INTERVIEWER What did you most want to accomplish with the novel? HOUELLEBECQ What I really wanted was to have scenes that were, as you say in English, “heartbreaking.” INTERVIEWER Heartbreaking? HOUELLEBECQ The death of Michel’s girlfriend was very moving, I think. I really wanted to get those kinds of scene right above all. INTERVIEWER And why did you want to get those scenes right in particular? HOUELLEBECQ Because that’s what I like best in literature. For example, the last pages of The Brothers Karamazov: not only can I not read them without crying, I can’t even think of them without crying. That’s what I admire most in literature, its ability to make you weep. There are two compliments I really appreciate. “It made me weep,” and “I read it in one night. I couldn’t stop.” INTERVIEWER What is your writing schedule now? HOUELLEBECQ I wake up during the night around one a.m. I write half-awake in a semi-conscious state. Progressively, as I drink coffee, I become more conscious. And I write until I’m sick of it. INTERVIEWER Do you have other requirements for writing? HOUELLEBECQ Flaubert said you had to have a permanent erection. I haven’t found that to be the case. I need to take a walk now and then. Otherwise, in terms of dietary requirements, coffee works, it’s true. It takes you through all the different stages of consciousness. You start out semicomatose. You write. You drink more coffee and your lucidity increases, and it’s in that in-between period, which can last for hours, that something interesting happens. INTERVIEWER Do you plot the novels? HOUELLEBECQ No.
source: http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/6040/the-art-of-fiction-no-206-michel-houellebecq
