You have an image, say the burned man in 'The English Patient', then you have to unearth the story: the connections between that man and this nurse and that woman from 10 years earlier. The story is discovered by unearthing small bits and pieces - a bone here, a shoe here, an anecdote. It becomes a discovery that's not chronological. The crucial thing you discover about a person may happen at the very end, as opposed to the beginning.
The way we discover our friends in some ways.
Michael Ondaatje
Interview, June 2000.
2 comments:
What a wonderful quote.
I liked it ... the idea that a story as stunning and complex as The English Patient could begin from a single image and grow.
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