Jonathan Coe Quote

Believe there are infinite ways of telling stories – linear and non-linear, multiple viewpoints and single viewpoints, first and third person, and so forth. An infinity of choice faces you whenever embarking upon a new work. However, I no longer believe, as Johnson believed, for instance, that the novel must be radically reinvented as it progresses or otherwise it will die. If you look at the tradition that he felt himself a part of, it’s odd in a way, because Tristram Shandy in particular so explodes all the notions of traditional fictional writing and all the possibilities of experimental writing right at the infancy of the British novel that Johnson’s view that you can build upon that seems wrong.