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David Mitchell
BIO
David
Mitchell lives and teaches in Hiroshima, Japan. He is currently
working on his second novel. He is thirty-one years old.
INTERVIEW
October 20, 2000
You may not know who David Mitchell is --- yet --- but by the time
you read his interview and check out his debut novel GHOSTWRITTEN,
you won't want to miss anything else he does. In this mysterious
and intriguing novel, Mitchell sculpts his elaborate story around
the question, What is real and what is not? Find out what is real
and what is not in Mitchell's life as Bookreporter.com's Senior
Writer Joe Hartlaub digs for the truth.
TBR: My initial impression of GHOSTWRITTEN is that you most likely
scripted a detailed outline before writing it. Yet...there were
times that I had the feeling that you started in Okinawa with a
basic idea, and let your internal muse take over. Which is correct?
DM: Both. I wrote the Okinawa
and Tokyo stories as separate entities, but then by the time I was
writing Hong Kong I realized I was onto a narrative chain reaction.
From that point I began seeing things more as a grand plan, although
in a sense all books subvert their writers' plans. Like a Republican
Congress subverts the designs of a Democratic president.
TBR: There are elements of both the synchronic and chaos theories
in GHOSTWRITTEN. You've obviously studied both. Which theorists,
if any, have influenced you the most?
DM: I've only read the most
elementary layman's texts. James Gleick's book, CHAOS. Most theory
is above my head --- I am attracted by its utter beauty. The butterfly-wing
stroke leading to a typhoon. I also think a Jungian phase is healthy
for many teenagers, though I was more interested in his theory of
archetypes than ideas on Synchronicity.
TBR: I had another impression in the middle of GHOSTWRITTEN,
that just possibly, "David Mitchell" was in fact a group of authors.
But since the book maintained such cohesiveness, I can't quite believe
my own suspicions. So, truth will out, is there but one David Mitchell?
Or does "David Mitchell" have, in fact, multiple personalities?
DM: I knew someone would rumble
me. I am in fact Tom Clancy, Stephen King, Miss Piggy, Jeffrey Archer,
Milan Kundera and Queen Maud of Denmark. I wonder if Random House
will pay us an advance each next time? Don't we all have multiple
personalities, up to a point? Isn't 'multiple personality' just
another term for 'mood'?
TBR: Can you describe to us how you were able to achieve such
diversity of cultures and personalities in your characters?
DM: Thank you for the compliment,
but it's no big secret. You just go to a country, keep your eyes
open, speak to people if you can, try to understand the fears, hopes,
frustrations, horses, weather, history. Get your hair cut there.
TBR: Your biographical information is somewhat scant, limited
to the statement that you're English, 31 years of age, have wandered
around the world, and wrote GHOSTWRITTEN while teaching English
in Hiroshima. What countries/nations have you visited in the past
ten years? And which culture, if any, did you find to be the most
alien to your own upbringing?
DM: Not so many, really ---
all the places in GHOSTWRITTEN except the US (although I will be
there in 7 days), plus Italy, Australia and New Zealand, the Chatham
Islands. The most radically different places to an English upbringing
were maybe Ladakh, in the north of India, and China. China! Phew,
China.
TBR: Can you give us some background with respect to your formal
education? And have you had any formal education in creative writing?
DM: Middle-class provincial
state school education. (I did pass through a local demographic
trough, which meant the teacher-student ratio for my 'A' levels
(16-18 yrs) was a Utopian average of 1:6). My BA was in English
and American Lit at the University of Kent at Canterbury, and I
took an MA there in Comparative Literature. No formal education
in creative writing, no. But I believe creative writing itself is
education in creative writing.
TBR: There were several different literary genres admirably represented
in GHOSTWRITTEN --- romance, mystery, science fiction, and suspense
among them. Are there any particular authors in any genre who have
influenced you?
DM: Too many to list! Let
me think of ten. Italo Calvino, Haruki Murakami, John Banville,
Nabokov, George Eliot, Muriel Spark, John Cheever, Isaac Asimov
(I confess), and I'm going through a strong Philip Larkin phase
right now. Not many 'genre writers' there, are there? I guess I
might be a book cover snob --- if it's gold or embossed, I tend
to move to another shelf. I forgot Ursula K. Le Guin --- I love
her mature work.
TBR: Your book jacket indicates that you are working on a second
novel. Is there anything that you can tell us about it? Can we expect
something similar in form to GHOSTWRITTEN, or something completely
different?
DM: Just emailed off the final
multi-deadline-busting manuscript to my patient-as-Job editor last
week. It's called 'number9dream,' and is different to GHOSTWRITTEN
in that it is all set in one country (Japan). Instead of moving
through geographic countries I try to move the narrative through
inner countries (memory, imagination, image, fiction, nightmare,
meaning) at the same time as rooting the narrative down in one main
first-person present-tense character. It is a riskier book than
GHOSTWRITTEN to try to pull off --- there are no getaway cars waiting
at the end of the chapter to zoom off to a clean slate --- but I'm
happy with how it's turned out.
TBR: Are there any books you have read recently that you would
recommend to your readers?
DM: Mmm...W by Georges Perec.
I thought UNDERWORLD by DeLillo was monstrously good. SILENCE by
Shusaku Endo.
TBR: I'm going to close with a question you might not have an
answer for, considering your wanderlust. If --- for whatever reason
--- you were going to be confined to one nation-boundary for the
rest of your life, which one would you choose?
DM: Earth.
TBR: Thank you for your time!
DM: My pleasure
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