"I rather like getting away from fiction"
About this Quote
A novelist admitting she "rather like[s] getting away from fiction" lands as a small act of heresy - and Penelope Lively delivers it with the lightest possible touch. The line is politely mischievous: "rather like" understates what could be a full-blown rebellion against the job description. It's the voice of a writer who knows the glamour attached to invention and punctures it anyway, choosing discretion over drama.
The intent feels twofold. First, it grants permission to be restless. For a career novelist, "fiction" isn't just a genre; it's an identity the public expects you to inhabit nonstop. Lively suggests that identity can be claustrophobic. Second, it hints at the older writer's pivot toward essays, memoir, criticism - forms where the world, not the plot, gets final say. "Getting away" isn't contempt for storytelling; it's a preference for different kinds of attention.
The subtext is about labor. Fiction is often sold as pure imaginative freedom, but Lively's phrase implies the opposite: the constraints of architecture, voice, plausibility, the endless negotiating with invented people. Nonfiction can feel like release not because it's easier, but because it swaps fabrication for curiosity and witness. Coming from a writer shaped by history, place, and memory, it also reads as a late-career vote for actuality: when time feels shorter, the appetite for the real can sharpen.
The intent feels twofold. First, it grants permission to be restless. For a career novelist, "fiction" isn't just a genre; it's an identity the public expects you to inhabit nonstop. Lively suggests that identity can be claustrophobic. Second, it hints at the older writer's pivot toward essays, memoir, criticism - forms where the world, not the plot, gets final say. "Getting away" isn't contempt for storytelling; it's a preference for different kinds of attention.
The subtext is about labor. Fiction is often sold as pure imaginative freedom, but Lively's phrase implies the opposite: the constraints of architecture, voice, plausibility, the endless negotiating with invented people. Nonfiction can feel like release not because it's easier, but because it swaps fabrication for curiosity and witness. Coming from a writer shaped by history, place, and memory, it also reads as a late-career vote for actuality: when time feels shorter, the appetite for the real can sharpen.
Quote Details
| Topic | Writing |
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