
INTERVIEWER
You have said elsewhere that the authors you have learned most from were Jane Austen and Proust. What did you learn from Jane Austen technically?
FORSTER
I learned the possibilities of domestic humor. I was more ambitious than she was, of course; I tried to hitch it on to other things.
INTERVIEWER
And from Proust?
FORSTER
I learned ways of looking at character from him. The modern subconscious way. He gave me as much of the modern way as I could take. I couldn’t read Freud or Jung myself; it had to be filtered to me.
Oh, I do love E.M. Forster; thanks for sharing this little tidbit about him.
So happy to, one of my favorite authors. Speaking of reading, I got to be a pretty advanced age without ever opening up a copy of “Anna Karenina,” now that I have—whoa! I am hooked!
Oh, enjoy! Leo Tolstoy is one of my favorite Russian authors.