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"All that was embedded in my consciousness or, more deeply, it was stuff I’d been carrying around in my body, but the prolonged immersion in that period of my life means that I’ve never felt closer to my 14-year-old self."

— Dyer, Geoff (b. 1958)

Author

"All that was embedded in my consciousness or, more deeply, it was stuff I’d been carrying around in my body, but the prolonged immersion in that period of my life means that I’ve never felt closer to my 14-year-old self."

Metaphor in Context

All that was embedded in my consciousness or, more deeply, it was stuff I’d been carrying around in my body, but the prolonged immersion in that period of my life means that I’ve never felt closer to my 14-year-old self. And speaking of stuff – physical stuff – the reason there’s so much stuff about stuff – toys and collecting – in the early stages of the book is not just a desire to come up with a complete catalogue raisonné of every toy I ever owned. There’s a latent narrative purpose in it because after the teacher at grammar school turns me on to reading, books fill the void left by growing out of those toys. It was a similarly solitary activity. And that also explains something else. Berger was always eager to collaborate. My friend Jonathan Lethem is always collaborating. I’ve never collaborated with anybody. Writing is still the private thing that this only child did in his bedroom – to the extent that I never write in cafés.

Dyer, Geoff (b. 1958)

Theory in the Air