Jonathan Coe - I'm one of those unlucky people who had a...

I'm one of those unlucky people who had a happy childhood.

Biography

Author Profession: Novelist

Nationality: English

Born: August 19, 1961

Links

Find on Amazon: Jonathan Coe

Cite this Page: Citation

Related Authors

Charles Dickens, J. R. R. Tolkien, Aldous Huxley, William Golding, William Makepeace Thackeray, E. M. Forster, Thomas Hardy, Emily Bronte

Topics

Childhood, Had, Happy, Happy Childhood, People, Those, Unlucky, Who

Quotes to Explore

The biggest markets for my books outside the UK are France and Italy, and those are the two countries where I also have the closest personal relationships with my translators - I don't know whether that's a coincidence, or if there's something to be learned from it.

Know Something Personal Relationships

It's only a drawback in the States, where most people seem to have no real interest in other countries and the notion of a novel which might offer insight into life in the UK doesn't seem to appeal very widely.

Life People Real Only

I became quite taken over by Johnson's personality at some points while writing the biography, and since I went straight on to The Closed Circle afterwards, I did sometimes feel I could hear him whispering in my ear while I was working on it.

Personality Feel Sometimes Writing

But we are entitled to look for continuity in politics.

Politics Look Continuity Entitled

Luckily, in my case, I have managed, by writing, to do the one thing that I always wanted to do.

Writing Always One Thing Thing

The more melancholy side of my literary personality is much in tune with BS Johnson's.

Personality More Side Melancholy

Writers never feel comfortable having labels attached to them, however accurate they are.

Feel Never Comfortable Having

But I have always - ever since The Accidental Woman - written novels about individuals attempting to make choices in the context of situations over which they have no control.

Woman Control Choices Always

As the books grew bigger and more ambitious, the situations in question sometimes became political ones, and so it became necessary to start painting in the social background on a scale which eventually became panoramic.

Painting Sometimes Start Political

It seems to me that you would have to write a novel on a very small, intimate scale for it not to become political.

Me You Political Small

As soon as you start writing about how human beings interact with each other socially, you're into politics, aren't you?

Politics You Writing Start

I think it's also the case that I'm not as widely travelled, or as well-educated in history, as most of the other novelists I meet: so I have to write about my own country, at the present time, because it's more or less all I know about!

History Time Think My Own

Contemporary Britain seems an endlessly fascinating place to me - but if I knew a little bit more about other places, and other times, maybe it wouldn't.

Me Place More Places

I live a perfectly happy and comfortable life in Blair's Britain, but I can't work up much affection for the culture we've created for ourselves: it's too cynical, too knowing, too ironic, too empty of real value and meaning.

Life Work Culture Happy

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