A BOOK OF
CONVERSATIONS
BETWEEN WRITERS.
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What follows is a brief excerpt from The Believer Book of Writers Talking to
Writers, a collection of 23 affable and expansive interviews run
entirely by writers. Some are favorites first seen in The Believer; others
are previously unpublished. Also, until Friday, October 28, at 5 p.m., The
Believer Book of Writers Talking to Writers will be $5 off.
Here, a couple of questions from Ben Marcus's conversation with George
Saunders.
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BEN MARCUS: So much of your stories seems wedded to an emotional realism, yet your settings—the landscapes—are often, if not fantastical, then exceedingly odd or improbable, leading to real emotions in an unreal world. And then your stories, sometimes very slightly, leave the realm of physical possibility entirely (the dead awaken, for instance). Are these three distinct writing-spaces to you? Do you see a difference between "realism" and fantastical writing?
GEORGE SAUNDERS: I guess it's strategic on one level: if you're going to have some really crazy things happening, you have a better chance of being believed if you jump off from some believable ground. It maybe comes from a sales instinct: If I'm trying to hustle 10 bucks from you, and I've invented a wild story to support my hustle, it's probably best not to sing that story in an operatic voice. Better if I tell it in my normal voice, eyes downcast, acknowledging all your doubts about the veracity of my story. That's how I see the realist touches. I think the fantastical elements are there as my lamebrained attempt to mimic the real strangeness and mystery of even the most ordinary day. Realism is nonsense, when you think of it. I mean, there is no such thing. Nobody writes realism, if realism is defined as "fiction that is objective and real and not distorted, but is just, you know, normal." But I think that's what "realistic" has come to mean. The nature of all fiction is distortion, exaggeration, and compression. So what we call realism is just distorting, exaggerating, and compressing with the intention of alluding to, or hand-waving at—taking advantage of our fondness for—what I've heard called "consensus reality"—the sort of lazy, agreed-upon "way things are." Which, of course, is not at all how they actually are. How they actually are is: We are walking corpses. Ideas people die for fade within 10 years. Murderers walk. The dead don't really die, because they can sometimes continue to affect the actions of the living just as much as if they were still around. Et cetera. So realism, as beautifully practiced by Zola, Chekhov, Carver, et al., is a strategy—a strategy to elicit our emotional loyalty by doing some sleight of hand to make the distorted, exaggerated, compressed thing they've made remind us of consensus reality. Why? Power of effect. They want to make a powerful effect.
BM: I wanted to ask you how aware you are of entertainment, as a specific gift to a reader, and whether or not there's ever a tension for you between what you feel you ought to do as a writer, and what you actually do.
GS: This question rattles me, because it makes me realize that I make no distinction between what pleases me and what might please a reader. That is, if I feel the reader will be pleased by a thing, I simply want to do that thing. Period. My feeling is something like this: The basis for literature is the fact that all of our brains are essentially, structurally, identical. First love in 1830, in Russia, beneath swaying pines, is neurologically
identical to first love in 1975, back of a Camaro, Foghat blaring. That's
why that wonderful cross-firing occurs when we read.
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OTHER McSWEENEY'S FEATURES:
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A Book of Conversations Between Writers
Ten Reasons Why You, Audrey Tautou, Gamine French Star of Amélie, Should Date Me, Teddy Wayne By Teddy Wayne
Giant Squid Takes Us Weekly to Task By Greg Ruehlmann
Selections From Books Removed From My Small Canadian University's Library Collection That, While Entertaining, Were No Longer Considered Relevant to the Undergraduate Curriculum By G. Camper
The Ballad of Matt Harrigon, Pinewood Derby Winner By Nick Confalone
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