Am starting to catch up with Juan, if I can afford the latest two books and
can get hold of them. Thought others may be interested in this interview or
have something interesting to say... he interests me, anyway.
best wishes
Chris Jones.
[Excerpts from the interview]
The old-fashioned novel (with "round" characters developed psychologically,
with its verisimilitude and its "realism," etc.) no longer interests me, and
I don't think that I will write such any more (which does not mean that I
renounce those I published earlier). The only kind of literature which
interests me at the moment is that which lies outside the labels of "novel,"
"essay," "poem," etc. ...
A writer who is unaware of the movements in poetics and linguistics seems to
me an anachronism in today's world. The writer cannot abandon himself simply
to inspiration, and feign innocence vis a vis language, because language is
never innocent.
If young writers were to ask me for advice, the first one that I would give
them is that they renounce living from their writings, that they search for
parallel activities that might earn them a living. In large measure it is
these economic reasons which are responsible for that monstrously
irresponsible and repetitious mass of writing which floods the publishing
market, converting writers into hens, some of whom lay eggs at an amazing
speed. The writer, too, ought to have the right to keep quiet and not to
produce. In this sense the silence of Sanchez Ferlosio after publishing his
extraordinary work, El Jarama, ought to be a lesson to all. His is a much
more significant work than the entire "realistic-objective" production of
those novelists whose works we have read for a long time. I hope that when
the time comes when I have nothing to say or do not feel like saying
anything, I will have the good sense and guts to keep quiet. ....
By Julio Ortega, trans. Joseph Schraibman
This interview originally appeared in English in Texas Quarterly (Spring 1975)
From "The Review of Contemporary Fiction," Summer 1984, 4.2
http://www.centerforbookculture.org/interviews/interview_goytisolo.html
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