When my parents came back from Canada just before I was born - my brothers had all been born in Canada - they moved to the newest housing estate of the city. It was on the physical limits of the city and now it has been overtaken by housing estates of a later decade. So the city is like a site with geological strata, or the rings of a tree ; you can read the hopes and the fears of the times by looking at what people built.
You just mentioned that your parents moved to Canada and came back again. In your books, especially in Fat Lad, but also in Burning Your Own, there seems to be plenty of movement going on. This seems to a certain extent related to the theme of exile which is so frequent in Irish literature. But obviously, there is also a special Northern Irish ring to it?
Well, the Irish are very attached to their hardships, especially emigration and the tragedy of being Irish, the idea that we all have to go away from this particularly blighted country.
Whereas I see it as more of a constant traffic backwards and forwards which is as old as Ireland itself. My experience has taught me that very few people actually emigrate and stay away. My own parents for instance emigrated in and re- emigrated to Ireland in the late 's.
My brother also moved to Canada in and came back again And there were all sorts of family members who had gone to England for a year or two and come back. So, in Fat Lad I wanted to slightly undercut the tragedy of Irish emigration. I am very intolerant of this Irish sentimentality that sees Ireland as a uniquely blighted society. I don't think there was ever such a thing as an Irish people that was invaded.
Even more fundamental than that : I don't believe in original states. The history of the world actually is just one of people moving all the time, as I've shown in the Euro-Disney book. Hence I just wanted to create in my books some sense of constant movement, because it is less absolute than the idea that everybody has to leave this island. Still, there is the idea in your novels that by leaving one's home town and moving to different places very often, one ends up not feeling home anywhere.
And at a certain point his ex- girlfriend Melanie describes him as « a piece of debris, blasted out of its orbit, always incongruously elsewhere ». In Burning Your Own, too, one of the main characters, Francy, lives on a dump. So, he is also a piece of debris. Well, yes, he probably is. It seems to be the condition of the 20th century, this fragmentation, this search for meaning and belonging.
This is again one of the reasons why I think the books are certainly not solely. We all find it hard to construct meaning. And I try to do it by quite consciously choosing from diverse places, I try to construct my own meaning. At other times I feel deeply rooted in one place which provides meaning. This is why I admire Drew's sister in Fat Lad. Her brother thinks she has wasted her life. Yet, in fact she has done something quite heroic, which is to stand her life, to live.
There is some stage later in the book where she realises that setting up a house, having children is quite a victory for her. I think it is this kind of small human achievement in our lives which is vital.
As Richard Ford answered to someone who objected that his characters were not very hopeful : « They're hopeful of having a good day ». That's not a bad thing to aspire to. He says it is a generous city, with place for all kinds of life. So he sounds very optimistic about it. But, on the other hand, talking about place, it seems you put a certain structure in the book.
Raymond makes very clear differences and also Use Klein has been taught to make differences between the fascists and the left-wing. For Sam, sameness is more important. But you let all the characters say at the end of their story, we don 't want differences being imposed on us. So, it gives the impression that you are interested in the effacing of traditional borders, is that so?
Yes, I am. I have a great fear of nationality, or nationalism. Of course it is difficult to talk about this in Ireland, because it sounds as though that means Irish nationalism. But I have a fear of all nationalisms. I think nationalisms are fictions, I just can't understand what a nation is.
They only come about by including a certain group of people, by telling them a story of why and what they are, English or Irish, and so you have national myths and history.
But as soon as you do that, you instantly identify people who aren't that. And that's the instant where you start to have problems with nationalism. Therefore, I'm very keen to question the validity of these things. Take borderlines, for instance. The closer you get to the border, the less necessary a border is. If you compare the extreme north and the extreme south of Ireland, there are great differences, the people, their lives, are recognisably different.
But if you go to where the border is drawn, you are drawing a border between people who are exactly the same. So, borders never really make sense. There is a kind of logical flaw there. That's why I am deeply suspicious of them. And yet, I can still at the same time say, and will say, that I believe in Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland exists. There is a Northern-Irishness. There is something that binds us together, those people that have been hemmed in by that little wriggly line.
It's not that it means a great deal to me, if it goes it goes, but we would have to adapt to a different context. That's also why I like cities. They are always places of some chaos, they are slightly anarchic. They are places of mixture as opposed to countries and borders which are exclusive. In your books you seem to move always to bigger cities : from Belfast, to Berlin and Paris. Yes, I got interested in this when writing Fat Lad - which is indeed unashamedly a Belfast novel.
Belfast has of course strongly been shaped by the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Yet, as a city, it shares many characteristics with other European cities. So, one of the starting points of Black Night at Big Thunder Mountain was really that I wanted to see what these other cities were like, and what influence they have on the people. So I had these different characters and then I had to think about how to combine them. And it happened quite crudely, at one point I thought, well I will just tie them up.
It was a kind of joke for myself, and it had a kind of sense to it after all. Sam is different from the others, in the sense that he doesn't see differences any more, e. So, he is overdoing the border effacement in fact.
With this figure I was interested in the idea of heresy. For the same reason that I don't like purity, I don't like orthodoxy. But I like heretics, people who believe so strongly that they go over the edge. And it seemed to me a quite logical thing that in the cult of the mouse there should be the old heretic. Another theme in your books is the media, the use of the media.
All three persons in Black Night are dealing with films. Raymond's friend made a film about a bomb-car, lise experiments with her life in films and Sam threatens his hostages if he doesn't get camera covering for his anti-Disney action. So what's your view on the media? Well, everything is media-saturated.
I certainly grew up in a media- saturated society. We use cookies to personalise your experience. By continuing to visit this website you agree to our use of cookies. Got It. Read Our Cookie Policy. Join Faber Members. Sign up to the join the Faber Members community free. Faber Members get access to live and online author events and receive regular e-newsletters with book previews, promotional offers, articles and quizzes.
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This book is not yet featured on Listopia. Add this book to your favorite list ». Community Reviews. Showing Average rating 3. Rating details. Sort order. Start your review of That Which Was. Nov 26, Alan rated it really liked it Recommended to Alan by: Ian Burton well he recommended another title of his. Shelves: novels. Another title of his - The International - was recommended to me by a friend, but this was the only title the library has, so went for this. So far so good This novel looks at life in Belfast, c, so 'peacetime' but ordinary life still resonating with the 'Troubles'.
The main character is a prebyterian minister who likes stand up comedy and Lou Reed and around him the area is decked in Loyalist flags and graffiti. It starts with a new member of his congregation 'confessing' to murders he Another title of his - The International - was recommended to me by a friend, but this was the only title the library has, so went for this.
It starts with a new member of his congregation 'confessing' to murders he thinks he has committed, but feels his brain has been interfered with by the 'state' to make him forget. So not so much a who-dunnit as a did-he-do-it.
However this thriller element, while compelling, is buried for much of the time in a narrative centering around the minister's everyday life with his pregnant wife and child and their friends and community.
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