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Spike | 15 YEARS OF BOOKS, MUSIC, ART, IDEAS | www.spikemagazine.com
me, easily the longest part of the process is discovering
that language. Once I’ve done that, the book just goes.
“Needle was actually written in conventional punctuation
for a while, until I started to let the ideas of the
subject dissolve into the way it was written, so that the
two can’t be separated. You can’t separate the form
from the content in Needle. And once that happened,
the book just kind of flowed out.
“So yeah, if get an idea for a more conventional story,
I’ll set it in a more conventional style. It’s the language,
you know? The book I’m writing at the moment has an
invented language, but the punctuation is straight down
the line, no messing about, because that suits the story.
But the language itself is an invention.”
Do I detect a bit of a Bauhaus thing going on here?
Form follows function, and all that?
“Oh, yeah. Form is function. All this comes from
my painting background. And of course sometimes,
form can go against function for a deliberate effect.
For instance, you could write about a DJ mixing, but
in the style of John Donne … and I have done that at
times. There are moments of that in Needle, writing
very elegantly and poetically about something which is
very modern and chaotic. And it sets up a kind of mix,
a clash of styles.”
John Donne. An odd choice of example, but works
like Needle are certainly approaching poetry. Is this
what we can expect from him in the future, something
BUY Jeff Noon books online from and
more akin to poetry?
“No, no, I just have an intense interest in language.
This is something that’s been growing since Nymphomation.
That was a difficult book for me, definitely a
watershed. But in terms of my progression it’s a very
important book, because that’s when things started to
dissolve for the first time.”
Nymphomation also feels very self-analytical in
places, almost as if Noon were looking back at this
younger person who wrote Vurt, deconstructing his
own text from a modern standpoint.
“It is a self-conscious book, yeah. I think if anybody
looked back at the progression of what I’ve done,
Nymphomation is definitely where things started to
change. Of course, once you do that you’re taking a
pathway; and where that leads you just don’t know.
I am writing a novel at the moment, but I don’t like
talking about it. It’s going to shock people. It’s going
to surprise people.”
Is that ‘literary shock factor’ important?
“Oh, yeah,” he laughs. “I’m totally and utterly into
people who surprise you, that’s me. Sometimes in your
life as an artist, you have to be quite brave about that.
Especially if you have a fanbase, because not everybody
manages to get one. But I think at some point in
your career, you have to take account of that… and
then move on.
“I mean, look at somebody like Terry Pratchett …
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