There’s something voyeuristically thrilling about knowing what other people’s reading habits are. The Reader is a brief interview inspired by the Proust Questionnaire, which was itself inspired by a 19th century party game. We ask readers, writers, publishers and book-lovers everywhere (including our own staff) to answer eleven questions about the books they love, what they have been reading and their literary habits.
Author of 100 Traditional Smiles, Musica Ficta and A Boy and His Uncle, Anne Kennedy is a poet, novelist and screenwriter. Dividing her time between Auckland and Honolulu, Kennedy’s latest novel The Last Days of the National Costume is a terrific, multi-faceted story set during the 1998 five-week blackout in central Auckland.
What are you currently reading and how did you discover the book?
A Heart so White, by Javier Marias, recommended by Eleanor Catton.
Who are your favourite writers and what do you love about them?
Peter Carey, Anne Carson, Janet Frame, Albert Wendt, E.M. Forster, F. Scott Fitzgerald. I love them for all the same reasons: They all tell ripping psychological stories; they have authorial distance but appear not to; they uncover the funniest, wisest, most heartrending aspects of human nature; no one else sounds like them, and each of their books sounds and is different from the others.
I could go on, and will: Philip Roth, Marguerite Duras, Kazuo Ishiguro, Zadie Smith, Ian McEwan, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, various Brontë’s, James Joyce and Roddy Doyle.
What books are on your bedside table?
Read, but still there (totally enjoyed): Walking with McCahon, by Martin Edmond; NW, by Zadie Smith; The Family Songbook, by John Newton; The Settlers’ Plot, by Alex Calder; The Writing Class, by Stephanie Johnson; Sweet Tooth, by Ian McEwan, Tenth of December, by George Saunders, In Cold Blood; by Truman Capote (research).
In-tray: Complete Emily Dickinson (research); Red Dust Road, by Jackie Kay; Salvage the Bones, by Jesmyn Ward; Scenes from a Provincial Life, by J.M. Coetzee; The Elusive Language of Ducks, by Judith White; The Inferno, Pinsky’s translation (dipping into).
What is your favourite book to film adaptation?
I tend to follow what particular directors do with novels, and of those I like the ones that don’t take too many liberties with the text. I like A Room with a View – I love the novel and the adaptation – and everything else Ishmael Merchant did. I like Kubrick’s adaptations of A Clockwork Orange (have to hide my eyes sometimes, though), and Barry Lyndon. For the same reason, I enjoy the adaptations of the first two Harry Potter books by Chris Columbus.
What book have you re-read the most and why?
I re-read quite a few things, partly because I like books that can’t be swallowed whole, but even when they can, I like the pleasure of, in a way, walking with the author. But Howard’s End, which I first read when I was about sixteen, is probably my all-time most-read novel. Apart from being a study in the intimate worries and happiness of a class and an era, it’s like a manual on how to structure a novel.
Zadie Smith thought so, too. She retold it in On Beauty.
Who is your favourite literary character?
Toss-up between Helen Schlegel and Leonard Bast, both from Howard’s End.
What book have you always been meaning to read but still haven’t got around to?
Catch 22.
Which three writers would you have over for supper?
Writers who were also known as great raconteurs – Gertrude Stein, Oscar Wilde, Truman Capote.
What would you cook them?
Nothing too spicy, even though I love spicy food. But once I almost killed someone with a hot dish, and I wouldn’t want to kill these writers, even though they are already dead.
How are your books shelved and organised at home?
We have an attic full of books that were put there ten years ago when we went overseas. In the meantime, another houseful of books has appeared. There are vague separations: Poetry in the hall, fiction in the living room. Nothing is in alphabetical order. The good thing about that is when you go looking for a book (which can take some time), you come across all sorts of other books you’d forgotten. We recently moved some books because our new puppy ate White Teeth and several issues of Contemporary Pacific.
What is your favourite literary quote?
“A writer should write with his eyes and a painter should paint with his ears.” – Gertrude Stein.
