Jeffrey Ford 2009 Interview
Jeffrey Ford is nominated for his short story “The Dreaming Wind.”
Before we discuss your career as a writer, I am curious about your other job, that of being a professor. In what ways has being a professor influenced your views of the world and its people? Have you found yourself ever taking a situation in the classroom and incorporating elements of it into your fiction?
Teaching has been its own journey that sometimes intersects with my journey as a writer. I enjoy it. I’ve been teaching for 25 years now, 22 of it teaching at least five courses a semester, two semesters a year, with anywhere from 75 to a 100 students, a lot of them writing a lot. In that time I’ve met thousands of people, helped some of them with their writing, gotten some of them into Early American Literature, listened, did way too much talking, and learned a great deal. Two important things I learned from teaching are: 1) If you let them, people will surprise you. 2) Even though it is not always evident, most young people have a desire to be successful, not necessarily in a monetary sense but in doing something worthwhile with their lives. Figuring out how to recognize that in each individual is the job of teaching. I’ve had much success in this, but can also recall, realizing too late, total failures on my part that I can never seem to shake no matter how many years go by. The people I work with are, to a person, all very cool. Brookdale Community College, where I teach, has stubbornly retained its sense of humanity over the years through the efforts of all. Not a bad gig, if you have to work.
Very cool! I’ve been a teacher myself for most of the past 10 years and I agree wholeheartedly with what you said there. I recently read your short story “The Honeyed Knot” and I felt a special attachment to that story because of how it seemed to intersect the personal and professional lives of a teacher. Have you written other stories that came close to touching upon what you’ve experienced as a teacher over the years?
There’s one other very brief story in my recent collection, “Ariadne’s Mother.” I’d like to write more fiction about my experiences teaching, but I’m torn in doing so. To write this kind of stuff, I’d have to base it on real-life experiences—it’s the way I know that I could get the most out of the subject—otherwise it would come across cliche. There are elements in the real world of the classroom and teacher/student interactions that are compelling but, like dreams, seem lame if faked. On the one hand, using the stuff of my students’ lives, even with names changed, seems somehow morally wrong. On the other hand, as a writer, I feel I need to express myself, my experiences of the world, that I have an intrinsic right to and that that should ultimately top all concerns. So I’m kind of stuck in the middle, and though there are at least a solid dozen stories I could tell (some of them genuinely weird or supernatural), and a hundred more I could develop, I don’t know. Perhaps when I retire I’ll put it all together in a novel.
I would love to read that if you ever do decide to do that. Your response raises another interesting question: Is there a “fourth wall” to writing, especially that of an autobiographical story, that would be transgressive to breach, or are limits more a matter of each individual writer’s comfort zones and not that of a societal one?
In a general sense, the fourth wall is an illusion. There is no fourth, third, second or first wall. These are limitations writers willingly place upon their fiction. The restriction of not breaking the fourth wall can result in some terrific fiction. I’ve seen where China Miéville says that by breaking the fourth wall it disrupts the flow of the story and is really only there to show the reader that the writer is above mere story-telling and is wanting to prove that he/she is clever and ironic. This is certainly the case sometimes, but there are times when the dissolution of the fourth wall can actually work to involve the reader more deeply in the fiction. I’m thinking of Prospero’s speech at the end of The Tempest, and certain meta-fictional devices of stories within stories or fictional narrators telling stories as in The Turn of the Screw and The King’s Indian, and the documents in The House of Leaves, and the scholarship of Pale Fire etc., etc., etc. In reality there are no rules for good fiction writing. Name a rule and there is always an instance that controverts it. Adhering to any self-imposed rule can result in a kind of “happy accident,” as in the employment of the stricter poetical forms. For whatever reason Miéville sets this limitation upon his work, it does result in compelling and powerful fiction, but his is only one facet of the argument.
What you’re asking about is a fourth wall concerning autobiographical material in a story. I’ve long since gotten over the fear of revealing things about myself, but I do hold back sometimes when it comes to writing about something someone close to me might recognize as an unflattering portrait of themselves or a recounting of something they’d done or said. In short, I’m afraid that it might hurt their feelings. Usually this concern only surfaces when it comes to people who are very close to me and I care deeply about. Even this, though, is a form of writerly cowardice. It’s important for the fiction writer to be able and willing to go anywhere. This said, there is also something important about being empathetic. So you weigh these things out. Often, I’ll build up the courage over time to tell a story I would feel some initial apprehension to. On other occasions Time, itself, will mitigate the problem and the story will be more accessible to me. Being blatant about things in fiction is not always the best policy. At times, it’s better and more effective to subsume the incident or character more deeply in the fiction. As Emily Dickinson said, she liked to tell things slant-wise. I use the autobiographical technique not so much to reveal things about myself and others, but because I think it’s a useful tool for conveying a story. Readers assume quite a bit that when I use the word “I” I’m writing about my real life. I have to remind them that there is a reason they call it Fiction. But that’s both the drawback and the beauty of it.
In reading your comments in regards to the differences between the “I” of fiction and that of real life, I am reminded of the closing line in Umberto Eco’s Baudolino, where Baudolino says, “You surely don’t believe you’re the only writer of stories in this world. Sooner or later, someone - a greater liar than Baudolino - will tell it.” How much truth is there in that statement about writers and the fiction they produce?
What, you mean that someone else will come along and tell your story better than you have? Not so. What will happen is someone will come along and tell their story better than you told your story, or in a manner more fitting the time, or appealing to a certain group, and that fiction will be in the ascendancy. No one can tell your story but you. Two writers can use a similar plot, the same character names, settings, try even to affect a similar style, but they can never write each other’s story. That’s the one thing that new writers need to remember when conceiving a plot. A lot of times they’ll get stuck on the fact that someone’s already used their idea in a well known fiction. So say they want to write a story where an individual sees himself and is followed by his double, who interferes with his life. Let’s see, you’ve got The Double, William Wilson, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Prince and the Pauper, etc., etc. There are hundreds of double stories, and I can think, off hand, of at least 20 great ones. You mean to tell me there isn’t the possibility of another double story that could be interesting and worth reading? It all depends on how you tell your double story. The great recent example of this is the film, Let the Right One In. Anyone in their right mind would think that Vampire stories would have been generally staked in the heart and buried in consecrated earth, but along comes this new Vampire story with an idiosyncratic stamp on it that does its part in keeping vampires interesting. It’s not the vampires, per say, that make the story interesting, it’s the story tellers vision of the vampires that is important. No one else can tell your story the way you would.
Well, I was thinking more about the bit about writers being “liars,” but you raise an excellent point in regards to “originality.” What is “originality” to you?
Nothing can be 100% non-derivative, of course, but I guess for something to say here, I’d say that originality has to do with the power of the writer’s personal vision, the depth with which you experince the characters, the setting or the plot. It is also tied to craft in that you’ve got to know how to render that vision as clearly as possible so that the reader experiences it nearly as powerfully as you do. I always use the word “idiosyncratic” when discussing fiction writing. My students make fun of me for using it so often, but I can’t think of another one that sums up the nature of the type of vision I’m getting at. There is something integral about the writer’s psyche or personality that is at the core of the fiction, and I’m not talking here about some autobiographical aspect, but (and here’s another lousy word for what I mean) the spirit behind the creation of the fiction.
What led you to decide that writing was the profession or perhaps avocation for you? Was there a single “ah-ha!” moment, or was there a more gradual shift from whatever career aspirations you might have had until then?
I don’t remember a single moment when I decided I wanted to write, I just always wanted to write. I suppose it was from the earliest times I’d had books read to me. All of the adults in my life, when I was a kid, my grandparents and parents, were big readers. When my father read novels to my brother and I when we were very young, the experience of seeing the story in my head was powerful. I wanted to be able to do that. I never thought of doing anything else in my life, and as it turns out I’m not much good for anything else. The teaching, though I’ve always tried to do a good job and have enjoyed the students, is a necessity of survival. Writing comes second only to my family.
What were some of the stories that your father read to you and your brother? Have you in turn read them or other stories to your own children?
He read Stevenson (Kidnapped) and Kipling (the Jungle Books were awesome), the stories of Chekov, Oscar Wilde, Ryder Haggard (She). He’d bought this set of books at a flea market, all red bound, called The World’s Greatest Literature. 25 books for something like around 15 dollars. He read those to us. Like I’ve said before, I was the only kid on my block who knew who Theophile Gautier was. There were a lot of stirring renditions of the poems of Tennyson. When it came to reading to my own kids, we did Frog and Toad, Doctor Dolittle, dozens of Goosebumps, The Mushroom Planet Books, Curious George (he’s a pisser), and later I read them The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, His Dark Materials, The Narnia Books, The Baron in the Trees. Eventually they both got fed up with me reading to them and did their own. My younger son, though, this school year, his senior year in high school, had to do a paper on a British author. He chose Kenneth Grahame, the author of The Wind in the Willows. I told him I’d never read Wind in the Willows and had always wanted to, and he asked me if I wanted to read it to him for old time’s sake. So I read it out loud to him over a period of three or four nights, and we both dug the characters and the story. The writing is great. After that, months went by, and one day, remembering the story of Ratty and Mole, I remembered what a pleasure reading it aloud had been, and I realized that by his letting me read it, he’d given me a wonderful gift.
Although I’m not a father, when I taught sixth grade, I used to read historical myths from all sorts of civilizations aloud to the students and they loved it. It seems there still is a fascination with the spoken word in our society, based on the growing popularity of audiobooks and podcasts. Which stories, if any, of yours have been told via these formats?
I’ve had no novels and only a handful of stories committed to audio. I like the format. It does matter who the reader is, because just the tone of a reader’s voice can change the experience of the story. I listen to audio books all the time on my monumental drive to work and back (nearly two hours each way). The stories of mine that are on audio are “Creation,” which came out on an audio version of a Best of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction anthology. I’ve never seen the actual audio book, but was sent a copy of just my story by Gordon Van Gelder when it came out. The reading of the story wasn’t bad, but I wasn’t crazy about it. I’m kind of particular when it comes to this stuff. Reading one of these things successfully, I’ll admit, seems to me as though it would be very difficult. The others are—“The Dreaming Wind,” “The Annals of Eelin-Ok,” and “The Dream of Reason.” Tony Smith at Starship Sofa is currently turning the story, “The Empire of Ice Cream,” into audio and that should be available at his site before too long. Tony’s got a great treasure trove of audio fiction at his site as do the folks at Podcastle. The story, “The Dreaming Wind,” has been read for audio three different times by different readers. Two versions are at Podcastle and one is at Starship Sofa. “The Dream of Reason” will appear in an audio Year’s Best from Audiotext pretty soon. Haven’t heard that reading. Of the readings at Starship Sofa and Podcastle, I think they are all quite good. I am partial to the audio interpretations of my work done by Rajan Khanna. Others may like the Paul Tevis and Larry Santoro readings better. Like I said, they are all wonderful. Rajan’s approach and the tone of the telling, though, really appeal to me, personally. I’d love to someday have a publisher pay him to do an audio CD of my stories, especially the YA ones. I’d also like to be rich and good looking.
What about mixed audio/visual presentation? Ever think that might catch on with the reading public? Do you envision your stories working in that format?
You mean movies? I’d be interested in that Hollywood cash, to tell you the truth, but so far my phone’s not ringing off the hook. Would it excite me artistically? It probably would to see my characters before me on the screen. Plays have been done of some of my work, and seeing them was interesting and affecting. There’s nothing like this kind of “presentation” of fiction, taking it out of the individual reader/author format, for the potential to see a story in a new light. There have been vague rumblings from time to time from film makers and production companies concerning my fiction. It presents itself and then soon evaporates. What can you do? On the other hand, if they don’t make movies inspired by my fiction they can’t make shitty movies inspired by my fiction. Sometimes I see a film that has been inspired by a book, and it does interesting things with the source material, becomes a work of art in its own right, but that usually isn’t the case. In most cases the original text is used as a roadmap instead of an opportunity to play.
Good point about film adaptations, but what I meant to ask (and worded it poorly) was about your take on things such as “story remixes” that Cory Doctorow and others have pushed for the past few years that would allow authors and other artists to warp and twist the notion of a story beyond something that is just spoken or just written, but which would combine elements of both to create fiction of a different sort. Do you think there’ll be a viable market for that in the near future?
What the hell. If people enjoy creating it, go for it. Whether there’ll be a market for it is sort of beside the point. There eventually was a market for Burroughs’ cut up novels. This stuff doesn’t strike me as particularly “new” but if it wears that badge now all the better.
You have had six novels and three short fiction collections appear in wide-release in the past 12 years. Which consumes more of your time on average, working on the short fiction or working on a novel?
I think it balances out to almost even. Usually when I’m working on a novel, I don’t write many stories and the novels take me about nine months to write. The other times, when I’m not immersed in novel writing, I write stories. It’s hard to calculate because some stories take years to write, some take years to contemplate and decide just how to tell them. There is a different head required for each of these pursuits. I wish I could describe the difference, but like a lot of things I thought I was sure about with writing, this is one of those things that I’ve realized lately I really can’t express. I hate this question, not because it’s a bad question, but because I usually give a bad answer.
Speaking of the “different head” required for novels and short stories, I have noticed that your last three novels have taken place in specific historical periods (1890s, 1930s, 1960s) in the New York/Long Island area. Was there an extensive amount of research involved for The Portrait of Mrs. Charbuque, The Girl in the Glass, and The Shadow Year? If so, did the research initiate the stories, or did they affect the narratives after you had begun the writing process?
You’re on to me. You might be the only person to ever mention this to me, but yes, it’s no mistake that all of these stories take place on and around Long Island. I wanted to write a kind of thematically connected series of mysteries that, subtly, in the background, chart the history of this area. I want to write a contemporary mystery and also one that takes place in the old days, involving the European settlers and Native Americans. That’s for the future maybe. Now, I’m angling toward something more fantastic.
Are you far enough along that you could give a brief description about that “something more fantastic”?
I’ll take the fifth here and we’ll see what happens. I do have a new group of stories that could constitute a 4th collection. There would be 17 to 20 stories, and I’m considering calling Crackpot Palace. Quite a few of the stories have yet to appear yet in their original anthologies, so if this book does see publication (fingers crossed, it won’t be for a while. The stories I speak of will be showing up in a number of different venues over the next year or so.
Your first novel, Vanitas, was published in 1988. Almost ten years went by before your next books, The Well-Built City trilogy, were released. What changes, if any, occurred in your approach to writing during that time?
Forget my approach to writing, what happened is I had two sons. I spent a lot of time with them, reading to them, playing crazy games, and walking for hours with them in this double stroller we had, checking out the world. This was where it was at. I didn’t have time to write novels then, but I continued to write. I focused my attention on writing short stories. I wrote a bunch of them at night, after everybody was finally asleep. I was tired, but it was a blast. Occasionally, I’d sell one. I was sending more realistic stories to literary journals and obviously fantastic stories to genre magazines. During this time, two things happened as far as writing. I finally got the notion to combine the two types of stories I was writing. Not exactly genius—all revelations for me came slowly as far as writing went. Once I did that, though, I started publishing a lot more stories. I have to say that the genre magazines were much more accepting of my hybrids than the lit. magazines, and it seemed to me at the time, much more willing to take a chance with something either structurally or thematically different. The other thing I finally realized was the beauty of revision. Revision went from being a theoretical concept to an integral part of the creation of the stories. That personal discovery was thrilling to me. Every story is a combined creation of both the (and I wish I had better terms to describe this) conscious and the subconscious. They’re both important to crafting a good piece, but it’s essential that they both have the story’s best interest at heart and are willing to relinquish ground to one another when it is called for. A big part of learning to write fiction is getting to a point where you can feel their allegiance or lack thereof to the story. Still, mistakes are often made. What can I say?
I have two follow-up questions to this, as you raise some interesting points. First, in regards to the literary/genre publications: You note that the genre magazines seemed to be more willing to experiment with your literary hybrids. Is this still the case, or have you seen a greater willingness by lit journals to publish stories that incorporate fantastic imagery and motifs?
At the time I was referring to, the lit. magazines were heavily focused on “realism.” It wasn’t just my stuff they weren’t interested in. Remember, we’re talking about the mid to late 80’s, and that was pre-Chabon, Aimee Bender, Jonathan Lethem. In other words, it just wasn’t “Literarily” cool enough to have a story infused with the fantastic. Granted, they may not have wanted my stories because they were just flat out shitty stories, but I read a lot of the lit. magazines then, and I rarely saw a speculative story in any of them. Back in the late 70’s, when I was in college, the fantastic in “Literature” was business as usual—Pynchon, Barth, Barthelme, Coover, Carter, Gardner, Marquez. This whole thing seemed to re-emerge not too long ago with the advent of some of the writers mentioned above. Add Kelly Link to that list. All terrific writers. I think Chabon has done more toward bridging the bullshit divide between “genre” and “literary” than just about anyone recently. Still, people love those categories and camps. They can’t live without them. When I wrote The Physiognomy, it was sold as a “literary novel,” but it tanked like the Lusitania. The genre readers and reviewers revived it and gave it a life. Still, there was a lot of resistance to talk of hybrids of genre and literary techniques and concerns within the genre. I put my ideas about this in a letter to Locus Magazine as a response to a letter Rob Chilson wrote in which he defined what Fantasy and Science Fiction are. I thought his definitions were comically constrictive and really kind of reactionary. My letter got me little love from the genre stalwart. Funny thing is, just a couple years later, the stuff I was talking about was all the rage. This was right around the time Kelly Link’s work had begun to be recognized and Jeff VanderMeer’s. These writers, and a lot of others were all blending different genres (fantasy, horror, mystery, science fiction) and traditional genre concerns and techniques with those from what had always been labeled “literary.” It’s not that other writers hadn’t been doing this stuff forever. Avram Davidson, Michael Moorcock, M. John Harrison, Lucius Shepard, Carol Emshwiller, to name only a few, it’s just that a pronounced interest in it seems to re-emerge for a brief time among readers and reviewers, and then it slips back down again. Right now, it seems to me that the genre is going through a period where it is pulling back toward its center, away from these hybrids, becoming more conservative, more emphasis on tradition in both science fiction and fantasy. Horror/Dark Fantasy, on the other hand, seems to be pushing the boundaries and blending styles more these days than its cousins. This might be as a result of economics or maybe the print to electronic evolution we are in the middle of or just part of a natural cycle. It might be for the better or worse. Who knows? These are merely my perceptions of a certain time. I’ll grant I could have gotten it all wrong.
Secondly, when revising a story, is there a gestation (perhaps digestion might be more suitable?) period between story conception, initial draft, and revision, or do these things vary based on the story being told?
All this varies greatly with each story. The story, “The Way He Does It,” was 15 years old before I finally finished revising it and selling it to John Klima for Electric Velocipede. “Giant Land,” another story took a solid decade. Then there is “The Trentino Kid,” which I wrote and revised in two days and sold to Ellen Datlow for the anthology, The Dark. Stories each have an idiosyncratic personality, some take forever to get right, some (rarely) come full blown with very little revision needed, and some, although they are published, with multiple chances at further revision for publication through their inclusion in anthologies, you can never get right, even though it seems like readers have no problem with them. As far as the conception part goes, it’s about the same. I have all manner of pieces of stories in different states of completion on my computer and in a filing drawer. I have to wait for quite a while some times before the path to proceed becomes clear to me. Ellen Datlow gave me a wonderful piece of advice back when I started out. She said, “Whatever you do, don’t throw anything away.” What usually happens with a story is that I’ll have the initial idea, and it will excite me, but then in trying to write it it will seem too complicated for me to get down. A point will come, though, sometimes completely out of the blue, where the way to proceed with a story that has seemed too complicated will instantly, for whatever reason, suddenly seem simple. The path is clear and I can then travel it.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but are there then “wrong times” for the “right idea” for a story?
Didn’t Dr. John do that song? Absolutely. You have a story you’re writing, and it seems like it should work, but at the moment, it doesn’t move you. Three weeks from now, it might. That’s what I was describing above sort of. The ideas for the stories don’t change, but your head about how to go about writing them might some day. When it comes to you and things all of a sudden fall into place, you realize the “rightness” of the idea and finish it.
How has the growth of online fiction markets, from the late Sci Fiction to current e-zines like Clarkesworld and Strange Horizons, affected the market for short fiction? Have you noticed an appreciable difference in the SF short fiction market in terms of overall quality or willingness to experiment as a result of the emergence of these e-zines?
Is there a willingness to experiment? I don’t know if “experiment” is the appropriate word. There does seem to be a willingness to take serious the work of new fiction writers with divergent styles. Strange Horizons has been doing this for quite a while, and I think Clarkesworld, under the editorial leadership of Nick Mamatas and now Kathy Sedia, has done a terrific job of this as well. These are the two most obvious examples, but there are many more. I’ve remained interested over the years in what’s going on in the smaller magazines and e-zines. I read, when I can, the stories and articles, and at times get a story accepted by one of them. I keep an eye on them with a writer’s sensibility as well as that of a reader. This phenomenon is one of the great strengths of the field. A lot of the writers you find in these magazines, you will soon find on the shelves at your local book store, and the stuff you can’t find at the book store can be found in these magazines. I wouldn’t say that the work here is generally better or worse than in the major magazines, but I think it needs to be considered as part of a larger whole, incorporating all of the venues. When you look at it that way, the speculative short fiction field seems vibrant.
As I re-read your fiction in preparation for this interview, I remember noting that many of the fictions that I enjoyed best used first-person point of view. Do you find it easier to tell a story in first-person, or is there something else involved in the choice of narrative approach?
I guess I like the first person for novels, because I like to inhabit the main character, to experience the fiction more directly as it unfolds. If you have a good character that the reader is interested in following, usually what the character assumes, the reader assumes (until they learn not to). The first person character, for me, effortlessly assumes the reality of the world of the story. In the writing, you can impart a lot more information with a lot less effort from a first person point of view. Some people feel third person is superior. It may be, but that’s not my story. I use third person in short stories quite a bit now, usually ironically. There’s something about the third person that has about it the air of “the expert,” which seems ridiculous to me; a certain distance. Is the third person ever anything but the first person tricked out in godly robes? I’m reminded of The Wizard of Oz (the film and the individual played by Frank Morgan). Behind the show of the flaming omniscience is a kind of goofy confidence man. It’s more realistic that the reader not know the inner thoughts and feelings of all characters they’ll meet or the back story on every element of a narrative. The unknowing aspect of the first-person adds a verisimilitude to the experience. I prefer wandering errantly through worlds than being confined to the panopticon. Another concern I always see about first-person characters is that if the story is being told from their point of view, you usually know their ultimate fate at the end of the novel, unless, of course, the writer is pulling a Sunset Boulevard. Not having this at your disposal, as a writer, could be a problem in a given instance, but there’s a lot, beside death, that can happen in life and is interesting to write and read about.
Your last comment about there being a lot more than death that can happen in life that can be interesting to read and write about reminds me of something else that I’ve observed about your novels (the short stories to a lesser extent): They tend to be episodic, with conclusions, but not the Big Conclusion of someone’s life ending at the end of the story. That sense of there being “something else” that might happen in the characters’ lifes after the final curtain is drawn, is that something that you’ve consciously aimed for in your novels, or did it just result from the demands of each individual story?
I have to be true to the lives of my characters. Rarely in life does it all come together in an amazing crescendo of completion and closure. I got some criticism for this on The Shadow Year, basically because everything wasn’t sufficiently explained. The character at the heart of the story remained uncertain about a lot of stuff in his life. Shit, there’s aspects of my own life from my early teens that I’m still trying to grapple with and figure out. You’d have to be one supremely psychologically well-adjusted motherfucker to not have any lingering doubts, wonderments, questions about your childhood. So if that’s the way it is in life, why should my character be expected to figure it all out by the end of the novel? I’ll have to write a book where that character spends the entire novel on the couch of a shrink, maundering over his doubts and at the end, as not to disappoint, he’ll put a bullet in his head for a heart breaking finality, tying things up neat and sweet. I like the endings you describe that hint that, yes, the reality of the fiction, the lives of the character, goes on. I really like the endings in a lot of Japanese novels, like Diary of a Mad Old Man by Tanizaki or the novels of Jonathan Carroll. Sometimes, not often, a perfection of closure, all ends being neatly tied up, seems right, and when you can get it and it feels honest, that’s cool. But a lot of times when writers go for it, you can feel the strings being pulled, the marionettes being manipulated, in the lead up to it and the fiction is compromised in order to get it.
That desire for “closure” by many readers, could that be attributed to certain formulae that have been used by storytellers for years, or is there something else to it?
I think it’s the influence of sit-com pacing and Hollywood story telling more than anything. I can think of more novels in which that kind of neat “closure” isn’t offered than I can ones where it is. God forbid some reader might wonder about the fiction beyond the confines of the book’s cover or that the character be unsure at the end of a story. The Japanese novelist, Tanizaki, is a master of original endings in books like The Key and Diary of a Mad Old Man. The endings are like whispers and their abruptness has a devastating effect. I also admire the ending of Jonathan Carroll’s The Wooden Sea. That book is so not a conventional novel. If you approach it as a conventional novel, especially concerning structure, and not on its own terms, it’s going to be confusing and disappointing, but if you are willing to forgo expectation of convention, you’ll see the book is a creature unto itself that elicits a powerful emotional response as well as ideas.
This raises another question: What exactly is a “conventional” story and why do you think it evolved to the point where many readers expect all stories to follow those prescribed forms?
I suppose the parameters for a “conventional” story are ever shifting, but in the readership as a whole, I would think there are certain aspects of story that are generally expected at certain points in the history of literature. Linearity is a big favorite. I’ve enjoyed writing stories that aren’t linear ("Pansolapia," “In the House of Four Seasons,” “The Bedroom Light,” “A Few Things About Ants"), but I have to say the general consensus isn’t strongly in favor of them. A lot of readers want to always have their expectations fulfilled. Hey, that’s what they want. Nothing wrong with that. Then there are other readers who feel let down if they get exactly what they expected. I just write the stories as they come to me. If you write them good, they’ll usually find at least a few appreciative readers. As a reader, though, I can tell when the writer is breaking with convention, and I usually like that. There comes a point, though, or I guess it is tied to the manner in which the writer tells the story, where it can get boring or too dissonant, and then I lose the fictional world and I might as well be reading the back of the cereal box. If the writer can somehow manage to keep a hold of the reader when entering strange new territory then that can be some of the most exciting reading. At this point I have no idea what I’m talking about.
You’ve already named in passing some of the authors whose stories have had an impact on you. What authors have you read recently that you would hold up to readers and say, “Damn! This book is worth reading!”?
I really liked that Wild Nights! Joyce Carol Oates book. A subtle approach to what could have been very heavy handed, with nice atmospherics and creepy effects. The juxtaposition, or I should say blending, of realism and the fantastic is seamless. And, I have to hand it to her, she really kicks Hemmingway’s ass. Mark Twain comes across as such a weird creep. None of them comes out the other side unscathed, but that’s part of the fun of it. It reminded me in some respects (the dream-like quality of the stories) of The White Hotel by D.M. Thomas. It was more reserved, though, perhaps due to the length of the pieces as opposed to a novel. That’s not to say it was better or worse, but just something else in the long run. The White Hotel is a truly unique reading experience. I’d say that’s a terrific one to check out. Another writer whose work I discovered some years ago but keep returning to is Alvaro Mutis. His novellas about Maqroll, the gaviero, collected now in one edition put out by NYRB, is a must read. I keep thinking about this horror novel put out by Vertical Press, Strangers by Taichi Yamada. It’s not just a ghost story, it’s a haunted story—more than just scary, which at times it is, but the whole thing has that overwhelming sense of not rightness that great horror does. It gets you where you live. A couple of fairly recent suggestions from fellow writers have turned out to be excellent. Lunar Park by Brett Easton Ellis, suggested by Jeff VanderMeer and Blood Sport by Robert P. Jones, suggested by Michael Swanwick.
You’ve mentioned several non-English language authors in passing during the course of this interview. Do you think there’ll be a time when foreign genre fiction will become very visible and influential here in the United States or in the British market?
I think foreign genre fiction is already influential with readers and writers in the US. The problem is we’re usually only seeing works that are older. That’s not to say that these are not worthwhile—they most certainly are, but I’d love to see the contemporary stuff. There are so many US novels translated each year overseas, and I’m not knocking that as I appreciate both the readership and the dough, but there are so few books translated into English on our side. It’s not fair, but that’s beside the point. It’s a product of America’s sense of manifest destiny, and it denies us the possibility of joining the rest of the world through the dialogue of literature. The US could do a great thing and put aside a billion or so—come on, you know that’s chump change in a time when we’re talking hundreds of trillions—and set about translating literature from all over the world. I love reading books from authors of other countries. I know no translation is perfect and that some will be flat out bad, but even if I was smart enough to learn Japanese on my own and read Tanizaki, I wouldn’t have time to also learn Arabic and read Mahfouz and Portuguese and read Amado. It all goes back to the Tower of Babel and that malicious prank God played on us. I have a friend who is a translator. She’s Japanese and translates from her native language into English and back. It seems like incredibly hard work. I think everybody could benefit by making contemporary literature more universally accessible.
In the novels and authors you list above, are there any perceived characteristics that make these novels, whether read in translation or in their original languages, somehow “different” from what you might find in an Anglo-American story? Or are there more similarities in story structure, thematic elements, characterization, etc.?
I’d say the aspects of structure and characterization are fairly similar to what I read in Anglo-American work. Occasionally you’ll read something like Amos Tutuola’s Simbi and the Satyr of the Dark Jungle, and although it is ostensibly in English, the structure of the story and the language will be influenced by the culture of the writer. It’s difficult with Tutuola, though, at least for me, in that I’m not sure how much of what I perceive as a difference is cultural or his unique, personal form of expression. What I enjoy about translation are both those moments of likeness and unlikeness. The things that are different are the cultural surroundings, the details of the place, the interesting anecdotes that are novel and exotic. I get to learn what it is like to be someone who lives in another part of the world I may never get to visit. It expands my world view. It engenders understanding and sunders, to an extent, that overshadowing illusion that is life in contemporary America fostered by our media and our government—all for the price of a paperback book. Man, that’s a deal everyone should take advantage of. On the other hand, I always find instances in these books where I find a shared humanity with the characters and through them the writer. For instance, I’m right now reading a book by a Muslim warrior/poet and anthologist/royal advisor from the 1100’s, who lived and wrote during the time of the Crusades—The Book of Contemplation by Usama Ibn Munqidh. The book is a compilation of anecdotes about the battles he participated in, the political intrigue of the area, everyday life, moral, religious, and political philosophy, etc. Usama’s got the stories to tell, and he’s got a sense of humor. In one part of the book, he’s relating his take on the honesty or lack thereof of one of his contemporaries and says of him, something to the effect of, “That guy is so crooked, he’d steal a loaf of bread from his own house.” I cracked up. It’s a line I could imagine Rodney Dangerfield having used in his comedy act. Just one small instance, but right then, across vast distances of time and space, cutting right through cultural differences, etc., I felt a real closeness to this writer. I got a glimpse of his humanity. That kind of experience really widens your world.
Many readers of SF like to pick up on literary trends. Whether it be New Wave, Cyberpunk, Steampunk, New Weird, or something else, fans seem to want some sort of “movement” to hang their hats on and to speculate about. What are your thoughts about “movements?” Is there anything that you’d care to speculate in regards to such things, even they in fact exist?
Some people have a good time with this bullshit, in which case, I say let it roll. I think for readers it’s vaguely useful as well in that they can discover new writers through it and find writers doing work that might be in some way similar to what they’ve liked in the past. It’s also a way to sell yourself as a writer. Like now, for some reason Steampunk is back, staggering around the ring. You know there are ready readers for it, so jump on it and write a steampunk book. You might catch the wave, get people interested in your fiction and cash in. You might not, though, too. I think the zombie thing is pretty shot by now. Science Fiction writers squeezed that singularity deal for all it was worth, and from what I see they’re still at it. Writers can use these appellations to distinguish themselves. Readers like that. It’s best if you can invent your own movement—then you are whatever...Steampunk, Cyberpunk, Beethoven’s Last Movement. I’ve been in anthologies devoted to Slipstream, The New Weird, Steampunk. I have a very poor grasp of what any of them, as movements, mean. I suppose, in the end, they are just constructs through which one can view and sell literature. I don’t think they’re essential, but a lot of people like them.
Would it be safe to say that current literary trends are more akin to re-explaining the literary wheel, or are there certain changes being introduced each time a “movement” emerges?
I suppose it would be “safe” to say that, but these appellations are very vague and a lot of times don’t stand up under close scrutiny. For a while I’d see my name along with those of Kelly Link, Jeff VanderMeer, and China Mieville in articles talking about New Weird. If you really look closely at the writing each of us does, I don’t think there is much of a similarity in the kinds of fiction we write with the exception of the fact that it is “speculative.” So it may be a re-explaining of sorts, but what it really is is a replacement of one inadequate taxonomy with another.
One final question: If Roland Barthes were somehow to be alive and in front of you today and started talking about the “Death of the Author,” what would be your response to him?
Ooo, Roland Barthes. I feel like Joseph Cotten in The Third Man (his character a writer of Westerns) when that reporter asks him, “And what, sir, do you think of Mr. James Joyce?” I don’t know if I’d say anything to Barthes, as his program is about reading, not writing. So basically, I don’t give a damn. People should read any way they want. I’ll say one thing for old Roland, though, he was a shrewd customer. In his Death of the Author deal he is about negating the influence of the “authority” of the author (her intentions, her biography, her utterances) on the interpretation of a given work. By disavowing the author the reader becomes the authority on the text. All well and good, but among readers, the critic has a certain culturally perceived authority, therefore leaving the critic the ultimate authority. Spoken like a true critic. Nice work if you can get it. The idea is that the “language” of the text is everything, and nothing outside the primary text should have a bearing on interpretation. This then establishes the reader, for all intent and purpose, as the “author” of the text, and since we are disavowing authors, the reader must then disavow herself. The noble thing about the post-modernist critical agenda is its attempt to deconstruct the sway of Western hegemony. The problem I have with it is the belief among many of its practitioners that the everyday reader doesn’t have the wherewithal to sort these ideas out for himself, that the reader is not making intellectual choices about how they want to read and interpret a text, or that their choice or mode of interpretation is in some way wanting. There’s a definite aspect of elitism to it. I’m reminded of a quote by Thoreau (approximate)—“If I knew someone was coming to my house to do me some good, I’d run in the other direction as fast as possible.” For how long had post-modernist criticism been the “authority” in academia? That said, I very much enjoy the ideas at play in this critical milieu, and it’s fun to think through them. The texts I like most are the essay, “The Detective and the Boundary” by William Spanos and the books of Michel Foucault (not so much for the overall philosophy but more for the anecdotes and tidbits of info I can steal for a story).
Jeffrey Ford is the author of The Well Built-City Trilogy from Golden Gryphon Press, and stand alone novels The Portrait of Mrs. Charbuque, The Girl In The Glass, The Shadow Year from Harper Collins. His three short story collections are: The Fantasy Writer’s Assistant, The Empire of Ice Cream, The Drowned Life. Ford has the following stories forthcoming in anthologies—“Ganesha” in The Beastly Bride (Viking), “The Coral Heart” in Eclipse #3 (Night Shade Books), “Down Atsion Road” in Haunted Legends (TOR), “Daddy Long Legs of the Evening” in Naked City (St. Martins), “Daltharee” in Best American Fantasy 3 (Underland).
Larry Nolen is a history and English teacher who has taught for most of the past ten years in Tennessee and Florida, in both public and private school settings. Fascinated with languages from an early age, he devotes much of his spare time to reading and translating interviews and articles from Spanish into English. Larry also has an unhealthy fascination with squirrels and dreams to one day edit an anthology of squirrel SF. His blog can be found at ofblog.blogspot.com.
