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| LitNet is ’n onafhanklike joernaal op die Internet, en word as gesamentlike onderneming deur Ligitprops 3042 BK en Media24 bedryf. |
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Homebru 2006 author: Tom Eaton
Tom Eaton is the author of The De Villiers Code, published by Penguin Books South Africa.
- What does it mean to you to have your writing recognised and
celebrated as "South African"?
It's such a relief. Every year I used to go to Parliament to page through the official Hansard-SATOUR Ubuntu Hierarchy of Legitimate South African-ness, and every year I was disappointed: most writerly types just didn't get the old rainbow stamp of nationalist affirmation. There were always one or two journalists and poets on the list, but for the most part, if you weren't PJ Powers, or a miner getting more golden liquid refreshment at the end of the day, you just didn't make the grade. I hope that Homebru will help turn this around, and that one day local writers will be able to star in Black Label ads and be demeaned through branding and stereotyping like everyone else.
- As a South African writer / storyteller did you set out to
write a story South Africans will recognise as their own?
No. I set out to write a story that South Africans would recognise as Dan Brown's. Stephen Fry described The Da Vinci Code as "complete loose-stool-water" and "arse-gravy of the very worst kind", and while I think he may have been a little charitable, he was going in the right direction.
It's not the gullibility of people that offends me. I'm also not a religious person, so I don't get worked up over the arrogance of assuming that 600 pages of drivel by a write-by-numbers typist can reveal what 2 000 years of scholarship couldn't. What I really mind, though, is that his excremental writing goes unchallenged. You wouldn't let a stranger stand in your living room for hours on end, shovelling faeces down your shirt while he screamed, "You're a moron!" So why would you let Dan Brown do it?
I had a fascinating taste of the modern literary world in a bookshop a few months ago. A matronly lady came bustling in with a friend, more or less demanding a copy of The Da Vinci Code. She was pointed to the shelf, and then spent five minutes loudly explaining the gospel of Dan to her friend. Both were almost breathless with incredulity and titillation. Eventually it got too much for the bookshop owner. He leaned across to them and said, "You know it's fiction, right?" The women looked completely blank, and one of them said, "What?" He repeated the question. Then, with a very longsuffering and studious expression, she said, "Well, I suppose it's a question of how you look at it." That really says it all.
- What, to you, does a South African story encapsulate?
It deals with exactly the same things as a story from anywhere else, but it does so in the full knowledge that it will sell 70 percent fewer copies than an American story or an English story.
One of the big Russians or Frenchmen said that there were only five stories (or maybe it was seven). Essentially all stories boil down to variations on great themes: human against nature, human against human, human against machine, human against self, human against Dan Brown, and so on. I know it's terribly old-fashioned to talk about grand narratives, but I hope we see more barnstorming, unapologetic stories coming out of South Africa. I got a huge kick out of Russel Brownlee's Garden of the Plagues, largely because he just turned up the wick on his talent and let rip.
- Is it possible for a South African's writing to be free of
political and historical influence?
Obviously every single aspect of every human's life is influenced constantly by politics and history, but in terms of overt influence, yes, I suppose writing can try to tread a more interior, isolated path.
- Is there a writing community in South Africa, or is writing
in this country a solitary journey?
There are dozens of writing communities. I think they meet on Sunday afternoons to heap scorn on the corpse of liberalism between helpings of Shoprite cheesecake. Belonging to a writing community is great, because you get all the bourgeois cachet of being a writer without ever having to do any actual writing. Those who do it - often, hard, well, for money - tend to do it privately. In fact, this is a guess, because the good writers I know simply don't want to talk about it.
- Who do you think is the most influential South African writer
today? And who is your favourite local author?
I'd love to pretend that fiction or poetry still matters to society beyond their immediate readership, but of course they don't. Without a more careful definition of "influential", I'd have to suggest that the writer with the most clout in this country - whose words change lives in a quantifiable way - is the one who does Anglo-American's annual report, or who writes the pitch Sasol is going to take to Venezuela.
But of course when most people talk about the influence writers have, I suppose they're really referring to a confined and specific space, namely that very tiny world that revolves around what the media calls "creative" writing. To generalise, it's a world that is interested in books, that reads more than it writes, and doesn't promote - but also doesn't fight - the idea that literature is an elevated pursuit. Inside this world certain names do resonate particularly strongly, for whatever reason. I think Antjie Krog has been hugely influential for many young writers. The same applies to JM Coetzee, whose shadow is perhaps even longer in this country since he emigrated.
My favourite local author is without a doubt Karel Schoeman. 'n Ander Land is really something.
- If you could choose five works (fiction, non-fiction, poetry,
performance poetry, etc) from South African literature that would be able
to communicate the "South African experience", which five would you choose, and why?
This is a terrifying question. If Excel spreadsheets conducted interviews, this is the sort of thing they'd ask. It's just not answerable in any way, largely because "the South African experience" doesn't really exist.
However, if you asked me which works would make me come over in a sort of patriotic soft-focus nostalgia were I ever marooned on an Alaskan oil rig, I think those would be 'n Ander Land, Plomer's "The Wild Doves at Louis Trichardt", André Brink's Die Ambassadeur, and more or less anything in that giant green kortverhaalboek we all had at school - "'n Bruidsbed vir Tant Nonnie", "Die Bok", "My Kubaan" … you name it.
- Have you read any of the other Exclusive Books Homebru 2006 titles?
Shamefully, I haven't. I'm on a Mary Renault plak at the moment, so I've only been doing Alexander and Theseus for the last few months. However, I have flipped through The Red Car Diaries. I missed a few episodes of Going Nowhere Slowly around the time that Vivienne had her tooth knocked out, and I'm still trying to find out what happened.
- What makes you a South African?
Being asked ten questions about literature, nine of which feature the name of the country I live in! And not caring that I don't know whether it was a big Russian or a big Frenchman, or whether it was five or seven basic stories.
- What is your favourite South Africanism?
We had a caretaker at school called Victor, who looked like a black Telly
Savalas, and was about 460 years old. He might have been older, because he
knew every person who had ever lived, and could rememeber everything they'd
ever said to him. He was a genius at remembering names, but curiously enough
opted to call everyone "Buddy", and so of course he was known as Buddy. He
lived on the school grounds, and if you were there in the early hours of the
morning, you could hear him pounding out self-taught
Rachmaninov-cum-Gershwin on the piano in the hall - it was extremely creepy.
In his duties and daily rounds Buddy was unflappable, but show him the most
trivial piece of information from beyond the school's walls and he went into
raptures of amazement. Whenever this happened, he would cry, "Buddy, I can't
believe it!" His accent turned it into, "Burry, I can't beleefeet!" I think
that's probably my favourite South Africanism. My book's made it onto the
Homebru list? Burry, I can't beleefeet!
|
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Moenie ons Homebru 2006-kompetisie misloop nie!
Wen 'n lekker Suid-Afrikaanse boekpakkie!
Klik hier om meer uit te
vind. |
LitNet: 16 May 2006
Click here to read
answers of the Homebru 2006 fiction writers
Click here to read
the answers of the Homebru 2006 non-fiction writers
Have your say! To comment on this interview write to webvoet@litnet.co.za,
and become a part of our interactive opinion page.
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