How writers write

The Paris Review Interviews Volume 3 Edited by Philip Gourevitch. Photo / Supplied

As a fledgling writer you are always wondering about your masters, those entities out there who are published, famous, and successful - those real writers who have made it.

The Paris Review Interviews lets you sit in their living rooms, partake in their conversations, see how their minds work. More importantly, however, it lets you hear what they have to say about the craft of writing itself, about habits, inspiration and the daily battle with the blank page.

The collection kicks off with a short, yet thoroughly inspiring introduction by literary heavyweight Margaret Atwood. She talks about the history of The Paris Review, explains how it provided her with encouragement when she was starting out, and how it still offers pertinent words of literary wisdom today. The interviews that follow are arranged chronologically.

Thus, we start with Ralph Ellison (1955), traverse Evelyn Waugh (1963) and John Cheever (1976) among others, before culminating with Salman Rushdie (2005) and Norman Mailer (2007). All offer something - a line, a phrase, an idea - that adds to the writer's world view, their understanding of what it means, and what it takes, to be at the top of their chosen profession. This collection clearly illustrates the changing ideas on what constitutes good writing.

When writers in the latter part of the 20th century began experimenting beyond modernism, there is a pronounced shift in ideas around aesthetic. Most notably, there is the constant call (up to the 1970s) for "chopped", "pruned", ornament-free sentences. This is in stark contrast with the rationale of writers (most notably Amis) from the 1970s onwards, who would rather, as he suggests, place an entire plot in jeopardy than jettison one beautifully constructed sentence.

The Paris Review is a treasure trove of inspiration. The interviewers are precise, probing and insightful, the respondents are interesting, intelligent, and, in most cases, frank - the life of a writer is a solitary one, filled with numerous frustrations, recurring self-doubt and disappointment, but none would give it up for the world.

The Paris Review Interviews Volume 3
Edited by Philip Gourevitch (Canongate $37)

* Steve Scott is an Auckland reviewer.