Javier Marias: 'There are seven reasons not to write novels
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novels (and one to write them)'
Books are booming, with
hundreds of thousands published worldwide each year in various forms. It seems
that everyone really does have a novel inside them – which is probably where it
should stay, says Spain's foremost living novelist, Javier Marias
JAVIER MARIAS Wednesday 16 July 2014
I can think of seven reasons not to
write a novel:
First: There are too many novels and too
many people writing them. Not only do those already written continue to exist
and demand to be eternally read, but thousands more entirely new novels keep
appearing in publishers' catalogues and in bookshops around the world; then
there are the many thousands rejected by publishers that never reach the
bookshops, but which nonetheless exist. It is, then, a commonplace activity,
one that is, in theory, within the grasp of anyone who learnt to write at
school, and for which no higher education or special training is required.
Second: And precisely because anyone,
whatever his or her profession, can write a novel, it is an activity that lacks
merit and mystery. Poets, philosophers and dramatists do it; so do
sociologists, linguists, publishers and journalists; politicians, singers, TV
presenters and football coaches; engineers, school teachers, civil servants and
movie actors; critics, aristocrats, priests and housewives; psychiatrists, university
professors, soldiers and goatherds.
It would seem, though, that for all
its lack of merit and mystery, there is still something strangely alluring
about the novel – or is it simply a desirable ornament? But what is so
desirable about something that lies within the reach of all professions,
regardless of their previous training, prestige or earning power?
Third: Writing a novel certainly won't make
you rich: indeed, only one in every 100 novels published– and that's an
optimistic percentage – earns a decent amount of money. The money earned is
unlikely to change a writer's life and it certainly won't be enough to retire
on.
What's more, it can take months or
even years of work to write an average-length novel that some people then might
want to read. Investing all that time in a task that has only a one per cent
chance of making any money is absurd, especially bearing in mind that these
days no one – not even aristocrats and housewives – has that amount of time to
spare. The Marquis de Sade and Jane Austen did, but their modern-day
equivalents do not; and worse still, not even the aristocrats and housewives
who don't write but do read have time enough to read what their writing
colleagues write.
Masters: an illustration by French artist Gustave Doré for
the timeless 'Don Quixote' (Alamy) Masters: an illustration by French artist
Gustave Doré for the timeless 'Don Quixote' (Alamy)
Fourth: The novel is no guarantee of fame,
or only a very minor fame, which could be acquired by far speedier and less
laborious means. As everyone knows, the only real fame comes from television,
where novelists are becoming an increasingly rare sight, unless the writer in
question is there not because of the interest or excellence of his novels, but
in his role as fool or clown, along with other clowns from various fields,
whether artistic or not.
The novels written by that truly
famous novelist-turned-TV-celebrity will merely provide the tedious and
soon-forgotten pretext for his popularity, which will depend less on the
quality of his future works, which no one really cares about anyway, and far
more on his ability to wield a walking stick, wear stylish scarves or Hawaiian
shirts or hideous waistcoats, and explain how he communicates with his
unorthodox God or how easily and authentically one can live among the Moors
(this always goes down well in Spain).
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http://ghassannazmi.com |
Besides, it would be nonsense to
struggle to write a novel purely in order to become famous (for even if you
write in the most pedestrian of styles, that, too, takes time) when nowadays
one doesn't need to do anything very much to become famous. Marriage to or an
affair with a suitably prominent person and the subsequent slipstream of
marital and extramarital goings-on are a far more efficient way of going about
it. Or you could simply commit some indecent act or outrage, although nothing,
of course, that involves a long prison sentence.
Fifth: The novel does not bring
immortality, largely because immortality barely exists any more. Nor, of
course, does posterity, if one understands by that the posterity of each
individual: everyone is forgotten once he or she has been dead a couple of
months. Any novelist who believes otherwise is living in the past and is either
very conceited or very ingenuous.
Given that novels last for, at most,
a season, not just because readers and critics alike forget about them, but
because only a few short months after a novel's birth it will have vanished
from the shelves of bookshops (always assuming there are still bookshops), it's
absurd, therefore, to imagine that our works will never perish. How can they
possibly be imperishable if most of them have perished before they're even
born, or have come into the world with the life expectancy of an insect? One
can no longer count on achieving enduring fame.
Sixth: Writing novels does not flatter the
ego, even momentarily. Unlike movie directors or painters or musicians, who can
actually see an audience's reaction to their works and even hear their
applause, the novelist never sees readers reading his book and is never there
to witness their approval, excitement or pleasure. If he's lucky enough to sell
a lot of copies, he might be able to console himself with a number, which,
however large, remains just that, an impersonal, abstract number.
He should also be aware that he would
share those same consoling sales figures with the following: TV chefs and their
recipe books, gossipy biographers of feather-brained megastars, futurologists
wearing chains, beads and even cloaks or jellabas, the poisonous daughters of
actresses, fascist columnists who see fascism everywhere except in themselves,
stuck-up fools giving lessons in manners, as well as other equally eminent
scribes.
As for receiving glowing reviews,
that is highly unlikely: if a novel does get reviewed, the reviewer may let the
writer off lightly the first time, but not the second; or the writer may feel
that the critic likes his novel for the wrong reasons; and if none of these
things happens, and the praise given is overt, generous and intelligent,
probably only about two people will read that particular review – a further
source of upset and frustration.
Page turners? Shelves of used volumes at a bookshop. Many
thousands are rejected by publishers before reaching this stage (Alamy) Page
turners? Shelves of used volumes at a bookshop. Many thousands are rejected by publishers before
reaching this stage (Alamy)
Seventh: I will list here all the usual,
boring reasons, such as the isolation in which the novelist works, his
suffering as he wrestles with words and, above all, syntax, his fear of the
blank page, his bruising relationship with major truths that have chosen to reveal
themselves to him alone, his perpetual stand-off with the powers-that-be, his
ambiguous relationship with reality, which can lead him to confuse truth with
lies, his titanic struggle with his own characters, who sometimes take on a
life of their own and may even run away from him (although the writer would
have to be somewhat of a coward for that to happen), the vast amount of alcohol
he consumes, the special and basically abnormal life you have to lead as an
artist, and other such trifles that have seduced innocent or foolish souls for
far too long, leading them to believe that there is a great deal of passion and
torment and romanticism in the rather modest and pleasing art of inventing and
telling stories.
This brings me to the one reason that
I can see for writing novels, which may not seem much in comparison with the
preceding seven, and which doubtless contradicts one or another of them.
رجل الثلج - تيسير نظمي
الكتاب السادس
2014
First and last: Writing novels allows the novelist
to spend much of his time in a fictional world, which is really the only or at
least the most bearable place to be. This means that he can live in the realm
of what might have been and never was, and therefore in the land of what is
still possible, of what will always be about to happen, what has not yet been
dismissed as having happened already or because everyone knows it will never
happen. The so-called realistic novelist, who, when he writes, remains firmly
installed in the real world, has confused his role with that of the historian
or journalist or documentary-maker.
The real novelist does not reflect
reality, but unreality, if we take that to mean not the unlikely or the
fantastical, but simply what could have happened and did not, the very contrary
of actual facts and events and incidents, the very contrary of "what is
happening now". What is "merely" possible continues to be
possible, eternally possible in any age and any place, which is why we still
read Don Quixote and Madame Bovary, whom one can live with for a while and
believe in absolutely, rather than discounting them as impossible or passé or
old hat.
The only Spain of 1600 that we know
and care about is the Spain of Cervantes: the Spain of an imaginary book about
other imaginary books and out of which an anachronistic knight errant emerges,
rather than out of what used to be or was actual reality. What we call the
Spain of 1600 does not exist, although one has to assume that it did; just as
the only France of 1900 that exists for us is the one Proust decided to include
in his work of fiction.
Earlier, I said that fiction is the
most bearable of worlds, because it offers diversion and consolation to those
who frequent it, as well as something else: in addition to providing us with a
fictional present, it also offers us a possible future reality. And although
this has nothing to do with personal immortality, it means that, for every
novelist, there is the possibility – infinitesimal, but still a possibility–
that what he is writing is both shaping and might even become the future he
will never see.
© Javier Marias
Translation © Margaret Jull Costa
Reprinted with permission from The
Threepenny Review, Summer 2014; threepennyreview.com
Javier Marias has had his work
translated into more than 40 languages; his most recent novel is 'The
Infatuations', now published in paperback (Penguin, £8.99). Margaret Jull Costa
has been his translator since 1992
شاعرة آيرلندية تفوز بجائزة (تي إس أليوت)
الشعرية
بعد أن فشلت في الحصول عليها أربع مرات
سابقة
الثلاثاء - 15 يناير 2014
الشاعرة شينيئد موريسي
لندن: فاضل السلطاني
كان الشاعر تي. إس. اليوت يقول لا منافسة
بين الشعراء في ملكوت الشعر. ومع ذلك يتنافس كل عام عشرات الشعراء للفوز بالجائزة التي
تحمل اسمه، والتي تعتبر أهم جائزة شعرية في بريطانيا، وتمنح هذه الجائزة لأفضل مجموعة
شعرية صدرت خلال عام 2013.
وقد فازت بها هذا العام الشاعرة الآيرلندية
الشمالية شينيئد موريسي متغلبة على عشرة شعراء ضمتهم القائمة القصيرة، ومنهم شعراء
من العيار الثقيل مثل الشاعر الويلزي داني آبس، وجورج سزيرتس، ومايكل سيمونس،
وآن كارسون. واختارت لجنة التحكيم المكونة من ثلاثة أعضاء برئاسة أيان دوهيغ،
وعضوية امتياز داركر وفيكي فيفر، الشاعرة الآيرلندية بالإجماع عن مجموعتها التي
يمكن ترجة عنوانها بـ«تغير المنظور»، وهي المجموعة الخامسة لها، لـ«لغتها المعبرة على
المستويات التاريخية والسياسية والشخصية». وكانت موريسي قد وصلت إلى القائمة القصيرة
أربع مرات من دون أن يحالفها الحظ بالفوز بالجائزة، التي ذهبت إلى شعراء مثل أليس
أوسوولد وديريك والكوت، الحائز أيضا على جائزة نوبل عام 1992، وشيموش هيني،
الحائز أيضا على جائزة نوبل عام 1995.
وكان الحفل الضخم الذي نظم في قاعة «والاس
كولكشنن» بوسط لندن يوم أول من أمس قد شابه غياب فاليري أليوت، زوجة تي. إس. اليوت
الثانية، التي رحلت في نهاية عام 2012. وكانت حريصة دائما على حضور الاحتفال في
كل سنة، وإلقاء كلمة عن اليوت والجائزة كما فعلت السنة الماضية. ومن المعروف أن فاليري
قد كرست كل حياتها بعد رحيل الشاعر الكبير لجمع أعماله، ومذكراته، وأسست جمعية أدبية
باسمه انطلقت منها هذه الجائزة، على الرغم من أنها كانت في الثامنة والثلاثين فقط
حين رحل الشاعر الذي كان يكبرها بثمانية وثلاثين عاما. وقبل رحيلها بأشهر عن ثمانية
وستين عاما، تبرعت بخمسة عشر ألف جنيه إسترليني لصندوق الجائزة.
ومن مفارقات الأخرى التي رافقت إعلان فوز
موريسي، تعاطف الكثير من الحضور مع المرشح الآخر الصديق الشاعر الويلزي داني آبسي.
فهذا الشاعر قد بلغ الثانية والتسعين من العمر، وقد تكون مجموعته «تحدث أيها الببغاء
العجوز» التي دخلت القائمة القصيرة، هي آخر أعماله، التي تجاوزت الأربعين كتابا من
شعر ومسرحيات ومذكرات عن الشعراء الذين جايلهم، وكانوا أصدقاء له مثل الشاعر الويلزي
ديلان توماس. ولكنها بالطبع اعتبارات خارج الشعر. وهو قرار لجنة التحكيم في نهاية
الأمر.
وكانت دور النشر قد رشحت في الأساس 35 مجموعة
شعرية لشعراء من مختلف الأعمار والاتجاهات، وبينهم شعراء فازوا بهذه الجائزة سابقا
مثل آن كارسون وجورج شزرتس. وتبلغ قيمة الجائزة خمسة آلاف جنيه إسترليني، بينما
يتسلم الشعراء المرشحون للقائمة القصيرة مبلغ ألف جنيه.
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