http://music.cbc.ca/#/blogs/2013/10/...ting-and-music
Earlier this month, Canadian-born New Zealander Eleanor Catton became the youngest writer to win the prestigious Man Booker Prize for her second novel, The Luminaries.
The novel, a literary adventure story set amidst the New Zealand gold rush, has been praised widely, with much made of its unique structure. The novel is broken up into 12 sections, meant to mirror the 12 signs of the zodiac.
On a recent tour stop in Vancouver, Catton visited CBC Music to discuss the links between writing and music, her appreciation of Canadian icons Gordon Lightfoot and Margaret Atwood and how she's been connected to fellow Kiwi Lorde.
The structure of the book is quite unique, 12 parts that descend in length. What sparked your interest in using the astrological system as structural tool?
It was born out of an interest in the word "fortune," because the book is set during the New Zealand gold rush. The idea that this word means a great deal of money, and also fate. Playing with the doubleness of that, I got into the idea of astrology as a system ... and the more that I read about it, the more impressed I became with how incredibly psychological it is as a system. It has 19 parts; twelve of these are fixed.
Are there parallels to be drawn between a structure like this, and creative systems such as those used in musical composition?
I think the comparison to music is really interesting. Music has a lot in common with astrology. In the Western scale, from a C to the C in the octave above, there are 12 semitones. Also, there are seven natural notes — C, B, A, D, E, F, G. So already we have an interplay between 12 chromatic tones and then seven tones in the key signature.
I felt in writing the book, it was very like what a musician must feel. In improvising, you've got your scale, you've got the notes that are going to sound good with other notes, the intervals that are going to sound good. But you've also got all the chromatic possibilities, the possibilities of sounding dissident, of being unexpected.
It's an interesting question, this question about structure and how much structure informs the reader's experience. Fiction is supposed to be immersive and supposed to be entertaining and narrative, so structures have to be buried a little bit. If they come foregrounded too much, it stops being fiction and starts being poetry — something more concrete and out of time.
With your win, people were quick to claim the fact that you were born here. What's your relationship to Canada?
I'm the rogue Canadian in my family — I just happened to be born here while my parents were studying here. But the fact that I had your citizenship was a big part of my identity growing up. My parents were really emphatic about making me study French, and always talking about the fact that when I grew up I could potentially go to university in Canada. It was always on my radar as something that belonged to me in a way that wasn't the same as others in my family.
Are there certain Canadian authors that you particularly enjoy reading?
Anne Michaels for sure, and, Michael Ondaatje and Margaret Atwood. Margaret Atwood was the author who took me out of children's literature and guided me towards adult literature. When I was 12 or 13 I first read Alias Grace and The Handmaid's Tale. They were books that were difficult enough and they challenged me enough to make me feel proud to have read them. I remember steering the course of my reading away from the children's section of the library after encountering her. I met her in Dublin this year, of all places. We were having a whisky in the bar.
Do you listen to music while you write?
Yes, I do. But only songs that I know very well. Often I listen to songs on repeat for days and days at a time. There's something hypnotic or meditative, and it mirrors the way that I am putting the sentence together, going back over the same phrases again and again.
And this is something that's not very cool, but by far the most played artist on my computer is actually Gordon Lightfoot.
That's extremely cool!
You think so? Well, yes, Gordon Lightfoot. "Canadian Railway Trilogy" is way up there, and I'm not saying that to earn Canadian points. And Fleetwood Mac.
New Zealand music is in the spotlight these days, thanks to the young singer-songwriter Lorde.
Yes, it's been really wonderful actually. Our names have been paired together in New Zealand a lot over the past month. I think she received her Silver Scroll [APRA Award] on the same day the Booker Prize was announced. I feel like it's me and Lorde against the world.
I really rate her music. She's her own person. Nobody made her; she's not the product of any corporate machine. She's a really good writer, she's a good lyricist and her songs are catchy as hell. It's funny that people are putting me in the same category as her, because her mom is a friend of mine.
Are there other New Zealand acts you'd recommend?
There's a band called Golden Horse that I really like. And a band called the Phoenix Foundation, which is similar in style to early Arcade Fire.
Eleanor Catton's The Luminaries is available widely. She appears as part of IFOA in Toronto on Tuesday night.
Follow Brad Frenette on Twitter: @BradFrenette
posted by Brad Frenette on Oct 28, 2013