The great thing about using the past is that it gives you the most colossal freedom to invent. The research is necessary, of course, but no one writes a novel to dramatically illustrate what everybody already knows.
Interpretation
Using the past as inspiration allows for creative freedom and innovation in storytelling.
Peter Carey's quote emphasizes the importance of drawing from historical events and experiences to create art, specifically in novel writing. While he acknowledges the necessity of research, he suggests that true creativity lies in transforming well-known narratives into new and compelling stories, thus allowing writers the freedom to invent and explore beyond the conventional understanding of the past.
In practice
An author might quote this to inspire fellow writers at a literary workshop.
Our prime minister could embrace and forgive the people who killed our beloved sons and fathers, and so he should, but he could not, would not, apologise to the Aboriginal people for 200 years of murder and abuse. The battle against the Turks, he said in Gallipoli, was our history, our tradition. The war against the Aboriginals, he had already said at home, had happened long ago. The battle had made us; the war that won the continent was best forgotten
I did not know that history is like a blood stain that keeps on showing on the wall no matter how many new owners take possession, no matter how many times we pint over it.
I like light, color, luminosity. I like things full of color and vibrant.
I don't want to make music that is hot now; I want to make music that is hot forever.
Really good books need a chaos element: something weird or inexplicable.
One of the grotesqueries of present-day American life is the amount of reasoning that goes into displaying the wisdom secreted in bad movies while proving that modern art is meaningless. They have put into practice the notion that a bad art work cleverly interpreted according to some obscure Method is more rewarding than a masterpiece wrapped in silence.
I work as an artist, and I think the audience of one, which is the self, and I have to satisfy myself as an artist. So I always say that I write for the same people that Picasso painted for. I think he painted for himself.
Everybody comes to film differently; everybody has different backgrounds. Just find whatever your lane is naturally. Don't try to force yourself into someone else's vision or try to tell a story that you're not passionate about.
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