Luminous start to a literary mega-event

“Reading from an old book is like reading an old love letter you wrote to someone you don’t love anymore, rather painful,” says Eleanor Catton before she reads an excerpt from her first novel – The Rehearsal . The sharp yet profound observation sets the tone for the next hour as the New Zealand-based author, who is here in Chennai for The Hindu Lit For Life, spoke to Parvathy Nayar about life, writing, winning the Booker and more.

The idea for her first book, Catton says, came from a monologue she wrote for a friend, which she abandoned. Coming back to it later, she realised that it would work better as a dramatic novel and that’s how The Rehearsal came to be. Born out of the experiences after her first encounter with feminism in university, Catton says that she became interested in gender and performance theory.  “It’s fascinating what borders you can cross within the space of a theatre and my book became a theatre of its own,” she admits.  

The Rehearsal is being made into a feature film this year, but Catton says she has nothing to do with the script for the film adaptation. “Books are very much like relationships in that, like a love affair, it teaches you about yourself. But once I finished writing it, I didn’t want anything to do with it,” she says, adding that she gave her blessings to the writer and director. “You grow older, but your books don’t age, so it’s a peculiar experience,” she says. “If I had known how many people would read the book, I don’t know if I would have written it,” she quips.

Having written

The Rehearsal in her early twenties and her next book, The Luminaries , at 29, Catton says it was quite a change moving from a book inspired by feminist theory to one so steeped in the patriarchal structures of the 19{+t}{+h} century. Her second work is set in New Zealand in the 19{+t}{+h} century, right when the gold rush started, and Catton says she read a lot of novels set in that era. She admits that The Luminaries was an adventure story that had in it “all the things I like as a reader.” 

Retaining the truth

The danger, or trouble, in writing a novel set in an era gone by is what we do with the value system of the past, says Catton. “I’m not a Victorian but you have to accept the values that existed then or you’ll corrupt the past. It’s a tricky one with issues of human rights, sexism and racism – and our instinct as modern thinkers is to believe that we’ve progressed but we can patronise the past,” she explains.

One of the most striking aspects of The Luminaries is the structure. The book is structured according to astrological principles, with each character being associated with one of the twelve signs of the zodiac and the seven heavenly bodies. Each chapter of the book diminishes in length, much like the waning of the moon over one lunar cycle and each character is associated with characteristics of a particular sun sign. If this sounds like a complicated astronomy experiment more than a novel, Catton disagrees. “I get some pleasure out of painting myself into a corner! On a formal level, difficult challenges make me more creative,” Catton explains.

Under pressure

She says that she realised this while working as a teacher at the University of Iowa where she took creative writing classes.

“When I asked my students to just write a poem with ridiculous restraints – I found that their imaginations were fired and they came up with much more original material than if they were simply asked to write a poem.”  Applying the same principles to the construction of her novel, Catton created the unique masterpiece that is The Luminaries .

Catton believes the book will work for those who appreciate the idea of astrology – that your person is defined by more than just your will – and for those who are not interested in it, that part can be ignored and still read as a novel.

“I like the freedom that 19{+t}{+h} century novelists had to theorise about the human condition. In the last 50 years, individualism has crept into novels and shut out the idea of a philosophical perspective being unacceptable.”

Catton is also in the process of setting up a trust fund with her winnings from the Man Booker Prize that allows aspiring writers to simply read – something Catton believes is essential and not encouraged enough. “Reading is about 90 per cent of the job of a writer’s life, and the emphasis too often is on production. The more books you produce the better is what’s often assumed, taking the focus away from simply reading.”  The grant will give writers a stipend of $2000 over a period of time, when they have to simply read and then produce a short piece that explains how the readings changes their impressions.

“I was told that when writing, one must satisfy two readers – one who knows everything about what you’re writing, and one who knows nothing, Catton says. Clearly from the packed auditorium that was hanging on to Catton’s every word, she has all her readers in the palm of her hand.