A Word on Words; 1018; Norman Rush Rowan

the group what word and words of progress and their authors this week norman rush talks about mating horror than words mr john sigg and chairman of the freedom forum's first amendment center at vanderbilt university singing it's a great pleasure to bring to you a writer who has a talent that is unmistakable unknown large thank you for coming more great pleasure to be here and

it's our pleasure have your own words talking about mating mating is this latest work israelis were bundled work whether that i know i mean i look at that the cover of graphic videos and it's so it's from of one of my great favorite painters of all time here on this barge and the reason the dvds on the covers that i have for to get it i had the idea that the bush would make a terrific cover and but i was told that classic european art would make convince everybody that the book was a translation an instant reaction against against it for that reason and so they came up with an alternative fatah realistic cover of sand dunes is you know from the book there are no sen sen and then as i'm not not a scent inside it said savannah desert which is quite a different thing and just at this time

beyond the port director had a windfall of gift of the complete watch put out by the prado museum and was leafing through it and found this image in the section i was sure that it was an engine that is the gardener of people like you for the page rather than change to incomplete so now this is the news for the cover for this and also for the reissue of whites think my short stories yet well as you've been talking to the camera panned over from a lot of work an armed youth of a second look and the detail her head to toe which the main thing is the title that knowledge has the coverage certainly that the book you give us a heroine who ford i can tell isn't a lot of what our identity and

she is a very real warm human personality won't let me explain about that about the name was just part of this is a mental retelling of passionate personal events and when we re tell stories to ourselves from our past lives since we know who we are we don't they were so sweet to refer to ourselves we don't object before ourselves and i was truly two thirds of the way through the book before i realized the character had not been referred to by name in nepal and since everything seemed to be going flowing wave that's the best of the on posturing and when i finished the book that way and i got a certain byproduct of that i think that because the characters does not name them because we all have certain unconscious associations kinds of names that people relocate people buy when they bought it it was possible for the reader to identify more closely with the character into experienced the her

experiences as as the reader's own experience so all those some people criticize me for it as a being a little money toward i think it's worth more than what i would have to say that i can remember the page what i was well along in before i said the most of what do our color and then i began to search for the news videos where they would know much will this he does allow happy new creative personality and not in a label on a well in the next book and this has turned into a trilogy of whites at really yes is another book coming which will wrap the circle carrick on the incendiary care economists there's a consonant and then she will be named in the book she doesn't actually she doesn't like a name i can tell you that much doesn't like and

what her name and her name doesn't she she was named in the law let's go to come in the series i think of the reviewers took some of them will have a little question about the character nothing in because it created difficulties for them and referring to the character when they wrote reviews so there's a bit of a craft problem for them that name surfaced in their in their attitude toward it seems to me that that is in that she is a woman searching for of the i find in searching for the essence bumper of sexual and maybe she doesn't know that you know that's a that's a big part of it when i set out to do in this book as i as i got into it and realized what the parameters and so for myself was to create it an exhaustive portrait of a

human being a female character in this case exhausted and also an exhaustive as complete as i could make it anatomy of a consummate relationship between people so i have tried to do to get at the essence of what is the physical what is the emotional and what is the intellectual dimension of all an attempt at a consulate relationship between two people and it's only the site of the the intellectual mission that takes place in the dream making that that this hasn't been done much i think in recent fiction and i tried i tried to want to illustrate the importance of that and the making of a relationship and she's an anthropologist and to take on creating such a personality it must require not just

the enormous knowledge a consumer research and feel both overuse of confidence well as a writer and you know i can take it on and i can and i can create her and i can i know well be true to the work yellow bird creating her on the vocational side it happens that i had been obsessed readers that apology for almost almost became i wanted to become an anthropologist at one point and so on i would have wore was read serve ferociously in the field so that explains that sort of that only an hour on the side building the character making the character i am not sorry to confess and most people who have read the book and you know my wife also well or not surprised by the by the shape of the characters cohen journalist yes well i met nelson all a very clear lesson last evening we've been married for thirty seven years

and lived together for two before that so it's a very long term relationship and she is a person who has not been shy about communicating her opinions to me on a daily yeah when you're lucky or subject so unknown to them and so did you go through a process in which you you made certain that her work was based on a factual foundation yes and in two senses i hadn't read by people who were actual specialists in the field both of development and i have friends who read parts of the manuscript where i wanted to be sure that i was right but i'd also add background there was was it was helpful on the side of authenticity even need the second draft that i wrote was for elsa and she went through it throughout everything or

throw out everything that that didn't sound like a woman yet so because of authenticity was absolutely critical for me and that in the reception of the book if it didn't sound right there was no way that the book was like i resisted her on three items the dog in my heels on through them and i have literally have done like historical ones i can't tell you what they are what been in two of them of the of the very few negative reviews i got these were the three items that was selected as being evidence of an authenticity so i think i learned something is that in fact that history well it says something about the instinct not only readable of a female reader seeking to be to advise a male reader which is my editor for everything so wasn't this is not a special extra test that you've taken on board but this will have to be done right so says she was the right person for you take this nameless was a

faceless ireland through three early encounters with with men where there is a fascination you know a fraction of yours i guess sort of why you did that before you brought her to to the to the confrontation with women and with goals and the ultimate object of her of her search well as she comes rather slowly to the to the realization that what she wants to do this settle the question of a consummate relationship but she doesn't start out with this in mind she drifts through these relationships since she discovers as she goes through the three initial relationships and as she reflects on her past relationships but there is a project here and its she's thirty two and she's so

feeling the need to come to some kind of conclusion about what's possible especially given the the power dimension of relationships between people men and women about not restricted to those kinds of ratings anyway she wants to settle that question and so hurt she hasn't paid a desire that is so almost like trying to find the answer to a few minutes that kind of desire which leaves her ultimately in the direction and say you know when giles it's quite clear to her oh is it clear to of how soon is it clear to of how far the i mean does she have to go victoria falls to know that it's not jobs i think she and their she's pursuing a couple things resort is so she was a seed victoria falls into friday inches when she was to see everything and she was silly and she she refers to what she's doing as the theory of everything korean

theory of everything says she wants to gw was ago she hasn't got the wherewithal to do it so should she at this point the relationship with giles is already is in a diminishing state but with josh is its she's sort of experiencing the helm the temptation that's provided by male beauty is and he and so he has the physical is really what he has going for him although it doesn't it doesn't for various reasons work out to be and they're physically consummate relationship but it's that the draws are into it start with the others in the case of the mountain wade morgan wade who was an anc white and see exile in south africans account yes they're embarrassed the the attraction of one i'll pray er committed life being lived in it to a certain degree of intensity and under under with a certain degree of risk and we did know people like this week a good deal of the story of morton weight is taken from the stores in exile

anc sympathizers or actual numbers we knew and have rolling and in the end of the seventies and in the third case of its verve which ago british pausing as the status of their shoes on pursuing attractions a power of inside knowledge of the attraction of a man who has served placed at the center of a weapon those things that other people don't know and what a driving thing with her throughout throughout the book is the desire to know the desire not to be not to be excluded from critical information about what is going on society because she sees a society is loaded with wires and she can't alter the kitchen she just can't take it so she's always struggling against us is barrett and his case is rather condescending us about you know he doesn't and he doesn't understand or this is a kind of a

misapprehension that mutual use i guess as to what's going on here yes but she gets ultimately what she wants out of him but she knows from an early point that this is one you say that he gets she lets share that with art with our you know she is at that at the time that this relationship comes to work to a close around that time she has learned of the presence of this and this year is the neighbors are you developing nelson the luminous and yet very secretive project to set up in the desert and the information's being closely held because of what people are contaminating the results of his some of his cell his utopian project why should he doesn't augur well by visitors so this closely held information she has had a previous academic run in with the new owners are interested in here six pound is intellectually attracted to him and decides just to pursue and so she gets information attempts to get information where he's located through through the snow she gets a slightly indirect way but but that's at the end of which is looking for here they

if you if you think about about what cracks or a minute and then you can set before encountered yes it's quite clear for whatever reason no room in court no pencil pusher know look out and you could possibly have satisfy me again lulu that joining us here in the middle of the sculpture and bass ale but lucero and and but beyond that even though his profession is not the mundane even he doesn't provide the sort of intellectual then we won't even be physically attractive that's right sharia or bush's willing you get at the center she knew she describes

herself at some point say that you'd always like to hang out with the finalists yes and try and this is part of her a part of her drive her character is based on some a couple of women that that i've known and their typical in a way of people who get the notion of get the idea that underclass to start with the who get the idea that there is a way out as the academic way out and in her case she really gets it she gets another thing too which is that the power to command over the language is also a source of power that's a tool that has been remarkably character has a very large and that's true and one of the best because one of the things that she gets is that she will have command of the language and you use the line would better than the people who are she considers to be a pressing issue goes a little bit overboard but because she does begin to enjoy the power in the funniness in the quantity of the english language but the toe

that's the source of her of her of her own demonic thrust into into using language and control and now is the minutes of itself against what i'm a nod she wants to know about this man right you what some recent she's had just a glimpse of him as a secret then he's not supposed to give or she knows he's not of future so he wants it and she proceeds to we're going to try very hard to get it and he has been at the edges but the but by this time just heard about the moon and he does is that the conduit for her to actually get into the presence of the man who was giving her sort of a members only private talk only of one of the difficulties of development in africa so so she gets to see through this character she gets to see do naturally in intellectual action does what she wants and she then proceeds to plan from that point on

you knew obviously from the outset that that casting a lovell inn in africa in this setting in date that thea social conflict and sell after an eminently it would make the book go with like this of story moral more element then save even set in what was once called french words that aren't going on a bye bye creating something of a mystery about his operation about them into operation and buy a building seven a mystique about nelson the government you really give up i think barely on

the remit of the poll that so some rags along i mean i found myself in the outset wanting to know more about nelson to know now and what he was up to and what he was up to when he was about but that reflects very faithfully something that is that we found in southern africa at that time this is nineteen eighty this is the the crisis so you about one on and what's wrong and what's one about the in those days it was like a catastrophic lisbon or two because the russian embassy was huge everybody was looking across the border to pretoria has just a hundred miles away and in nineteen eighty eight and everybody was where nobody knew how the crisis was going to resolve itself but everybody was clear that this was the final crisis of white domination in africa it was comic came in zimbabwe will move there was clearly coming in and again it was going to come sometime in in south africa himself and this made everything that happened in that war the world in

botswana as well as an end in the south african republic of south africa very intense in court people began to develop a kind of almost paranoid impulse an interpreter and thinks because everything meant something in relation to that primarily are both on all sides on all sides bob i think whites inevitably because their bare the question of alliances and where you stood with an impressive the ultimate threat perhaps and minds about survival of course and i had a very out a very subliminal level yes absolutely and that was that was clearly opioids arent so that was and that intensified relationships between people intensified the the desire to understand exactly what was happening all around to it to a very unusual degree listener to look just the moment to talk a little bit about

the outcome of those from the nomad change a thing and they sent two of their great great great and it's very encouraging for a depressing at the same time it goes we have been back twice know was bought for nineteen eighty five just after the state of emergency was declared the new republic and doug back for six weeks in in nineteen ninety eight and came back thinking that that the desire and the drive for it the democratic settlement is genuine that's that's it's happening throughout the region there was sentiment from a one party state and that in the eighties when we left but that's now gone based on one's mugabe's apparent suggests that's now going and when the best leave notion of a multi party system genuinely democratic systems are well entrenched forty the movement toward democracy is taking place most propitious time the

terrible drought in that part of the world which is having tremendous consequences the introduction aids but the public health problem that that that there is just no no mechanism to cope with in that part of the world so that i mean that this is distressing deeply distressing seems to me because as a view from afar it's it seems to me that that the inevitability of the plight of the white power structure of the inevitability that that that there must be a dramatic change it is known that he's gone and that and that the even though change seems to be they all graduate

that i once going into the life of an associate in my life then on the other hand is almost as if the other force the anc a once a lazy and the only other and i don't know that i would cast nelson mandela and cheap lazy and necessarily a hostile leaders in boston with my sense of it however is that the inevitability has not yet in may the same sort of impact on on them they're willing perhaps unable to control the conflict that exists in the black population in arizona forms of the others it seems to me it forms an excuse in the west so say

until after is are we really going to that's true also do the jackpot depressed area that's depressing and also the the arrival outcome of the fact that they're there that a socialist project in the east the russian isn't in their in part about it that's not a state of collapse so fighting over over alliances and allegiances says no longer so important so therefore little attention is being paid to africa and i think people are doing exactly what you which are saying that the same will sort this out in the mill will come to help you but they're doing worse than that i mean in somalia for example some are european companies took advantage of the stalemate in this terrible civil war to make a deal with once on one side are warlords to dump toxic products and a huge scale because they needed money for arms and in the most squalid kind of a sub politics is taking place in south africa itself there is rather a sudden new danger that there will be a an alliance between die hard right wing

people and the resumes who are the basis of approval is its operation against them dnc the courses and the mortar licht more light and part of the white power structure that would be a dreadful develop this and everyone everyone is afraid that well the clock is because the phone and we have not come to grips with nelson the moon let's let's share this major figure and piano in a major novel with our have you have a moment of ok well nelson to noon is about a man who was determined to do good and to do it correct it if he has a faulty it's his knowledge of the past that attempts to do to be socially productive and and that change society deeply can come to biden's statement the eighteen forty four notebooks of karl marx and of mount skulls income both so he knows that things can go badly or

consequences that when he sets out to revise the world he attempts to think to be ultimate conclusion the concept of the consequences of every act that he takes well that's a recipe for great great difficulty causes you to live a level of great great strain and as a consequence it becomes a very interesting character years and his struggles he shared the making us the title this and so you know before you crack a book that it's inevitable that these two will go together is that they will but there are i mean just think of the who she is where he is and what he's about to do normal it's emotional it's a decision she had like that she's made it's a weekly i thought well well i did i tried to have or go buy stages and i think it when it when it does come he decides to

cross for example the desert or her chest and she is proposing an ordeal for herself which is in a way like of an initiation of the sort that the funding commitments are easy but she made her decision she made a decision to try to solve a quest she was once norman rush authorization has been our guest on a word on words narrow stairs then john sigg and this program was produced in the studios of wbez in nashville issues