Andrew Greig gets his writing done in four hours so he can contemplate life in modern Scotland.
Andrew Greig, 58, is a major figure in modern Scottish literature. He has written nine volumes of poetry, six novels, five non-fiction volumes, and scores of essays. He writes with honest emotion and in a style that is deeply poetic, yet devoid of faux sentimentality. Greig delights in defying gender and nationality stereotypes and his regimen as a writer goes against the grain as well. I caught up with Greig last summer in Stromness on Orkney, where he lives part of the year with his wife, English novelist Lesley Glaister. Here is a sampling of our conversation.
On becoming a writer: “I never had the slightest ambition to write a novel. I’m a failed singer/songwriter. It was a revelation that I could get paid for writing.”
On deciding to climb mountains in the Himalayas: “I wrote a poetry collection called Men on Ice (1977). One night (veteran mountaineer) Malcolm Duff knocked on my door and said he’d pick up expenses if I went on an expedition to climb the Mustagh Tower and write about the experience. I said to him, ‘You do realize that the poem is entirely metaphorical and that I’m not keen on heights don’t you?’ But Mal wasn’t put off by that.”
On why there are so many music references in his novels: “Writers in the 1930s could assume that their readers had knowledge of the classics. Music is the literacy of our generation, and I can call up conditions through music references as a sort of cultural shorthand.”
On why his characters often party hard: “I’ve never had the slightest problem with pleasure,” says he, rejecting Scotland’s Calvinist heritage.
On why his female characters are often dangerous: “I make women provocative in the sense that they literally provoke men to be different, to try harder, and to take a leap of faith. Characters must have serious tension to be interesting. I like to grant social power to women. In my books it’s the women who have a clearer idea of what they want and it’s the men who need to wake up and find themselves.”
On national identity: “I am Scottish and I think a lot about Scottish identity, but I’m baffled by those who think that being Scottish is all that matters.”
On why he doesn’t think of himself as a ‘real’ novelist: “A true novelist lives in imagined worlds. All [my wife] Lesley wanted to do since she was seven was write novels. She imagines things all the time, but my books are noticeably closer to life. I don’t really make things up.”
On writing poetry: “I don’t write poems; I transcribe them. They come from deep down in the unconscious. There’s never any question of sitting down to write poetry.”
On his writing regimen: “I seldom write for more than four hours a day. I write after breakfast and knock off around 12:30. There’s no point going beyond that. and I seldom produce anything of worth after lunch.”
On becoming a writer: “I never had the slightest ambition to write a novel. I’m a failed singer/songwriter. It was a revelation that I could get paid for writing.”
On deciding to climb mountains in the Himalayas: “I wrote a poetry collection called Men on Ice (1977). One night (veteran mountaineer) Malcolm Duff knocked on my door and said he’d pick up expenses if I went on an expedition to climb the Mustagh Tower and write about the experience. I said to him, ‘You do realize that the poem is entirely metaphorical and that I’m not keen on heights don’t you?’ But Mal wasn’t put off by that.”
On why there are so many music references in his novels: “Writers in the 1930s could assume that their readers had knowledge of the classics. Music is the literacy of our generation, and I can call up conditions through music references as a sort of cultural shorthand.”
On why his characters often party hard: “I’ve never had the slightest problem with pleasure,” says he, rejecting Scotland’s Calvinist heritage.
On why his female characters are often dangerous: “I make women provocative in the sense that they literally provoke men to be different, to try harder, and to take a leap of faith. Characters must have serious tension to be interesting. I like to grant social power to women. In my books it’s the women who have a clearer idea of what they want and it’s the men who need to wake up and find themselves.”
On national identity: “I am Scottish and I think a lot about Scottish identity, but I’m baffled by those who think that being Scottish is all that matters.”
On why he doesn’t think of himself as a ‘real’ novelist: “A true novelist lives in imagined worlds. All [my wife] Lesley wanted to do since she was seven was write novels. She imagines things all the time, but my books are noticeably closer to life. I don’t really make things up.”
On writing poetry: “I don’t write poems; I transcribe them. They come from deep down in the unconscious. There’s never any question of sitting down to write poetry.”
On his writing regimen: “I seldom write for more than four hours a day. I write after breakfast and knock off around 12:30. There’s no point going beyond that. and I seldom produce anything of worth after lunch.”
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