Scarlett Thomas
Scarlett Thomas
Scarlett Thomasis an English postmodernist author. She has written nine novels, including The End of Mr. Y and PopCo, and teaches Creative Writing at the University of Kent...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionAuthor
book thinking stories
I think about stories and their logic and wonder if there can be any such thing as simply "there is a book.
stories want ifs
If something wants to be a story, it will be.
real book ideas
Real life is physical. Give me books instead. Give me the invisibility of the contents of books, the thoughts, the ideas, the images. Let me become part of a book. . . . an intertextual being: a book cyborg, or, considering that books aren't cybernetic, perhaps a bibliorg.
sky colour
The sky was the colour of sad weddings.
past names giving
I always got a bit pissed off with those broadsheet sceptics who make their living being passionately angry about homeopathy, God, synchronicity or whatever, because it's as if they can't get past their emotions, and in their rage they become as faith-driven as the beliefs they criticise. I always said they give scientists a bad name. After all, science has to be about asking unthinkable questions, not closing down debate.
needs problem beginning-writers
One of the biggest problems for beginning writers is this need to over-explain.
encouragement love-is orchids
For other people, love is like some rare orchid that can only grow in one place under a certain set of conditions. For me it's like bindweed. It grows with no encouragement at all, under any conditions, and just strangles everything else.
honesty authenticity bigs
Honesty and authenticity are a big deal for me.
hate stereotype cliche
I hate stereotypes and I hate cliche.
together gathering obsession
I'm a great believer in gathering together all your obsessions and seeing if you can make a novel out of them.
divorce would-be possibility
Living for ever would be like marrying yourself, with no possibility of a divorce.
philosophy people lucky
You can't do science in a novel, but you can do philosophy. Or, if you're really lucky, you can manage to pose a question in such a way that other people will take it on.
meaningful way normal
It's not even a question of whether the universe is meaningful or meaningless. It's in what way could it be meaningful, or in what way, if it was meaningful, could that be even more meaningless than normal meaninglessness?
theoretical-physics frustrated way
In some ways I'm a frustrated scientist or mathematician. The amount of times I've thought I'd go back to university and do theoretical physics because I like the big questions, but really I know now that that's not quite me. What's me is to do it in novels.