaction with it was mainly musical, I'm sure you have a good opinion of the place. Jeffrey Eugenides detroit towns musical I remember liking to write stories pretty early on. In fourth or fifth grade, they would give us the beginning of a story, and we were supposed to finish it. I remember liking that. But I didn't think about deciding to become a writer until high school at about the age of 16. Jeffrey Eugenides writing school thinking I'm constantly having doubts and moments of depression and then excitement and then back into the slough of despond. Jeffrey Eugenides excitement moments doubt I wanted to be an actor. My parents were not too keen on that. Jeffrey Eugenides actors parent wanted I mean, when I got to Brown, the place was riven, because you had older professors who were basically new critics and had been teaching a certain way for 30 years. And then you had this other gang who was down with the semiotic program. And as a student, you were, in a way, forced to choose which cohort you were going with. Jeffrey Eugenides down place you way The book has many different characteristics: some are extremely old-fashioned storytelling traits, but there are also a fair number of postmodern traits, and the self-consciousness is one. Jeffrey Eugenides some storytelling different book At the same time, it's a family story and more of an epic. I needed the third-person. I tried to give a sense that Cal, in writing his story, is perhaps inventing his past as much as recalling it. Jeffrey Eugenides story family time past It wasn't conscious, but I guess that one book is the reaction to the other. The first is so imprisoned in a male point-of-view, and the second is a point-of-view that can go anywhere it wants. Jeffrey Eugenides reaction first go book It was painful, but sometimes you must have these painful moments where you tear yourself away from something that isn't working. Jeffrey Eugenides yourself you moments sometimes I was directed because I knew I wanted to be a novelist, but I didn't have a very good job or a way of getting published. I found those years to be among the most difficult of my life. Jeffrey Eugenides my-life job good life It was a recession when I graduated, but I was so unequipped to have a job anyway, I don't think it would have mattered if the economy was booming. I think I was expecting bad jobs. But as it went on through my 20s, I began to wonder how things were going to turn out. Jeffrey Eugenides job bad think wonder I'm aware of cliches and I'm aware of experiments that have been done and I'm aware of a kind of deadness to a lot of realism both in the language and in the structure of a book. Jeffrey Eugenides structure language done book
