얼마 전 나탈리 싸로트의 인터뷰도 그렇고, 요즘 Paris Review 홈페이지에 올라오는 여성작가들의 (옛) 인터뷰들 읽는 재미가 쏠쏠하다.
1. 언제 한 번 장기 계획으로 작품들(특히 그녀의 플라톤에 대한 저서, The Fire and the Sun: Why Plato Banished the Artists (1977)과 Acastos: Two Platonic Dialogues (1986) )을 좀 파볼까, 요즘 한참 벼르고 있는 작가, '아이리스 머독'의 인터뷰 (1990년 여름 이슈에 실렸던 인터뷰다)
http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/2313/the-art-of-fiction-no-117-iris-murdoch
예전에 '아이리스' 영화를 봤을 때의 기억 때문인지, 왠지 모르게 인터뷰 읽는 내내 착잡한 기분이 가시질 않았다.
가령, 이런 대목.... (근데 이런 집풍경은 내가 꿈꾸는 노년에 접어든 나의 집풍경이기도 하다 ^^)
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Murdoch and her husband live in a house in academic north Oxford. In its comfortably untidy rooms books overflow the shelves and are piled high on the floor. Even the bathroom is filled with volumes on language, including Dutch and Esperanto grammar books. Her paper-strewn second-floor study is decorated with oriental rugs and with paintings of horses and children. The first-floor sitting room, which leads out to the garden, has a well-stocked bar. There are paintings and tapestries of flowers, art books and records, pottery and old bottles, and embroidered cushions on the deep sofa. |
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그리고 집필 방법에 대한 조언,
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INTERVIEWER
Could you tell me a little bit about your own method of composition and how you go about writing a novel?
MURDOCH
Well, I think it is important to make a detailed plan before you write the first sentence. Some people think one should write, George woke up and knew that something terrible had happened yesterday, and then see what happens. I plan the whole thing in detail before I begin. I have a general scheme and lots of notes. Every chapter is planned. Every conversation is planned. This is, of course, a primary stage, and very frightening because you’ve committed yourself at this point. I mean, a novel is a long job, and if you get it wrong at the start you’re going to be very unhappy later on. The second stage is that one should sit quietly and let the thing invent itself. One piece of imagination leads to another. You think about a certain situation and then some quite extraordinary aspect of it suddenly appears. The deep things that the work is about declare themselves and connect. Somehow things fly together and generate other things, and characters invent other characters, as if they were all doing it themselves. One should be patient and extend this period as far as possible. Of course, actually writing it involves a different kind of imagination and work.
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The creation of the story is the agonizing part. You have the extraordinary experience when you begin a novel that you are now in a state of unlimited freedom, and this is alarming. Every choice you make will exclude another choice, so that it’s rather important what happens then, what state of mind you’re in and what you think matters. Books should have themes. I choose titles carefully and the titles in some way indicate something deep in the theme of the book. Names are important. The names sometimes don’t come at once, but the physical being and the mind of the character have to come pretty early on and you just have to wait for the gods to offer you something. You have to spend a lot of time looking out of the window and writing down scrappy notes that may or may not help. You have to wait patiently until you feel that you’re getting the thing right—who the people are, what it’s all about, how it moves. I may take a long time, say a year, just sitting and fishing around, putting the thing into some sort of shape. Then I do a very detailed synopsis of every chapter, every conversation, everything that happens. That would be another operation. |
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작중인물의 '이름'
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INTERVIEWER
A moment ago you mentioned the names of your characters. How do you choose them?
MURDOCH
They have to choose themselves; one just waits. If you make a mistake there, this can be quite a serious matter. The character has to announce his own name. I make lists of names; I often invent names. I once invented the name Gavender; I thought, Nobody’s named Gavender. Then I got a letter from someone in America saying, How did you know about our family? It is fun inventing names. Names are very important because a lot of atmosphere comes with a name. The way a person is going to be addressed by his fellow characters is important too.
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2. 마거릿 애트우드의 인터뷰
http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/2262/the-art-of-fiction-no-121-margaret-atwood