A Neurotic in an Exotic Land; The Adventures of Professor Lucas


Here you will find some related writings (generally not as funny as the book) and a little info about the author, as well as an excerpt from the book.
The photo above should have been the book's cover!--and it
should be turned around!

ALL CONTENTS OF THIS SITE
COPYRIGHT (C) BY MARK J. LOVAS
All rights reserved.

Although some of the items I've now posted differ in their mood and style from the book itself, I am posting them here anyway because they date from roughly the time period in which the book was written--and, I believe they share a certain ambience with it. (note added 14 March 2010)



Friday, April 30, 2010

Some words about the book....

Recently, I have been much impressed by Keith Oatley's on-line magazine together with a blog--"On Fiction". (I'm not sure if that's quite how he would describe it.)

And Keith has just published a new novel. I was impressed by his clear statement of his goals in writing the book. Inspired, I shall try to be honest about my own small comic novel, "A Neurotic in an Exotic Land".

My first goal was not to achieve a poetic truth, but to be funny or amusing. Along the way I did find myself attempting to achieve some realism in conversation. However, the book was intended to be mainly plot-driven, and I do not think there is any depth psychology in the drawing of the main characters. Not that I wanted them to be featureless and flat, but it was intended to be a sort of comedy.

I do hope, though one can never be sure, that it does give something of the flavor of the life of a North American living in Central Europe. That does not make the book a piece of sociology or anthropology, but I did write it after living for six years in Bratislava,
and it is inevitable that I drew upon people and places I knew there. In the end, however, since I wanted it to be funny, everything is a bit exaggerated.

I hope someday to write a book which will have some of the values that this book lacks...

No comments:

Post a Comment