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Tina Srebotnjak: It's a great pleasure to welcome John Irving to the stage.
[applause]
TS: So, great. Are mics on? This is a question we always have to ask at the beginning. Can
everybody hear? Yes?
John Irving: Me too. Can you hear?
[chuckle]
TS: I thought we might start with the title "In One Person," which is a great title and
comes from Shakespeare. Can you talk about that?
JI: Well, that phrase you said "Crushes on The Wrong People," that would have served
as a title for this novel had I not known Richard the Second, and that line the doomed
king says, Act five Scene five, "Thus play I in one person many people and none contented."
That seemed to meet a suit, not just Billy Abbot the bisexual narrator and main character
of this novel, but it seemed it just suits some of his friends and acquaintances along
the way. But, perhaps "Crushes on The Wrong People" would also have sufficed. It's a chapter
title. Sometimes you have a surfeit of titles, sometimes you have... The Cider House Rules
could easily have been called "The Boy Who Belonged to Saint Clouds," which ended up
being the title of the first chapter, but which was the working title for that book
for many years, and other times, you just don't ever like the one you get.
[chuckle]
JI: I hated the title "The World According to Garp". I still don't like it. I always
imagined that it was just a working title and that there would be a better title for
that novel and a less stupid name for that main character. So...
[laughter]
TS: And what happened? One never surfaced.
JI: Well, what happened was I made a young writer's mistake which is I showed that book
to my editor before I was properly finished with it, the title business included. And
a part of the reason for that was that I was changing publishers, but that still wasn't
a good enough reason because once you do that and it's somebody that you're gonna be working
with and someone you have to have a kind of mutual respect with, of course once he read
it he said, "Well, it is the world according to Garp. What else could it be?" And so I
just gave up. I just said, "Oh, well. Okay."
TS: Oh, well. If it's gonna become a bestseller, why not stick with it. But interesting you
bring up Garp because you have written three books before Garp, and when Garp hit, it was
the monster hit that we all know about. Now, in your mind, was that book substantially
different from the three you'd written earlier? Or I guess what I'm saying is what was it
about Garp that seemed to catch the wave the way the previous three had not?
JI: Well, I don't think a writer is the best judge of what it is about a specific book
that his or her readers like or like less well. I don't think I really know altogether
why that happened. It's easy with hindsight to see that there are many elements in "The
World According to Garp" which I was already writing about in those first three novels.
It's easy to say as the tailor who makes the suit that it is a better made version of those
first three novels too, it's simply better constructed. But, it's also I think obvious
over time, it is the first political novel of those first four novels and one of only
four political novels, what I would call political novels, of the 13. As "The World According
to Garp" being in my judgement political certainly "The Cider House Rules", "A Prayer for Owen
Meany", and this book "In One Person", and without making a big to do of it, I would
simply say that these are novels that take sides. They take a side of an issue. They
take the feminist side in "The World According to Garp".
JI: They take the abortion right side in "The Cider House Rules". They pick a side and they
become an advocate, they are polemical novels. And it's no surprise to me that in the case
of each of the four they have had both as I would expect, my best reviews and my worst.
And it is strictly because you can't pick a side or be an advocate of something, you
can't be polemical and write a novel and not make some people very happy and *** other
people off, that's just understandable.
TS: So, political books obviously. I think you need a push to write them, something must
say to you, "I wanna write this story." So, what was it about the... Perhaps it was the
times we live in although, I was gonna bring up Obama. He's just come out in favour of
gay marriage, which I think most people would say is a great thing. Are these times calling
for a book pleading for *** tolerance, for tolerance of *** diversity?
JI: Well, I think as a writer I'm the last person who could take credit or be blamed
for being either timely or out of date. Since my novels usually sit around so long waiting
to be written, for a considerable number of years before I choose them as the next book
I'm going to write in the case of "In One Person", I didn't begin to write this novel
until June of 2009, but it had already existed, pretty much fully formed as a novel I was
going to write for as many as six, almost seven years before that. So, looking back
to when this was a fully formed idea, all was a story about *** boy who falls in
love with an older woman who he doesn't know is a transgender woman and waiting for him,
like a bookend at the end of this novel, is a young boy who doesn't want to have been
a born a boy. A young boy who is a transgender in progress, who is in progress toward becoming
a young woman. That was always the story.
JI: And when I know what the end of the novel is, I know most of the rest of it. And frankly,
10-12 years ago, this novel didn't look that timely then. The only thing that makes "In
One Person" timely now are the dinosaurs who continue to resist and stand in our position
to *** equality issues. It's not me that makes this novel look timely, it's the idiots
in my country's Republican party and others that...
[applause]
JI: So, it's those people who if this is timely. When I first thought of this novel, I thought,
"No, not again. I thought you were done with this." And I did think I was done with this.
"The World According to Garp" is also a novel about our intolerance of *** differences.
It's a much more political novel, a much more radical novel, a much more satirical novel
than, "In One Person" which is in comparison much more realistic as a novel. But it's the
same damn subject. It's about people who hate one another for their *** differences.
JI: And I was naive enough in 1978 when I finished "The World According to Garp" that
I actually imagined that this novel would soon look a historical relic. I imagined that
those kind of intolerances would soon disappear. I had no such illusion about abortion rights,
when I finished "The Cider House Rules" in 1985. In no way did I think the acceptance
of abortion rights was gonna get easier or that the people who were entrenched in their
opposition to those rights were ever going to go away. But I did imagine that we would
overall become more sexually tolerant than we were in the '70s. Well, we are a little,
but it's obviously not enough.
TS: You also have a gay son, Everett, who is here with us tonight. Came from New York,
sitting in the front row, handsome young man right here with his boyfriend, Patrick. And
the reason I bring this up is although I know the book was formed in your mind, years and
years ago, did the fact that you have a gay son propel you to maybe choose that book over
another one that might have been percolating in your mind. Did you feel a sense of urgency
about writing the book that obviously would have been close to your heart?
JI: Well, that's a good question, but... Although I did feel a sense of urgency or I keenly
wished that this book could be the one I wrote next as opposed to one of the the other two
or three books that was sitting, waiting to be the next one.
TS: In the station, you say they are right? In the station, waiting...
JI: Well I see them as kinda... They are fully formed ideas, I know what the whole things
are, I know what they are. And some of them have been sitting there for 20 years, others
maybe only 10. Well, the truth was, I could do nothing to make this be the next one because
the way I need to work it seems is that, the next novel among those boxcars uncoupled in
the station, the next one, will be the one where I feel the most certain about the ending.
It has little bearing to do with all the other things that I might want to write it for.
Even someone who means as much to me as Everett, I don't feel secure about choosing that novel
until I know verbatim how it ends. The words, every comma, the paragraphs, every sentence.
I have to see it, hear it exactly. It comes in a voice and so far it hasn't changed. And
so I did feel to use your word 'urgency' or 'a keen desire,' I did feel that, I had a
perfect reader for this novel in Everett. Another way to say this is that I knew at
least one person would like it.
[laughter]
JI: And it's always kinda good to know that before you begin. Everyone else might dump
on it, but I knew that Everett would be partial toward it. That's a good feeling to have,
but I really couldn't force it. I was just lucky that this ending did present itself.
It's a dialogue ending and I've had three of those, and I love dialogue endings because
in every case it's a repetition of a line of dialogue you the reader have heard before
much earlier in the novel and often in a completely different context than you will hear it at
the end.
JI: But those endings are very comforting to me, because they are refrains, because
they are repetitions. Because it takes you back to something you've already heard. But
twice, this time in the case of "In One Person" and once before in the case of "Cider House"
I was confused. I thought I was hearing the ending wrong. I didn't think I had it right.
Because in the case of Cider House, it's a line of dialogue that the old doctor says
to the orphans in benediction. It's that refrain he repeats to them, "princes of Maine, kings
of New England" he called them. But I knew the doctor was dead. I knew the story, I always
do. I knew the whole story and so I felt "Well, I guess that can't be the ending because Doctor
Larch is dead."
JI: It took me a while to realize that "No, no, it's Homer Wells who's repeating Doctor
Larch's benediction." And in this case, I knew that the speaker over the ending of this
line of dialogue also couldn't be there. And so I had to recognize that it was another
speaker, it was another person. But "A Widow for One Year" was easy, it's the same person.
Same line, same person, it's Marion both times 36 years later. But that slowed me up a little
bit, but once I knew that ending and had that ending, I think knowing, thinking, seeing,
Everett, feeling proud of a gay son and knowing that I had by coincidence, because it long
pre-existed in my knowledge that Everett would be gay. By coincidence knowing that I had
an ideal reader for this book. I think it made Billy a little angrier, frankly. And
I think Billy's anger is a propelling property of his voice and of this narrative. He gets
angrier and angrier as he goes. And every chapter is also structured that way. He begins
very calmly and reasonably, and the end of every chapter he's angry, and he's got something
to be angry about, and so do I.
TS: And how did...
JI: The other thing you have to remember is, it's a first person novel and I don't like
that voice generally speaking. I don't choose that voice most of the time. I am much happier
in the third person omniscient voice than I am in a first person narrator. I feel constrained
by that voice, and as someone whose novels are longer than most other people's novels,
you have to recognize about a first person narrator, that any story you tell in that
voice is going to be longer than the same story in the third person because you have
to account for how that narrator knows what he or she knows. There's more explanation,
there's more exposition, it's slower. So I don't like it for that reason alone, I resisted,
but it's no surprise. In every book where I've yielded to it and said, "Well this has
to be a first person narrator." Think about it, "Every Time" is a sexually forbidden subject.
JI: "Every time" is a sexually taboo story. "The 158-Pound Marriage" is about wife swapping.
"The Hotel New Hampshire" is about a boy who's incestuously in love with his older sister,
he will have sex with her. "A Prayer for Owen Meany", the narrator Johnny Wheelwright is
called behind his back, not once, not twice, but three times a nonpracticing homosexual.
He is arguably in love with Owen Meany, he loves Owen Meany a little bit more than he
loves him as a best friend, though he is so in the closet, he will never say so or ever
admit it to himself. And here is Billy Abbott, who is bisexual and who is made to suffer
a little bit for his *** minority as a young man and once he comes to terms with
it and knows who he is, he will suffer no fool gladly again.
JI: Though in each case you see, it isn't someone who's... What's the word? Constrained
to tell a story. It's someone who's kind of compelled to tell a story because they're
talking about something that was laid on them as wrong, right? And they've had to bit it
out, so to speak. And it's never my first choice, but the funny thing is that once I
am in that voice, every novel I've written in that voice has been much more quickly forthcoming
in the writing than any third-person novel ever is.
JI: The third-person voice, it's harder because you always have to ask yourself who you're
supposed to be, this detached, telescopic, all-seeing, omniscient narrator. Who the hell
are you? And is it ever appropriate for you to use this or that four-letter word? Whereas
if you're a narrator, if you're a first-person narrator, you're one of the actors in the
play. You are also on stage, you're just another player and it's very easy to know how that
narrator sounds because you know who his character is. Just as I know Johnny Wheelwright is repressed
and is keeping things to himself. I know Billy Abbott isn't, right? In that sense, it's very
easy because you're an actor.
TS: So did... Can I ask Everett, did dad do a good job? Pretty good book?
S?: I've always felt that way.
TS: I'm assuming he was an early reader. Did you give him the book to... Not that, but
did you give him the book to get a sense of how it feels?
JI: Well I thought he was a pretty early reader. He was always someone who stayed up late always.
[laughter]
TS: Okay, let me ask you about some of the other...
JI: I didn't ask him what he was doing. I just thought maybe he was reading, you know
what I mean?
[laughter]
TS: Oh, I'm sure he was. [laughter] I'm sure it involved books or magazines. Yes, exactly.
I wanted to ask you about some of the other things you've written and also about this
book, although obviously it's about *** tolerance and it's a plea for *** tolerance,
it's also about a love of literature and a love of books. Billy Abbott as a young boy,
goes to the library and since we're celebrating libraries, we can talk about that. He goes
to the library and discovers he's given by the librarian Miss Frost, who he later falls
madly in love with. But I believe it's a Great Expectations she gives him or what's the first
book she gives him, it's a Dickens novel isn't it? And it changes his life. It makes him
think that there's a world out there he didn't know anything about.
JI: Well those 19th century novels certainly changed my life. Those were the ones that
made me want to be a writer if I could be a writer of that kind or in that way. Miss
Frost doesn't begin with Dickens for Billy, she sort of makes him work up to Dickens,
so to speak as she would put it. She starts him out with what she considers some more
beginner affair Fielding and the Bronte Sisters. She begins with them and then she kind of
ups the ante, so that when he confesses to her at first a little vaguely that his interest
in finding something to read is to find stories that are about people who have crushes on
the wrong people. He doesn't exactly come out and tell her which wrong people he has
in mind or which wrong people he has crushes on, but when he later confesses that he's
got a crush on this older boy at his boarding school she suddenly takes him from the 19th
century to James Baldwin "Giovanni's Room" as she let's him have a look at that kind
crush on that kind of wrong person.
JI: Miss Frost is simply one of the people in this novel who knows who Billy is before
Billy knows who Billy is. And to be fair, you have to realize that I've always like
that construct in a novel. Think of how many of my books begin in the point of view if
not always in the voice of a young person who is coming of age, of a young person who
is not only sexually still innocent but in other ways not quite an adult yet he or she
is about to become one. They are about to find something out that will initiate them
to the adult world. I like that situation, it's very theatrical. I saw it first or learned
about it first by watching plays before I was old enough to read those 19th century
novels that made such an impression on me. But I've always loved a situation where you
the audience or you the reader, you know more about what's about to happen to that character
on stage or in that book than that poor character knows.
JI: And that is very much the case in the "Early Going" with Billy Abbot. Everybody
who reads this book will know that Miss Frost is a ***, Billy's gonna be the last
to find it out. [laughter] I like those situations. I like those situations. I've always liked
those situations and I got it from the theatre. You could be a 12-year-old with a less then
partial understanding of Shakespeare's language, maybe you're picking up only a third of the
actual language, but you could be a 12-year-old, you're first time in the audience of King
Lear. And you know the story, you figure it out. Act one, Scene one, King Lear is a fool.
He's an idiot. Everyone in the audience knows what he doesn't know. Everyone in the audience,
even a 12-year-old knows. Cordelia is the daughter who loves you, you moron.
[laughter]
JI: And Regan and Goneril are *** they don't. [laughter] There isn't a person in
the audience who doesn't know that. And Lear's gonna have to go through five acts to figure
it out? [laughter] But that's the story. That's the story and that's why you love it. Why
then would you care about his old fool? Why do you care about him? Because he's gonna
figure it out and he's gonna figure it out at a horrible time. He's going to learn that
Cordelia loves him just before he gets to see her die. She dies before he does, just
before, that's why you care. And that's set up too, it's called a plot.
[laughter]
TS: Well there's this...
JI: And guess what? There was plot in Shakespeare, there was plot in Sophocles. Centuries before
anybody wrote a novel, I didn't get plot from the 19th century novel. Plot is the engine
that drives my stories. And plot is principally what I loved about those 19th century novels.
"Ah ha, here's this again."