The Artist as a portrait of a young girl

There are two ways of dealing with bad karma. Either you run away, or you can confront it. This is my way of dealing with it.

Maybe I’ve been guilty of putting Sandrine on a pedestal. But I’m not her, I can’t live up to that ideal. She probably had flaws that I never discovered because I was too young.

I’ve always found that mixing with creative people helps me. Maybe I borrow some of their ideas, but tell me who doesn’t? I used to spend a lot of time hanging out with artists, posing for them, that kind of thing.

I met a lot of dubious characters on the way. It’s how I ended up like this, with a cracked personality. That, and the accident.

The thing about Art, with a capital A, is this. Everyone thinks they’re an expert. But really all opinions are subjective. Despite appearances to the contrary, there is no consensus. Plenty of people hated Picasso when he first started out, for instance.

It’s the same with literature. But the problem is, there’s so much out there, you need some way of finding your way through the maze. Which is where the critics come in.

They’re only doing their job, which is actually quite an important one. They act as a filter for people like me who just don’t have the time to read everything. In any case, you get to know which ones to trust, who you can rely on. Personally I’ve always found other writers to be the best guide. So I’ve read Foucault’s study of Roussel; Deleuze on Foucault; Badiou on Deleuze; and so on. You get the picture.

What these books all tell me is that there is always another way of looking at something. What I want to do is put together my own collection of the finest writing I know, as my own guide to literature. It’s going to take some doing, trawling through the archives. It might take some time, I may never finish it. But it may help me establish some kind of perspective.

I’m not going to be prescriptive. Any kind of writing will be considered. Don’t expect a typical list, some of these names may not be familiar to you. I don’t apologise for that. These are my personal choices – yours would be different, no doubt.