A greek tragedy: David Vann

It was not my best moment of judgement when last year I gifted to my mum a copy of David Vann’s Caribou Island for mother’s day. For anyone that has read the book, you’ll know why this gift may have been taken the wrong way. For those that haven’t yet had the pleasure, a grab from the NY Times review sums the case up well:

This Alaska with its salmon boats and trash dumps becomes a stage for ancient stories of survival and will and connection and love, and also, in the end, the failures of love. Strong poison.

I repeat, ‘strong poison’. For a few weeks post May 8 2011, Vann and I had at least one thing in common: a temporarily strained relationship with a close family member.

Yesterdays ‘In Conversation’ session with David Vann (hosted by Estelle Tang) was a chance to delve further into the reasons the author is so unpopular with members of his immediate family. As he put it “a writer is the worst thing that could happen to a family”.

Vann began by admitting that his new novel Dirt was not the novel he intended to write. He described the experience of having it published as a sad and awful experience. While Vann’s other novels drew from the troubling aspects of his father’s side of the family, Dirt is the first time he has put the lens on his mother’s side. And with the book now on shelves, Vann seemed to genuinely fear that his mother would never speak to him again once she got around to reading it.

Dirt (which I’m just now starting to read) has received mixed reviews in different parts of the world. His portrayal of feminine characters in the novel was criticised by Stella Clarke’s review in The Australian, but Vann was praised by The Guardian as “the real thing”: “a mature, risk-taking and fantastically adept fiction writer who dares go to the darkest places, explore their most appalling corners.”

In conversation at MWF Vann revealed he felt Dirt was as close as he had come to writing a greek tragedy. He described his process of placing characters under such duress and pressure that they would eventually break, and in that moment of fracture, reveal the truth of themselves. He suggested that in that same moment, readers were forced to question themselves, the impact of which is cause for the enduring use of tragedy in global literature.

At times I can be an incredibly shallow reader, and I had never really thought about how tragedy worked as a narrative.  It was quite a treat to have such an insightful explanation of the process from Vann, a professor and current Guggenheim fellow. It shed new light on why bad things must sometimes happen to our characters even though we might inwardly wish them well, and how the intentions of writers such as Vann could be misconstrued or simplified as evil or misogynistic.

Vann explained his characters were not necessarily bad people, or wished bad things upon each other. Rather, it was their individual natures that worked against the group. In revealing tragic characters, Vann investigates what is good and bad about us, and why we treat each other the way we do.

Vann was also incredibly open about his intentions as a writer. He felt his writing was more important than himself, and also more important than approval of his family, and he had come to accept the resulting collateral damage of taking such a position.

The author revealed that most of his novels were completed within intense sittings and he had a fear that editing might result in him removing parts he didn’t understand yet. His new novel (still unreleased) Goat Mountain was written beginning to end in this fashion, with as little as 1000 words edited from the final manuscript.

I’m often left disappointed by author events. Complex and inwardly focused personalities don’t always shine on stage, nor open up in such a short sessions. But I felt yesterday’s session was a rare exception to the norm, and with it’s small and intimate setting, was easily my favourite event of the festival thus far.

Vann was both intense and talkative. Near the end point of the session he commented that it was the best interview he had ever done, having given him the chance to properly explain the motives behind Dirt.

The right balance of open ended and revealing questions seem to allow Vann to reflect on his book anew, so that by the hour’s end, both the audience and author had gained some new perspective. And that felt pretty special. It got me wanting to write again, and to read. And like a lemming I joined the line at the Dymocks counter shortly afterwards. And now I have Dirt in my hands.