My Life as a Clown

Does it bother him that the half-dozen novels he has produced since The Name of the Rose propelled him to fictional fame in the early 1980s have had a mixed reception? “You are always shocked by how different critics’ opinions are,” he says. “I think a book should be judged 10 years later, after reading and re-reading it. I was always defined as too erudite and philosophical, too difficult. Then I wrote a novel that is not erudite at all, that is written in plain language, The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana, and among my novels it is the one that has sold the least. So probably I am writing for masochists. It’s only publishers and some journalists who believe that people want simple things. People are tired of simple things. They want to be challenged.”

Someone tell Neal Stephenson. #reamdewasboring

(Source: zeteticat)