Tuesday, July 09, 2013

"Indigo!"

Suzanne Koven interviews Oliver Sacks for the Rumpus. (Courtesy of Dave Lull.) This one really is amazing - lots of good stuff in there, but check out this bit:
I have it less now, but with my first book, with Migraine, there were many, many problems, including a sort of mad, internal threat in which I said to myself, in September of ’68, You have ten days to write it and if you’re not finished by ten days, you’ll commit suicide. This sounds even madder than it was. You have to know some of the background. Anyhow, under my own threat or joke, I first started writing and within hours the feeling of terror was replaced by a feeling of joy in the writing and, in particular, a feeling that I was taking the book down to dictation. It came to me absolutely fluidly by a sort of inner voice. I was excited. I didn’t want to go to bed. I slept for two or three hours a night and no more. Perhaps I was hypomanic. I’m not sure what word to use.
Also, though many will have seen it already - Sacks's thoughts on turning 80.

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