TOBY LITT

Toby Litt is a London-based writer whose acclaimed books of fiction include Corpsing, deadkidsongs, Exhibitionism, and, most recently, Finding Myself. His new novel, Ghost Story, will be published in October 2004. He has toured internationally with the British Council, and is co-editor (with Ali Smith) of the next New Writing collection, due out in March 2005. His website is at www.tobylitt.com and he has an entry on Contemporary Writers. Visitors to the enCompass site were given the opportunity to submit questions as part of this interview, hosted by reader in residence Susan Tranter, which took place in March 2004.

Susan: Thanks for taking part in this enCompass interview Toby. What are you reading at the moment? Are you one of these people with lots of things on the go at once, and an enormous ‘must read’ pile?

TL: As I’ve just finished editing the New Writing anthology for next year, my ‘must read’ pile has changed in nature. For the last nine months, a large slice of it has been manuscripts.

At the moment I am reading works in translation – a visit to Barcelona last month made me realise how easy it is to slip into parochialism. So, I’ve read Robert Musil’s The Confusions of Young Törless, Rilke’s The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge, Robert Walser’s Institute Benjamenta and Arthur Schnitzler’s Dream Story. All of these were written in German in the first quarter of the twentieth century.

Susan: What kind of things do you read when you’re writing? Do you worry about influences from your reading creeping in when you’re working on something?

TL: I’d say that I encourage influences but also that I try to control them. There are some writers whose work is likely to stop you dead, if you read them at the wrong moment; others – for example, Whitman or Blake – will help you flow.

I tend to read around the subject I’m writing about. But the connections aren’t always obvious. For Finding Myself I intended to read everything Virginia Woolf ever wrote. But, of course, I didn’t. And I’m sure it would have harmed the book if I had.

Bingbing, China: I know you are a very very busy person, and spend a lot of time on travel and some educational events around the world every year. I am curious to know how you find enough time to focus on creating new work? I don’t think you always prefer to write on a bumping train, right? ;)

TL: (Hello, Bingbing. How are you?)

I am trying to learn to say no – no to reviewing, no to events that will take up too much time. However, some of the opportunities I am offered are irresistible. Going to China last November was definitely one of these.

You never know what is going to be useful for writing and what will be a waste of time. Being stuck in an airport could give you the chance to write a story; being guided around a fascinating museum could result in nothing.

Trains are perhaps my favourite place for writing. A number of the stories in my first book, Adventures in Capitalism, were written on the train to Norwich, where I was studying creative writing. I like to be able to look up from the page at the landscape moving along. There are trains at the bottom of my garden.

Dan, UK: Please ask Toby whether, as someone who writes novels and short stories (I don’t know if he still writes poems too) – which genre he enjoys most, and if there is there a literary form he hasn’t tried yet which might tempt him in future?

TL: I still do write poems, but only a very few a year.

I find this a hard question to answer. The truth is that there is a short story writer inside me and also a novelist and also a poet. They spend quite a bit of time fighting for control of my hands. When I’m not concentrating on a novel, I start writing stories, and when I’m not writing stories, I may write a poem. The novelist is the most disciplined, so he gets me most of the time; the short story writer is the most importunate, so he can shut the novelist up if he feels like it; the poet is the most timid, and doesn’t like all the fighting – he’s also the oldest.

Catriona, New Zealand: I’m curious as to whether Toby did much research for his novel Finding Myself – i.e. did he read through mounds of books with fluorescent pink covers to give himself an understanding of chick lit? If so, did he think any of them were good books with anything relevant to say about women’s lives today?

TL: I did do research, but not so much into chick lit. I have read a few of those books, and I know a couple of authors who would be classified as writing them (Jenny Colgan and Lisa Jewell). They are not, I should add, the models for the narrator.

One of the things I was interested in doing, in Finding Myself, was writing in lots of ways that are considered as feminine. And so, I used a lot of the supposedly feminine forms: diaries, letters, notes. I also focussed very much on the domestic. I read things like Japanese Pillowbooks and Virginia Woolf’s diaries. There’s also some Daphne du Maurier in there, some Jane Austen… So, my research was really everything I knew about women’s writing.

Li Zhao, China: How are you Toby? I am Zhao Li, who accompanied you on the train travelling across China. I enjoyed the trip very much and miss you guys. Is there any new book / article you have written after the trip? Has the trip changed your view about China? Would you like to come over again?

TL: Ni hao, Li Zhao. It’s good to hear for you. I miss you, too.

All the British writers have now contributed to an anthology that is going to be published in China, following on from the Writers’ Train. I have written a piece for that called ‘What I expected and what I remember’. I hope you’ll get a chance to read it.

Yes, my view of China did change. The question of ‘how?’ is so big as to become almost philosophical. What I think is that China is the future of the world, so the rest of the world should care intensely about what is happening in China. I think about what I saw on my visit every day.

I will definitely be returning, and as soon as possible.

Michael B, UK: Which writers would you say have influenced your style? For instance, I read deadkidsongs and it reminded me of William Golding’s Lord of the Flies: was that a conscious echo?

TL: Lord of the Flies is one of those stories that approach the status of myth. It’s part of a line of books which use gangs of children to explore how society constructs itself. For example, The Coral Island. It’s also an island book, like Robinson Crusoe or The Beach. I wanted to rewrite that myth, in my own way.

I don’t think my prose style has a great deal in common with William Golding’s. He doesn’t get a great deal of respect in the UK – not enough, I’d say. I read The Inheritors recently, which is a very daring book. In deadkidsongs I used different voices for different chapters. One chapter was Winston Churchill. But I didn’t do the rugged Golding style.

Indrani Bhattacharya, India: This is not a question but something I would like to share. We got a copy of Toby Litt’s Corpsing as a sampler for our library at British Council Kolkata. The book has been borrowed 25 times since August 2002. I am sure readers have loved Toby’s style and storytelling.

TL: All I can say is, I hope they did. Thank you.

Susan: What’s most important to you when choosing something to read: personal recommendation from a friend, reviews in the press or prizes a book has won, or just your personal reaction to a book’s cover/blurb?

TL: Of those options, it will probably be a friend’s recommendation – I think this is the same for almost everyone.

But a lot of the time I am trying to fill in what I feel are gaps in my reading. Because I did an English Literature degree, I am reasonably well read in Beowulf to Virginia Woolf. But there are so many other literatures of which I know very little. Recently, I’ve been using Harold Bloom’s The Western Canon as a way to remind myself of my ignorances. I am reading Don Quixote.

I try to avoid reading blurbs.

Susan: What recent book would you recommend to enCompass visitors that hasn’t had the attention it deserves?

TL: There was a novel which came out last year by Tony White called Foxy-T. A lot of writers have tried to capture London in panoramic novels such as White Teeth. Foxy-T limits itself to the world of an internet and long-distance call shop. It has a fantastic ear for the speech of London – for how many different Englishes are meeting here.

Susan: Thanks for taking part Toby.

TL: Thanks to you, and to all the questioners. I very much appreciate their interest in my writing.

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