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The Reason I Wouldn't Dare To Write A Western Is Simply Because That Seems To Be So Much A Part Of American Culture. Maybe If I Want To Write A Western Enough I Should Try To Overcome That Fear, But I'll Certainly Feel Like I'm Trespassing. I Feel That That Is So Much A Part Of American Foundation Myth, It's Part Of The Myth Of America, The American Vision Of What America Is, Which People Have Glorified And Then Challenged And Then Vilified.

-Kazuo Ishiguro

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The Reason I Wouldn't

Kazuo Ishiguro

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The Reason I Wouldn't Dare To Write A Western Is Simply Because That Seems To Be So Much A Part Of American Culture. Maybe If I Want To Write A Western Enough I Should Try To Overcome That Fear, But I'll Certainly Feel Like I'm Trespassing. I Feel That That Is So Much A Part Of American Foundation Myth, It's Part Of The Myth Of America, The American Vision Of What America Is, Which People Have Glorified And Then Challenged And Then Vilified.

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I Half Closed My Eyes And Imagined This Was The Spot Where Everything I'd Ever Lost Since My Childhood Had Washed Up, And I Was Now Standing Here In Front Of It, And If I Waited Long Enough, A Tiny Figure Would Appear On The Horizon Across The Field And Gradually Get Larger Until I'd See It Was Tommy, And He'd Wave, And Maybe Even Call.

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Perhaps It Is Indeed Time I Began To Look At This Whole Matter Of Bantering More Enthusiastically. After All, When One Thinks About It, It Is Not Such A Foolish Thing To Indulge In - Particularly If It Is The Case That In Bantering Lies The Key To Human Warmth.

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It Didn't Hurt, Did It? When I Hit You?" "sure. Fractured Skull. Concussion, The Lot..." "but Seriously, Kath. No Hard Feelings, Right? I'm Awfully Sorry. I Honestly Am.

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I Have The Feeling Of This Completely Alternative Person I Should Have Become. There Was Another Life That I Might Have Had, But I’m Having This One.

A Man Who Aspires To Rise Above The Mediocre, To Be Something More Than The Ordinary, Surely Deserves Admiration, Even If He Fails And Loses A Fortune On Account Of His Ambitions (...) If One Has Failed Only Where Others Have Not Had The Courage Or Will To Try, There Is Consolation - Indeed, Deep Satisfaction - To Be Gained From His Observation When Looking Back Over One's Life. #page No.134

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What Do You Think Dignity's All About?' The Directness Of The Inquiry Did, I Admit, Take Me Rather By Surprise. 'it's Rather A Hard Thing To Explain In A Few Words, Sir,' I Said. 'but I Suspect It Comes Down To Not Removing One's Clothing In Public.

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It Had Never Occurred To Me That Our Lives, Which Had Been So Closely Interwoven, Could Unravel With Such Speed.

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I Realised, Of Course, That Other People Used These Roads; But That Night, It Seemed To Me These Dark Byways Of The Country Existed Just For The Likes Of Us, While The Big Glittering Motorways With Their Huge Signs And Super Cafes Were For Everyone Else.

The World Is Crawling With Authors Touring Now. They're Like Performance Artists.

I Think I Had Actually Served My Apprenticeship As A Writer Of Fiction By Writing All Those Songs. I Had Already Been Through Phases Of Autobiographical Or Experimental Stuff.

What I Wished More Than Anything Was That The Thing Hadn't Happened At All, And I Thought That By Not Mentioning It I'd Be Doing Everyone Else A Favor.

To See The Best Before I Have Properly Begun Would Be Somewhat Premature.

All You Decent, Well-meaning Gentlemen, Let Me Ask You, Have You Any Idea What Sort Of Place The World Is Becoming All Around You? The Days When You Could Act Out Of Your Noble Instincts Are Over. Except Of Course, You Here In Europe Don't Yet Seem To Know It.

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I Wouldn't Want To Try To Adapt Something Of My Own. It Would Be Like Going Back To School And Doing All My Exams Again.

All I Know Is That I've Wasted All These Years Looking For Something, A Sort Of Trophy I'd Get Only If I Really, Really Did Enough To Deserve It. But I Don't Want It Anymore, I Want Something Else Now, Something Warm And Sheltering, Something I Can Turn To, Regardless Of What I Do, Regardless Of Who I Become. Something That Will Just Be There, Always, Like Tomorrow's Sky. That's What I Want Now, And I Think It's What You Should Want Too. But It Will Be Too Late Soon. We'll Become Too Set To Change. If We Don't Take Our Chance Now, Another May Never Come For Either Of Us.

But Then, I Suppose, When With The Benefit Of Hindsight One Begins To Search One's Past For Such 'turning Points', One Is Apt To Start Seeing Them Everywhere.

I Took One Glance At Her In That Hospital Bed Under The Dull Light And Recognised The Look On Her Face, Which I'd Seen On Donors Often Enough Before. It Was Like She Was Willing Her Eyes To See Right Inside Herself, So She Could Patrol And Marshal All The Better The Separate Areas Of Pain In Her Body.

I Spent Ages Figuring Out Things Like Viewpoint, How You Tell The Story, And So On.

There Comes A Point When You Can More Or Less Count The Number Of Books You're Going To Write Before You Die.

Even At The Time, I Realised This Couldn't Be Right, That This Interpretation Didn't Fit With The Rest Of The Lyrics. But That Wasn't An Issue With Me. The Song Was About What I Said, And I Used To Listen To It Again And Again, On My Own, Whenever I Got The Chance.

If I'm Alone At Home, I Get Increasingly Restless, Bothered By The Idea That I'm Missing Some Crucial Encounter Out There Somewhere. But If I'm Left By Myself In Someone Else's Place, I Often Find Myself A Nice Sense Of Peace Engulfing Me. I Love Sinking Into An Unfamiliar Sofa With Whatever Book Happens To Be Lying Nearby.

After All, What Can We Ever Gain In Forever Looking Back And Blaming Ourselves If Our Lives Have Not Turned Out Quite As We Might Have Wished?

There's A Practical Problem About Time And Energy, And A More Subtle Problem Of What It Does To A Writer's Head, To Continually Analyze Why They Write, Where It All Comes From, Where It's Going To.

When I Got To 40 Or So... I Had The Sense When I Looked Back Over My Life I Would Actually See A Mess Of Decisions, A Few Of Which I Had Thought About, Some Of Which I Had Sort Of Stumbled On, And Many That I Had No Control Over Whatsoever.

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Jacques Derrida

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