“I'm being provided with some emotional ballast by giving me an intimate portrait of one character in particular in contrast to the collective. I'm fortunate that I had very sympathetic readers, but ordinarily - if a book makes you laugh too much, it shifts from "literature" to "entertainment."” GivingBookCharacterLiteratureLaughingEmotionalIntimateContrastSympathetic Author:Joshua Ferris
“There were times where I felt I was pressing a little bit too hard with the humor, and I had to pull back, because the overriding concern of the book was to create this disease that had no cure and make you pay attention to every emotional stage of what happens.” BookAttentionEmotionalConcernPay Attention Author:Joshua Ferris
“The thing is, for me, as a fiction writer, I don't think there's a finer testament to our lives than this thing that's being spurned - the emotional intelligence, the ethics, the beauty. It's all there. It's all so fully contained in a novel that succeeds. But at the same time, I understand the impulse to put away childish things.” ThinkingNovelEmotionalSucceedEthicsImpulse Author:Joshua Ferris
“Names generate meaning in a short amount of space — they provoke thoughts, questions. That's something I like doing. Of course, you have to be careful. Sometimes it can alienate the reader, it can be another level of mediation, to make a character carry the great burden of a metaphoric name. The character can be a device before he or she becomes a person, and that can be a bad thing for a writer who wants to offer up a kind of emotional proximity in the work. It's a constant struggle, the desire to be playful and the desire to communicate on some very stark emotional level.” WantKindPersonsSometimesCharacterDesireCoursesNamesSpaceLevelsStruggleEmotionalReaderAmountOffersConstantCarefulCommunicateBurdenDevicesWorking ItBad ThingsBe CarefulProvokingStarksMediationProximityConstant StruggleMetaphoric Author:Joshua Ferris
