Sundus Alfi

INTERVIEWER

How much do you admit to modeling your characters on real people?

FORSTER

We all like to pretend we don’t use real people, but one does actually. I used some of my family. Miss Bartlett was my Aunt Emily—they all read the book but they none of them saw it. Uncle Willie turned into Mrs. Failing. He was a bluff and simple character (... See more

Well, I had no idea that they were really in love until the end. I was writing it so naively. I remember I showed the first couple chapters to someone and they wrote a comment to me back and they were like, ‘McGlue is gay, right?’ And I was like, ‘That’s ridiculous! What a trite way to describe...’ I felt that it was my responsibility to get into... See more

When you realize that all who focus on hate are actually filled with fear, you gain a new perspective of human nature. Hate is a by-product of fear. You do not hate someone that you do not fear.

As with all art, whatever I’m working on is influencing my life and my life is influencing what I’m working on. So while I was writing Eileen , my personality shifted and I became... very controlling and oriented toward success.

Then I wrote this new novel, My Year of Rest and Relaxation , and it made me insane.

I went back to the pension where I was staying and began to read The Metamorphosis . The first line almost knocked me off the bed. I was so surprised. The first line reads, “As Gregor Samsa awoke that morning from uneasy dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect. . . .” When I read the line I thought to myself that I... See more

INTERVIEWER

While we are on the subject of the planning of novels, has a novel ever taken an unexpected direction?

FORSTER

Of course, that wonderful thing, a character running away with you—which happens to everyone—that’s happened to me, I’m afraid.

McGlue was really a creative act of writing through spiritual possession. I mean, I wasn’t intellectualising, I wasn’t thinking about plot. McGlue came out of me like some magical demon. And when that was over it was like, ‘Oh, thank God.’

INTERVIEWER

Do all your characters have real-life models?

FORSTER

In no book have I got down more than the people I like, the person I think I am, and the people who irritate me. This puts me among the large body of authors who are not really novelists and have to get on as best they can with these three categories. We have not the power of observing... See more