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Welcome to the Official Jonathan Carroll Web Site! Read the Site Introduction by Neil Gaiman
Read Jonathan's review of Jose Saramago's The Double in the Washington Post (free registration required).
CarrollBlog 2.11
She secretly perceived herself as Heaven; some kind of ultimate blissful destination. In truth she was really only a very good restaurant.
We all know from experience that when you go to a restaurant on a day it's closed, you frown at the inconvenience, but then quickly shift your thinking to where else you'd like to eat.
CarrollBlog 2.10
One of the ongoing theories of where the word "sincere" comes from is this: In Roman times if you were rich, the thing to do was to have your bust done in marble by a famous sculptor. Unfortunately marble is notoriously hard to work with and often cracks. The dishonest artist would hide those cracks with wax ("cera"), and they could only then be detected by an expert. The perfect sculpture would of course be one without cracks. "Sin"--without "cera"-- wax. I told this theory to a beloved smarty pants friend of mine. She immediately looked it up on one of those "urban legends" sites and apparently the theory is debatable. But I like it anyway.
But for those who like their ideas pure, today's Bulgarian proverb:
"You are permitted in times of great danger to walk with the devil until you have crossed the bridge."
CarrollBlog 2.9
Across the street from me they have been repairing the facade of an old apartment building for a month or so. Total scaffolding across the whole face of the building. A while ago I was staring out the window, dreaming, when the thought "What if people lived on that scaffolding and never came down? What if it were really angels dressed as people doing secret work for God over there. We just THINK it's workers repairing a facade." It gave me an idea for a story which I then wrote quickly and sent the final revisions on the story to CONJUNCTIONS magazine last week. This morning when I woke up, I looked out the window and saw lots of fire trucks down on the street. They were there because in the middle of the night the scaffolding had for some reason completely collapsed. The only thing left was piles and piles of metal stuff strewn everywhere. It felt like now that I finished his story, God said okay, away with that stuff. I don't know if it felt cool or creepy.
CarrollBlog 2.8
Books say: She did this because. Life says she did this. Books are where things are explained to you; Life is where things aren't. I'm not surprised people prefer books. Books make sense of life. The only problem is that the lives they make sense of are other people's lives, never your own."
from the journals of Gustave Flaubert
CarrollBlog 2.3
One of the noticeable differences about growing older is in the way you use the words "love" and "hate."
When I was younger I used both with the profligacy and happy recklessness of 10/20/30... Twenty things a day were "loved" or "hated," whether they were people, ideas, food, places, etcetera. Which of course meant you didn't really love or hate those things. But for the spurt of a moment, you felt a certain intensity of emotion towards them.
These days I rarely use either word to apply to anything. Because honestly used, they are huge and decisive. Today when I genuinely hate someone, I wish I could erase every pixel of their being from my memory .
CarrollBlog 2.2
"When did your childhood end? How badly did you get hurt, when you did, when you were this little, when you were this wee little hurtable thing, nothing but big eyes, a heart, a few hundred words?
"Isn't it wonderful how we never recover?"
- Will Eno
past blogs here
question: I'm curious if you know the answer to this question... out of all the religions in the world, why did your brother decide upon the Sufi? Part 2: What can you tell us about the Sufi religion? Have you read any books on the subject you can recommend?) -Dave Coleman
My brother has always been interested in religion. For years he was a follower of the Russian mystic George Gurdjieff. Like many who have studied Gurdjieff and Ouspensky (Gurdjieff's student and later important teacher in his own right), eventually he moved towards Sufism. I don‚t know enough about the religion to explain its basic tenets thoroughly, but if you're interested I would suggest you read Idris Shah, Reshad Field and of course the astonishing poetry of Rumi.
More answers from Jonathan Carroll in the Collaborate section (updated 1/25)
The spring issue of Conjunctions Magazine will contain a new story "Home on the Rain."
The March issue of Filter Magazine contain a (currently untitled) short story about a magical bum at the bus stop, illustrated by Ryder Carroll.
Read a great interview with Jonathan in Critique Magazine.
The next novel Glass Soup is complete and coming soon.
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