Интервју со Владимир Владиславич

Убеден сум дека писателите кои пишуваат фикција ги даваат најдобрите интервјуа. Интервјуто со Иван Владиславич, балкански емигрант кој живее и работи во Јоханесбург, го потврди тоа.

Во интервјуто за TheWhiteReview.org тој зборува за своите дела, за методот преку кој ги одбира локациите за кои пишува како и составува една практична листа на книги кои би ги понел на пуст остров. Следат неколку извадоци кои мене ми оставија впечаток. Тука може да го прочитате интервјуто во целост.

За тоа како некои локации остануваат во нашето сеќавање:

^AIVAN VLADISLAVI? — I’m interested in the layering of memory and place. I’ve quoted Lionel Abrahams on this question before: in his poem ‘Views and Sites’ he wonders whether his attachment to certain unprepossessing parts of the city may be traced to the fact that a ‘topsoil of memory’ has formed there and this makes him feel more alive, more at home. I was considering Abrahams’ work when I started Portrait with Keys, and so questions about memory and place are in the foundations of the book.

Во врска со тоа дали пишува имајќи ги читателите во предвид:

I obviously consider the reader to the extent that I hope someone will read what I’ve written and I expect them to get something from the exercise. But I cannot say that I think about this reader when I’m working. It feels to me like the contract is entirely between myself and the text; I am trying to resolve something for myself by working it through in language. What happens afterwards doesn’t concern me at the time. In this limited sense, you could say I’m writing for myself. Limited because I’m also not the intended reader; the pleasure for me is in the writing rather than the reading. Tim Couzens once told me something Calvino said about writing, to the effect that it was ‘hiding something so that the reader can find it’. This seems like a good description of the activity. When I’m ‘hiding something’ in written form, I imagine that someone will come looking, but I don’t know who this person is and I don’t consider how good their eyes are.

Каде што објаснува како секоја книга си има своја ситуација и место каде што треба да се прочита. Мислам дека многу од нас, вклучувајќи ме и мене, ја направиле таа грешка да понесат "тешка" книга на плажа, каде е невозможно да се достигне потребното ниво на концентрација за да се поврземе со книгата. Неговиот одговор дека тешките книги треба да се прочитаат во библиотека наоѓајќи се помеѓу полици со други книги е одличен:

 ^AIVAN VLADISLAVI? — I cannot arrive at a list of ‘essential readings’. Some readers might find it easy, but the list of books I love for one reason or another is too long and varied to make a sensible choice of four. In any event, books change with every reading, and they can lose their appeal or suddenly come to life in new circumstances. I’ve taken a stack of books with me on holiday only to discover that half of them are unreadable at the seaside. I wouldn’t like to find myself under a beach umbrella, clutching a copy of Labyrinths that I simply can’t read, because you need to be in an armchair, surrounded by bookshelves, to read Borges properly. (I dislike the phrase ‘prescribed reading’ – but that is a different matter.)

И за крај неговата листа на книги кои би ги понел на пуст остров:

Let me take you literally and handpick four books for the desert island. Probably one should pack Robinson Crusoe, which is full of advice on building stockades and so on, but I would rather have Treasure Island. There’s an irrepressible energy in Stevenson’s prose that cheers me up. He speaks to the child in his reader, but he treats that child like an adult. Do you know his wonderful remark that good stories ‘satisfy the nameless longings of the reader, and … obey the ideal laws of the day-dream’? This is far from how I write but close to how I read. 

Then I would take something I read recently, Tim Robinson’s Stones of Aran: Pilgrimage. It’s a meticulously detailed account of Árainn, the largest of the three Aran Islands, its geology, history, mythology, shaped by a walk around its rugged coastline. It’s a beautiful book, one that approaches a single place with such loving attentiveness that no reader could come away without a new awareness of their own surroundings. I imagine it would be a very useful guide to desert-island life. Going back to Lionel Abrahams’s idea of the ‘topsoil of memory’, Robinson’s genius is to find this topsoil in every nook and cranny. By examining how every crag and inlet came by its name, for instance, he finds human traces in the landscape and opens it to history. (Robinson wrote a follow-up called Labyrinth, in which he ventures from the shoreline into the interior. Perhaps I should pack that instead?) 

 My third choice might be Axel Munthe’s The Story of San Michele, which is about his house on Capri, his work as a doctor and anything else he feels like writing about. I’ve been fascinated by this wayward memoir since I first read it as a teenager.

Finally, I’ll defer to Aubrey Tearle, the narrator of The Restless Supermarket, who recommends the Condensed Oxford Dictionary as the perfect desert island reading, not least because it comes with a handy magnifying glass one could use to start a fire. As fans of Survivor know, you can endure almost anything if you have fire, and once your torch goes out you have to leave the tribal council area immediately.  

 

Доколку сеуште не сте убедени дека писателите на фикција ги даваат најдобрите интерјвуа прочитајте го ова интервју со Маргарет Атвуд.