314- ] English Literature
John Gardner
John
Gardner, The Art of Fiction No. 73
The following
interview incorporates three done with John Gardner over the last decade of his
life. After interviewing him in 1971, Frank McConnell wrote of the
thirty-nine-year-old author as one of the most original and promising younger
American novelists. His first four novels—The Resurrection (1966), The Wreckage
of Agathon (1970), Grendel (1971), and The Sunlight Dialogues
(1972)—represented, in the eyes of many critics and reviewers, a new and
exhilarating phase in the enterprise of modern writing, a consolidation of the
resources of the contemporary novel and a leap forward—or backward—into a
reestablished humanism. One finds in his books elements of the three major
strains of current fiction: the elegant narrative gamesmanship of Barth or
Pynchon, the hyperrealistic gothicism of Joyce Carol Oates and Stanley Elkin,
and the cultural, intellectual history of Saul Bellow. Like so many characters
in current fiction, Gardner's are men on the fringe, men shocked into the
consciousness that they are living lives that seem to be determined, not by
their own will, but by massive myths, cosmic fictions over which they have no
control (e.g., Ebeneezer Cooke in Barth's Sot-Weed Factor, Tyrone Slothrop in
Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow); but Gardner's characters are philosophers on the
fringe, heirs, all of them, to the great debates over authenticity and bad
faith that characterize our era. In Grendel, for example, the hero-monster is
initiated into the Sartrean vision of Nothingness by an ancient, obviously
well-read dragon: a myth speaking of the emptiness of all myths—“Theory-makers
. . . They'd map out roads through Hell with their crackpot theories, their
here-to-the-moon-and-back lists of paltry facts. Insanity—the simplest insanity
ever devised!” His heroes—like all men—are philosophers who are going to die;
and their characteristic discovery—the central creative energy of Gardner's
fiction—is that the death of consciousness finally justifies consciousness
itself. The myths, whose artificiality contemporary writers have been at such
pains to point out, become in Gardner's work real and life giving once again,
without ever losing their modern character of fictiveness.
Gardner's work may
well represent, then, the new “conservatism,” which some observers have noted
in the current scene. But it is a conservatism of high originality, and, at
least in Gardner's case, of deep authority in his life. When he guest-taught a course
in “Narrative Forms” at Northwestern University, a number of his students were
surprised to find a modern writer—and a hot property—enthusiastic, not only
about Homer, Virgil, Apollonius Rhodius, and Dante, but deeply concerned with
the critical controversies surrounding those writers, and with mistakes in
their English translations. As the interview following makes clear, Gardner's
job in and affection for ancient writing and the tradition of metaphysics is,
if anything, greater than for the explosions and involutions of modern fiction.
He is, in the full sense of the word, a literary man.
“It's as if God put
me on earth to write,” Gardner observed once. And writing, or thinking about
writing, takes up much of his day. He works, he says, usually on three or four
books at the same time, allowing the plots to cross-pollinate, shape and
qualify each other.
Sara Matthiessen
describes Gardner in the spring of 1978 (additional works published by then
included October Light; On Moral Fiction was about to be published).
Matthiessen arrived with a friend to interview him at the Breadloaf Writer's
Colony in Vermont: “After we'd knocked a couple of times, he opened the door
looking haggard and just wakened. Dressed in a purple sateen, bell-sleeved,
turtleneck shirt and jeans, he was an exotic figure: unnaturally white hair to
below his shoulders, of medium height, he seemed an incarnation from the
medieval era central to his study. 'Come in!' he said, as though there were no
two people he'd rather have seen than Sally and me, and he led us into a cold,
bright room sparsely equipped with wooden furniture. We were offered extra
socks against the chill. John lit his pipe, and we sat down to talk.”
INTERVIEWER
You've worked in
several different areas: prose, fiction, verse, criticism, book reviews,
scholarly books, children's books, radio plays; you wrote the libretto for a
recently produced opera. Could you discuss the different genres? Which one have
you most enjoyed doing?
JOHN GARDNER
The one that feels
the most important is the novel. You create a whole world in a novel and you
deal with values in a way that you can't possibly in a short story. The trouble
is that since novels represent a whole world, you can't write them all the
time. After you finish a novel, it takes a couple of years to get in enough
life and enough thinking about things to have anything to say, any clear
questions to work through. You have to keep busy, so it's fun to do the other
things. I do book reviews when I'm hard up for money, which I am all the time.
They don't pay much, but they keep you going. Book reviews are interesting
because it's necessary to keep an eye on what's good and what's bad in the
books of a society worked so heavily by advertising, public relations, and so
on. Writing reviews isn't really analytical, it's for the most part quick
reactions—joys and rages. I certainly never write a review about a book I don't
think worth reviewing, a flat-out bad book, unless it's an enormously
fashionable bad book. As for writing children's books, I've done them because
when my kids were growing up I would now and then write them a story as a
Christmas present, and then after I became sort of successful, people saw the
stories and said they should be published. I like them, of course. I wouldn't
give junk to my kids. I've also done scholarly books and articles. The reason
I've done those is that I've been teaching things like Beowulf and Chaucer for
a long time. As you teach a poem year after year, you realize, or anyway
convince yourself, that you understand the poem and that most people have got
it slightly wrong. That's natural with any poem, but during the years I taught
lit courses, it was especially true of medieval and classical poetry. When the
general critical view has a major poem or poet badly wrong, you feel like you
ought to straighten it out. The studies of Chaucer since the fifties are very
strange stuff: like the theory that Chaucer is a frosty Oxford-donnish guy
shunning carnality and cupidity. Not true. So close analysis is useful. But
writing novels—and maybe opera libretti—is the kind of writing that gives me
greatest satisfaction; the rest is more like entertainment.
INTERVIEWER
You have been called
a “philosophical novelist.” What do you think of the label?
GARDNER
I'm not sure that
being a philosophical novelist is better than being some other kind, but I
guess that there's not much doubt that, in a way at least, that's what I am. A
writer's material is what he cares about, and I like philosophy the way some people
like politics, or football games, or unidentified flying objects. I read a man
like Collingwood, or even Brand Blanchard or C. D. Broad, and I get
excited—even anxious—filled with suspense. I read a man like Swinburn on time
and space and it becomes a matter of deep concern to me whether the structure
of space changes near large masses. It's as if I actually think philosophy will
solve life's great questions—which sometimes, come to think of it, it does, at
least for me. Probably not often, but I like the illusion. Blanchard's attempt
at a logical demonstration that there really is a universal human morality, or
the recent flurry of theories by various majestical cranks that the universe is
stabilizing itself instead of flying apart—those are lovely things to run into.
Interesting and arresting, I mean, like talking frogs. I get a good deal more
out of the philosophy section of a college bookstore than out of the fiction
section, and I more often read philosophical books than I read novels. So sure,
I'm “philosophical,” though what I write is by no means straight philosophy. I
make up stories. Meaning creeps in of necessity, to keep things clear, like
paragraph breaks and punctuation. And, I might add, my friends are all artists
and critics, not philosophers. Philosophers—except for the few who are my
friends—drink beer and watch football games and defeat their wives and children
by the fraudulent tyranny of logic.
INTERVIEWER
But insofar as you
are a “philosophical novelist,” what is it that you do?
GARDNER
I write novels, books
about people, and what I write is philosophical only in a limited way. The
human dramas that interest me—stir me to excitement and, loosely, vision—are
always rooted in serious philosophical questions. That is, I'm bored by plots
that depend on the psychological or sociological quirks of the main
characters—mere melodramas of healthy against sick—stories that, subtly or
otherwise, merely preach. Art as the wisdom of Marcus Welby, M.D. Granted, most
of fiction's great heroes are at least slightly crazy, from Achilles to Captain
Ahab, but the problems that make great heroes act are the problems no sane man
could have gotten around either. Achilles, in his nobler, saner moments, lays
down the whole moral code of The Iliad. But the violence and anger triggered by
war, the human passions that overwhelm Achilles's reason and make him the
greatest criminal in all fiction—they're just as much a problem for lesser,
more ordinary people. The same with Ahab's desire to pierce the Mask, smash
through to absolute knowledge. Ahab's crazy, so he actually tries it; but the
same Mask leers at all of us. So, when I write a piece of fiction I select my
characters and settings and so on because they have a bearing, at least to me,
on the old unanswerable philosophical questions. And as I spin out the action,
I'm always very concerned with springing discoveries—actual philosophical
discoveries. But at the same time I'm concerned—and finally more concerned—with
what the discoveries do to the character who makes them, and to the people
around him. It's that that makes me not really a philosopher, but a novelist.
INTERVIEWER
The novel Grendel is
a retelling of the Beowulf story from the monster's point of view. Why does an
American writer living in the twentieth century abandon the realistic approach
and borrow such legendary material as the basis for a novel?
GARDNER
I've never been
terribly fond of realism because of certain things that realism seems to commit
me to. With realism you have to spend two hundred pages proving that somebody
lives in Detroit so that something can happen and be absolutely convincing. But
the value systems of the people involved is the important thing, not the fact
that they live on Nine Mile Road. In my earlier fiction I went as far as I
could from realism because the easy way to get to the heart of what you want to
say is to take somebody else's story, particularly a nonrealistic story. When
you tell the story of Grendel, or Jason and Medeia, you've got to end it the
way the story ends— traditionally, but you can get to do it in your own way.
The result is that the writer comes to understand things about the modern world
in light of the history of human consciousness; he understands it a little more
deeply, and has a lot more fun writing it.
INTERVIEWER
But why specifically
Beowulf?
GARDNER
Some stories are more
interesting than others. Beowulf is a terribly interesting story. It gives you
some really wonderful visual images, such as the dragon. It's got Swedes
looking over the hills and scaring everybody. It's got mead halls. It's got
Grendel, and Grendel's mother. I really do believe that a novel has to be a
feast of the senses, a delightful thing. One of the better things that has
happened to the novel in recent years is that it has become rich. Think of a
book like Chimera or The Sot-Weed Factor—they may not be very good books, but
they are at least rich experiences. For me, writers like John O'Hara are
interesting only in the way that movies and tv plays are interesting; there is
almost nothing in a John O'Hara novel that couldn't be in the movies just as
easily. On the other hand, there is no way an animator, or anyone else, can
create an image from Grendel as exciting as the image in the reader's mind:
Grendel is a monster, and living in the first person, because we're all in some
sense monsters, trapped in our own language and habits of emotion. Grendel
expresses feelings we all feel—enormous hostility, frustration, disbelief, and
so on, so that the reader, projecting his own monster, projects a monster that
is, for him, the perfect horror show. There is no way you can do that in
television or the movies, where you are always seeing the kind of realistic
novel O'Hara wrote . . . Gregory Peck walking down the street. It's just the
same old thing to me. There are other things that are interesting in O'Hara,
and I don't mean to put him down excessively, but I go for another kind of
fiction: I want the effect that a radio play gives you or that novels are
always giving you at their best.
John Gardner
John Gardner was a
British author, born on November 20, 1926, in Seaton Delaval, Northumberland,
known for his contributions to the mystery and espionage genres, particularly
through his work extending the legacy of iconic characters like James Bond and
Dr. Moriarty. He began his writing career after leaving the Anglican priesthood
and gained early recognition with his Boysie Oakes series, which blended humor
with crime narratives. Gardner's notable achievement was his selection in 1981
to continue Ian Fleming's James Bond series, resulting in a total of sixteen
novels that adapted the character to contemporary themes while maintaining some
of the original's essence.
His writing often
integrated elements of comedy and historical detail, showcasing his ability to
imitate various styles while also developing his unique voice. Gardner's
attention to historical accuracy and his interest in the occult were evident in
works like the Kruger trilogy and the Moriarty series. Despite facing criticism
for his Bond novels, which some felt strayed too far from Fleming's spirit,
Gardner's storytelling captured a wide audience, with his books translated into
over fourteen languages. He continued to write until health challenges slowed
him down, ultimately passing away on August 3, 2007.
Published in: 2023
By: Delaney,
Bill<br />Barratt, David
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John Gardner
(1933-1982) was a popular and controversial author. He wrote several
best-selling novels, including Grendel, The Sunlight Dialogues, Nickel
Mountain, and October Light (which won the National Critics Circle Award in 1976),
and The Art of Fiction, an essay text now standard in university writing
classes, and On Moral Fiction, a book so scandalous it almost destroyed his
career.
Mickelsson’s Ghosts
Fiction by John
Gardner
The final novel by
John Gardner, Mickelsson’s Ghosts, originally published in 1982 just months
before his untimely death in a motorcycle accident, is a tour de force. The
protagonist Peter Mickelsson, a former star philosophy professor at Brown,
relocates to Binghamton University. On the verge of bankruptcy, separated from
his wife, in questionable mental health, and drinking heavily, Mickelsson
decides to buy a country house in northeastern Pennsylvania. What he encounters
there are impassioned and shameless love affairs (one of which results in a
regrettable pregnancy), a Mormon extremist cult, small town mythologies, the
robbery of a robber, multiple murders, the ghosts of an incestuous family,
Plato, and our hero’s own possible insanity.
The Sunlight
Dialogues
Fiction by John
Gardner
In The Sunlight Dialogues,
John Gardner’s vision of America in the turbulent 1960s embraces an
unconventional cast of conventional citizens in the small rural town of
Batavia, New York. Sheriff Fred Clumly is trying desperately to unravel
mysteries surrounding a disorderly, nameless drifter called “The Sunlight Man,”
who has been jailed for painting the word “LOVE” across two lanes of traffic,
and who is later suspected of murder. The men battle over morality, freedom and
their opposing notions of justice, leading each to find his own state of grace.
Their conflict is mirrored in the community of middlebrow politicians and their
church-going wives, Native Americans, working-class immigrants, farmers,
soldiers, petty thieves, and even centenarian sisters too stubborn to die. Gardner’s
alchemy is existential: from the most raw, vulnerable, and conflicting
characters in the American melting pot, he transmutes common denominators of
human isolation and longing. With unnerving suspense, his acute ear for
American speech, and permeated by his deep-rooted belief in morality, this
expansive, sprawling, and ambitious novel is John Gardner’s masterpiece: “A
superb literary achievement,” noted
Nickel Mountain
Fiction by John
Gardner
At the heart of John
Gardner’s Nickel Mountain is an uncommon love story: when at 42, the obese,
anxious and gentle Henry Soames marries seventeen-year-old Callie Wells–who is
pregnant with the child of a local boy–it is much more than years which define
the gulf between them. But the beauty of this novel is the gradual revelation
of the bond that develops as this unlikely couple experiences courtship and
marriage, the birth of a son, isolation, forgiveness, work, and death in a
small Catskill community in the 1950s. The plot turns on tragic events–they
might be accidents or they might be acts of will–involving a cast of rural
eccentrics that includes a lonely amputee veteran, a religious hysteric
(thought by some to be the devil himself) and an itinerant “Goat Lady.”
Questions of guilt, innocence, and even murder are eclipsed by deeds of
compassion, humility, and redemption, and ultimately by Henry Soames’ quiet
discovery of grace. Novelist William H. Gass, a friend and colleague of the
author, has written an introduction that shines new light on the work and career
of the much praised but often misunderstood John Gardner.
October Light
Fiction by John
Gardner
October Light is one
of John Gardner’s masterworks. The penniless widow of a once-wealthy dentist,
Sally Abbot now lives in the Vermont farmhouse of her older brother,
72-year-old James Page. Polar opposites in nearly every way, their clash of
values turns a bitter corner when the exacting and resolute James takes a
shotgun to his sister’s color television set. After he locks Sally up in her
room with the trashy “blockbuster” novel that has consumed her (and only apples
to eat), the novel-within-the-novel becomes an echo chamber providing glimpses
into the history of the family that spawned these bizarre, sad, and stubborn
people. Gardner uses the turbulent siblings as a stepping-off point from which
he expands upon the lives of their extended families, and the rural community
that surrounds them. He also engages larger issues of how liberals and
conservatives define themselves, and considers those moments when life
transcends all their arguments.
Nickel Mountain is
shapely and moving enough to make you believe, while you are reading it, in
ancient forms and permanent truths.
— New York Times Book
Review
