Paul Auster on the art of elusion

Gilles Anquetil and François Armanet met up with the American writer Paul Auster. For him, narration should not be encumbered by detailed descriptions. "Fairytales enthral me because they give very little detail. The human mind dreads emptiness and automatically provides all the missing details. It is this implication of the listener or reader that contributes to forging the story and completing the storyteller's work. The more that is eluded, the better the story. ... A strange thing happened to me, proving how personal reading is: when, aged around 20, I read 'Pride and Prejudice' by Jane Austen, who I consider a genius, I noticed as I read that all the novel's action was taking place in the house where I grew up. I had transposed everything into my own world, into a familiar setting, all the more easily because Jane Austen is very parsimonious with descriptions."

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