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CHIZINE INTERVIEW SERIES: Jonathan Carroll Q: Your fiction, though imbued with mainstream sensibilities, has that "sense of wonder" about it that makes it eminently readable. As a society, with wars raging in Iraq and Chechnya, with our environment and civil liberties eroding away, it seems that now more than ever we need to rekindle our youthful "joie de vivre." Do you think literature, and the arts, have to make a conscious effort to reinvent a Golden Age, if such a beast existed? A: Art only reminds us of our best qualities. It rarely can actually invigorate us to use them. People can talk all day about the effectiveness of Picasso's 'Guernica' in terms of an anti-war statement, but the truth of the matter is, it was painted in the late 1930s and look what followed. Like the Olympics, good art shows us what is best about the human species. It is up to use to keep that image fresh in mind and hopefully do something with our small part of it. Q: In much of your work, there seems to be a seeking of, or reaching toward, the divine, or perhaps an explanation of the divine. A way to explain God, or maybe the lack of God? Is this something that informs your life, or just something you're interested in exploring thematically in your work? A: As you grow older, there is a natural turning towards the larger questions. But I've been working this vein since my fourth or fifth novel in one way or another. So it must be a years long itch that I haven't been able to scratch. I am not a religious person. But the writer Jane Bowles once said, "I don't like people but I like being around people." I.e., I'm not religious but religion and God fascinate me. Q: Outside the Dog Museum is (for me, at least) your funniest book. There are some moments of beautiful lunacy and joyous nuttiness in it. What do you feel is the relationship between humour and your work? Do you set out to be deliberately funny, or do you head in one direction in your writing and then suddenly find yourself in an unintentionally funny place? A: I have no idea what is going to happen from one page to the next in any story I write, literally. I do know that to break up the seriousness of a story with a good laugh is a helpful thing because it realigns the mind's filing cabinet and that can only help. Q: Are there any films in the works based on your books or stories? If so, which? If not, why not? Which of your works would you ideally like to see on the big screen? Starring and directed by whom? A: All of my books have been under option at one time or another. Right now three of them are, but I don't think about that stuff any more because movieland, no matter if it's in the US or Europe, is mostly smoke and mirrors. Thousands upon thousands of books are bought to be made and you know how few actual films are produced. Not to mention how few of those are actually decent films. Which ones would I like to see made? Voice of Our Shadow, From the Teeth of Angels, Outside the Dog Museum. Q: You are equally adept at short fiction and novel-length works. Though different beasts, do you prefer one over the other? A: I usually write short stories in the middle of work on a novel. It is like a vacation away from home or as I recently told someone, like having a lover that you take off with for the weekend to some different spot where you can wear silly clothes and behave badly. Because you know Monday you'll be back home doing what you should be doing. A novel takes forever to write and you're in it for the long haul, for better or worse. A short story, if you're lucky, is short, tight and done. Q: Are there times when you are involved with a novel when you need to step out of it, remove yourself from the creative process and perhaps take a break, a breather, and try something else, perhaps a short story or some other project? The gist being: How emotionally involved do you get in your writing? Is it draining? A: Not at all. I love to write and anyone in the trade who says different is a liar just trying to get points. "Artists" as a rule want the rest of the world to believe it's a daunting, exhausting task to create but the truth of the matter is it's absolutely wonderful fun. To be able to sit at your desk, play God every day via creating universes and actually get paid for it is the best job around. Period. Q: You are a fantasy writer. Genre distinctions tell us so. Yet, your stories, your books, are about BIG IDEAS, and seem to defy easy genre classifications. What are your thoughts on genre classifications? Are they needed? I believe your work belongs on the general fiction shelves, and not the fantasy shelves. Thoughts? A: I'm asked this all the time and my constant response is: I have a cowboy story I want you to read. Want to read it? Most people will say no. But then I tell you it's Lonesome Dove, which some years ago won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction and is simple a great novel. Oh, says the person, that's different. No, it's not different at all. Cowboy stories, mysteries (anyone ever read James Lee Burke? Tell me he's "only" a mystery writer and I'll eat my dog), Fantasy (Kafka, Borges, Bulgakov, Lem, Cortazar, Mieville, etcetera). I don't think so. Genre classification, no matter what kind, immediately turns some people away from work they might otherwise have enjoyed very much. That's why I so deeply dislike being classified as any "kind" of writer. Neil Gaiman was in Poland recently and in some context mentioned me as a fantasy writer. Someone in the audience yelled out in a loud stentorian voice "Carroll does NOT write fantasy." Amen. Q: I saw Jonathan Carroll in person last year and couldn't think of anything to ask him then. However, one thing he said was that he "hated horror," and I thought later that I really should have asked him to expand on that. It was said in the context of his works sometimes being categorized there, so it's not clear if he meant that he hates to see his work categorized as such, or if he just hates the genre in general. This was in Austin during his White Apples tour last year. A: To me horror is usually based on a simple dumb premise—There's something terrible out there—run. It's badly written (most of the time), relying on gimmicks and tricks and blood everywhere. Horror writers as a rule don't spend much time creating believable characters or situations because they're mostly occupied thinking up juicy and hopefully clever ways to kill them. Of course there are exceptions and they shine, but I don't need heads rolling across the floor to remind me that life has it in for us. I want someone to tell me how I can handle it. The writer Danny Gregory said something on his website (www.dannygregory.com) recently that I liked very much: "We can't control what life deals us, just how we respond to it." In horror stories, the characters are generally dealt a hand that demands only two responses—fight or flight. I like nuance and I like answers to how I'm supposed to deal with the reality of today. I don't know any monsters any more than I know any cassowaries, so I don't feel the need to read about either of them. Q: Your works have been characterized as a secular search for God. Do you find that an accurate assessment? When you're sitting down to write, is something along this line on your mind? What is it you hope to accomplish when you tackle writing a novel? A: Writing is a form of doodling for me. You start out with a line and see where it's going to go. It might turn into a drawing of a fish or of a naked woman. The same with a book. I know the first sentence or paragraph of whatever work I've begun but nothing more. It's a form of doodling. If that doodle turns into a yellow brick road towards God, then good. If something else, good too, so long as it keeps me interested and excited. Q: Is there a chance you'll revisit Rondua in the future? A: Nope. Q: Any plans for a new story collection? A: Somewhere down the line when I have enough stories that I believe in. I don't respect writers who put a book out there simply because they haven't for a while. And I especially don't like writers who collect their "occasional" pieces and publish them. Publish what really matters to you and not your verbal chamber pot. Because the world is already awash in bad or mediocre books. There needn't be more. Q: The ending of After Silence seemed to deny the existence of the same magical forces that your endings often reaffirm. Where did that come from? A: I wanted to write a very realistic novel with absolutely no trace of magic in it. At the very end of the story, when the protagonist is going quickly mad, magic almost sneaks in. But I barred the door and said nope, not this time. You've got to tough it through with whatever real resources you have. Q: The Wooden Sea played more obviously with certain science fiction tropes (i.e., time travel) than your previous books. Is science fiction something you'd like to explore further? A: Nope. Q: Why do so many of your books feature a talking/mystical dog (specifically, a pitbull)? What does this dog image mean to you? A: Dogs are minor angels. They love us unconditionally, forgive us immediately (and unconditionally) when we've hurt them or done them wrong, they love our company, genuinely think we're Gods, etcetera. But because they're "only dogs" we dismiss these remarkable qualities as cute. But if we were to transfer even one of their remarkable qualities to someone we knew, we'd be in awe. I like writing about minor angels. Q: Your work (especially your early books) often reuses characters and even situations; do you sometimes plan to reuse a character in a future book while you're working on a current book? A: No, it's an organic thing. While I'm writing if someone from a past piece pops up and honestly fits into what I'm writing at the moment, they're welcome to jump aboard. Visit Jonathan's website for more information on his work.