That meme again
Sep. 26th, 2004 04:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
radegundI'm a sucker for it, so when the interview meme turned up again, I couldn't help myself...
Questions from![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
daegaer:
1. What, apart from things like being woken at night and so on, do you find is the greatest change the New Small Person has wrought in your life?
Well, I don't recall ever being quite so preoccupied with the frequency and consistency of another person's bowel movements before. Indeed, even my own have never held such fascination for me. Furthermore, I'm getting really good at one-handed typing.
No But Seriously, so much has changed that this is a very difficult question to answer. That there's a whole new person in the world, and that I am his mother, though banal in the abstract, is still a completely overwhelming thought. Then there's the fact thatniallm and I now have a blood relative in common. And the fact that Oisín's arrival caused all the family labels to jump back a notch, with brothers becoming uncles, aunts becoming great-aunts, mothers becoming grandmothers and so on.
The way I'm so totally in love with a tiny, inarticulate, uncivilised, incontinent person, who barely recognises me and yet derives his sole nourishment by sucking on parts of my body, and whose habits of peeing everywhere and getting sick in my bed do nothing to dim his charms in my eyes, is also a pretty big change...
2. Who was your favourite author as a child? As a teenager? And now? Is there any link between the styles or books?
Funnily enough, I don't really do favourite authors. I suppose as a child it would have to have been Anon - I read more or less nothing but fairy tales (the good, nasty ones) for several years. As a young teenager, I had a serious P.G. Wodehouse / Jane Austen / Arthur Conan Doyle habit. Later on I studied English and loved Shakespeare, Thackeray, both Eliots (George and T.S.), Mansfield and a fistful of American poets (Dickinson, Stevens, Plath - and Eliot, as I said). Books that have blown me away include Ford Madox Ford's The Good Soldier, Toni Morrison's Beloved, Keri Hulme's The Bone People, Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita. The F&SF strand always took a back seat when I was younger - although I have read and adored The Lord of the Rings several times since I was nine. It's only in the last six or eight years that I've really caught up on that front, chewing my way through (among others) Iain M. Banks, Roger Zelazny, Diana Wynne Jones, and of course Terry Pratchett.
What's striking about that list is, of course, the absence of Irish writers. I admire but don't love Joyce's work (and I still haven't finished Ulysses). Yeats, I suppose, would feature in my personal canon, but he never had as great an impact on me as some of those others. Wilde is brilliant, but oddly he didn't spring to mind either.
But ah, here's one: Flann O'Brien. Yessir, firmly in the pantheon, both in that guise and as Myles na gCopaleen.
Still no clear favourite, though. And if you can discern any solid links in style or substance, your eyesight is sharper than mine.
3. If you could do anything at all, what would you do right now (family may be stored safely in a box till your return, if necessary)?
At last, an easy question! I'd go to a writer's retreat (e.g. Annaghmakerrig) for a month and finish my novel.
4. What satisfaction does singing give you?
I've always loved music, whether I'm performing or listening. And I suppose I like the sound of my own voice :-) I'll sing to anyone (including myself) given the slightest encouragement. I enjoy interpreting a piece of music in a way that brings pleasure to the audience. I love the silence of people listening, and the feeling that I, too, am really a listener - the means by which the music is conveyed, but otherwise nobody special. I also get a huge thrill out of ensemble singing - the feeling of being part of a live creation, of weaving my colour into the tapestry of sound. When it goes well, there's an almost telepathic connection between the singers. That goes for impromptu drunken sing-songs (during which I'm a compulsive harmoniser) as much as for highly rehearsed chamber choir concerts. There's also the physical aspect: to sing well (and not strain your voice), you have to adopt a degree of muscle and breath control that is both calming and energising.
5. If you had been a boy, what differences would there be in your life (apart from the obvious recent one!)?
Hmmm. Tricky. Assuming that the circumstances of my life were broadly unchanged other than my sex, the main difference, I suspect, would be that social assumptions would have conspired to accentuate the geeky side of my nature earlier. I might, for instance, have role-played in my teens. I might have read more F&SF. I might even have gone into something computery (I'm fairly sure I'd make a good programmer). I'd have gone to the more relaxed boys' school instead of its uptight girls' equivalent, and might thus have been a happier young person. I'd like to think that I'd still have been into writing and music, and that I'd still have made the friends I have. Other than that, if I have to be a boy, canniallm and I be gay, or can he be a girl? If not, I don't think I'll make the switch, thanks.
Needless to say, if you'd like to ask me questions, or if you'd like some from me, comment below!
Questions from
daegaer:1. What, apart from things like being woken at night and so on, do you find is the greatest change the New Small Person has wrought in your life?
Well, I don't recall ever being quite so preoccupied with the frequency and consistency of another person's bowel movements before. Indeed, even my own have never held such fascination for me. Furthermore, I'm getting really good at one-handed typing.
No But Seriously, so much has changed that this is a very difficult question to answer. That there's a whole new person in the world, and that I am his mother, though banal in the abstract, is still a completely overwhelming thought. Then there's the fact that
niallm and I now have a blood relative in common. And the fact that Oisín's arrival caused all the family labels to jump back a notch, with brothers becoming uncles, aunts becoming great-aunts, mothers becoming grandmothers and so on.The way I'm so totally in love with a tiny, inarticulate, uncivilised, incontinent person, who barely recognises me and yet derives his sole nourishment by sucking on parts of my body, and whose habits of peeing everywhere and getting sick in my bed do nothing to dim his charms in my eyes, is also a pretty big change...
2. Who was your favourite author as a child? As a teenager? And now? Is there any link between the styles or books?
Funnily enough, I don't really do favourite authors. I suppose as a child it would have to have been Anon - I read more or less nothing but fairy tales (the good, nasty ones) for several years. As a young teenager, I had a serious P.G. Wodehouse / Jane Austen / Arthur Conan Doyle habit. Later on I studied English and loved Shakespeare, Thackeray, both Eliots (George and T.S.), Mansfield and a fistful of American poets (Dickinson, Stevens, Plath - and Eliot, as I said). Books that have blown me away include Ford Madox Ford's The Good Soldier, Toni Morrison's Beloved, Keri Hulme's The Bone People, Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita. The F&SF strand always took a back seat when I was younger - although I have read and adored The Lord of the Rings several times since I was nine. It's only in the last six or eight years that I've really caught up on that front, chewing my way through (among others) Iain M. Banks, Roger Zelazny, Diana Wynne Jones, and of course Terry Pratchett.
What's striking about that list is, of course, the absence of Irish writers. I admire but don't love Joyce's work (and I still haven't finished Ulysses). Yeats, I suppose, would feature in my personal canon, but he never had as great an impact on me as some of those others. Wilde is brilliant, but oddly he didn't spring to mind either.
But ah, here's one: Flann O'Brien. Yessir, firmly in the pantheon, both in that guise and as Myles na gCopaleen.
Still no clear favourite, though. And if you can discern any solid links in style or substance, your eyesight is sharper than mine.
3. If you could do anything at all, what would you do right now (family may be stored safely in a box till your return, if necessary)?
At last, an easy question! I'd go to a writer's retreat (e.g. Annaghmakerrig) for a month and finish my novel.
4. What satisfaction does singing give you?
I've always loved music, whether I'm performing or listening. And I suppose I like the sound of my own voice :-) I'll sing to anyone (including myself) given the slightest encouragement. I enjoy interpreting a piece of music in a way that brings pleasure to the audience. I love the silence of people listening, and the feeling that I, too, am really a listener - the means by which the music is conveyed, but otherwise nobody special. I also get a huge thrill out of ensemble singing - the feeling of being part of a live creation, of weaving my colour into the tapestry of sound. When it goes well, there's an almost telepathic connection between the singers. That goes for impromptu drunken sing-songs (during which I'm a compulsive harmoniser) as much as for highly rehearsed chamber choir concerts. There's also the physical aspect: to sing well (and not strain your voice), you have to adopt a degree of muscle and breath control that is both calming and energising.
5. If you had been a boy, what differences would there be in your life (apart from the obvious recent one!)?
Hmmm. Tricky. Assuming that the circumstances of my life were broadly unchanged other than my sex, the main difference, I suspect, would be that social assumptions would have conspired to accentuate the geeky side of my nature earlier. I might, for instance, have role-played in my teens. I might have read more F&SF. I might even have gone into something computery (I'm fairly sure I'd make a good programmer). I'd have gone to the more relaxed boys' school instead of its uptight girls' equivalent, and might thus have been a happier young person. I'd like to think that I'd still have been into writing and music, and that I'd still have made the friends I have. Other than that, if I have to be a boy, can
niallm and I be gay, or can he be a girl? If not, I don't think I'll make the switch, thanks.Needless to say, if you'd like to ask me questions, or if you'd like some from me, comment below!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-26 04:10 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-27 07:20 am (UTC)If you like, ask me questions!
(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-29 06:59 am (UTC)Questions for you:
1. How rooted are you in Dublin? What would it take for you just to cut loose and leave?
2. What's your earliest memory?
3. Do you have siblings, and if so, where do you come in the birth order? Do you think this has affected your personality?
4. Would you take up an opportunity to go into space?
5. What event in Irish history would you undo, if you could?
(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-30 06:28 am (UTC)