Here's Tim Parks on his novel Cleaver: "Cleaver comes out of my love of the South Tyrol and a growing awareness/ irritation/ anxiety about the invasive nature of the public voice, the spoken media, in our minds and lives. And of course Cleaver, this charismatic, chaotic, destructive, hatefully likeable man who seemed just right for bringing out all the tensions between the seductive fizz of public life, various family nightmares and the magnificent emptiness of the mountains."

We talk about the challenge of being left alone with oneself, being isolated in Italy removed from the buzz, getting above the noise line, the current proliferation of confession with its roots in Rousseau, not wanting to spend time with nice people who have nothing to say, predictable antagonisms in the news media, the awareness that celebrity is vacuous and yet still pursuing it, building reputation even after ceasing to believe there's any meaning in it, and how good novels open space for difficult topics to be discussed with pleasure. 

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