Tash Aw seems to be all the rage in Malaysian literary circles lately. I have no interest in reading his highly-acclaimed debut - but I liked what he said in an interview with The Star newspaper regarding autobiographies:
“Autobiographical novels are often very moving for the writer, but really boring for everyone else.
“The break-up of a relationship, for example, might be the most important thing to you, but it might bore everyone else to tears. Likewise, although I think I had a very rich childhood, I don’t want to inflict my memories on anyone else because they’d probably find them really dull.”
As I look back to some of my entries, I enjoyed them immensely. But I realized that some of the personal entries may bore people to death, so I will start writing more about other things and other people instead of me, me, me all the time. I think people will subsist better on gossip than wry life experiences. Of course, there needs to be a balance between writing for myself and writing for an audience. We'll see where this new creative direction takes me to.
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