'no, after you'

Last night I introduced the fantastic Robert Goddard, who was giving the NAW lecture at the Birmingham Book Festival.  He’s a speaker who can make a 500 seat auditorium seem like a living room, partly because he knows what he’s talking about. 

A crime writer, he says, has to get things right.  And to get things right, it helps to be the kind of person who protects detail like others feel for kittens.  If temperamenally you enjoy searching out errors in ancient train timetables (Bradshaw’s (d.1961) for maximum satisfaction) , you could do worse than try your hand at a crime novel.

Also, it’s always reassuring when at a public event a professional storyteller turns out to be brilliant at telling stories.  The one I enjoyed most involved the correct etiquette for  a gentleman who wishes to show a lady through a revolving door.  His dilemma is that he needs to help with the door, but without pushing in front.

The correct solution, apparently, is for the gentleman to enter the revolving door alone, complete four fifths of a cycle (alone), and then to allow the lady to enter the empty section in front of him.  He may then complete the cycle, following the lady graciously into the lobby.

Alas, this kind of attention to detail is rarely easy to follow in practice.  Other people are ignorant and push in front.  And ladies are not as patient as they used to be.

I had a similar dilemma come up in Becoming Drusilla.  I can never remember whether the man (if he’s a gentleman) is supposed to walk on the right or the left of his companion.  In my mind I have memories of two conflicting possibilities:

‘The man walks on the outside [next to the road] to protect the lady from wheel splash.  Or the man walks on the left [which will sometimes be shopside], keeping his scabbard clear, ready at any moment to safely draw his sword and defend the lady’s honour. Or is that the right, freeing the sword arm?’

Looking back on this, I don’t think a gentleman would stand on the right.  Even though the sword-arm would be free, the sword in pulling clear might rent and slash the lady’s clothes (crinoline, hopefully) in the act of being honourably drawn.

The answer to this dilemma has since revealed itself.  A gentleman should stand on the left of the lady, but should always walk on the right-hand side of the road.  Then everyone’s happy.

I should be writing crime novels.  I’m that kind of guy.

Questions for Gail Jones on the novel Dreams of Speaking by Ayano Fukuda, Aki Irimajiri, Asuka Kimura, Tadayuki Kin, Hiroyuki Koreeda, Joyce Jie Xuan Lim, Yusuke Matsumura, Chihiro Seko, Yuichiro Tanakamaru, Reiei Tei, Junichi Tran, Yasuhiro Wakai, Erika Yamauchi

Tokyo University 28/06/06

Can you explain the title Dreams of Speaking?  [We have one theory that Mr Sakamoto is too elegant, tolerant, and even omnipotent (for example the episode of the waiters).  He can be seen as a symbol of perfection (especially on how to live with technology) and exists to offer Alice a kind of salvation.  His sudden death can be interpreted as the end of a reverie, a dream.  Whatever the imaginary Mr Sakamoto communicates therefore represents the ‘dreams of speaking’ of the title. How do you feel about readers interpreting your work in this extreme kind of way?]

What a wonderful theory! I think that texts finally belong to readers and I’m delighted at such an ingenious and interesting reading of the text. According to Maurice Blanchot, the French philosopher, the text doesn’t come into being until it is read and that there is a kind of collaboration in meaning-making. I don’t think of Mr Sakamoto as having a dream status, but he does offer Alice salvation because of the force of his humanity. The novel was originally called The Voices, but I had to find a new title when another novel was published with that title just before mine. So the original idea was to meditate on the status of the voice in relation to friendship and technology – what people say and don’t say to each other, what families, friends, lovers say and don’t say. But I prefer the title Dreams of Speaking  and for me the ‘dream’ is in part the aspiration to a kind of open and honest conversation.

A critic in the London Times has said that Dreams of Speaking is no page-turner.  But in fact the scattered nature of the episodes and biographical stories encourages the reader to turn the page to discover what you the author have in mind. Was narrative tension a consideration in how you structured the many episodes in this novel?  If not, what determined the order?

I wanted lots of mini-narratives so there was a sense of the many lives and stories that contribute to our own. I’m, not really interested in the linear plot and the idea that there is a classic arc of building up tension and then resolving it. I’m more interested in a structure that gives a particular “texture’ to reading, so that there are intellectual and emotional tensions operating at many levels in the text. The order of episodes was rather random; I wanted some things at the beginning of the friendship the cinema, the telephone, the forms that connect Alice and Mr Sakamoto – and I wanted more complex (even more painful) kinds of technology – like the MRI imaging machine – to come at the end. But I had no fixed sequence and tried to find my way intuitively.

Alice makes an impulsive decision to visit Mr Sakamoto in Nagasaki.  She lives in Paris for a long time off an unfinished writing project.  Alice and Mr Sakamoto strike up an immediate rapport in a train.  What role does authenticity have to play in this novel?

I’m not really sure what ‘authenticity’ means. I do think there are forms of honest and intimacy that I wanted the pair to discover, and most of this is achieved in conversation (actual or in email). Alice is not really sure who she is, but Mr Sakamoto has a very firm sense of self, achieved over his lifetime and by contact with suffering an a catastrophic scale. So I do privilege him in the relationship as the wise one.

Mr Sakamoto’s ‘scientific’ messages are primarily biographical rather than centring on discoveries or inventions.  The sense they give is that no matter how far technology develops, it will never overcome man’s sense of doom and his emotions. Does the biographical emphasis suggest that the human mind and heart will always be superior to modern technology?

Yes, I suppose so. Mr Sakamoto is interested in the life behind the invention, and the fact that there are hidden narratives to every object we use. He is a kind of radical humanist; he no longer believes in god, but he does believe in beauty, community and the power of love.

Most of Dreams of Speaking is about Alice, but it is not written in the first person. Did you ever consider writing the novel in the first person, as a way of allowing more immediate access to Alice’s emotions?

I wanted Alice to be a little remote.  I can’t imagine writing an entire novel in the first person (but who knows? Maybe I will some day.) It may be a problem for readers that Alice begins so detached; she is the one who has to learn that the head and the heart are not separated (I’ve never believed in this cruel and banal division).

There are many pauses in Dreams of Speaking.  It seems sometimes like a haiku, and you refer to haiku several times in the novel.  Is there a deliberate resonance between your style of writing and the style of haiku?

I’m very pleased with this question. I do have an interest in haiku, and also love Sei Shonagon’s Pillowbook. What interests me here are small illuminated insights we have that are very fleeting but very precious, moments in which we sense the mystery of things, and their beauty. There is a book by Elaine Scarry called  On Beauty and Being Just and she says that when we come across a beautiful thing – an orange-mauve moth on a brick, or a perfect sentence – it is like a tear in the fabric of the world that pulls us through to a vaster space. I’m very interested in the poetics of concision and in the honouring of small special moments.

‘With carefully chosen images and words, the reader is transported across the tyranny of time to face a century of terror and awe.’  This sentence comes from a review of Dreams of Speaking in Time Pacific magazine and it sums up your book beautifully.  However, your carefully chosen words are at times long and difficult to understand, especially for non-native speakers, often requiring a dictionary. The unusual academic vocabulary can give the impression that you’re writing for a specific group of readers, but not everyone -  the reader can sometimes feel excluded.  How much do you think ahead toward the concerns of potential readers, or do you accept that the readership for a novel like Dreams of Speaking is limited?

I hope I’m not excluding any readers, but I understand your question. I’m concerned not with an ideal of transparency in language, but in drawing attention to language and complicating the texture of the prose. As a reader I always love discovering a new words in a novel, so I’m hoping this is part of a form of discovery and pleasure – not exclusion – for any readers willing to take the ride.

The story of Mr Sakamoto’s early life, and his home in Nagasaki, provide a useful means of including a discussion about the atomic bomb.  However, he seems slightly unreal, to be pushed around in the service of the novel.  Is he modelled on any real Japanese person?

Oh dear: I hope Mr Sakamoto isn’t “pushed around at the service of the novel” because he is truly the centre of value and I want readers to feel a kind of grief when he dies. He is not modelled on anyone in particular, but I hope the character pays respect to a certain type of Japanese masculinity – one who has learned to cross cultures, who has developed a deep understanding of human struggles and experiences. Last week I gave a lecture on Murakami Haruki, The Wild Sheep Chase, and the ‘boku’ of Murakami is the opposite to Mr Sakamoto. He is not the post-modern subject who is drifting and lost and on a strange quest, but someone grounded in the dense and painful history of his own place and respectful of the complexity of Alice and Uncle Tadeo.

To what extent do you, as the author, recognise Alice’s own responsibility for her solitude?  Her aloneness creates the melancholy mood of the book, but although she herself seems unaware of this, her loneliness can often be seen as self-inflicted.  She chooses to stay in a small hotel room and has a meal alone rather than going out.  Also, when talking to Norah, she hides specific facts about Mr Sakamoto.  If she has no intention of opening up to others, then it’s not so surprising they keep their distance.  Do you think Alice Black is guilty of self-pity, of being her own worst enemy? 

Alice Black has a lot to learn. She probably is responsible for her own solitude, which is why Mr Sakamoto’s spontaneous gift of friendship surprises and delights her. I didn’t want an all-knowing heroine, but someone very flawed. The tensions between her intellectual world and the life of the body (her windsurfing, her wound when she windsurfs at the end of the text) are meant to suggest what she has not resolved. It is only in losing the beloved body of Mr Sakamoto that she begins to understand her own lack of humanity. Or rather, what she cannot speak. In the end she must speak about Mr Sakamoto.

At the end of the book, the scene where Alice talks to the answer-phone is great.  However, the adoption scene that precedes it seems to raise some problems.  Loneliness, isolation and a sense of lost identity are ubiquitous in the modern world, a theme the novel explores.  However, Alice’s loneliness is ultimately attributed to the secret of her birth, and this revelation excludes readers from sharing Alice’s feelings of alienation (as they have done previously). Adoption gives a persuasive, rational explanation to her sense of isolation.  Why did you choose to add this explanation at the end of the novel?

Yes, you’re right. If I had another chance to edit the book I would take out the adoption. I realized only after Dreams of Speaking was published that the adoption would be read as an “explanation” for Alice’s character and I really wanted to make her more subtle than that. You’re such a clever group of readers to make this comment, and absolutely right that it over-rationalizes her loneliness.

Is the death of Mr Sakamoto the beginning of Alice’s recovery, of her reconciliation to ‘nuance and eternity’?  Or is it a new source of suffering to add to Alice’s deep loneliness as described since the beginning of the book?  If so, is there any positive message at the end of the book – where can Alice expect to find help?  Do you have any opinion about happy endings?

I hope that the last sentence, that implies that Alice will now tell the story of her friendship, implies that speaking will allow her to move from grief to wisdom. So although the novel is framed by grief, it also shows the reconciliation of the sisters and insists on forms of recovery through story. The speech-act with the answer phone, when Alice speaks truly of her feelings – is, I hope, the beginning of recovery. I’m not sure that all stories can have happy endings: this one is certainly mixed, since it is only through loss that Alice achieves growth. There will be a transformation, but she will always be shaped by loss.

I want to conclude by thanking you for such clever, sensitive and compelling questions. It is an honour to have such a brilliant group of readers. These sort of questions help me as a writer to become more circumspect about my process. I do hope Dreams  gave you some pleasure – or at least some food for thought!

Questions for Mo Hayder on the novel Tokyo by Liu Mei Cheng, David Gaston, Yudai Iwasaki, Kumiko Kondo, Yuko Miyawaka, Mizuki Moriyama, Kanae Nio, Junya Nomura, Miharu Suzuki, Keita Takekura, Katsuhito Tomita, Satoki Umezawa

Tokyo University 03/07/05

Is a Japanese translation of Tokyo planned?  If so, would you prefer the UK title Tokyo, the US title The Devil of Nanking, or something completely different?  When you were writing the novel, did the possibility of Japanese readers influence the writing?

If I had any doubts that the facts about Nanking have been repressed, those left me when my Japanese publisher, who has published my previous two books, refused to publish Tokyo. So the answer, sadly, is no.

I always preferred the title The Devil of Nanking. You might be disillusioned to know that often the title of the book is influenced by the art director: after two books publishers begin to ‘brand’ a writer – to give him/her a ‘look’ making the books readily recognisable in the market place. Part of my ‘look’ in Europe (not the US) depends upon short titles. Hence ‘Tokyo’. Sorry to expose to you the seamy workings of the industry (it’s something writers in general have a tacit pact never to mention). But the truth is that so many issues the readers believe are aesthetic choices are very often decisions-by-committee: influenced by marketing and publicity dynamics.

I tried to be aware of what Japanese readers might feel when reading the book – I tried as much as possible not to be too dogmatic about laying the blame at the feet of anyone. There is a scene in which a soldier refuses to shoot any more Chinese prisoners. His superiors attack him physically for this – and then, in a tiny moment, we see one of the senior officers is revolted at his own actions. My intention was to illuminate that the chain of blame was never ending – that everyone was being pressured from above. And sitting nominally at the top of that chain was a mild, small statured, possibly quite naive man, by the name of Hirohito. 

(See below for more on my approach to guilt and atonement)

The use of Japanese words is very effective in the English version, especially to represent Grey’s urge to belong, and yet at the same time her displacement.  This effect will be lost in a translation – is there any way it could be kept? 

Yes – it’s a very good point. Foreign language words add texture to any piece of text and can be very effective in creating rhythm. One of the problems for a writer is knowing how not to overuse foreign language – I had lots of Japanese words I really wanted to use, simply for their feel and resonance and musical quality, but I had to discard them because I knew they’d drag down the narrative pace.

They say that reading a work in translation is like kissing a woman through a veil. I’ve never kissed a woman through a veil, but I think I understand the metaphor. One of my greatest sadnesses is that I don’t speak another language fluently enough to be able to compare texts in translation and the original. A translator’s job is a much underestimated one – they don’t simply convert words into a different language – they are dealing with many other things: nuance, levels of irony, use of poetry, alliteration, etc etc

But as I have pointed out in the previous question, Tokyo will not be published in Japan. So no translator will ever have to struggle with how to keep that contrapuntal effect the Japanese words lend the text.

Shi Chongming’s journal is always introduced by the kanji character that means ‘history’ (and also, possibly, Shi Chongming’s name).  In the Author’s Note, you describe your extensive research into Nanking.  Does this emphasis on history suggest you were committed to facing criticism about your portrait of the massacre?

To date, with the exception of my publishers, I’ve had no adverse comments on my portrayal of the massacre (actually this includes several Japanese readers in Australia who have contacted me about the book). I tried very hard to raise questions about guilt and denial and explore those themes, without necessarily providing answers. This is partly a function of my writing style – I don’t like to dictate the reader’s moral response to the events I portray. Maybe I’ve got too much faith in the reader’s ability to make the right judgments, because sometimes my work is interpreted as immoral, or at least amoral. 

The massacre was a very difficult area to research – I don’t speak Chinese and my Japanese is pretty poor (especially after 16 years out of the country) so I needed help from a translator for the Chinese sections. The other problem was that most of the Japanese army records had been destroyed or confiscated during the American occupation.

The thriller genre often exaggerates for effect, and sensationalises the present.  In Tokyo, for example, there is a generic distortion of the geography of the city and also a lack of sympathetic Japanese characters.  Those described in detail – Fuyuki, The Nurse, Strawberry – are all physical grotesques.  Is there any danger that your exotic account of contemporary Tokyo casts doubt on your treatment of history in the chapters on Nanking? 

I think that’s a question only the individual reader can answer – since all interpretation of fiction is subjective. I’d argue that there are no sympathetic Japanese characters in Tokyo: Strawberry in particular is a sympathetic character, so is the Japanese soldier who refuses to shoot the Chinese prisoners. And there are equal numbers of unsympathetic characters from other parts of the world. In fact – you could say there are only 3 sympathetic characters in the entire book: Grey, Strawberry and Shi Chongming.

You are right however that Strawberry is a physical grotesque – and I think this stems from the very strong visual impression I have of young Japanese people. Going to Yoyogi park on a Sunday left an indelible impression on me of the chameleon possibilities of Japanese youth.  I don’t think there is anywhere else in the world where people use themselves as canvasses to this extent. I’m told the only Japanese industry that hasn’t suffered in the recession is the hair dye industry! Is that true?

In a previous interview, you mention that none of your Japanese friends had heard of the ‘Rape of Nanking.’  With China demanding an apology for war-time atrocities, this is now very topical.  ‘Ignorance is not the same as evil’ would seem to offer some comfort to contemporary Japan, but just knowing is not enough to resolve historical problems.  Should young Japanese also feel guilty?  What do you think we should do to improve the relationship with China, especially concerning historical issues? 

I have just come back from a working tour of Germany. Among the cities I visited were Dresden and Köln, both of which were heavily bombed by the British. In Dresden on one night alone 35 – 135,000 people died in the firestorms that swept the city. The bombing was largely unnecessary and sometimes supposed to be ‘revenge’ for the bombing of the British city of Coventry. Being in Dresden kept bringing me back to the question I had in my mind when I wrote Tokyo – namely, what is an individual’s responsibility for the actions of his/her nation. What do I as a British citizen owe the inhabitants of Dresden, for example? What does a student at Todai in 2005 owe the citizens of Nanking 1937? What do I owe the Iraqis for an invasion I neither authorised nor approved of? The problem is there are so many ways of answering this question that you can only accept there are no answers. At the end it’s about who writes history – and on that subject I come back time and again to one small comment, from General LeMay who ordered the fire bombing raids on Tokyo. If the US had lost the war, he said, many of the American Generals and politicians would have been in the dock at war tribunals, tried for atrocities. So it goes, as Kurt Vonnegut would say.

You have addressed many taboos in Tokyo and your earlier novels.  In view of the critical and commercial success of films such as ‘Life is Beautiful’ and ‘The Downfall’, would you be willing to write a similar novel about Nazi concentration camps and links to modern Germany?  As a western writer, is it easier to tackle inhumanity from a safe cultural distance?

It’s a writer’s job to stick his/her nose into the taboos of any society. That is exactly where you learn the most – so I’ll probably always be hunting the weird and hidden. But with regard to using the Jewish holocaust as a subject: this was a question I was asked by several German journalists last week. I take your point about it being easier to tackle inhumanity from a distance – and it’s a good one because I think a lot of writers, including myself, find it much easier to tackle a lot of things at a distance (I found it easier to write about Tokyo when I’d left it for example). But this is not the reason I wouldn’t write about concentration camps. I feel that ways of treating the Jewish holocaust have been so thoroughly explored I have nothing to add to the voices. It is a very crowded forum. Part of the impetus for writing about the Pacific war was that it was such an unmined area and I specifically wanted people to know that there wasn’t just one holocaust in the 20th century, but several. It’s time we saw films/fictionalised accounts of the Armenian massacres, the Rwandan massacres, Stalin’s reign of terror, King Leopold etc.

The Nurse is the most frightening character in Tokyo, and not Fuyuki.  Is this a problem for the novel?  Also, the Nurse continues to roam Japanese society – does this suggest the possibility of a sequel?

Yes. I’ve been told that she is very frightening, which makes me suspect myself of pure evil genius, because I wrote her very quickly, right off the back of a moment’s inspiration (rare for me). I wanted Fuyuki to be believable, because he is at the core of the novel, and I thought that casting a comic book style shadow of violence across him would have been wrong. It was quite simple: he needed a henchman, and the Nurse was there.

I very much doubt there will be a sequel to Tokyo. I certainly have no plans at present. But never say never.

In some ways, the scene where Shujin is murdered didn’t seem brutal enough.  She could have protected her stomach or suffered some embarrassment at being stripped half naked by unknown men.  Does her undramatised capitulation undermine the realism of the scene, if realism was what you were aiming at here?

Generally speaking realism is exactly what I’m aiming for – the sort of realism you’d get in a cinema verité film, or something made by the Dogma film collective.  In the section dealing with Shujin’s death I was narrating through two filters 1) It is narrated through first Shi Chongming’s voice and then Grey’s. 2) Most of the scene is depicted as film footage. Both of these are filters that impose a different slant on the scene and must, necessarily, have an effect on the realism of the scene. But, if you feel that the realism was undermined, then maybe it’s simply a flaw in the writing.

Parents’ love for their children is a key idea in the novel, and one that challenges the book’s darkness.   You’ve spoken elsewhere about your difficult relationship with your parents, and the fact that you were pregnant when you visited Nanking.  Then, from Nanking, came the scene of a baby being bayoneted from her pregnant mother.  Is the writing a psychological escape valve?

You’ve put your finger on a very important point. Writing is a very important psychological escape valve. I used to suffer badly from clinical depression, but this largely disappeared when I began to write – so I have Japan to thank for this – she taught me how to accept that all humans have a dark side to contrast with their light side. It’s a concept we have problems with in the Christian west. Being published has validated the thoughts and ideas I used to believe made me dysfunctional on some level.

I have written before about parents and children and always from a very disadvantaged stand point – i.e. I wasn’t a parent myself. Now that I am a mother the world, both literary and concrete, has opened itself to me in an extraordinarily rich way.

Do you think you have any conspicuous or secret flaws as a writer?  Is there a specific area you’d like to improve in your next novel?  Do you see yourself writing anything besides thrillers?

The only point that I am consistently told is a flaw, and which I consistently refuse to change, is my descriptions of violence. On this point I am absolutely firm. Anyone who wants to read a book in which the driving force is an extremely violent act, must be prepared to accept descriptions of that violence. Anything else is dishonest.

However I am absolutely sure I’ve got other flaws too. The problem with these is I don’t know what they are so I can’t weed them out. Paradoxically the more you establish yourself in any career the more difficult it becomes to get honest and constructive criticism. I know several established writers who publish books they should be ashamed of. They get away with it because they are so established that no one will tell them their quality is suffering. My antidote to this is to read consumer reviews – on Amazon, or in Newsgroups for example. Or questions like yours. This is the most honest appraisal of one’s work you can hope to get. So the next time you share thoughts on a writer’s work on the internet, beware he or she might be looking over your shoulder.

With regards to the last part of your question, I write under a pseudonym because I would love to write children’s books one day – Secretly I want to be the next Roald Dahl.

We enjoyed reading about Grey’s shopping in Chapter 20.  The ‘weirdo’ Grey tries to be sexy for her work as a hostess.  What is your definition of ‘sexy’ and what do you think makes women sexy?

Wow!  I’m a heterosexual female, so I don’t think I’m in a position to comment on what makes other women sexy, but I will say I’m always amazed at the immense variety of things people find erotic in a woman. If you doubt this read a book called Encyclopaedia of Unusual Sexual Practices by Brenda Love (but only if you’re feeling strong).  So what is sexy? My guess is that the only common denominator in sexiness is confidence. A woman has to love sex and love her own body in order to be truly sexy.

Your description of Hongo is so life-like you must have visited Tokyo University.  How do you feel about the book being studied in the University that features in the novel?  And if you were to give a class here at Todai, what would you like to teach?

I went to Todai in 2003 and wandered the campus to get a feel for it. If I’d known about it when I lived in Japan in 1989 I’d have spent more time there, it’s the most welcome oasis imaginable in Tokyo. Of course I played God with the geography a bit, so I feel mildly nervous that the book is being studied there.

On the last part of the question, the truth is I would hate to teach a class at Todai. I have perpetual stage fright and work much better with the written word. So I’m going to wave a magic wand and say: I would be the student, not the teacher. I would sit for hours learning kanji and how the characters evolved. (Let me know if you can arrange it for me!)

Questions for David Mitchell on the novel Ghostwritten by David Gaston, Zoe Fen Koh, Maki Komatsu, Maria Lebed, Nobuhiko Matsusaka, Jun Ohashi, Erika Yamauchi

Tokyo University 12/01/2005

In Ghostwritten, we can’t agree which of your narrators is either the most or least successful. What do you think? And in a third category, which is your favourite?

Maybe written characters are similar to acted characters: if you can
forget that the illusion that this character on a page (or a movie screen)
isn’t a ‘real’ person, then it is successful. I think the most successful
characters in GHOSTWRITTEN are those who are culturally closest to me.
These are Neil Brose in Hong Kong and Marco in London. The furthest from
me, culturally, are probably the old woman in her Chinese tea-shack and
perhaps the woman in St Petersburg – these characters are probably the
dodgiest. My favourite? I have a soft spot for Bat Segundo because he’s a
music-geek and so am I, and maybe for Satoru in Tokyo because he’s a music
geek too and because he was the artistic grandfather of Eiji, the
protagonist in my second novel.

Do you believe in the end of the world, life after death, the significance
of the number 9? In no particular order.

Ha ha!
The end of the world: yes, but not all at once, and probably not
complete. The history of our species is made of endings and beginnings.
But if the environmental scientists are right, the next ending will not be
pretty.
Life after death: sadly, no, I don’t believe in it, but I hope I’m
wrong. The Buddhist model of reincarnation is particularly elegant.
I don’t believe in numerology, no, but I do believe in the aesthetics of
numbers. The numbers 9, 36 and 64 have a particular beauty for me. I don’t
know why, but maybe in aesthetics there is no ‘why’.

The Mongolia chapter supplies Ghostwritten with a kind of thematic and
self-referential climax, explaining in an elegant metaphor the process of
reading Ghostwritten. Was it a deliberate risk or experiment to place this
‘climax’ in the middle of the novel? And does it mean that the chapters
which immediately follow must necessarily seem disappointing, a mere
reversion to what has come before?

You’re right, Mongolia is a mini-GHOSTWRITTEN isn’t it? I don’t think I
noticed this when I was writing the novel, but you’re still right. I can
answer, then, that it wasn’t a deliberate risk. I hope the following
chapters don’t seem disappointing, but if they do, c’est la vie.

How do you approach the writing of female characters? When writing from the point of view of a woman, say Mo Muntervary or Margarita, do you change your methodology in any way?

I approach the writing of female characters with trepidation! It is
difficult to try, but difficulties in writing are fun, and if you can tackle
them you can find freshness and originality for your writing. I try to use
what I have learnt about being female from my relationships with girls and
women (students, girlfriends, relatives, my wife) and sort of use that as a
bass-line in the ‘song’ of a character. I also show all my manuscripts to
my wife and listen when she tells me I’m making a horse’s ass of myself.
(She uses more diplomatic language than that.)

 Ghostwritten is a first novel, your first novel. There are instances when
the connections between chapters seem a little forced. Do you re-read your
novels? Would you consider re-writing them, and if so, what would you
change in Ghostwritten?

I can’t read GHOSTWRITTEN now, no! Last November I went to Hungary to
do a few talks organized by the British Council, and because GHOSTWRITTEN ismy only novel translated into Hungarian, it was suggested that I do a few
readings from that. Painful! As I was reading, I was editing and changing
things instantaneously.
This is a natural problem. As you work more in any science or art, you
learn more, and as you learn more, your previous work looks more and more
amateurish. I suppose if I could clone myself I would like to make my clone
re-write my work, yes. But because I can’t clone myself, I would rather
spend time writing completely new work and continuing to learn from my
mistakes.

If I rewrote GHOSTWRITTEN, I would find ways to remove the British
flavour from the non-British characters. I might be flattering myself, but
I believe I partly worked out how to do this in my second and third novels.
The Mo Muntervary section is too long, and now I live in Ireland so I can
see where I romanticised the culture in this section. I botched the Irish
accents, too. I probably wouldn’t worry about the connections too much…
I guess I think of GHOSTWRITTEN as a badly ironed, slightly out-of-style
shirt. But I think it’s a well-made shirt and I’m not ashamed to have it in
my wardrobe.

Your Japanese characters sometimes think and converse in ways that could be
identified as “gaijin”. Writing for Japanese characters clearly shows a
respect for Japan and an emphasis on the universality of human experience,
but is there a danger of over-using certain phrases and thought patterns
that are particular to British-English or an Anglo-Saxon lifestyle?

Yes, that danger exists, and in the cold light of day I think I am
guilty of having done this. Like I said, I made a better job of it in my
second novel, I hope, where the entire cast is Japanese. We live and learn.
It’s an intriguing problem to try to overcome, however. Normally
translators, not novelists, have to worry about this.

You taught English to Japanese school students. Did being a teacher, with
its daily awareness of the English language, benefit your writing when you
were starting out? Along the same lines, what language do you speak in your house now that you’re married?

Being an English teacher definitely benefited me as I was learning to
write, yes. It is usually difficult to make a living from your vocation
when you start out, because a certain level of ability is required before
people will give you any money for the fruits of your labours. The trick
is, therefore, to find a way to pay the bills that is not too far away from
your vocation. Teaching language is not too far from writing. Both work
with language and communication. Both are to do with observing people.
Both keep your brain awake. I used to teach writing using short little
stories that I wrote especially for my students. They never knew they were
my guinea pigs!

My wife’s English is loads loads better than my Japanese, so the more
complex stuff we discuss in English. She speaks Japanese to our 2-year old,
so our daughter is learning both languages. My parents-in-law send over
videos of NHK kids’ programs and we all watch ‘Yugata Quintet’, ‘Nihongo de
Asobou’ and ‘Okaasan to Isho’. I still try to study Japanese for 30 minutes
a day, and I’m currently learning this very funny song called ‘Kobuta no
Tonkichi.’

Did you know that the Tokyo chapter of Ghostwritten is by some way the
easiest for a Japanese reader to understand? The language and
sentence-structures seem to correspond to about high-school text book level.  Is this because Tokyo boys are simple? Or did you have another specific intention in creating this effect?

Ha ha!
No, I didn’t know that the Tokyo section is the easiest for Japanese
readers to understand, and no, I don’t think you Tokyoites are any simpler
than us Hiroshimanians. (Go Carp!) I suppose I was trying to get around
the problems of portraying a non-English speaking character in English in
the first person narrative mode by keeping things as simple and clear as
possible.

In previous interviews you’ve talked about finding the beauty in the
ugliness of Japan. Did you have another go at Japan in number9dream because you felt you hadn’t sufficiently captured this in Ghostwritten? Is Japan now finished as a location for you as a writer?

I could spend the rest of my life writing books about Japan and never
feel I had captured it. Cultures are, by definition, vaster than books,
like a lake is bigger than any pot.
I wrote NUMBER9DREAM because I had learnt more about the country and itspeople by then, mostly through teaching students in a university; because Iwanted to use and preserve all the thoughts and impressions I had about thecountry; because I was itching to write it.
Japan doesn’t appear in my third or fourth novel, but my fifth, which I
will begin in summer, will be a monstrous historical novel set on Deshima in
Nagasaki between 1790 and 1810. Odd-numbered chapters will be narrated by gaijins, even-numbered chapters will be narrated by Japanese. I can’t wait to begin.

Oe Kenzaburo has taken Murakami Haruki to task for not dealing with the
lived experience of most Japanese people. You’re clearly influenced by
Murakami. At the same time, you’ve said elsewhere that you wanted to avoid the Japan of cherry blossoms and Mount Fuji. Is there any risk that using Murakami as a guide and model is equally dangerous, and falsifies your depiction of modern Japan? Could Murakami be a modern version of Mount Fuji?

Gosh, I’m kind of glad I’m not answering these questions on live TV!
I was infatuated with A WIND-UP BIRD CHRONICLE when I wrote
NUMBER9DREAM, but I’m a little more objective these days. (Plus,
Murakami-san hasn’t really written anything as good since, apart from the
short stories in AFTER THE QUAKE). I think it is fair to say that he was my
guide and model for a while, but I’m learning other things from other
writers now.
Yes, you’re right, there is a danger that some people might confuse
Japan with Murakamiland, just as the USA is confused with Hollywood. I
suppose the only solution is for people like you to provide alternatives.

You’ve had a brilliant career, and in a very short time have become a
highly-respected and fantastically successful writer. Do you have any
disappointments?

Mmm, not sure if my accountant would agree with the ‘fantastically’ bit,
but thank you.

No disappointments, not really. ‘Disappointment’ is more a question of attitude than of fact. My last two books were shortlisted for the Booker
but didn’t win – if I wanted to, I could call those failures to win
‘disappointments’ but that would be to ignore all the good things that
happened to me and the books because they were shortlisted. If you are ever teachers yourselves, you may have the experience of teaching a class of 40 students where 20 students are asleep and another 10 not really paying much attention. But if you have 10 or 5 or even 1 student who is in tune with you, that class is rewarding. In a similar way, if I know I have a few
readers who enjoy what I write, that’s enough. I can earn a living out of
doing what I LOVE, and that makes me a lucky man. Disappointments shouldn’tbe carried around with you – disappointments should be learnt from and then flushed down the toilet as quickly as possible.