10 Questions with Kate McLoughlin
'Thinking about literary veterans’ speechlessness, I realised that English Literature brims with silences'
Kate McLoughlin’s latest book Silence: A Literary History (OUP) traces silences over 12 centuries of English literature, from the solitary states of exile on icy seas described in Anglo-Saxon poems, to searches for silence in our own Age of Pings. She is a professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford.
Kate will be speaking at Hatchards Piccadilly on 29 April.
What gave you the idea for your book?
Writing about war! My last book, Veteran Poetics, was about the figure of the war veteran in English Literature. The penultimate chapter was about war veterans who won’t stop talking about the wars they’ve been in; the last was about the opposite – veterans who can’t or won’t speak about the armed conflict they’ve seen. Thinking about these literary veterans’ speechlessness, I realised that English Literature absolutely brims with silences. This led me to writing Silence: A Literary History.
Where and when do you write?
In my office at home in Iffley, Oxford, at a long white wooden desk, specially carpentered, that unfortunately doesn’t give a view of the garden.
At a certain co-working in Lyon.
In the lower reading room of the Bodleian library, where, thanks to the book-jackets, the shelves look like they’re lined with gold.
Whenever I’ve read and thought enough to feel I have something useful to say.
Were any other writers or artists inspiring you while you wrote?
Clive James’s essayistic style is always an inspiration. Terence Cave for Recognitions. Alexandra Harris for Weatherland. Adam Nicolson for The Making of Poetry.
What keeps you going when it gets difficult?
Sheer bloody-mindedness, inherited from my grandmother.
How much do you revise?
Lots. I’m lucky to have heroic friends who don’t mind reading chapters and giving me feedback. I ponder what they say and keep re-writing.
How did you first get published?
With Manchester University Press, for an academic book about Martha Gellhorn (best known, and she would have hated this, as the third wife of Ernest Hemingway). My first and, come to think of it, only poetry collection, Plums, was published by flipped eye: I sent a speculative manuscript and was stunned when it was accepted.
What’s the last really good book you read?
Every Valley by Charles King. It’s an account of the genesis of Handel’s Messiah but, more than that, it’s a source of solace in horrible geopolitical times.
What’s a book more people should read?
Clive James’s Cultural Amnesia. Extraordinary erudition meets extraordinary humanity.
Do you have any advice for aspiring authors?
Polish every sentence.
Favourite place in London, if you have one?
Middle Temple – I used to live there as a student.
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Issue no.5: On George Eliot, The Little Review, Freud and making new
Issue no.4: On the history of the book, Vincenzo Latronico, the state of British book reviewing, and Hélène Cixous’ gift from Derrida
Issue no. 3: On the Bluestockings, Amia Srinivasan and Susan Lanser