yknow kids, my Granny Rogers, who was a double-first classicist, she taught me to read and write by age three and a half, I wrote my first stories aged four; when I was nineteen, I took a room in Rue de Lancry, Paris, next to the Arab quarter, it was a very small room in the attic, it had neither electricity nor gas, I wrote a book in there over six months, I had to write it in thickish felt-pen as it was hard to see anything, I lived on a baguette a day, cheese usually, sometimes ham, I knew nobody there at all, aside from an ex-lover, but that wasnt working out, in the next room was a Japanese painter, who was on the constant cusp of some psychosis, the flat below once contained Stuart Christie, who wrote a book later about his farcical attempt to assassinate El Caudillo, Franco, I would walk miles every day and write hours every night; after a few months, the Madame of a small bar near the Pompidou took a shine to me, and so, of a Friday, I got a hot meal and a reasonable bottle of red, in return I would amuse her patrons with a few songs and some giggles, the book took a shape, not the one I had intended, I finished it, exhausted, and got very ill, very quickly; I recall thinking, Jesus, I am very sick here, Id better get a doctor - there was a telephone directory in that room from the 1950s, I had run out of candles, so I held the directory out of the window under the moonlight, trying to find a doctor, who might still be alive, but I was near consumptive, coughing constantly like a beggar on his last throw, I dropped the directory and watched in despair as it fell apart on its way down to the street six floors below; I thought, Id better get out of here, death seems a bit imminent, I still have that book, its not very good, but without it, the others would not have followed. Cheers!
Posted on: Mon, 11 Nov 2013 01:11:31 +0000
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