MC: What Lawrence?

GD: What Lawrence?

MC: What Lawrence.

GD: D. H. Lawrence.

MC: Right. At what point in his life?

GD: In his thirties, when he’s properly himself, living in Sicily or New Mexico. Given how ill Lawrence was, his life is just amazing.  Incredible resilience. How could anyone keep living with that exposedness to the world? At that pitch of fury? 

MC: “It was an idiotic conversation and on one level I couldn’t believe we were having it.  On another level I still couldn’t believe we were having it but eventually it wearied us to the point where we could sleep.” I’m reading Concrete, by Thomas Bernhard right now, and it is Out of Sheer Rage, except about a guy failing to write a book about a composer.  Talk about the work that went into developing your distinctive Dyerian voice.

GD: I ripped off Out of Sheer Rage from Concrete, totally. Of course, the joke of that book is that it was never going to be the book it claims.  It was always going to be a mad book.  The prose is persona-driven, and the fun of it is entirely—not entirely—in the voice.  Extravagant.  Exaggerated and contradicting.  Repeating. Bernhardian. You run the risk of being ridiculous, self-indulgent, and show-offy, but the work that went into that ‘Dyerian voice’ was in taking the risk. Maybe I have been unusually susceptible to influence. I have always tried to sound like other people, but my imitations always sound like me. One of the reasons it’s difficult for us, in England, to speak Spanish or Italian is that Romance languages require the face to move differently.  The idea of trying to speak those smilely Asian languages! Because I’ve got a grim English face, German and Bernhard fit quite readily on it.  Bernhard, is, you know, more addictive than crack, though the high lasts for longer.  Still, you’ve got to be aware of the Bernhardian addiction because though it’s good to go there, it will drive you nuts.  His is a futile relation to the world.