Hola, amigos.
Hoy os traigo una nueva entrevista a Steven Saylor, publicada hoy día 11 de julio en el Blog XXSiglos.
El enlace de la entrevista en español es este:
https://blogs.20minutos.es/xx-siglos/2018/07/11/steven-saylor-nunca-hay-una-buena-razon-para-falsear-deliberadamente-la-historia/
Y aquí en mi Blog os dejo la entrevista en inglés, cortesía tanto de David Yagüe (20 Minutos) como del propio autor.
Interview with Steven Saylor (by David Yagüe, "20 Minutos")
After ten years and three prequels of
Gordianus, you return to the main story of Roma Sub-Rosa with The Throne of
Caesar. Why have you waited for this novel so long time? Has “The Ides of
March” been an special challenge for a historical fiction writer?
After The Triumph of Caesar, the next logical
step in the series, the next big event, was the assassination of Julius Caesar—but
how could I write a murder mystery about one of the most famous murders in
history? I did not have an answer yet, so I turned to something I had wanted to
do for a long time, which was to take the young Gordianus to see the Seven
Wonders of the World. After that prequel, The
Seven Wonders, I stayed with young Gordianus for two more prequels, Raiders of the Nile and The Wrath of the Furies. Then I had a
new book contract and my American editor said, “it’s time to write that Ides of
March novel!” And at the same time, an American Classicist names James O’Hara whispered
a single word in my ear and gave me the idea of how to write the book—a secret
plot that would run through the novel, even as I wrote a thriller about
Caesar’s assassination. And so I finally wrote The Throne of Caesar, which I call the capstone of the Gordianus
series—perhaps the final novel of the series.
Do you know when this novel will be published
in Spain?
Like my most
recent novels, The Throne of Caesar
will be published in Spain by Los Esfera de los Libros next November.
After so many years, novels and tales, Who is
Gordianus for Steven Saylor?
The two of us
have grown old together. At first I was older—in the first novel, Roman Blood, he is about thirty and I
was about thirty-five when I wrote it. Then in the novels that followed, he
grew older faster than I did, so he gave me a preview of what might come—that
is to say, I had to imagine what it would be like to become slower, more
cautious, more weary of the wicked ways of the world, but also, perhaps, a bit
wiser. When I wrote the first prequel, The
Seven Wonders, I had the opposite challenge—to think back and find the
voice of a 17-year-old Roman youth, when I myself had reached my fifties. I
rather enjoyed being 17 again! So Gordianus has been my alter-ego—not only my
imaginary life as an ancient Rome, but an exploration of the various stages of
my own life.
I don’t think
of Gordianus as a person separate from myself. Perhaps I should do an interview
with him. But would Gordianus ask questions of me, or would I ask questions of
him?
Your novels show a very deep knowledge about
ancient world, Do you think that historical fiction writer have more responsibilities
with the reader than others who write fantasy or contemporary fiction?
Absolutely.
There is never a good reason to deliberately falsify history simply to create a
story. And there is no excuse for being careless with research, especially when
writing about ancient Rome, where the historical material is so abundant. There
is a bond of trust between the reader of historical fiction and the author. I
take that responsibility seriously.
Is historical fiction an educational genre?
It should be.
I hope that readers of my novels have a better understanding of the ancient
world because they have read my books.
Mystery stories set in History may present some
problems: if you try to seem so historical, maybe the reader don´t enjoy the
thriller; but, if you write a very modern mystery, you can result
anachronistic. I think, you and Gordianus achieve a very natural balance, but
what do you think about that question anyway?
I always begin
with the history—with some big event, like the slave revolt of Spartacus (in Arms of Nemesis)—and then I look for a
way to create a mystery plot (because I love a murder mystery), using actual
places and people as well as fictional characters. The history and the thriller
plot should work together, as should the psychological themes of the novel. If
it is all in balance, it should seem very real to the reader—exotic but somehow
familiar, far away in time but still compelling and alive. The dead past seems
to live again, transcending time and death—what could be more wonderful than
that?
When you write these kinds of novels, Is
Umberto Eco and his Name of the Rose the main guide?
Certainly, The Name of the Rose was a direct
inspiration when I wrote the first novel, Roman
Blood. Umberto Eco did not create the historical mystery, but such books
were not common at that time, and his book was very successful both
artistically and financially, and in many countries. When I began Roman Blood, inspired by an actual
murder trial with Cicero for the defense, no one else had written a murder
mystery set in ancient Rome, so I hoped not only to follow Eco’s inspiration
but also to do something new. At almost exactly the same time, Lindsey Davis wrote
the first of her Falco novels, which became very successful in England.
Do you read other authors similar to you? What
do you think about the novels of Lindsey Davis or David Wishart?
I actually do
not read my fellow novelists who set stories in ancient Rome, for two reasons.
First, I do not want to unconsciously steal ideas, or pick up any inaccurate
ideas that might be in their books. And second, at the end a working day
writing about Rome, I want to relax with a story far from Rome, like a good Scandinavian
mystery. Rome is my job during the day, so for entertainment I go elsewhere.
Don’t you think that the ancient Rome novels
have or a very Christian view about sexuality, or, on the contrary, too modern?
Probably your characters are an exception…
It is not an
accident that the Gordianus series is set in an era before Christianity, so I
do not have to deal with Christian morality at all—it does not yet exist. As
much as possible, I want the characters to think and act from a pre-Christian psychology.
It is always interesting to see how they are like us, or unlike us. For
example, they accept slavery without question, which is appalling to us, but
they also accept homosexuality without question, a subject of so much
controversy in my lifetime.
Are Roma and Empire your best and most
ambitious works?
In many ways,
yes. It has been a great challenge to weave a story that follows a family
through the first 1000 years of Roman history (in Roma), and then through the era of the first emperors, from
Augustus to Marcus Aurelius (in Empire).
But now I am dealing with an even greater challenge, working on the third novel
in that series, because that book will span the time from Marcus Aurelius, the philosopher-emperor,
to Constantine the Great, the first Christian emperor. This is a time of much
chaos and enormous change. How and why did the Pagan world end, and the Christian
world begin? What was it like for the people who lived through such a time? But,
after writing so many novels over so many years, I enjoy a new challenge, and
this book will require all my skills as a researcher and as a novelist.
Why do you decide to write this two novels?
It was my publisher
in England, a wonderful man named Nick Robinson (who is no longer alive), who
invited me to his flat in London and over cocktails suggested I write a “big
book”—something one a much larger scale than the Gordianus novels. I thought of
the genre created by James Michener and continued by Edward Rutherfurd, where a
certain place or a great city itself is the main character of a story that
spans many lifetimes, and realized that no one had written such a novel about
Rome. Thus the idea for Roma was
born.
I read you saying that J. R.R. Tolkien
influence you as a writer. He is not a very usual election for historical
fiction writer…
No story was
more important to me when I was young than The
Lord of the Rings. I love it so much, and Tolkien’s achievement was so
great, that I never thought to write fantasy myself—Tolkien has already done
it. But when I came to write historical fiction, I wanted to do the same sort
of “world building” that Tolkien did, creating large stories with an enormous background—but
my background is the actual world of ancient Rome, with its myths and legends.
As an American, Do you think that you have a different
vision of Ancient Roma than, for example, Europeans writers?
Almost certainly.
Anyone who writes historical fiction is seeing the past through a certain lens,
influenced by his own place and time. I grew up during the height of the
American empire, so that must have an influence on me, which is different from
a writer who grew up, for example, in Communist Hungary, or modern Italy, or
Spain.
Do you read any Spanish writers?
Some of the
greatest Roman writers were born in Spain, of course—Seneca, Martial, Lucan.
I’m afraid I don’t know much about current Spanish literature, though in my
university days I read García Lorca, Santayana, and of course Cervantes and
what we call in English “The Lay of the Cid.” Also, one of the most interesting
historians of the ancient world today is a Spaniard, Leonardo de Arrizabalaga y
Prado, who also writes in English. His book The Emperor Elagabalus: Fact or Fiction, published in 2014, is a
revolutionary approach to one of the most mysterious Roman emperors, absolutely
brilliant.
Are you sure there wont be more Gordianus the
Finder novels? And, if it is true, What are your plans for future?
As we say in
English, “Never say never!” Perhaps I will return to the younger Gordianus,
because I think he visited Jerusalem
after the events of The Wrath of the
Furies, and there must be in interesting story there. But for now all my
energy is focused on the next novel in the Roma
and Empire series.
Twitter: @StevenSaylor_Sp
