Dave Eggers: The Freedom of the Artist Has to Be Absolute. – Literary Hub

Dave Eggers is the guest. His new all-ages novel The Eyes and the Impossible, is available from McSweeneys and Knopf Books for Young Readers. Illustrations by Shawn Harris.

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From the episode:

Brad Listi: Theres an incredible diversity to the work that youve done as a writer and an artist through the years. Youve obviously written adult fiction. Youve written childrens books. This is an all ages book. Youve done journalism work. A nonfiction book. Oral history. Screenwriting.

Im curious to know about that part of it for you, because I think there is a school of thought that might posit that one should focus on something and just lock in and do that thing over and over again, which is what a lot of writers do. If they write literary fiction, theyre novelists. Thats it. They dont even write story collections. They just do novels.

You have a more diversified output, and Im wondering how you experience that. You must feel like it gives you something rather than takes something away. But I think there might be people out there who are like, is this a wise path? Is it distracting at times? Do you find yourself starting things and not finishing things? Do you ever feel like youve lost the thread and youre overextended?

Dave Eggers:Well, I think that youre talking about freedom, right? And this is the major theme of this book, is that if you are beholden as an artist to some perception of, well, whats the right way to go through a short life in a universe perhaps without meaning, and if youre going to say, well, the right way is to write variations on the same novel every four years until Im dead, thats a very sad, sad way to go through life.

And if that is someones way and they want to do it that wayand I do know artists that are very methodical and theyre very happy with their method, with it being every once a decade you put out a work of art, whether its a book or an opera or something. If that is your way and if that is the way that you feel most happy andto use a terrible wordfulfilled, then great.

But when I hear or or feel like somebody is going through their life as an artist in a way because they think that that is the right way or that they will be perceived as having done it the right way or the most appropriate way for them, that is a tragedy. To be given the gift of writing or creating for a living and then to cage yourself within the boundaries of whats deemed acceptable is just the worst tragedy of all.

I feel every day so lucky to be able to do this, to be able to get up in the morning and create stuff and think about wooden covers for a book about a dog at a park. I mean, its just ludicrous luck. And I think that the best way to honor that luck is to do anything you want to do. And if it ends up being not a total success however you judge it, then thats fine.

But in a short lifeand Im exquisitely aware of how short life can beI want to do anything I want to do. So if tomorrow somebody pulled up in front of the office here at 849 Valencia and said, Hey, do you want to go on a cross-country trip in a car shaped like a banana, and were going to visit all of the national parks that have waterfalls and were going to adopt a bobcat and name them Steveif I felt like doing that that day, then certainly I would. Thats such a weird example. I dont know why I was thinking about that. Weirdly, my daughter and I were in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, where I went to school, and the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile and the Planters Peanut mobile were both on the same street at the same time, waiting one after another in traffic. It was the most incredible thing. So its on my mind.

But I do know what youre saying. When I was a very young writer in my twenties, I did sometimes look at older artists and say, well, I love your prose, why are you writing screenplays? I dont think thats cool. But I think generally that is the mindset of very early twenties. Theres a certain amount of ignorance, theres a certain amount of cynicism, theres a certain amount of wrongheadedness. And I think that sort of self-enforced adherence to whats cool or whats acceptable is so contrary to the entire idea of being an artist, which is about living fully freely.

Thats when any kind of incursion into that freedom, any kind of encroachment of that freedom, is really upsetting to me. And were seeing more of it now, whether its banning books on the right or whether its censoring books on the left, like they did with Roald Dahlthese are all encroachments into freedom. And we have to remember that the freedom of the artist has to be absolute. Otherwise theres no art, because then were just writing pamphlets or its state-sponsored creation. Its the same thing as under the Soviets, where were in service to some political message. The artist must be absolutely untethered. And whether or not that art is good or bad or whatever, thats fine. But there can be no rules about creation. We might not love every last thing that this artist does, but they have to be completely untethered.

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Dave Eggers is the author of many books, including bestsellers The Every, The Monk of Mokha, The Circle, A Hologram for the King,andA Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius.His work has been nominated for the National Book Award, the Pulitzer Prize, and the National Book Critics Circle Award. He is the founder of McSweeneys, an independent publishing company based in San Francisco, and cofounder of 826 National, a network of educational centers around the country offering free tutoring to kids of all backgrounds.He lives in Northern California with his family.

Shawn Harrisis the author/illustrator ofHave You Ever Seen a Flower?,which won a Caldecott Honor Award. He is the illustrator ofHer Right Footby Dave Eggers, which received seven starred reviews, was an Orbis Pictus Award Honor Book, an ALA Notable, and aPWBest Book of the Year. His other picture books include EggerssWhat Can a Citizen Do(aTimeMagazine Best Childrens Book),Everyones Awakeby Colin Meloy, andA Polar Bear in the Snowby Mac Barnett.

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Dave Eggers: The Freedom of the Artist Has to Be Absolute. - Literary Hub