19 de junho de 2013

Iain M. Banks: "let's face it; in the end the real best way to sign off would have been with a great big rollicking Culture novel" (entrevista)

Iain M. Banks, o autor escocês de ficção científica que ao longo da sua carreira deixou como legado a popular série "Culture" e mais alguns romances (para além de contos e da ficção mainstream), deu a sua última entrevista ao jornalista e editor Stuart Kelly, um mês antes da sua morte. Dessa entrevista, publicada no fim-de-semana passado no jornal britânico The Guardian, deu origem a um texto tão extraordinário como tocante, cuja leitura integral não poderia recomendar mais. Na conversa falou-se de tudo um pouco: da obra literária, da "Culture" e do seu gosto especial pela ficção científica, do seu último romance, The Quarry, com publicação prevista para breve (curiosamente, uma história sobre um cancro terminal escrita antes de Banks ter o seu trágico diagnóstico), política e até Dr. Who. Alguns destaques:
(...) "Well," he says, "if you are going to write what a friend of a friend once called 'Made up space shit', then if it's going to have any ring of truth that means sometimes some of the horrible characters get to live, and for there to be any sense of jeopardy, especially in future novels, the good people have to die. Sometimes."  
Banks freely admits that he enjoys writing his SF novels more than his "literary" novels, and the Culture novels more than his other SF. The hedonistic, anarchistic, post-scarcity series is "a hoot. It's my train set. I adore the freedom and the size of the canvas," even though writing them "requires a greater degree of concentration. And there's so much baggage with the Culture now that I have to get each new novel aligned with earlier Culture history. I don't have the same leeway to make things up compared with when I started." 
(...) 
Of his new book, The Quarry, the publication of which has been brought forward, he says: "Quite realist. It's a fairly simple book as well; not many characters, there's only really one location and it doesn't muck around with flashbacks or narrative order." He adds: "If I'd known it was going to be my last book, I'd have been quite disappointed that I'm going out with a relatively minor piece; whereas something like Transition, a wild splurge of fantasy, sci-fi and mad reality frothed up together … now that would have been the kind of book to go out on. I'm still very proud of The Quarry but … let's face it; in the end the real best way to sign off would have been with a great big rollicking Culture novel." (...)

Fonte: The Guardian

2 comentários:

ATP disse...

Esta leitura foi um tear jerker...

João Campos disse...

Quase, sim.