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interviewer if you’ve got any wisdom – but at the same
time if dyspepsia collides with something you perceive
in the other person you just let rip. The problem with
interviewing, which is an aspect of our culture, is that
there seems to be a licence to be psychically ruthless.
It’s almost incumbent upon an interviewer to allow
themselves the full traverse of the psychic rifle.
CH: And Tracey Emin, who you said was a termagant?
WS: Yeah … you know I kind of resent it when people
interview me and assume that, because I’ve been wellknown
for a fair amount of time, that it’s kind of open
season, but the truth of the matter is that Tracey really
liked that piece. You have to ask yourself why is that
and quite frankly when it comes to Tracey, although
one or two of her pieces have a certain odd, jejune quality,
her art work is essentially a peg on which she hangs
her media persona which is her main work.
So she didn’t mind that piece and I think that that’s
what you’re up against with a certain kind of interview
subject. Now with Beckett I’m perfectly confident
that she really hated and was upset by that piece and I
noticed that after it she started to make some very sour
comments on the media publicly for quite a while. But
you know, she’s a politician, you have to reckon that
someone’s going to take down verbatim what you’re
saying. Why wouldn’t they?
CH: Do you normally use a tape machine?
WS: Well, I think that’s why the Beckett interview was
BUY Will Self books online from and
such a devastating piece because I just transcribed answers
to questions. Because she talked such complete
bollocks. You know, why bother?
CH: Is one of the attractions to journalism the lack of
needing to suspend your disbelief so much?
WS: I think it’s an opportunity to get you out and
about. It gets you interacting with the world in all sorts
of different ways. It also gives you the opportunity, funnily
enough, to suspend disbelief more readily because
you’re presented with an area of fact that you can then
instantly turn into an area of fiction or at any rate embellish
in some way. I’m not making great claims for
my journalism but I think that what I do that gives me
cachet and makes editors want to employ me is really
colour writing, it’s really lifting what otherwise might
be fairly dry into something that is quite outlandish
sometimes. I suppose I am in some ways a practitioner
of gonzo/new journalism in that I am prepared to inject
my own warped sensibilities into a piece.
CH: You say that you read very little fiction now, a
problem with suspension of disbelief, but do you just
mean new fiction or do you not read the classics?
WS: No, I don’t read classic fiction either.
CH: I was thinking of the Amis line about disparaging
your youngers but exalting your elders…
WS: What you mean so you don’t see us nipping at
your heels? No, I don’t think that’s the way I think
about it, but unlike Martin, I’ve never been a sort
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