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Hal Niedzviecki is the author of Smell
It (short stories), Lurvy (a novel retelling of the Charlotte's
Web story), and We Want Some Too (a non-fiction book on the
effects of mass media on contemporary constructions of self). He is the
editor of Broken Pencil, Canada's primary magazine on alternative
culture, and the organizer of Canzine, an annual fair in Toronto for 'zinesters
and independent publishers. He has written for publications large and
small. This interview was conducted by email in November 1999, just as Lurvy
was about to be released. |
TDR: Many of the stories in Smell It are about the
same length (or shorter!) than most poems. Why write such short stories?
How are they different from poems? What (or who) influenced you to write
in such a dramatically minimalist fashion?
NIEDZVIECKI: Well, okay, there are a lot of short shorts in the book, but there
are also longer works. i tend to find that the shorts get more attention
simply because they are slightly outside the convention of short story
writing, but nobody asks about the content of the stories in general.
so for me, the mixture of shorts and longer more conventional stories
were the right form for what i was writing about - which was a kind of
physical and mental degradation, a real visceral sense of disgust with
the self, and the hope you feel when you're at the bottom of a pit, and
you're looking up at the sky. this is minimalist work, because it is very
harrowing and emotional - and the best way to convey the most powerful
emotions is, in my opinion, through restraint.
TDR: What is your assessment of the state of Canadian writing
today? Does the new, younger generation of Canadian writers share a sensibility?
If so, how would you define it? (Perhaps there is a sub-group of writers
you'd prefer to identify and "explain".)
NIEDZVIECKI: i think there are young(er) writers who are tapping into a pop culture
zeitgeist and redefining canadian letters, for sure. the sensibility is
the sensibility of the global citizen of mass culture. it's a way of becoming
lost in the interconnectedness of things, but also of obsessing over what
can still be said to be original and true. in smell it, the characters
are always just short of copies and caricatures. in concrete forest, the
various stories deal with identity and authenticity - that is to say,
not the challenge of staying alive, but the question of what it means
to be alive in a world of endless referents and signifiers. you open up
the pandora's box of the mass media and you have to write from another
sensibility, from the perspective of someone who's seen everything, but
knows nothing. you dream in images, but you speak in sentences.
TDR: Broken Pencil, the magazine you co-edit, focuses
on 'zines and 'zine culture. Are 'zines the new literature? Discuss in
terms of how 'zines relate to the larger literary enterprise.
NIEDZVIECKI: a lot of interesting new writers have come up through zines. sonja
ahlers, golda fried, vern smith, matthew firth, and more. the writing
in zines reflect the blur of image and truth and lies we confront everyday.
there is collage, there is drawing, there is personal essay, there is
fiction, there is poetry, but there is not necessarily the false delineation
between these things that we have previously relied on. this blurring
is starting to effect the larger literary project of capturing slices
of our lives in words. you see it in lynn crosbie's paul's case,
for instance.
TDR: A couple of years ago Matthew Barrett, then-CEO of the
Bank of Montreal, suggested that studying the poetry of Chaucer could
lead to a prosperous career in banking (because of the training in recognizing
and articulating patterns). What other purposes, if any, do you think
the literary arts serve?
NIEDZVIECKI: literature doesn't serve a purpose any more than tv serves a purpose.
it is a construct, an artificial form that has seeped into our everyday
lives. i think one of the things that zines do is they show how writing
can still be an ordering principle even in a visual world. literature,
like any medium of creation, just allows an illusory order to be made
out of the chaos. we tend to love the writers who either shape something
beautiful out of so many possible variables, or those who cut off a cross
section of the craziness and show it off.
TDR: Any ideas about how the WWW and other digital innovations
are changing the relationship between writers, publishers and readers?
(Interpret this question as broadly as you wish.)
NIEDZVIECKI: people keep asking me this. is an ezine really so different from a
zine? when we stop reading, when we stop needing the medium of words to
convey ideas, then we will have a real revolution, then the book will
be dead. otherwise, the book's appearance on the internet is just the
same thing in a different form. there is the question of accessibility,
but that is perhaps a broader issue of how our desire to be cultural creators
and interlocutors has been effected by new technologies that make things
more possible than they used to be.
TDR: What's next for Hal Niedzviecki?
NIEDZVIECKI: i'm working toward the fruition of a couple of new projects. Lurvy,
a farmer's almanac, is a retelling of charlotte's web from the point of
view of the farmhand (lurvy) it is dark and funny and is also an exploration
of the way cultural iconocraphy seeps into our brains and makes it possible
to respond in a creative way toward universal plots (myths?). anyway,
that's out with coach house books (http://www.chbooks.com).
We Want Some Too is a giant tome of a non fiction book with the
subtitle underground desire and the reinvention of mass culture. it is
an attempt to harness my sprawling theories about mass culture and the
search for identity through aesthetics and creativity. it comes out with
penguin canada in april, 2000. i'm not sure if there will be an april
2000, and i can't but hope that the millennium does bring some radical
reconfiguration of our lives on this planet. that's the optimist in me.
Broken Pencil and Hal Niedzviecki PO Box 203, Station
P, Toronto, ON, M5S 2S7 Canada. The broken pencil website is at: http://www.brokenpencil.com.
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