As some of you may already know, I recently read and reviewed New Model Army by Adam Roberts, and absolutely loved it. I'm therefore very excited to present this interview with one of British Science Fiction's most original and striking voices.
Mustn’t grumble
I've just finished reading New Model Army - Wow! There's a lot going on in inside that one for such a slender fellow. If you had to distil the essence of the novel what would be its nature?
Its nature is Bravo Two Zero written by Vladimir Nabokov. Or Heart of Darkness written by Andy Remic. One of the two.
So is the title a reference to the punk band or dissenters during the English Civil War?
The latter, in the first instance. I had fond memories of the band from my own teenage years, but downloading a couple of albums to listen to as I wrote the novel (I always listen to music as I write) I was disappointed. That said, Punk and New Wave, as music and as a broader aesthetic, remain enormously important to me. As a writer and, you know, as a person. A generational thing, of course.
The democracy explored in the book is not the common modern understanding of the idea, but is extrapolated from the original 5th century BC Athenian model. What do you think of Plato's idea that, "dictatorship arises out of democracy, and tyranny from the most extreme liberty?"
Democracy’s great. Better than tyranny. I take very seriously the rights and duties of living in one. But I can’t say I like the way the word gets used as universal signifier of ‘virtue’. It’s a complex and difficult thing, and no more inherently good than people are inherently good. That’s hardly an original perspective, of course. Here’s John Stuart Mill, a man who knew his democratic onions, in On Liberty:
Like other tyrannies, the tyranny of the majority was at first, and is still vulgarly, held in dread, chiefly as operating through the acts of the public authorities. But reflecting persons perceived that when society is itself the tyrant – society collectively, over the separate individuals who compose it – its means of tyrannizing are not restricted to the acts which it may do by the hands of its political functionaries. Society can and does execute its own mandates: and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with which it ought not to meddle, it practises a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. Protection, therefore, against the tyranny of the magistrate is not enough; there needs protection also against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling; against the tendency of society to impose, by other means than civil penalties, its own ideas and practices as rules of conduct on those who dissent from them; to fetter the development, and, if possible, prevent the formation, of any individuality not in harmony with its ways, and compel all characters to fashion themselves upon the model of its own. There is a limit to the legitimate interference of collective opinion with individual independence; and to find that limit, and maintain it against encroachment, is as indispensable to a good condition of human affairs, as protection against political despotism.
I've just finished reading New Model Army - Wow! There's a lot going on in inside that one for such a slender fellow. If you had to distil the essence of the novel what would be its nature?
Its nature is Bravo Two Zero written by Vladimir Nabokov. Or Heart of Darkness written by Andy Remic. One of the two.
So is the title a reference to the punk band or dissenters during the English Civil War?
The latter, in the first instance. I had fond memories of the band from my own teenage years, but downloading a couple of albums to listen to as I wrote the novel (I always listen to music as I write) I was disappointed. That said, Punk and New Wave, as music and as a broader aesthetic, remain enormously important to me. As a writer and, you know, as a person. A generational thing, of course.
The democracy explored in the book is not the common modern understanding of the idea, but is extrapolated from the original 5th century BC Athenian model. What do you think of Plato's idea that, "dictatorship arises out of democracy, and tyranny from the most extreme liberty?"
Democracy’s great. Better than tyranny. I take very seriously the rights and duties of living in one. But I can’t say I like the way the word gets used as universal signifier of ‘virtue’. It’s a complex and difficult thing, and no more inherently good than people are inherently good. That’s hardly an original perspective, of course. Here’s John Stuart Mill, a man who knew his democratic onions, in On Liberty:
Like other tyrannies, the tyranny of the majority was at first, and is still vulgarly, held in dread, chiefly as operating through the acts of the public authorities. But reflecting persons perceived that when society is itself the tyrant – society collectively, over the separate individuals who compose it – its means of tyrannizing are not restricted to the acts which it may do by the hands of its political functionaries. Society can and does execute its own mandates: and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with which it ought not to meddle, it practises a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. Protection, therefore, against the tyranny of the magistrate is not enough; there needs protection also against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling; against the tendency of society to impose, by other means than civil penalties, its own ideas and practices as rules of conduct on those who dissent from them; to fetter the development, and, if possible, prevent the formation, of any individuality not in harmony with its ways, and compel all characters to fashion themselves upon the model of its own. There is a limit to the legitimate interference of collective opinion with individual independence; and to find that limit, and maintain it against encroachment, is as indispensable to a good condition of human affairs, as protection against political despotism.
Fascinating! Thanks for sharing. As we are about to have a general election in the UK, what are your thoughts on the need for parliamentary reform?
Dull and conventional, I’m afraid. The second chamber should be elected; some form of PR would probably be better than the present system; the church should be disestablished; we should be citizens rather than subjects. Unless we want to take ‘parliamentary reform’ to encompass Revolution, in which case—hell, yeah. But that’s a different thing.
Well in New Model Army, the internet and in particular user generated internet forums, wikis, chat rooms etc are seen as potentially facilitating a kind of cognitive revolution. Are we on the cusp of such a shift do you think? Are we witnessing the death throws of an old consciousness paradigm - the feudal hierarchies to which the NMA's in the book are opposed?
I’m honestly not sure. There are certain existential duties we owe ourselves, it seems to me, and one of the most fundamental of those is: not to be a slave. But there are lots of sorts of slavery, and it’s easy to think of people who find them, or some of them, not only tolerable but actively comforting and pleasant. The internet will of course be a lens to focus
In the book NMA's are a type of literal democratic militia, empowered by their connection to the internet. Is this how you see the internet, as the great leveler?
It does two things that level: it facilitates communication, and it enables us to access knowledge. Pushed to its limit, those are potentially revolutionary, yes.
Do you see your work as deliberately subversive?
I’m not sure I know what ‘subversive’ means. It’s used a lot, of course, especially in academic contexts—but subversive of what? I try, consciously, and perhaps self-consciously, to do new things with each book I write, in terms of both content and form. But does this subvert? Probably not.
Who will win in a fight between The Pope and Richard Dawkins?
There’s only one way to find out …
There are so many ideas in the book, and the themes you explore in your work are quite "heady", but humour is also a big part of your writing. I laughed out loud - literally, when Tony described the cows blocking the road in one scene, and blithely referred to them as moo-cows. How important is the humour in your writing?
Speaking generally I prize laughter very highly indeed. Not to sound pompous, but it is a vital mode of transcendence, a form of aesthetic intensity as valuable as the lyric transport of poetry or music. But NMA isn’t really a comic novel, I think; not in the way my previous novel, Yellow Blue Tibia, was a comic novel. It’s tragic in the strict sense, that I adapted Greek form (tragic drama) to prose in order to structure it.
I hope I'm not spoiling anything here, but I would like to talk briefly about Tony's sexuality. As a gay man myself, and an aspiring writer who's wondered about the reaction to writing a gay lead protagonist in SF; I was really pleased with the way you presented this character. Was there any particular reason you chose to write him as a gay man?
A couple of reasons. One has to do with the Ancient Greek conceptual context for the book’s version of democracy and military life. Plato thought that proper love could only exist between equals (to love an inferior person is actually only pity, and to love a superior only a sort of doggish awe), which, since he did not consider women equal to men, meant that true love could only exist between men. And of course there’s a long tradition of noting the ‘special bond’ that grows up between men in combat, although plenty of people get mealymouthed about what’s at stake, emotionally and physically, in that sort of bond. (Not everybody: Pat Barker’s First World War novels are good on precisely this).
But in a larger sense, it seems to me that we want to get to a place where writing gay characters is no more remarkable a thing than writing straight characters—there are gay and straight people in the world, after all. Not that writers should treat gay and straight characters ‘the same’, but only because no two types of character are ‘the same’.
Dull and conventional, I’m afraid. The second chamber should be elected; some form of PR would probably be better than the present system; the church should be disestablished; we should be citizens rather than subjects. Unless we want to take ‘parliamentary reform’ to encompass Revolution, in which case—hell, yeah. But that’s a different thing.
Well in New Model Army, the internet and in particular user generated internet forums, wikis, chat rooms etc are seen as potentially facilitating a kind of cognitive revolution. Are we on the cusp of such a shift do you think? Are we witnessing the death throws of an old consciousness paradigm - the feudal hierarchies to which the NMA's in the book are opposed?
I’m honestly not sure. There are certain existential duties we owe ourselves, it seems to me, and one of the most fundamental of those is: not to be a slave. But there are lots of sorts of slavery, and it’s easy to think of people who find them, or some of them, not only tolerable but actively comforting and pleasant. The internet will of course be a lens to focus
In the book NMA's are a type of literal democratic militia, empowered by their connection to the internet. Is this how you see the internet, as the great leveler?
It does two things that level: it facilitates communication, and it enables us to access knowledge. Pushed to its limit, those are potentially revolutionary, yes.
Do you see your work as deliberately subversive?
I’m not sure I know what ‘subversive’ means. It’s used a lot, of course, especially in academic contexts—but subversive of what? I try, consciously, and perhaps self-consciously, to do new things with each book I write, in terms of both content and form. But does this subvert? Probably not.
Who will win in a fight between The Pope and Richard Dawkins?
There’s only one way to find out …
There are so many ideas in the book, and the themes you explore in your work are quite "heady", but humour is also a big part of your writing. I laughed out loud - literally, when Tony described the cows blocking the road in one scene, and blithely referred to them as moo-cows. How important is the humour in your writing?
Speaking generally I prize laughter very highly indeed. Not to sound pompous, but it is a vital mode of transcendence, a form of aesthetic intensity as valuable as the lyric transport of poetry or music. But NMA isn’t really a comic novel, I think; not in the way my previous novel, Yellow Blue Tibia, was a comic novel. It’s tragic in the strict sense, that I adapted Greek form (tragic drama) to prose in order to structure it.
I hope I'm not spoiling anything here, but I would like to talk briefly about Tony's sexuality. As a gay man myself, and an aspiring writer who's wondered about the reaction to writing a gay lead protagonist in SF; I was really pleased with the way you presented this character. Was there any particular reason you chose to write him as a gay man?
A couple of reasons. One has to do with the Ancient Greek conceptual context for the book’s version of democracy and military life. Plato thought that proper love could only exist between equals (to love an inferior person is actually only pity, and to love a superior only a sort of doggish awe), which, since he did not consider women equal to men, meant that true love could only exist between men. And of course there’s a long tradition of noting the ‘special bond’ that grows up between men in combat, although plenty of people get mealymouthed about what’s at stake, emotionally and physically, in that sort of bond. (Not everybody: Pat Barker’s First World War novels are good on precisely this).
But in a larger sense, it seems to me that we want to get to a place where writing gay characters is no more remarkable a thing than writing straight characters—there are gay and straight people in the world, after all. Not that writers should treat gay and straight characters ‘the same’, but only because no two types of character are ‘the same’.
New Model Army is littered with Pop-Culture references, what aspects of contemporary popular culture are you a fan of?
I read a lot. I mean, a lot. Any writer serious about her/his craft must. But perhaps by ‘popular culture’ you mean non-literary culture—in which case, I listen to a lot of music. I used to be more assiduous in keeping up with new releases, but as I move through my forties I put less energy, and money, into that. But I still download several albums, new and old, every week; and it’s still costing me a fair sum. Music is important to me; and some telly and cinema, although (again) as I get older there seems to me less really good telly and cinema.
You've been nominated for a number of literary awards, the BSFA, the Clarke Award and even mentioned in relation to the 2009 Booker. Where do you sit with these types of awards? Do they have value for you?
The honest answer is ‘yes, of course’, but the fact is I’ve published a lot now and I’ve never won any award at all. It’s a lack that doesn’t seem to have harmed my writing, however much my ego might desire it.
You have a couple of blogs and you also write reviews of other writers work. Is that a tricky thing to do, criticise your peers publicly?
‘Tricky’ isn’t the word I’d use. I’m guessing your question has to do with the small world of SF—it is a small world. If I say something disobliging about Author X’s shitty novel, there’s a good chance I will afterwards bump into X at a con, launch, party, do-dah or whatever. X may be bigger than I am. X may know ju-jitsu. But to lie about your opinion of a novel just because you’re scared the author might be curt with you afterwards would be pretty craven
I read one utterly scathing review of Yellow Blue Tibia, by a woman on LiveJournal. I'm guessing you know the one. How do you feel about others writing about your work in such a way? The internet it seems has turned everyone into a critic?
Bad reviews sting, of course they do; but whether an author likes or dislikes a review of her/his work is not the point. Reviews are not ‘for’ authors; they’re for readers. And a healthy climate of reviewing is one in which people are unabashed about airing their judgments, in which readers get a proper range of positions. When I was younger, I think bad reviews of my stuff got much more unpleasantly under my skin — Chris Priest cremated a novel of mine, The Snow, in the Guardian some years ago, and I lived in a very down, discouraged place after that for several weeks—an ‘I shall give up writing, I’m no good at it’ reaction that was exactly as dolefully self-indulgent and despicable as it sounds. Now, though, I think I handle negative reviews better. It’s better to embrace ‘let a thousand flowers bloom and a thousand schools of thought contend’ as more than a platitude: to breathe it deep into the lungs. Diversity is strength, after all; and that includes diversity of opinion as to whether I can write novels or not.
I’ve long since come to terms with the fact that what I write divides opinion strongly. I daresay I’ll never get universally positive reviews, or even get universally middling reviews either. Some people strongly like what I do, and some strongly dislike it. You mention Catherynne Valente’s review of YBT, which did indeed stab the novel with a big sword—but which was written with real passion and engagement. Better that than a bland review (although better again, from my point of view of course, a review that praises my fiction with real passion and engagement!)
Your writing style is very distinctive. I understand you teach creative writing, can you tell me a little about that?
I have a day job at Royal Holloway, University of London, and amongst the things I teach is Creative Writing. What I say to the students boils down to four things: 1, you must write. 2, you must revise what you write. 3, you must wage war on cliché. And most importantly of all: 4, SHOW, DON’T TELL! In a nutshell there it is.
So how has your own work evolved since the publication of Salt? There are some similar themes in that novel and New Model Army it seems?
There are themes that seem to recur in my books—giants, irony, powerlessness, whiteness, circles, SF-metatextuality—but I never know how seriously to take them as, you know, ‘themes’. No good writer sits down to write a story thinking: ‘what themes shall I deploy here?’ It doesn’t work that way
What next? You've already caused quite a stir, what projects can we expect to see in the future?
I’m writing a novel about hair.
Okay…on that note, thank you so much Adam for sharing your time.
It's been a pleasure!
You can keep up to date with all things Adam Roberts on his website
New Model Army is available now - published by Gollancz
Earlier today I wandered into my local Waterstones in High Wycombe and was delighted to discover that Adam Roberts will be signing copies of New Model Army there on Saturday the 15th May from 11am. They had copies of New Model Army in various high profile displays in the Science Fiction Section, the window, and behind the counter. I fully intend to go along and get some signed books. If you're within shouting distance of High Wycombe why not pop along?
The address is 11, Newland Meadow, Eden, High Wycombe HP11 2BZ. See you there!
0 comments:
Post a Comment