Entrevista de Ricardo Pinto ao 'FP'
(english version)
Alexandra Martin contacted me in May 2006 to ask me if I would do an interview for the Portuguese publication, Futuro Presente. I agreed and here it is... (Alexandra's questions appear in my own translation)
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AM: The Stone Dance of the Chameleon is something of an international success. Reading the books so far published, my first impression was of originality. They are set in an entirely new world. What was the inspiration for this work?
RP: At the very beginning, back in 1981, it just seemed something to do... a way for me to exert my 'creative muscles'... When I actually started writing the first book in 1994, or so, then it became a desire to revolt against comparable works that seemed buried in the passing world order, where Europe and then America were the centre of the universe; the West triumphant everywhere. So much speculative fiction is 'eurocentric'... this conception always seems to me a kind of cultural racism. In my own 'world building', I wanted to embrace ' influences from all over the human sphere. More recently, I have come to realize the deep psychological reasons why I have needed to write these books. They are a mythological interpretation of my own life experience... and, through being mythological, I hope they have a certain universal message...
AM: The detail and care with which you write are clearly visible. Tell us a little about the process of creating this world.
RP: My starting point was the schooling that there is in Tolkien's world creation: I too designed peoples and places and invented working languages. My attention to detail was somewhat neurotic - an anxiety that the work of creation needed to be perfect and complete. I am a little more relaxed now, though still extremely careful. My writing process feels to me like the exploration of a 'real' world... which means that I have to understand what makes everything work and how things link together. If I don't do that, then I cannot 'see it' to be able to describe it for my reader. Besides, in a work which will extend over more than 2000 pages and 12 years of solid work, it is essential to maintain consistency. The best way to do this, is to make sure that everything down to the smallest detail is 'real'...
AM: It is a very graphic work, with great visual power. On your website there are various maps and, besides, you created a new language. What was born first: the graphic part and the language, the history, or were they all created simultaneously?
RP: In some ways, the Stone Dance is like an archaeological dig. Imagine that writing it is like the opening of Tutankhamun's tomb. First you make a small hole and, shining a torch in, you get glimpses of all kinds of strange objects; gold and jewels, animals and human figures. But all in confused relation to each other. Then you open the hole enough to creep inside and gradually bring the objects out... examine them in the light of day... see how they are linked to each other. Gradually, a story emerges of what these things represent... and you begin to see the living, breathing people of whose lives these are the remains...
AM: You have said that you don't consider your books fantasy. How would you classify them?
RP: Once I would have said that they were more like the history of an imaginary place. I have been fond of suggesting that it could be a story set in 12th century Cambodia - a mysterious and unknown place to most people, exotic, but yet, true. Now I am beginning to realize that my work is really more like a piece of mythology, which has emerged from the wellspring of my subconscious, and which I believe is part of what Jung called our Collective Unconscious...
AM: Utopia? Dystopia? A study of the Hero? A study of power? Your work can be seen from these various perspectives. What's your opinion?
RP: it is all of these things and more besides. It is the distillation of my thoughts on all kinds of things over the past 40 years. One of the main aspects of the books is how they explain my view of our lives in the West and how we prey on the rest of the world... as we have done for centuries... at a terrible cost to them and to the health of our planet. However, if I was asked to describe what it is about in a single sentence, that would be that it is: how to survive childhood...
AM: What's it like to be considered the new Tolkien? Do you like Tolkien?
RP: That makes me smile. Since the 1950s anyone writing a book that is 'fantastical' has been called the "New Tolkien". Of course, Tolkien has been a great influence on me... specifically in the way that I approached the inventing of my world, but my sensibilities are really very different from his. I grew up in a very different world and have a very different outlook...
AM: I know that you like Dune, in what way do you feel that Herbert has influenced you?
RP: Herbert's Dune is for me the other prime example of deep world creation. Its influence on me is profound because of the freshness and completeness of his invention. I don't think it is an accident that both his work and Tolkien's are among the few that have retained their popularity for half a century. The world of Dune seems to me to have a more sophisticated dynamic between power structures and natural resources than Tolkien's. As such, it is a far more 20th century work. Coming into the 21st century, the issue of resources and of the environment is moving ever more rapidly to centre stage. As such, I hope my books are part of that continuing trend...
AM: How does it feel to have it translated into so many languages?
RP: It is rather exciting to have something so new appear with so little effort on my own part *grin* It's a kind of magic. Of course, in translation, the books become a new animal. But then, it becomes so in the mind of each and every reader... who translates it into his own, internal language...
AM: Do you feel yourself more Portuguese, Scottish or a citizen of the world?
RP: Like most immigrants, I feel somewhere between the two... which makes me a natural European. But the older I get, the more I consider myself to be just a human being...
AM: Your website is an optimum complement to your books. It is noticeable that, like the books themselves, the site shows a great attention to detail. Of the reasons you give for that you refer to erroneous information circulating on the Internet and your desire for perfection. Is your site important to you, this bridge to the public?
RP: Writing is a lonely business. The length and complexity of my books means that no one sees a word of it for years at a time. I am left thus working away, day after day, on my own. Being able to communicate with my readers and have them talk back to me has been a great support...
AM: What for you is the importance of your readers?
RP: Well, these are the people to which I am opening up my heart. It is a very intimate relationship. My reader allows me to paint my pictures in his/her mind. This is a great privilege. This is the reason I work so hard to paint as beautiful, clear, real and honest a picture as I am able...
AM: I read recently in another interview that you had read Jung and, thus, discovered that your own work is filled with Archetypes. Tell us about a few...
RP: The experience I had was almost shocking. I was reading this book by Jung on archetypes, and finding that one, after the other, they were there in my books... even though I had not intentionally put them there. The examples are far too many to go into here. Let me give you one example... there are a lot of images throughout the books of the sea, of the sound and motion of the sea, of wells, and other ways down into darkness... It seems that all of these are classical representations of the subconscious world that lives deep within us all... This symbol if applied as an interpretation throughout my books reveals much that is hidden...
AM: When can we expect the third volume?
RP: I am currently deep in the writing of it. I have given up coming up with dates... because, invariably, I always miss them...
posted by Mário Casa Nova Martins @ 7/10/2006 06:34:00 da tarde
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