by Giovanni Agnoloni
Andrew Sean Greer, interviewing a novelist through time
Recently defined by the “Corriere della Sera” the best living American writer, Andrew Sean Greer, the author of The Confessions of Max Tivoli and The Story of a Marriage, has recently come to Italy for the first European presentations of his latest novel, The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells (Le vite impossibili di Greta Wells, Bompiani. 2013).
I had the pleasure to witness the very first of them all, last Sunday, in the recently relaunched literary café of “La Cité”, on Borgo San Frediano, in Florence, that with such an event celebrated its own rebirth, after the recent vicissitudes due the (now fortunately suspended and very much contested by the Florentines) injunction to close every night at 11pm. Florence’s cultural life has so received a warm infusion of high literary quality and great ability to involve the readers into thrilling stories.
After describing – with some similarities to Francis Scott Fitzgerald‘s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – the weird life path of a guy who is born old and, as life proceeds, goes back to his own youth, in The Confessions of Max Tivoli (2004), and plunging into the charming and disquieting secrets of a married couple in The Story of a Marriage (2008), in The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells (2013) Greer deals with the theme of parallel universes. This book, in fact, concerns the life/lives of a woman, Greta Wells, affected by depression after losing some very dear people to her, who undergoes electroshock therapy in 1985 and the next day wakes up in 1918… But then she will also move to 1941, so having to face very different experiences in fascinating sceneries, although inhabited by the same figures that belonged to her (initial) present. Still, they are not exactly the same.
A very interesting literary experiment – as this is not a simple time-journey, but a reflection of the several possible facets of Multiverse – for an author who, answering Vanni Santoni‘s most interesting questions during the presentation, revealed that he is currently working on a science-fiction book. By so doing, he confirms the general impression that one gets from his works: the fact that they are not only deep and excellently written, but capable of spanning through very wide and different territories in fiction. As a matter of fact, as he has remarked, one hundred years ago no one would have ever questioned the fact that a writer like H.G. Wells (note the surname…) or Jules Verne used sci-fi or anyway fantastic stylistic features, and so it should be today.
Actually, the mix/alternation/blend of different genres, in a single book or throughout a writer’s career, is a relevant aspect of all Postmodern literature – that I will soon dig deeper into, in a series of articles on this blog – and I think that Andrew Sean Greer’s books can be considered among the most interesting outcomes of Postmodernism – or, who knows, Post-postmodernism.
—
Andrew Sean Greer (from ultimaora.net)
1. I would first of all like to ask you a general question on the general trends of your writing, and especially on your approach to the tiny details that reveal the truth in your stories. Like, for instance, one is reading chapter 5 and suddenly finds some little piece of information that then, in chapter 6 or 7, will develop into something extremely important for the plot, which will somehow catch them off guard. Is this the result of a technique, in the sense that you plan in beforehand, or does it come out from the depth of yourself?
– The effect you as a writer want to try to create in the reader is that you actually planned it. The fact is, you’re writing along and you discover something, and then you go back and revise, and revise, and revise… But really, it’s a process of discovery… and it’s terrifying!
2. Another thing that I’ve found out, and that is absolutely important in your writing is contrast between reality and appearance: I’m talking about situations that from outside look in a certain way, but then turn out to be completely different, so the reader is constantly taken “off balance”. Is there a reference, in this approach of yours to “story-building”, to Greek tragedies, in which such contrast played such an important role?
– Well, not consciously, but I’m actually influenced by the 19th century novels, and surely their authors did receive such an influence. But I like the fact that books encourage the readers to think about themselves, otherwise they would merely be entertaining.
3. Is the fact that you are able to make us feel so vividly the sensations of your characters the result of your curiosity towards the people, that maybe you’ve developed throughout your travels and experiences, or is it the outcome of a psychological journey within yourself, that somehow mirrors other people’s experiences?
– Many people tell me that my stories remind them of somebody else… I think it rather is the second thing that you mentioned. I notice my own mood and then recognize it in other people. I wish I could say it’s more about my ability to feel other people’s emotions, being pathetic and generous, but I feel the truth is that I know myself pretty well and can somehow interact with similar feelings in others.
