Ask the Author: Christopher New
Answered Questions (12)
Christopher New
Thank you for your question. First let met stress that I was arguing only that a retributive theory of punishment does not exclude pre-punishment, not that it should be used for all crimes (which is impossible since for most crimes we have no way of knowing they will be committed).
As to the question whether the punishment should fit the crime, we have to ask what 'fit the crime' means. Normally, I think,we would understand that phrase to mean that the greater the crime, the greater the penalty should be. But that's a view that one can hold whether or not one accepts my argument about pre-punishment. So the two questions aren't related.
As to the question whether the punishment should fit the crime, we have to ask what 'fit the crime' means. Normally, I think,we would understand that phrase to mean that the greater the crime, the greater the penalty should be. But that's a view that one can hold whether or not one accepts my argument about pre-punishment. So the two questions aren't related.
Christopher New
Once I dreamt I saw a man fall into a huge fire and get burnt to ashes. When I looked closer, I saw the man was me.
Christopher New
There are a good many fictional worlds I wouldn't want to go to -1984 or Brave New World, for instance, but still more that I wouldn't mind visiting, so a choice is difficult and would probably vary according to how I felt at any particular time. Well, today at any rate I would choose the world of Pride and Prejudice, perhaps because it's Jane Austen's year (she died in 1817). I'm not sure what I would do there -just watch and listen, I expect. I would love to hear the conversations between Elizabeth and Darcy again and to watch and hear what they said and did that Jane Austen didn't tell us about...And I'd like to see the life below stairs, which scarcely features in the novel.
Christopher New
I don't make reading lists, but read books as I find them. At present I'm reading Ann Wroe's 'Pilate'. I was drawn to it because I am finishing a novel, in which both a Pilate figure and a Jesus figure appear, although in a different century and a different continent.
I'm also meaning to read Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. It's extraordinarily long and a classic of both 18th century historiography and 18th century prose. I read the abridged edition many years ago as a student, and have always meant to read the whole thing. If I do, it will take up a good bit of my summer - a bit as Proust did, also many years ago. For fiction and something shorter and contemporary, I will go to Richard Russo's Trajectory Stories. I don't know Russo's works very well, so am looking forward to that. Well, that's about as far as I've got...
I'm also meaning to read Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. It's extraordinarily long and a classic of both 18th century historiography and 18th century prose. I read the abridged edition many years ago as a student, and have always meant to read the whole thing. If I do, it will take up a good bit of my summer - a bit as Proust did, also many years ago. For fiction and something shorter and contemporary, I will go to Richard Russo's Trajectory Stories. I don't know Russo's works very well, so am looking forward to that. Well, that's about as far as I've got...
Christopher New
When I was about fifteen, my father's aunt turned up from Australia. She had been sent there apparently to get her out of the way because she was trouble at home. My faather hadn't heard about or from her for many years. She got off the boat and went to a police station and asked how to find my father. Her story was that she had run away from her Australian husband because he'd said in his sleep that he'd murdered someone in the outback. She died soon afterwards, so no one knew what really happened. I guess that could be at least the beginning of a book...
Christopher New
Actually I've never thought about this before. But now that you ask me, I'm afraid I have to say my current favorite fictional couple are the ones I'm working on now - Dimitri Johnston and his Chinese wife, Mila. They feature in two books of my 'China Coast Trilogy' and will appear for the last time in the book I am writing now. So we get to follow them at different periods of their lives from young to middle to old age. They're my favorites just because they're occupying my imagination right now - they are very different yet complementary and sympathetic characters representing two worlds, the European and the Chinese. Ask me the same question a year from now and I'll almost certainly have a different answer. That's the way with favorites!
Christopher New
Take a walk around the writer's block.
Christopher New
The satisfaction of getting something said that you think is important and in the best way possible.
Christopher New
Don't do it for the money! Be prepared to be a loner.
Christopher New
A novel set in contemporary Hong Kong and China, leading towards the beginning of the umbrella revolution.
Christopher New
Impossible to say. One minute there's nothing in my head, the next I have an idea that inspires me. How, or why, I don't knowl
Christopher New
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