Lloyd Jones tells Nicky Pellegrino about a 'moment in time' as he waits to hear if he will win the Booker prize.
KEY POINTS:
For Kiwi author Lloyd Jones these are very exciting times indeed.
His acclaimed novel Mr Pip is shortlisted for the prestigious Man Booker prize and, while he waits for the October 16 announcement, he's getting to grips with life in Berlin on a year-long writer's residency funded by Creative New Zealand.
Between being inundated with international media interview requests and trying to get on with his next book, Jones talks to the Herald on Sunday about the furore surrounding the Booker prize.
How are you handling the suspense in the run-up to the announcement?
I'm sure that on the night I'll feel suspense. But I can't spend my life living on an edge like that.
How did you feel making the long-list - and then the shortlist?
I was pleased about the longlist but very, very happy about the shortlist.
To make the shortlist there are some serious hurdles to get by - namely the books of other writers and some very good ones at that.
My publishers, John Murray, flew me to London for the shortlist announcement.
I was told I'd get a call around 3pm. By 3.30pm I hadn't heard anything and was sitting on the edge of the bed staring blankly at the wall and thinking, `Oh well, it's been a very good run'.
The telephone call came shortly before 4pm and I spent the rest of the afternoon in a champagne haze signing books; then on to the Booker party, followed by dinner somewhere. I woke up with stretch marks from smiling so much.
What about talk of you being the bookies' favourite to win?
It's the kiss of death, isn't it? It's a bit of fun on the side but I don't take the predictions of bookies very seriously. If I did, I'd be doing better than I have as a result of the few bets I've placed in my life.
At the Booker party, the chair of the judges made it quite clear, as if he had to, that the judges won't be taking any notice of what's written in the media, or the bookies.
So there you are.
How do you stop the fuss and excitement interfering with the writing of your next book?
There's been serious distraction and disruption. But it's hardly something to complain about.
Tell us about Berlin - what's your daily routine?
It begins early. There's no traffic sound at all when I get up. I clear the emails and dodge as many requests as I can. Then I sit in the kitchen and write.
Around noon I leave for my German language lessons at the Goethe Institute in the Mitte. My classmates are doctors and professors from different countries. With startling ease my position as class dunce has been established and accepted by all.
It was dreadful for the time when my clever classmates regarded me as a peer. Just dreadful. Yet, despite my status as an idiot, I find I still have to resort to old tricks. Such as when Rita, the teacher, looks around to ask a question, I find myself suddenly looking preoccupied with my shoelaces, just like so many years ago at high school. Everything changes and nothing changes.
How do you amuse yourself in the city?
There are so many wonderful things I enjoy about Berlin.
The trees, the cobbled streets, the fabulous buildings, the parks.
Public transport is terrific. You can get from one side of the city to the other in the time it takes to get over the Auckland harbour bridge. I like the fact so many people ride bicycles and that also helps to create a pleasant tone in public places. I like the fact that a hum of conversation is permitted in bars and cafes, and that boom boxes and boy racers are unheard of. It's a city for grown-ups.
So what do I do? I go for bike rides. I take myself off to the glorious State Library on Unter den Linden. I walk and study the map for new neighbourhoods to explore. While the weather was warm I went to the Baden Shrift, a barge turned into a swimming pool moored to the banks of the Spree, and with sand and palm trees and a beach bar. Very eccentric, but you quickly adjust to the idea of a beach bar in Berlin.
How valuable for an author is a writer's residency like this?
For me it isn't just the matter of the Berlin residency making a block of time available. It's the possibility of one's interior life developing in unexpected ways to what it would at home.
Last week I heard the Israeli writer David Grossman talk about how reading awakens latent voices within the reader. Well, something similar occurs to a writer's imaginative space when he is dropped into an unfamiliar landscape. Your sensibilities are given a useful nudge.
Given the reception it has received, how do you feel about Mr Pip now?
Oh, we are still on very good terms.
Can you tell us what you are working on now?
No.
Would you have wished for this level of recognition earlier in your writing career, or are you content it's happened at this stage?
Well, I never craved "this level of recognition". I've said it elsewhere, and many times now, that all my hopes and ambitions (and these are always very high) go into the making of my books.
I really have no expectation at all of how a book will be received, and in a way it doesn't interest me all that much, except of course I want readers to like what they read.
Many years ago, when I first entertained the idea of trying to write, my burning ambition was simply to be published. To be published would offer some kind of proof that I was good enough to think of myself as a writer. But at that time, it never occurred to me that a writer was a "public person".
How things have changed - and not for the better. Far better, I think, that "the book" be considered public property rather than the writer. Now my ambition is to be a better writer, to produce something that is truly wonderful.
What have been the most surprising things since Mr Pip's release... Did you really have an audience with the Queen?!
The obvious one is the book's success. This week saw Croatian and Greek publishers bidding for the book. That's pretty unusual.
Even more unexpectedly, Mister Pip will come out in Korean. The Portuguese cover just arrived.
Yesterday I had two interviews with journalists from Brazil and the night ended with an hour-long interview with Public Radio Wisconsin. And so it goes. And yes, as part of winning the Commonwealth Prize earlier this year I will have an audience with the Queen this October.
How will the international attention affect you and your work?
It's just a moment of time. The attention, as you put it, will soon pass. But this attention is also largely illusory. It's a media phenomenon. When I leave the building each day in Berlin I'm invisible which is exactly how it should be.
What are your plans after Berlin?
I'm here until August next year. I imagine I will still be working on my current project.
- Detours, HoS
