th PARIS REVIEW Nadine Gordimer, The Are of Fiction No.7 ved by Jannika Hurwitt This interview with Nadine Gordimer was conducted in two parts—in the fll of 1979, when she was in America on a publicity tour for her most recent novel, Burge’: Daughter, and in che spring of 1980, when she was here to see her son graduate from college.ort ung Was in & room Set ase for Us by her publisher, the Viking Hfess—one of those conterence fooms made cozy by Lots ‘of books and claustrophobic by its lack of windows. The hotel room where our second meeting took place was slightly more conducive © amiable conversation, But Gordimer does not waste words in conversation any more than she does in her prose. On both occasions she was ready o begin our interview the moment I walked in the door and ready to endit the moment the hour she had suggested for four mecting was up. Her clarity and mental focus allow her to express great deal in a short amount of time. A petite birdike, soft-spoken woman, Gordimer manages to combine a fluidity and geneleness with the seemingly restrained and. her mind. Iewas aif highly seruccured workings 1 forey-odd yeaes that she had devoted to writing had trained her to distill pasion and asa South Aftican writer she is necessarily aware of being surrounded by passion on all sdes—into form, whether ofthe written lor spoken word, Ar the sme time, she conveyed a sense of profound caring about the subject matter oFher writing; those subjects ‘natural o any weiter concerned with the human condition, bu st, in her case, in the heightened context of South Afzican life. Her ‘manner seemed to say, “Yes, these are important subjects we'ze discussing, Now lets get through taking about them so I can get back to the business of writing about them.” INTERVIEWER Do you have seasons in South Africa, or is it hotall year round? NADINE GORDIMER Oh no, we have seasons, Net the equator, there's very liae difference inthe seasons. But right down where we are, atthe end of the continent, and also high up where [lve in Johannesburg—six thousand feet up—you have very different seasons. We have a sharp, cold ‘winter. No snow —i's rather like your late fll ‘or eatly spring—sunny, fresh, cold a night. We havea very definite rainy season. But you don't see rain for abourhalf the yeat. You Forget that rain exists, So it's a wonderful feling when you ‘wake up one day and you smell the rain in the ai, Many of the old houses, like ours, have galvanized iron or tin roofs. I's very noisy when there's a heavy rain—it just gallops down on the roof, The house that Iwas brought up in had a tin roof, so e's one of my earliest memories, Iyingin bed and listening to the rain... and hail, which, of course, ona tin roofs deafening, INTERVIEWER When was your fist trip out of South rica? GORDIMER ip out was to what was then alled Rhodesia— Zimbabwe. That might seem sry much the same thingas South Aftica to fou, bur isn’t. Zimbabwe is Cencral Aftica, fberopical, shading into tropical. Bue my frst real trip out was much later. I had already ind, and America Perhaos it was a eood transition, InCondon home na away ea eng te chy ow of Lodon cc abla iiss On nd Deke Particularly Dickens and Virginia Woolf. The writers who, 'd thought, had impressed me with the Features of English did noc have chs evocation when I was accually in the place; they were not writers with aserong sense of place. Wot ‘obviously were. So that when I walked around in Chelsea [fle that this was definicively Mrs. Dalloway’s country [remember I stayed in hotel near Victoria Station, And at night, these dark, sooty buildings, the dampness when one leant against a wall—absolutely decayed buildings INTERVIEWER ‘Were you as unprepared for this first tip off the Aftican continent and as awed by i, as Rebecca in your novel, Git of Honour? GORDIMER No, my mother, who hadn't been back to England for about twenty years, prepared me. She provided me with woolly underwear and whatnot, which I threw away after I arvived. But Rebecca's trip to Switzerland... I think descriptions of impressions from the air are something that writers nowadays have to be caefl of, Like train journeys in mid-nineteenth-centucy licerature they made such a change in people's lives They produced a... leap in consciousness, especially so far a time was concerned. I a nave been, the thought of taking a train that was to go rushing through the countryside, There were so many descriptions of tei eernal changes. “The journey” now is by air, and chink of how many writers use this—in my own books it appears in The Conservationist and in gine what it must in the literature of the day. But I chink writers must be careful now not to averdo the use of travel asa metaphor for tremendo Guest of Honour, And indeed, in Burger: Danghter, Rosa Burger takes her fest teip out of South Africa I had to resist the temptation to sndscape could be useful later on. talk about the journey-—I describe only the landing, because that particular piece of INTERVIEWER Was this trip co England a sore of “back tothe roots” expedition? GORDIMER No, But it brought an understanding of what was, and helped me to shed the last vestiges of colonialism. I dida’t know Iwas colonial, bu chen I had co realize that Iwas. Even though my mother was only six when she came to South Aftica from England, she sil ‘would talk about people “going home.” Bus after my frst tip out, [realized that “home” was certainly and exclusively —Aftica, It could never be anywhere else INTERVIEWER ‘What brought your parents to South Afri GORDIMER ‘The same thing brought them both. They were part ofthe whole colonial expansion. My maternal grandfather came out in the 1890s with a couple of brothers. South Africa was regarded as a land of opportunity for Furopeans. And indeed, he went prospecting for diamonds in Kimberley. I don‘e think he found very much—maybe some small stones. After that, his entite life was the stock exchange. He was what we calla "tickey snatchen” A tickey was a tiny coin lke a dime—alas, we don't have it anymore. Ie was equal to three English pence. “Tickey" isa lovely word, don't you chink? Well, my grandfather was ti sy-snatcher on the stock exchange, which ‘meant that he sat there all day, and that he bought and sold stocks—making a quick buck. My father’s story is ealy not such a happy one, He was born in Lithuania, and he wene through the whole Jewish pogrom syndrome, you know. He had hardly any schooling. There wasn’t any high school for Jewish kids in his lage. His father was a shipping clerk and there we -welve children, I'm sure they must have been very poor. Their mother was a seamstress. As soon as my father was twelve oF thirteen the idea was that he would just gosomewhere, either wo America ot wherever—it was the time of the great expansion, you 1ehold of | ship, bueall the way co tia instead of America —ie must have been extraordinary. He was a very unadvencurous man; he didn’t have know, the early 1900s. So his was the classic Ellis Island story—thirceen years old, not speakinga word of English, traveling in strong personality —he was timid. Me sil isa mystery to me. I wonder ifhe didn't burn himself out inthis tremendous initial, adventure, whether it wasn't really oo much for him, and once having found a niche for himself somewhere, he ust didn't have the guts +0 become much of a personality. There was something arrested about my father.INTERVIEWER ‘What did he do once he got to Africa? GORDIMER Like many poor Jews—one either became a shoemaker, a tailor, ora watchmaker. He had learned watchmaking, All he had was a lice bag with his watchmaking tools, He went to che Transvaal, o che goldfields. He took his lite suitcase and went around the mines se: he would scene he had sd his brother-in-law from Russia to do and asked the miners ifanybody wanted a watch fixed. And he would take the watches away toa little oom he had some jst sit there and mend watches. Then he bought a bicycle and he'd go back round the jewelers shop and he was no longer a watchmaker—he employed one, Indeed, he imps it. By now: ines, But by the time I came on al father was the tycoon ofthe family. He brought nie sisters our of Lithuania—the poor man—saving up to bring one after the other. fund ou late thas he hated them ll—we ida ver have family gatherings. I don't know why he hated them so nach INTERVIEWER ‘Where exactly was hisjewelers shop? GORDIMER Inaliedle town called Springs, which was thirey miles from Johannesburg, I grew up ina small, gold-mining town of about twenty thousand people, INTERVIEWER GORDIMER ‘Well, 've had ltd formal education, really. had a very curious childhood. There were two of us—I have an elder sister—and L was she baby, the spoiled one, the darling. I was awful—brash, a show-off a dreadful child, Bur maybe that had something to do with having alot of energy chat didn’t find any out! wanted to bea dancer—this was my passion, from the age of about four to ten, L absolus adored dancing, And Ican still remember the pleasure, the release, of using the body in this way. There was no question but chat I was 0 bea dancer, and I suppose maybe I would have been, But at the age often I suddenly went into a dead faint one day, having been a very skinny bue very healthy child. Nobody took much notice. But then it happened again. So I was taken co the family doctor, and ic was discovered that Ihad an incredibly rapid heartbeat. Nobody had noticed this; ie was, I suppose, pac of my excitability and liveliness. I was discovered that I had an enlarged thyroid gland, which causes a fase heartbeat and makes one hyperactive, Well, I've since discovered shar this isn’ serious malady a all Ie happens to hundreds of people—usuallyat puberty. But my mother got very alarmed. This ra pulse should have been ignored. Bue my mother was quite sure that it meant that I had a "bad heart.” So she went itmmediacely to the convent where I attended school and told the nuns, “This child must any physical training, she mustn't play tennis, she mustn't even swim.” Aten, you know, you don’t argue with your mother—she ells you you're sick, you believe her. When I would be about to climb stairs, she would say, "Now, tke it slowly, remember your heart” And chen of course the tragedy was that I was told I mustn't dance anymore. So the dancing stopped ike chat, which was a terrible deprivation for me, [e's really only in the lase decade of my lif chat I've been able to face al this. When I realized what my mother had done to me, I went through, ae the age of twenty, such resentment—this happens to many of us, but I realy had reason. When I was thirty, I began to ‘understand why she did it, and thus to pity her. By the time she died in 76 we were reconciled. Butit was an extrzordinary story In brief, mother would never have dreamt of having an affair. Because her marriage was unhappy, she concentrated on her children. The chief person she was attracted to was our family doctor. There's no question. I'm sure it was quite unconscious, bu the fet that she had this “delicate” daughter, about whom she could be constantly calling the doctor—in those days doctors made house calls, and there would be xy mother was unhappily married. Ie was a dreadful marriage. I suspect she was sometimes in love with other men; but my tea and cookies and long chats—made her keep my “illness” going in this way. Probably I was being wrongly treated anyway, so that what ‘medication should have cleared up, it didn't, and symptoms persisted. Of course, I began to feel terribly important. By that time L was reading al sors of books that led me to believe my affliction made me very interesting. was growing up with this legend that was verydllicat, that | had something wrong with my hear. ‘When I was eeven—I don’t know how my mother did this—she took me out of school completely. Fora year Ihad no education at all. Bur I read tremendously. And I retceated into myself, became very introspective, She changed my whole character. Then she arranged for me to go toa tutor for three hours a day. She took me there atten in the morning and picked me up atone, Ie was such incredible loneliness—it'sa terrible thing to do toa child. There I was, all on my own, doing my work; glass of milk was broughe to me by this wornan—she was very nice, but [had no contact with other childeen. spent my whole life, from eleven to sixteen, with older people, with people of my mother's generation. She carted me around to tea parcies—I simply lived her life. When she and my father ‘went out at night to dinner she took me along... I gor ro the stage where I could really hardly talk co other children, I wasa litde old INTERVIEWER What about yout sister's relatio ime? 10 you during: GORDIMER ‘My sister is Four years older chan Iam, She went away to university; she wasn’t really a companion to me. stopped going tothe tutor when I was fifteen or sixteen. So that was the extent of my formal education, ‘When I was twenty-one or twenty-two, already a published write, I wanted to goto university eo gota litle more formal education. But since I hadi ‘of white waters.” There was something called "general studies” —this was jut after the war, and th triculated, I could only do occasional courses atthe University of the Witwatersrand—that's Afrikaans for “ridge were ots of veterans whe had interrupted their education, and so it was very nice for me—there were people my own age mixed up with the others. A few years ago 1 gavea graduation address at thar same university. INTERVIEWER [Are you one ofthese writers ro whom they're always trying to give honorary degrees? GORDIMER 1 don'taccepe them in South Aftica. I've taken one—in Belgium in 1981, from the University of Leuven, It curned out tobe quite extraordinary, because the man who gor an honorary degree wich me, Monsignor Oscar Romero, was asassinared ewo weeks later in El Salvador. In Belgium he had given the most marvelous addres, He was such a striking man, He received a standing ovation for about ight minutes from the students. And two weeks later he was lyingon the floor of church, dead, INTERVIEWER 1g did you go to university? GORDIMER One year Phis was the firs ime in my life Pd mixed with blacks, and was more or les the beginning of my politcal consciousness. Perhaps the good thing about being carted around with my parents was that they would sit playing gin rummy or something while I wandered around the host’s house seeing what I could find o rea. I discovered everybody from Henry Miller to Upton Sinclai, Ie was Sinclair's The Jungle thac really started med factory—they’re just ike blacks here. And the whole idea that people came ro America, not knowing the language, having co struggle in inking about politics: I thought, ood God, these people who are exploited in a meatpacking sweatshops... didn't relate this to my own father, beeause my father was bourgeois by then ... but I related ito the blacks. Again, what «paradox thae South Africa was So Isa the analogy. And that was the beginning of my thinking about my position vis-a-vis blacks, Bu though I didn’t know anything —L was twelve or thirteen, and leading the odd kind of life Idi, ving in books—I begsa to think about these things before, perhaps, was ready for them. When I gor ro university, it was through mixing with other people who were writing or painting that [ got co know backs’ um country, but they were recruited just as if chey had been migrant workers forthe mines. black people as equals. In a general and inclusive, nonracial way, L met people who lived in the world of deas, in the world that interested ‘me passionately. In the town where I lived, chere was no mental food of ths kind tall. I'm often amazed to think how they live, chose people, har an anoressd life it must he. heeause human heines must live in the world of ideas. This dimension in the human nevche is vervthey didn’t know how to express it. Conversation consisted of trivialities. For women, household m: problems with children. The men would talk abour golf or business or horse racing or whatever their practical interests were. Nobody ever talked about, or even around, the big things-life and death, The whole existential aspect of life was never discussed, I, ofcourse, approached i through books. Thought abou it on my own, Ie was as secre sit would have been to discuss my parents’ sex life. Te was alk about these things just nobody, Bu then, of cours, when Iwas moving around at university, my life changed. From Europe—it was just after the war—came ex something so private because I fele thas theze was nobody with whom I coul entialisin, and at home in South Aftica there was great interest in movements of the left, and black-national movements. At that time, the Communist Party and. various other leftist movements were not banned, So there were all sorts of Marxist discussion groups, This was an area of thought and conviction I simply never had heard mentioned before. 'd only read about it. And there ofcourse, were people who were mixing with blacks, Sot was through people who were writing painting or ating hat I stared nxn with backs. INTERVIEWER Whar did you do after hat yar at university? Did you bein any politcal activin? GORDIMER No, you see Iwas writing then —a lot. Iwas concentrating tremendously on writing. Iwasn’t really interested in politics. My approach to living asa white supremacist, perforee, among blacks, was, I see now, the humanist approach, the individualistic approach. 1 fele that all needed, in my own behavior, was to ignore and defy the color bar. In other words, my own ateivude toward blacks seemed to be sufficient action. I didn see that ic was pretty meaningless until much ater. INTERVIEWER ‘Were you living on your own then? GORDIMER No, I wasn't In that way I was extremely backward. But you have o look atthe kind of dependency that had been induced in me at she crucial age of en. When other kids were going off to the equivalene of whar's known as “summer camp"—"Nadine can't go camping, she's got a bad heart! If people go on a hike she can’t go, She's got to stay with mama.” A childlike that becomes very coreupt, a kind of jester, an entertainer for grown-ups. Fspecially ar che age of fifteen and six husbands instead of with boys your own age. I's very corsupting thing. I was rather a good mimic. Pechapsit asthe beginning of hhavingan ear for dialogue? So 1 would take off people. Grown-ups would sit around ar drink parties, getting [Adults find you charming, You fire with other people's ight, and there was ‘Nadine prancing around, rather cruelly imitating people whom they knew. Ie didn't occur to them thar the moment their backs were ‘uurned 1 was doing it to them as well. Av any rat, I was stil living at home when I went to university, and I used to commute by train into Johannesburg. Then my sister got married and lived in Johannesburg, so that when I didn’t want to go home I would go to her, which was very nice for me, to havea base there. But I still didn’c have the guss, I don’t know why, co move out of home, the mining town of Springs. And you see, [wasn’t father. ‘On the ocher hand, my needs were so modest. Ir never occurred to me that one would want a car—now every kid has ajalopy—this was caring enough by my writing, heaven knows, clive on. I was doing something that no kid docs nowadays—I was living off just not the kind of thing that 1 would have deeamt of, All wanted was to buy books. Leazned enough with my writing here and there to do chis, and of course [also used the library tremendously, which, again, people don’t scem to do so much anymore. When I talk to young writers, and I say, "Have you read this or thar?" —"Well, no, but books are so expensive .."—I say, "Well, for God's sake! The central library isa wonderful library. For heaven's sake, use it! You're never going to be able to write ifyou don’t read!” INTERVIEWER Pechaps the isolation of your childhood helped you to become a writer—because of ll the time it left you for reading—lonely shough ie must have been. GORDIMER Yes... pethaps | would have become a writer anyway. Las doing a be of writing before I go “il.” I wanted to bea journalist as well asadancer. You know what made me want to become a journalist? Reading Evelyn Wau 's Soap when Iwas about eleven. Enough tomake anybody wane to be a journalist! [absolutely adored it was alceady reading lot, obviously, bue of course I was reading wichout any discrimination. I would go to the library and wander around, and one book led to another. But I think that’s the best way. An (Oxford student who is doing a thesis on my writing came ro visit me in Johannesburg the other day. I did something I've not done before told him, "Right, hte are boxes of my papers, just do what you like.” liked him so much—he was so very intelligent and lively labors, Suddenly he brought out a kid's exercise book— aise chat Td kepe for about six months when I was ewelve, of books that I'd read, and I'd writen litte book reviews. There wasa review I would mect him at lunch, He would emerge, and so would I, from o separat of Gone with the Wind. Do you know what was underneath it? My “review” of Pepys's Diary. And was still reading kids books at the ‘ime, devouring those, and I didn’t see that there was any difference herween these and Gime with the Wind ot Pepys's Diary. INTERVIEWER ‘Were you publishing stories in The New Yorker before you published your first book? GORDIMER No. I published a book of stories in South Africa, in 1949, I must have started publishing stories in The New Yorker when Iwas six. Thad one story in The New Yorker, and several in journals like Virginia Quarterly Review, the Yale Review—the traditional places where young writers in che fifties submitted their work. Then my first book was published abroad book of short stozies INTERVIEWER ‘You sent your manuscripts around to these magazines? GORDIMER ‘No, no, by thar rime I had an agent. Ir came abour that I had an agent in New York. I never sent anythingon impulse to those mes. OF course, publishers in chose days usually watched magazines. And my irst publisher, Simon and Schuster, became interested in me ‘magazines, because I wasn't familiar at all wth American publications. The publications I was farnliar with were the English through reading that frst story of mine in The New Yorker. Katnarine White became my editor and friend at The New Yorker. She cold ‘me, years ater that all chose of they had been read by ‘things happen. And I don’t quite know how that one story surfaced. x stories that were in my first book had already been submiteed to The New Yorker via my agent. But slush-pile people. She had never seen them, and she regretted very much chat she hadn't. Bur of course these INTERVIEWER Who was your agent? GORDIMER ‘My agent was an extraordinary man called Sidney Saterstein, He was an extremely rich man who loved writers. He had no children, and I think writers were his children, He had very few writers really, because he wasn't principally an agent. I came to him ehzough somebody who knew him and knew my work and said, “I's ridiculous—you should have an agent abroad,” He was such an incredible man—a sort of John O’Hara characte, or even coarser, really. He spent half his time fying to Las Vegas to gamble, or to Florida to play golf, He was alkind of cas cure rich American, He always had a cigar in his mouth, He was big, and wore the most ghastly clothes checked trousers and things lik ‘When I met him I was exactly thitty—though he had taken me on in my mid-twenties and he was in his mid-sixtis, He established a y enough, he reall ‘hough char my writing—especially my stories—would have interested him. Buc they did, He was incredible, He knew the 1: He was an absolute darling, Ofcourse he gave me a completely false ides of what an agent was, sort of fatherly relationship wit sd my writing, which surprised me. One wouldn't have circumstances of my life. was newly divorced, had a small child —a baby, indeed, eighteen months old—and I had no money. And he really Fought for me. If somebody boughs something of mine—and after all, was rozally unknown—he insisted chat Iwasa hor property. He got sufficient money for me to live on, When Simon and Schuster bought my frst book of stories, they wanted to know if ‘was writing 2 novel, and indeed I was. And again he pushed them to give me what would now be considered a‘eeny advance, the amount someone would get to writea line today, bur then publishers were nor so generous, nor writers so demanding, Bur a least they gave me a ‘modest sum that I could live on, And once the book was well along, and they saw part off, Sarenstein said to them, you've just go to give ther more, she's gor nothing. So they gave me another advance—all due to him. He used to send me enormous bottles of FrenchThe tim heart, and style 1 came here~twice—while he was alive, he threw parties for me atthe “21” Club, with caviar and sturgeon... he bad a big ‘Unfortunately, he died—ofa heart atcack just when I began to ges known and make a success He deserved becter, because it we have been terribly exciting for him. Atleast he was able tobe thrilled with the response co my fist novel. Though not a best-sller—T've never been th iewas big critical success here. a completely unknown writer with a front-page review in The New York Times INTERVIEWER ‘What role do you fel pois and the constant conflict it evokes in South Aftica have played in your development asa writer? GORDIMER Well, it has earned out to have played a very important role, [ would have been a writer anyways Lwas waiting before polities impinged itself upon my consciousness. In my writing, plitcs comes through ina didactic fashion very rarely. The kind of conversations and polemical arguments you ge in Burger's Daughter, and in some of my other books—these really lay a very minor part. For various seasons to do with the story, they had to be there, But the real influence of politi on my writing isthe influence of politics on people. ‘Their lives, and I believe their very personalities, ae changed by the extreme politcal circumstances one lives under in South Aftica. Lam dealing with people; here ate people who are shaped and changed by politics. In that way my material is profoundly influenced by politics, INTERVIEWER Do you see that as an advantage fora writer? GORDIMER Not realy, Lifes so apparently amorphous. Bue as soon as you burrow down this way or that... you know Goethe's maxim? “Thrust your hand deep into life, and whatever you bring up in i, chat is you, that is your subject.” I think that's whae waiters do, INTERVIEWER Ifyou had grown up in a country that was not politically oppressed, might you have become a mor GORDIMER Maybe. Take a weiter whom I admire tremendously, the greatest Amevican short-story writer ever, Eudora Welty. Ina strange way, she had lived where I've lived, she might have turned these incredible gifts of hers more outward—she might have written more, she might have tackled wider subjects. I hesitate to say ths, because what she’s dane she's done wonderflly. Bur the Fact is that she hasa’e swriteen very much; I don’ think she ever developed felly her gifs asa novelist, She was not forced by circumstance to come to grips with. something different. And I don hate that word about my work—"sensitiv” Iwas constantly being compared to Katherine Mansfeld. [am nor by nature a political creature, and even now there isso much I don believe it's jusea matter of temperament, because my early writing had qualities similar to hers. I got ¢o in polities, and in political people—though I admire tremendously people who are politically active—there's so much lying to oneself, self-deception, there has to be—you don't make a good political fighter unless you ‘ean pretend the warts aren’ there INTERVIEWER Doyouh «the same complaint about Virginia Woolf's novels as you do with Eudora Welty’? GORDIMER No, because Virginia Woolf extended herself che other way. I mean she really concentrated corlly on that transparent envelope that she'd find for herself: There are two ways to knit experience, which is what writing is about, Writing is making sense of if, You work your whole life and perhaps you've made sense of one small ares. Virginia Woolf dd this incomparably. And the complexity of her ‘human relationships, the economy with which she managed to portray them. staggering, But you can’t write a novel like Burger’ Daughter with the sensibility ofa Virginia WoolE. You have to find some other way. You're always trying to find some other way. 'm interested in hoth wave nF writine T crarred aff hy being interested in thar rrancnarenrenvelaneINTERVIEWER Was Woolf a big influence when you began writing? GORDIMER ‘Midway, I think after I'd been writing for about five years. She can be a ery dangerous influence on a young writer. [e's easy ofall inco the cadence. Bur the content isn’ there. The same could be said for a completely different kind of writer like Dos Passos, or Hemingway. You've got to be very careful, or you do ifyou area writer lke me, stating out with an acute sensibility and a poor narrative hey tend to fall nto beautiful set pieces Irwas only with The Late Bourgeois World, sift. My narrative gift was weak in my early nove shat [began to develop narrative muscle. From then on, my struggle has been nor to lose the acuce falls into place) and to marry it successfully to a narrative gift. Because the kind of subjects that are around me, that draw me, that I see motivating which was published in 1964 sensitiviey—I mean the acuteness of catching nuance in behavior (not in description, because as you get more mature ‘me, requitea strong narrative ability INTERVIEWER Do you feel chat your political situaion—the political siruation in South Aftica—gave you a particular incentive asa writer? GORDIMER No. For instance, in Burgers Daughter, you could say on the face of ie tha it's a book about white communists in South Aftica. Bur ‘0 me its something else, I's a book aboue commitment, Commitment isnot merely a poitieal thing, Ie’s part of the whole ontological problem in life e's pare of my feeling chat whata writer docs isto try to-make sense of life. I chink that’s what writing is, think chats ‘what painting is. Ie’ seeking thar thread of order and logic in the disorder, and the incredible waste and marvelous profligate character of life. What all artists are trying to do is to make sense of life. So you see, I would have found my themes had I been an American or an English writer. They are there iFone knows where to look... fone is pushed from within, INTERVIEWER How do you feel that fiction from relatively nonoppressed countries compares with that produced in countries where the political simation necessitates a certain amount of political consciousness? GORDIMER ‘Tome, it's alla matter ofthe quality ofthe writing. To me, that is everything, I can appreciate a tremendously subjective and apolitical piece of writing, IFyou're « writer, you can make the death of a canary stand forthe whole mystery of death. That’s the challenge. But, ofcourse in a sense you are "lucky" ifyou have great themes. One could say that about the Russians in the nineteench century. Would they have been the wonderful writers they ate if they hadn't had that challenge? They aso had the restrictions that we chafe against in South Afriea— censorship, and so on. And yeti seems on the face of to have had only a good effect on writing. Then | think ic depends. Ie can have a deleterious effect. In South Africa, among young blacks who are writing —ie's difficult for them to admit it, bur they know this—they have to submit to an absolute orthodoxy within black consciousness, The poem or the story or the novel must follow a certain line—ie's a kind of party line even though what isin question is nos a political pare, bute in the true sense of she word, a party line. For example, nobleness of character in blacks must be shown. e's pretty much frowned upon if there's a white character who is human, I's easy enough to understand this and i's important as a form of consciousness raising for young blacks to feel ‘heir own identity to recite poems that simply exale blackness and decry everything else, and often to exalt tin crude rerms, in erude images clichés, That's fine asa weapon of propaganda in the s cuggle, which is what such writings, primarily. But the real writers axe victims ofthis, because as soon as they stray from one or two clearly defined storylines, they're regarded as— INTERVIEWER —tesitors, Are there many blacks writing and publishing in South fica? GORDIMER TThere area lot, and ehere’s a fairly good relationship between black and white writes, Literatuce is one ofthe few areas lft whereblack and white fel some identity of purpos responsibility to promote, defend, and help black writers where possible, sve all struggle under censorship, and most white writers feel astong sense of| INTERVIEWER Burger's Daughter was banned three weeks afer itwas published, wasn’ tit? GORDIMER ‘Yes, and it remained banned for several months. Then it was unbanned. I as pleased, as you can imagine. Not only for myself, but because it established something ofa precedent for other writers, since thete are in that book blatant contraventions of certain acts In that book I published a document that was areal document, distributed by the students in the 1976 riots in Soweto, and banned by the government. Ie’sin the book with all the misspellings and grammatical mistakes... everything exactly as ie was; and indeed chat’ important because, as Rosa points out, these kids rioted because they fle their education wasn’t good enough. And when you read the ‘ext of chat patheric litte pamphlet you can see what the young blacks meant, because chat’ as well as they could write atthe age of, sixteen oF seventeen, when they were ready to matriculate, So here is one example where, indeed, I flagrantly crossed the line to ilegality. [Now thar the book has been unbanned, i's going t be adificule thing for the censors to ban other books on evidence of such sransgressions. INTERVIEWER Why was the book unbanned? GORDIMER If Thadn's been a writer who's known abroad and ifthis hadn't been a book that happened to receive serious attention ata high level, abroad—ie obviously made the censors feel rather foolish—the book would not have been released. So there we ae, INTERVIEWER Is i¢common for a book to be unbanned? GORDIMER Well, not so quickly. Of my two previous books, one, A World of Strangers, was banned for ewelve years, and the other, entitled The Late Bourgevis World, fox ten: after that lengeh of time most books ate precy well dead. INTERVIEWER How does a book ge banned? GORDIMER First ofall ifthe book is imported, the authorities embargo it In other words, i's just like any other cargo arsiving atthe docks. Ie is cembaegoed at customs an ip Board. He's got alist of suspects. For instance, a South African writer like myself would be on it, you se, because they know the kind three books banned previously. So would somebody like James Baldwin; several of hs books were banned. Then th he customs officer sends the book off to the Censor jects I've chosen, and, in any case, I've had another way that books get embargoed with the possible outcome of aban. After normal distibucion, somebody, some Mother Grundy, old busybody, reads a book that's already in the bookshops, objects to it and sends ic offto the Censorship Board with a complaint. On the recommendation of just one person, a committee will read the book to see ifs “objectionable.” But while it’s being read by the censors, it’s under embargo, which means that ahough there are copies in the bookshops the bookseller can sell hem; he’s gor to put them away, ake them off the shelves. Sometimes the book is then released. Ie happened to my novel A Guest of Honour it happened to The Conservationist. The Conservationist, Ichi, was held by from the point of view of sales. Then it was released by the director ofthe board. The members ofthe censor's censors for ten weeks, which is iniquitous because the fist ten weeks in a book's life are crucial committee—there area numberof those, usually with three people construing acommittee—read the book, each writes an independent report, and ifthese concur that the book should be banned or released, right, it’s done. IF they don’t concur, then «fourth person has to be brought in. IFthey concur that che book is undesirable, chen itis banned, The author isn’t told. The decision ispublished in the government guzerc, which is published once a week. And that’s the end of the book. INTERVIEWER ‘What happens then? Ise like what happened with Uhises? Do people scrounge around frantically rying to get hold of it and hide ic when policemen walk by? GORDIMER, Pople do, people do. Books are usually banned only or sale and distribution but nos for posession, so that if you've already bought the book you may keep it; bur you may not lend i tome othe person across the road, and you may not sll INTERVIEWER You can't lend it GORDIMER No. This, ofcourse, is perfectly sidiculous. Everybody fends banned books all the ime. But people are very nervous for instance, bout buying them abroad or having them sen. They're eather too timid about that. They don't ke to have to single them in. INTERVIEWER So there ise mich smuggling going on? GORDIMER Some people don’ some do. But with some of us, i's point of honor always to do this INTERVIEWER To smuggle? GORDIMER Yes, ofcourse. I's leitimate form of protest. Bur unfortunately, when a book s ned, very few copies get around INTERVIEWER Gessingback co the ids tha oppresied socetics produce better writers GORDIMER Well, don’ know. [think inthe case of Latin American countries, they seem to have experienced so many forms of oppression and forso ong that its become a normal state. Bue notice that they all write about the same ching... che themes areas obsessive asthe African ones. The there among the remarkable Latin American writers isthe corrupt dictator. Nevertheless, despite the sameness of theme, [regard this asthe most exciting iction in che world being writen roday. INTERVIEWER Which Latin American novelists? GORDIMER, Garela Marquez, of course. Hardly necessary even to name Borges. Borges is the only living successor to Franz Kafka. Alejo (Carpentier was absolutely wonderful. The Kingdom of the Earth isan exquisite lite novel—ie's brilliant. Then there's Carlos Fuentes, 2 magnificent writer. Mario Vargas Llosa, And Manel Puig, These just roll off my tongue quickly: there are others But always there’s this obsessive cheme—che corrupe dictator. They all write about it they're obsessed by it. INTERVIEWER| suppose that an oppressed culture such as South Africa's erates the possibility for heroes to exist, and that this is why some of your novels, such as 4 Guest of Honour and Burger's Daughter, have heroes as their motivating force, GORDIMER ‘Well, you know, it amazes me ... come to America, I goto England, Igo to France. .. nobody's at risk. They're afraid of gecting cancer losing lover, losing thei jobs, being insecue,Ie’s either something that you have no control over, ike death—the atom bomb— or it's something with which you'd be able to cope anyway, and that is not the end of che world; you'll get another job or you'll go.on state relief or something of this nature I's only in my own country that I find people who voluntarily choose to put everything a risk— in their personal life, I mean to most of us, the whole business of filling in love isso totally absorbing, nothing else matters. I's happened. +0 me, There have been times in my life when I have put the person I was in love with far ahead of my work. I would lose interest, ‘wouldn’c even cate ifthe book was coming out. I'd forget when it was being published and I wouldn’t worry abour the reception it gor because I was in such a sate of anguish over some man. And yet the people I know who are committed to apolitical cause never allow themselves to be deflected by this sort of personal consideration or ambition. INTERVIEWER How do you chink romantic love manifesesiself in families suchas Rosa's, where people's passions li in policies? GORDIMER ‘This is what interested me so much, and thisis what I parly tried to explore in the relationship between chat girl and her family, who loved her, exploited her, but atthe same time fle that they were doing this not for each other orto each other, but because the cause demanded it INTERVIEWER get only very brief glimpses ofthe love affair between Burger and his wife. In fac, the reader haedly gets any pieeue ether of theie relationship or of Ross's mother at ll GORDIMER TThat was one ofthe points that’s fiscinated me about such people: you could know them very well, and yet even in their intimate relations with one another they remained intensely secretive; i's part ofthe discipline that you have to have. Ihave a very very close friend—no character in the book is modeled on her, [might add—but much that know or have discovered intuitively about such people started with my fxcination with her. She has been my closes fiend for many years—she’s a political exile now —and we've talked nights and days. She's one ofthe few people for whom I suppose I'd pue myself physically ac risk ifthere were to be cause. There are so ngs [don't know about her that normally would come out in confidences between people who areas close ss we are, and it’s because ofher political commitment that I can’t sk her and she won't tell me.I think that this could extend even to family relationships. It’s part of the discipline thatthe more you know, the more dangerous you ate to the people around you, Ifyou and I are working. together in an underground movement, the less know about you the better. INTERVIEWER ‘We've talked about the South American writers you admire, What about other writers? GORDIMER Lots of novelists say they don’t read other novelists, contemporary ones. If tis is true i's a great pity. Imagine, ifyou had lived inthe nineteenth cencury and not read the writers that we now turn back to so lovingly, or even ifyou had lived in th ‘wentieth century and hadn't read Lawrence or Hemingway, Viginia Woolf and so on. Ar different times in my life I've—liked is not the word—T've been psychologically dependent upon different writers. Some have remained influential in my life and some haven't, and some I suppose I've forgotten and do them an injustice by not mentioning. When I first began to write, I wrote shore stores, and of course [sil do: I've ‘written a great many. It's form that Llove to write and to read Twas very influenced by American, Southern, short-story writers Eudora Welty was a great influence on me, Years later, when I met Eudora visited her in Jackson —there were such parallels between, the way she was living even then, and my life black man was mowing the lawn! There was a kind of understanding, Of course, this,seally had nothing co do with the fact that I thought she was a superb shore story writer. Katherine Anne Porter was an influence on me. Faulkner. Yes. But, again, you se, one lies, because I'm sure that when we were doing the five-finger exercises of short-story writing, “Hemingway must have influenced everybody who began to writen the lace forties as I did, Proust has been an influence on me, all my life—an influence so deep it frightens me. strong influence, and ‘Thomas Mann, whom I've come to admire more and more. FM. Forster, when [was a young ie: when Twas in ny owenties—he was very important to me And Ist think Passage to India isan absolucely wonderfal book chat cannot be killed by boeing eaughein the universities. ‘not only in my writing but in my atieudes to lif, Then later came Camus, who was quite a INTERVIEWER In what way did Hemingway influence you? GORDIMER, ‘Oh, through his short stories. The reduction, you know, and also the use of dialogue. Now I think great failure in Hemingway's shore stories is the omnipresence of Hemingway's voice. People do not speak for themselves, in their own thought patterns: chey speak as “Hemingway does. The “he sid," “she said” of Hemingway's work. I've cu these atributions out of my novels longago. Some people complain cha chs makes my novels dificule vo read. But I don’t car. I simply cannot stand he-suid/she-said anymore. And if can’t, ‘make readers know who's speaking from the tone of voice, the turns of phrase, well, chen I've failed. And chere's nothing anyone can do about, INTERVIEWER Ir certainly enforces concentration when one is reading your novels GORDIMER Yes INTERVIEWER “The dashes are very effective. GORDIMER (Ob, hats very old. Ie started with Stene'sPitram Shandy INTERVIEWER hac technique did you ute hat wat the same? GORDIMER A kind of interior monologue that jumps about from different points of view. In The Conservationist, sometimes its Mehring speaking from inside himself, observing, and sometimes it's 2 totally dispassionate view from outside. INTERVIEWER I's a much more standard narrative technique than that of Burger’s Daughter. GORDIMER, Well, no, isn’t, you know. In The Conservationiat you've got interior monologue and you have areal narrator. les not always [Mchring speaking, But th line beeween when he is and when he isn't is very vague, my theory being thatthe central personality is there, whether its being observed from outside or whether from inside—ie's the same entity INTERVIEWER ‘You mentioned thar che way in which you came up with the structure of Burgers Daughter, in which Rosa i always speaking rosomebody, was fom che idea that when one is writing one always has a listener in mind. GORDIMER, ‘Oh, no, notin yous writing in your dé Ubelieve that in your life in your thoughts when you ae alone, you ae always addressing yourself to somebody. INTERVIEWER And you are not doing this when you write? GORDIMER, No, because you'te no longer yourself when you're writing; you'ze projectinginto other people. Bue ehink in your life, and sometimes even in the conduct of your lf, you're imagining that some particular person is seeing your actions. And you're turning way, sometimes, from others. INTERVIEWER How has Faulkner influenced you? Do you see any similarities in che strucrure of Burger's Daughter and, say, As I Lay Dying? GORDIMER ‘No, none ata, and I don’ think there could be any influence here. I chink che big tise when people influence you is when you're ‘very Young and you star to write aftr that you slough off what you don’ need and you painfully hammer our your own style. INTERVIEWER ‘There's similarity beeween the way your method of narration in Burgers Daughter and some of Faulkner's books address themselves to the relative nature of “truth” GORDIMER ‘Yes, Well, of course it sa method that points out the relativity of truth, The poinc I'm trying to make is about the rlaionship beeween style and point of view in a sens, style isthe point of view, or the point of view isthe syle. INTERVIEWER Right, and that’s why you choose co structure your narratives inthe way that you do, GORDIMER, And then it was Proust who said that style isthe moment of identification between the writer and his situation Ideally that is what it should be—one allows the situation to dicate the style INTERVIEWER So that you are expressing a point of view, with the style that you choose, about the way life isin South Africa, GORDIMER, Yes. I'm expressing point of view ofthe way lifes fr that particular person and the people around her (i the case of Burgers Daughter), and, by extension, view ofife isle INTERVIEWER In Conor Cruise O'Brien's review of Burgers Daughter, which appeared in The New York Review of Books, he says that your novel is conscructed with a “properly deceptive ar.” He talks about how the construction makes the book seem as ft were a book in which nothing happens, and then several cataclysmic things do, in fat, happen. I was wondering ifyou have any responseGORDIMER, For me again, s0ltele ofthe construction is objectively conceived, I’ organic and instinctive and subconscious. I cant cll you how I arrive ait. Though, with each book, Igo through along time when L know what I want todo and I’m held back and puzzled and appalled because I don’t know before I begin to write how I'm going co do it, and always fear that can't doi. You see, in Guest of Honour, wrote a political book, a book that needed certain objective entities relating to and acting upon the characte’ life in particular. And I wrote thar book asa conventional narrative so that a che poine where chere was indeed a big party congress there was no difficulty then in presenting it almost like a play. Then I wrote The Conservationist, where I chose to ignore that one had to explain anything at al. I decided that ithe eader didn’t make the leap in his mind, ithe allusions were puzzling to him»—too bad, But the narrative would have to carry the book in che sense of what s going on inthe characters’ minds and going on in their bodies: che way ‘they believed things that they did really wee. Either the reader would make the leap oF not, and ifthe reader was puzzled now and then —to0 bad. In other words, the novel was fal of private references between the characters. OF course, you take a tremendous risk with sucha narrative syle, and when you do succed, I think is the ideal. When you don't of course, you irritate the reader or you eave him puzzled, Personally, as reader, I don’t mind being puzzled. Pechaps the writer doesn’t know the consequences implied in his/her books, because there'sa choice of explanations; and, asa reader, [enjoy that. To me, e's an importane pare ofthe exciting business of reading a book: of being sired, and of havinga mind of your own. And so, a8 a write, [tke the liberty of doing this INTERVIEWER ‘You don't consciously create a complete structure before you begin writing novel? GORDIMER No. For Burgers Daughter, peshaps four or five pages of very sappy notes forthe whole book. Bus, for me, chose half sentences or litle snatches of dialogue ae tremendously important; they are the core of something, And I've only got to look at them, and know that that's the next stage in the book that I'm coming to, INTERVIEWER Is tis the way you usually write your novels? GORDIMER, ‘Yes, With me it’s realy a very natural process once I get started. An organic process INTERVIEWER How fongdo you prepate before you get started? GORDIMER Tess dffcul for me to say because, looking back at Burger's Daughter, for example, [know that Te been fascinated by the kind of person Rosas for many yeas. I's asf the secret ofa ifs there, and slowly Im ciecing, coming closer and closer tot. Perhaps there are other themes chat present chemselves bur finally spin off instead of drawing me to them. I suppose one's ready for different things ae dlffrenc times in one’s life. And also, in a country where 0 much is changing, the quality of life around one i changing; so tha pethaps wouldn't be attracted now to write the book that I wrote tn years ago, and vee versa, INTERVIEWER So you feel thae the way your books are written is more an inevitable phenomenon than a conscious choice GORDIMER 1 don’t think any writer can say why he chooses this or that or howa theme impinges itself. Ir may have been around fora longtime and thea a stage comes in your life when your imagination is eady frit and you can deal with iwanted to ask you about The Conservationist, in which death is almost an obsessive theme, There ate certain seotions where iis continually brought up in titualized ways: ehe man hopping up from his grave indifferent people's minds throughout the book, and the ritual of killing the goat co get back at Solomon's injury GORDIMER In The Conservationist there's a resurrection theme, and thats also politcal theme. Atthe end ofthe book there's disguised message. The slogan of he biggest banned liberation movement, a kind of battle cry widely adopted isthe Afican word mayibuye. This smcans, “Affica come back.” You can see the whole idea of resurrection is there. And if you look at the end of The Consercationst you'll sce that this hou £ is reworded, but it is actually what is said when the unknown man is reburied: that although he is nameless and childless, he has all the children of ther people around him; in other words, the future, He has people around him who are not his blood brothers and sisters bur who stand for them, And that he has now been put with proper ceremony into his own earth, He has taken, possession of it. There’ suggestion of something that has been planced, cha is going to grow agai. INTERVIEWER ‘This theme is repeated in one of your short stories —"Six Feet ofthe Country.” GORDIMER ‘Yes, But the repetition isin reverse: “Six Feet" was written years before The Conservationist. Oddly enough, that eaty story is based onatrucincident. INTERVIEWER Do you have fascination with death? GORDIMER Not consciously, but then ... how can any thinking person not have? Death is really he mystery of life isn’t it? Ifyou ask, “What happens when we die? Why do we die?” you ate asking, "Why do we live?” Unless one has «religion... Without religious explanation, cone has only the Mount Everest argument: "I climb i because i's there. [live because there isthe gift off.” Irs not an answer, rally it'san evasion. Or, “I think my purpose on this earth isto make life better.” Progress is the business of making life more safe and more enjoyable... fuller, generally. Bue chat justification, it stops short of death, doesnt it? The only transcendent principle i that you are shen seeking co improve the human lor for Future generations. But we sill don't gee past he fact chat t's 2 eurnabout business; i's your chen i’ mine, and life is taken up by somebody else. Human beings are never reconciled to this. In my own life [am made puzzled and uncasy by my a le and that of others to death. Ifsomebody dies young it's so terrible, it's such a tragedy, and the sense of ‘waste is so strong: you think ofall the promise that was there. And then if people live into ld age, there's the horror of decay, especially it’s awful co say —but especially with exceptional peoples when you see theie minds going and their bodies falling to pieces, and they want to die and you want them to die, then people die young, and we say it’s terrible if they go on living too long, at's equally terrible. So it's the mere fact of death chat we can't accept? We say it's terrible if INTERVIEWER [Are you religious or mystical person? GORDIMER man atheist. I wouldn't even call myselfan agnostic. [am an atheist, Bur I think I have a basically ment, perhaps cligious temper «even a profoundly religious one. I went through a stage in my life when I was abour thirty-two or thiery-thece years old—when I was very fascinated by che writings of Simone Weil. In the end, hr religious philosophy left me where L was, But fle that there was something. shere that answered to a need chat I elt, my “need for roots” that she wrote about so marvelously. I couldn't find the same solution. INTERVIEWER How do you feel about Conor Cruise O'Brien's idea about there being Christian overtones in Burger's Dauehter?GORDIMER Well, 'm thinking ofthat, 'm sure thas an atheist. Bur he hit on something that is there in me, a certain inelination—more chan that—a pull. Perhaps, broughe up diffeencly in lieu, ina different way, I might have been a religious person. nany of my friends, people who know me well, layghed because they know that, a say, I'm INTERVIEWER ‘Then there isthe resurrection ofthe black man in The Conservationist. GORDIMER Bur of course the idea of resurrection comes from the Grecks, from the Fgyptians. You can begin to believe ina collective “unconscious without having religious belief INTERVIEWER T've noticed thar sensual elements play a key role in your writing: smell, vexcures, sexuality, bodily functions. You don’c write about the so-called beautiful people, the leisured class of South Africa, and the beautiful environment in which they must live. In fac, [noticed shat almoseall of this reflect the way in which you view whiee colonialist in your coun’ shige women in your Selected Stories are physically and mentally both highly wnartractive and middle class. Does GORDIMER, 1 don’t make such judgments about people. After ll, I'ma white colonial woman myself, of colonial descent. Pethaps [know us too ‘well chrough myself. But if somebody is partly frivolous or superficial, has moments of eruelty or selfdoubt, I don't write them off, ‘because I think that absolutely everybody has what are known as human filings. My black characters are nor angels ether. All this roe: playing that is done ina society like ours—i's done in many societies, ut it’s more noticeable in outs —somecimes the role is forced ‘upon you. You fll inc it. It's kind of song-and-dance routine, and you find yourself, and my characters find themselves acting out these preconceived, ready-made roles. But, of cours, there are lage number of white women ofa certain kind in the kind of sociery that I come from who ... well, the best one can say of them is that one can excuse them because oftheir ignorance of what they have allowed themselves to become. I sce the same kind of women here in the U.S. You go into one ofthe big stores here and you can sce these extremely well-dressed, often rather dissatisfied-looking, even sad-looking middle-aged women, rch, sitting trying on a dozen paies of shoes: and you can see they're sitting therefor the morning, And i's2 terribly agonizing decision, but maybe the heel should bea liee higher or maybe-..should I get two pairs? And afew blocks away i's appalling to see in what poverty and misery other people are living, in this city, New York. Why i it chat one doesn’t criticize chat American woman the same way one does her counterpart in South ‘Aftica? For me, the difference is chat the rich American represents class difference and injustice, while in South Affica the injustice is based on both class and ace prejudice. INTERVIEWER ‘What abour the “beauciful people” of South Africa? GORDIMER ‘They're featured very prominently in an early book of mine called World of Strangers but very rarely since then, until the character gard ‘of Mehting in The Conservationist, They ae not the most interesting people in South Aftica, belie although they may shemselves as such. INTERVIEWER Is itintentional that so often the physical details of characters are not brought home strongly in your work? One gets a very strong sense ofthe mind's workings in major characters, but often a very limited sense of wh they actualy lok like, GORDIMER I chink thar physical descriptions of people should be minimal. There are exceptions—take Isaac Bashevis Singer. He very oftenstarts offa story by giving you a fll physical description. IF you look very closely atthe description, ofcourse it's extremely good. He stamps character on a twist of the nose or a tuft of red beard. My oven preference is for physical description to come piecemeal at times when i furthers other elements inthe text, For instance, you might desetibe a character's eyes when an cher character is looking stra into them so it would be natural. a feature ofthat particular moment in the narrative. There might be another scene later, where the character whose eyes you've described is under tension, and is showing it by tapping her foot or picking a a hangnail—so ifthere was something pacticular about her hands, that would be the time to talk about them. 'm telling you this sift were something to be planned. Ir isn’t. Ie comes at che appropriate moment. INTERVIEWER In the introduction to your Selected Stores, you say: "My femininity has never consticuted any special kind of solitude, for me.In face, my only genuine connection with the social life of che town (when I was growing up) was through my femaleness. Asan adolescent, atleast, [felt and followed sexual atrsetion in common with others; that was a form of communion I could share, Rapune’s ha isthe right metaphor for this Femininity: by means of tI was able to let myself out and liv inthe body, with others, as well as—alone—in the mind.” You go on to say you “question the existence ofthe specific solitude of woman-as-intllectual when that woman isa writer, because when i comes to their essential faculty as writers, all writers are androgynous beings.” What about the process ofbecoming a swriter, of becoming an androgynous being? Tsn't chav struggle for women? GORDIMER hesitate to generalize from my own experience. [would consider it an arrogance to state my own experience as true forall women. 1 tally haven't suffered at al fom beinga woman. It's inconceivable, for example, that I could ever have become interested in 8 man who regarded women as nonbeings. [t's never happened. There would be a kind of war between us, I just take it for granted, and it has al |happened, har the men in my life have been people who treated me as an equal. There was never any question of fighting for this. 'm somebody who has lived a life as a woman. In other words, I've heen twice mastied, I've brought up children, P've done all the things that women do. haven't avoided or escaped this, supposing that I should have wished to, and I don't wish to and never wished to, But, as 1 say, I don’t generalize, because Ise all around me women who ae gifted and intelligent whe do have these struggles and who indeed infuriate me more easily. But | did manage to maintain it when my children were young, I suppose, by being rather ruthless. [think swricers,atsts are very ruthles, and they have to be I's unpleasant for other people, but I don'r know how else we ean manage. Because ‘he world will never make a place for you, My own family came to understand and respect this, Really, when my children were quite small they knew that in my working hours they must lave me alone; if they eame home from school and my door was closed, they left and they didn’t eurn on the radio fll blast. I was erticize for ths by other people. But my own children don’c hold i against me.I still der, less and less interested in that. When I was young I did go through some years when I enjoyed party-going very much and stayed out all night. But in the end, the loss next day, the fcr that [had a hangover and that I coulda’t work, quickly outweighed the pleasure; and, as sime has gone by, 've kept more and more ro myself Because a writer doesn't only need the time when he's actually writing —he or she hhad time that I spent with them, What I have also sacrificed, and ithasn’ been a sacrifice for me, is social life; and as I've got thas got co have time co think and ime just co let things work out. Nothing is w« for this than sociery. Nothing is worse for this than the abrasive, if enjoyable effect of other people. INTERVIEWER ‘What conditions do you find to be most conducive to writing? GORDIMER, Well, nowhere very special, no grat, splendid desk and cork-lined room. There have been times in my life, my God, wien I was a young divorced woman with a small child living in a small apartment with thin walls when other people's radios would drive me absolutely mad. And thats stil the thing thar bothers me tremendously—shar kind of noise. don't mind people's voices, But Muzak or the constant clack clack ofa radio or television coming through the door. ., well live ina suburban house where I have a small room where I work. Ihave adoot with ect access to the garden —a great luxury for me—so that I can get in and out without anybody bothering me or knowing where Lam. Before I begin to work I pull our the phone and i stays out until I'm ready to plugin again. IF people really wane you, cheyl find you some other time, And i's a simple as cha, really. INTERVIEWERHow tong.do you usually work every day’ Ur do you work every day’ GORDIMER ‘When I'm working on a book I work every day. [ work about four hours nonstop, and then I'll be very tired and nothing comes anymore, and then Iwill do ocher things. I can't understand writers who feel they shouldn't have co do any ofthe ordinary things of life, because I think that this is necessary; one has got to keep in touch with that. The solitude of writing is also quite frightening, I's quite close sometimes to madness, one just disappears fora day and loses ouch, The ordinary action of taking a dress down co the dry cleaners ‘or spraying some plants infected with aphids ia very sane and good thing to do. Ie brings one back, soto speak. It also brings the world back. I have formed the habit, over the last two books I've written, of spending half an hour or so reading over what 'd written daring the day just before I go to bed at night, Then, ofcourse, you get tempted co fixie up, fuss with it, at night. Bue I find thar's good. But if I've been with friends or gone out somewhere, then L won't do that, The facts that Llead a rather solitary life when Pm writing, INTERVIEWER Isthere atime of day tha’ best? GORDIMER I work in she morning That's best for me INTERVIEWER esi usually take you to write a book? GORDIMER I depends The shortest has been about eighteen months. Burgers Daughter tok me four yeas. INTERVIEWER Four years oF teady writing? GORDIMER wrote one of two other things, small things. Sometimes when I'm waiting get a block, and so stop and write short story, and. shat seems to set me going, Sometimes when I'm writing a book I get ideas for storie, and they're just tucked away. But alas, as I get ‘older, I get fewer ideas for shore stories, Tused to be teeming with them. And I'm sorry about that because [like shore stores INTERVIEWER ‘What abou writer's block? Is that a problem for you? GORDIMER No, And Isay so, as you see, with hesitation and fear and trembling because you always feel chat that demon is waiting behind che back of your bain, INTERVIEWER You have the shore story to loosen you up? GORDIMER ‘Yes, and occasionally Ido some nonfiction piece, usually something involving travel For me, this kind of relaxation. During the time I was writing Burger’ Daughter I did two such pieces. INTERVIEWER‘You don't even have minor fits of procrastination, endless cups of tea or things like thac? GORDIMER ‘No, no, Though I do have, not blocks but. problems moving on from one stage to the next; particularly when I've got something done with and i's worked wel. For instance I finished that chapter with Brande Vermeulen, you know, the nationalist in Burger's Daughter, which went unexpectedly wel, [simply wrote it just like that and tall came right, [had been dreading i, I had been dreading. getting che tone of voice and everything right. And then, knowing where was going on from here, there was suddenly an inability co get ‘our of that mood and into another, and so there were pethaps a few awful days, because when that happens, Idon’e stop and do something else. Ist in front ofthat paper forthe normal time chat I would be writing. And chen, well, break through. INTERVIEWER There's no specific routine that gets you from the bedroom or the living room into the writing room, bridging chat terrifying gap between not writing and writing? GORDIMER No—that's the advantage if you're free to choose the time you're going to write. Thats the advantage of writingin the morning. [Because then one gets up and in one’s subconscious mind one knows: I am going to write, Whatever small thing you have to do, such as talking to other people at breakfst, it's only done with one part of you, so to speaks ust done on the surface. The person with whom I live, my husband, understands this and has for a very longtime. And he knows that to say to me ar breakfast, “What shall we do about so- xe to ask, I get initable, and ieitated; I don’t want to be asked to phone an order to the grocer at that breakfast. Ideally, and-s02” of, “Would you eead this exter? do hings then, And I don't ws like to walk around a bie outside, which you can do, of course, with a garden. But I often think that even that becomes a kind of Ihe knows that isn’t the ime, Ijust want to be lef alone to ex procrastination because it’s so easy then to see a weed that one has to stop and pull up and then one sees some ants and wonders, Where are they going? So the best ching co do is to go into the room and close the door and sit down, INTERVIEWER uch revision of your work? Do you go through GORDIMER Astime goes by, less andes. Lused to, When Iwas young used to write three times as much asthe work one finally reads IF ‘wrote a story, would be thre eimes he final length of tha story. Bue that was inthe very early times of my writing Shore stories area ‘wonderful discipline agsins overwsting. You get so used to cuting out what is extraneous INTERVIEWER Do you ever find erties useful? GORDIMER And the time you find you agree with chem is when they come to the same conclusions you do, In other words, if critic objects to something that I know by ‘my lights is right, that I did the best I could, and that it's well done, I'm not affected by the fact chat somebody didn’t like it. Bu fT have doubrs about a character or something that I've done, and these doubss are confirmed by critic, chen I feel my doubrs confirmed and. Yes, but you must remember they're always after che event, aren’ they? Because then the work's already d Lm glad to respect that crite’ objections INTERVIEWER Frequently writers say they don’t read reviews because even one bad review among ten shining ones can be devastating. GORDIMER (Of cours, ie depends very much on the reviewer. There are people who are not reviewers, one or two, to whom I give my books ro‘ead, perhaps even in manuscript am sick with apprehension while they are reading them, And certainly there are certain reviewers L ‘would be very wounded by ifthey were to say, "Well, chis one's rotten.” INTERVIEWER Buc this hasee happened yet. GORDIMER Not yt, Wih Burger’ Daughter Te had ou of pthaps Bly oat ceviews, vo bad one. INTERVIEWER You say thac writers are androgynous. Do you recognize any difference berween masculine and feminine writing, suchas, say, ‘Woolf versus Hemingway's writing? GORDIMER, ‘Hemingway is such an extreme example, and his writings really an instance of machismo, int it? Henty James could have been a ‘woman. E. M. Forster could have been. George Eliot could have been a man. L used tobe too insistent on this poine cha cher's no sex in ‘the brains I'm less insistent now —pethaps I'm being influenced by che changing attitude of women toward themselves in general? I don’t think there's anything that women writers don’t know. Butt may be that there are certain aspects of if that they can deal with ashade better, jue 3s I wonder whether any woman writer, however great, could have written the marvelous war scenes in War and Peace. By and large, I don’t think it matters a damn what sex a writer is, so longas the work is that ofa eal writer. think there is such a thing as “ladies writing" for instance, feminine writings there are “authoresses” and “poetesses” Andl there are men, like Hemingway, whose «excessive “manliness isa concomitant part of thei writing, But with so many of the male writers whom I admire, it doesn’ matter too such, There doesn't seem to be anything hey don’t know, ether. Afterall look at Molly Bloom’s soliloquy. To me, that’s the ultimate proof ofthe ability ofcither sex to understand and convey the inner workings ofthe other. No woman was ever “writen” better bya ‘woman writer, How did Joyce know? God knows how, and it doesn't matter. When Iwasa young woman, a young git, wrote story about a man who had losis leg. He couldn't aecepe tis the realty oft, until he was sitting recuperating in the garden and saw alocust ‘hac had its leg off he saw the locust straggling because ic Felis leg was still here. I don’t know how I wrote that story, somehow I just imagined myself into tA psychiatrist once told me it was a perfect exemple of penis envy. INTERVIEWER Is there anything, new or otherwise, that you hope to do with your writing inthe fucuse? GORDIMER, would always hope to find the one right way co tackle whatever subject I'm dealing with. To me, that’s the real problem, and the challenge of writing, There's no such feeling asa general achievement, You cannot say that because [have managed to say what l wanted +0 sayin one book, that i is now inside me forthe next, because the next one is going to have a different demand, And until find out how to write it, Lean’t tackle it. INTERVIEWER In ther words, you don’t know the question until you have the answer? GORDIMER ‘Yes. [ould lke to say something about how I el in general about what a novel, or any story, ought co be. le’ a quotation from. Kafka, He sid, “A book ought ro bean ax to break up the frozen sea within usYOU MIGHT ALSO ENJOY Calvin Trillin, The Art of Humor No. 3 Tahar ben Jelloun, The Art of Fiction No, 159 Ray Bradbury, Ihe Ar of Fiction No, 203