Making an Elephant: Writing from Within
Graham Swift
Making an Elephant: Writing from Within
As a novelist Graham Swift delights in the possibilities of the human voice, imagining his way into the minds and hearts of an extraordinary range of characters. In "Making an Elephant", the voice is his own. As generous in its scope as it is acute in its observations, this highly personal book is a singular and open-spirited account of a writer's life. Swift brings together a richly varied selection of essays, portraits, poetry and interviews, full of insights into his passions and motivations, and wise about the friends, family and other writers who have mattered to him over the years. Kazuo Ishiguro advises on how to choose a guitar, Salman Rushdie arrives for Christmas under guard, and Ted Hughes shares the secrets of a Devon river. There are private moments, too, with long-dead writers, as well as musings on history and memory that readers of Swift's novels will recognize and love. A journey through place and time, "Making an Elephant" is a book of encounters, between a son and his father, between an author and his younger selves, between writer and reader, and between friends. It brims with charm and candour, and tells of alertness to experience and a true engagement with words, in short, with what it means to feel that writing and reading are an essential part of living.
3.7 out of 5 based on 5 reviews
|
Omniscore:
|
| Classification |
Non-fiction |
| Genre |
Biography, Literary Studies & Criticism |
| Format |
Hardback |
| Pages |
256 |
| RRP |
£18.99 |
| Date of Publication |
March 2009 |
| ISBN |
978-0330451017 |
| Publisher |
Picador |
| |
As a novelist Graham Swift delights in the possibilities of the human voice, imagining his way into the minds and hearts of an extraordinary range of characters. In "Making an Elephant", the voice is his own. As generous in its scope as it is acute in its observations, this highly personal book is a singular and open-spirited account of a writer's life. Swift brings together a richly varied selection of essays, portraits, poetry and interviews, full of insights into his passions and motivations, and wise about the friends, family and other writers who have mattered to him over the years. Kazuo Ishiguro advises on how to choose a guitar, Salman Rushdie arrives for Christmas under guard, and Ted Hughes shares the secrets of a Devon river. There are private moments, too, with long-dead writers, as well as musings on history and memory that readers of Swift's novels will recognize and love. A journey through place and time, "Making an Elephant" is a book of encounters, between a son and his father, between an author and his younger selves, between writer and reader, and between friends. It brims with charm and candour, and tells of alertness to experience and a true engagement with words, in short, with what it means to feel that writing and reading are an essential part of living.
Reviews
The Financial Times
Ángel Gurría-Quintana
"...Swift’s book will enthral anyone who enjoyed novels such as his 1996 Man Booker Prize winner, Last Orders. Swift’s essays display the same quiet intensity as his fiction, a capacity for subtle storytelling with dark emotional undercurrents."
11/04/2009
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The New Statesman
Leo Robson
"Against all odds, this is a tender and admirable book... Making an Elephant is an unlikely work; the only recent book to which it bears any resemblance is Stepping Stones, the collection of interviews that the poet Dennis O’Driscoll conducted with Seamus Heaney."
02/04/2009
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The Sunday Times
Peter Parker
"Some pieces work better than others... recollections of close literary friends - Buying a Guitar with Ish (Kazuo Ishiguro), In the Bamboo Club with Caz (Caryl Phillips) - occasionally seem a little too cosy. However, a fine description of fishing with Ted Hughes, whom Swift knew more casually, is not only persuasive about the attractions of angling but cleverly compares the sport with the creative processes of writing. Equally good is the tribute to Isaac Babel..."
01/03/2009
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The Spectator
Jeremy Treglown
"There’s a particularly warm, vivid essay here on Montaigne. It’s an attraction of opposites... Swift, unlike Montaigne, seems genuinely embarrassed by writing about himself and perhaps this is why he doesn’t do it well: why he drops names, shows off, tells us too many times that they closed Canterbury Cathedral to the public so that the relevant scene in Last Orders could be filmed there..."
20/05/2009
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The Guardian
Hilary Mantel
"...sadly, the impression left by Making an Elephant is that a proper memoir is just too much effort. The publisher's jacket copy claims the book "brims with charm and candour". Both terms apply to an elegant little essay on Montaigne and his translator John Florio. But it is doubtful whether Swift has calculated how his personal reminiscences will appear to writers who are outside the literary world and long for the chance to publish. The book will confirm their worst fears about literary back-scratching."
28/03/2009
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