Judy: A new novel imagines a
world in which our memories can
be accessed and reviewed by
ourselves and by others.
Jeffrey brown talks to
pulitizer-prize winning author
Jennifer Egan at her home in
Brooklyn about her latest work
of fiction.
It's part of our arts and
culture series, canvas.
Jeffrey: Imagine a beautiful
cube, in which you can store all
your memories, allowing access
to them whenever you want.
Call it, own your unconscious.
But there is a trade-off, others
can access it, or in a sense,
you.
Novelist Jennifer Egan has
dreamed up this so-far
non-existent technology.
She may still write by hand in
the office of her Brooklyn home.
But, like most of us, she finds
much of her own life bound up in
the digital world.
Jennifer: I feel like that's the
great story I've witnessed in my
lifetime.
You know, the speed of change in
the telecommunications realm.
The media realm, is so fast that
I feel like I continually
revisit the question of how that
affects us internally.
Jeffrey: And why does that
interest you as a novelist?
Jennifer: Because the novel is
the instrument to examine inside
people's minds.
I mean, that's as far as I can
see, that's the unique thing
that novels do that nothing else
can do.
Jeffrey: Egan's new novel, the
candy house, looks into her
characters' minds and also plays
with literary forms, something
she has done in six previous
works, each different from the
last.
The new one draws on characters
and storylines from her 2010
pulitzer prize-winning "A visit
from the goon squad."
And each chapter is written in a
different voice or perspective
and uses different styles,
including an email exchange
and a futuristic spy story.
Jennifer: In a way what the book
does is simulate this experience
of being in a collective
consciousness and moving in and
out of worlds and people's
minds.
Jeffrey: A fragmented world.
Jennifer: Right.
A fragmented experience, which
is very much what online
experience often is.
Imagine trying to tell that
story, you know, conventionally.
My last novel was a historical
novel.
I told it in a very
straightforward way, it couldn't
have lived in a form like this.
But one way to keep things fresh
and to keep myself doing things
I haven't done before is to try
to use new ways of doing them,
because that will require that I
tell a story I've never told.
I just love being near the water
.
Jeffrey: On one of her favorite
walks, along the east river, she
said that while ideas get her
going, it's the characters who
take over, beginning in this
case with bix, a world-famous
social media entrepreneur,
dreaming up the next big thing.
Chapter by chapter, we meet
others embracing or alienated by
this new world.
Are you a techie yourself? I
mean, is this your world?
Jennifer: No.
[Laughter]
I'm a late and incompetent
adopter.
Jeffrey: But somehow that made
you want to explore it in a way.
Jennifer: Well, I'm interested
in it because it interests other
people.
You know, anything that impacts
the way people live and think is
so fascinating to me, and
especially something new,
because I'm interested in
change.
I mean, in a way, that's what
fiction is all about, sort of
watching things change over some
unit of time.
Jeffrey: George orwell's 1984,
she thinks, got it half right:
Screens are everywhere in our
lives, but we invite them in.
Are you afraid that we're losing
our sense of privacy and our
sense of authenticity?
Jennifer: You know, I have
various thoughts about it as a
civilian.
But what I feel as a fiction
writer is just total curiosity.
I don't know what the
implications of all of this are.
And any thought I have has to be
put in the context of my age and
my generation.
My children will tell you I'm
anti-screen and deprive them of
important cultural experiences
by not letting them play enough
video games.
But the truth is, I don't know.
I feel a kind of dread as a
human that I hope doesn't seep
too much into my fiction
, because in a way, it's
inappropriate.
As a fiction writer, my job is
to transcend that and just enter
the realm of human experience
without judgments.
For me, fiction is where I ask
questions and where I go to ask
questions as a reader.
Jeffrey: I can't help think that
all these things we're talking
about, the themes you're
talking about, the -- themes
you're addressing, the
experimentation with form,
they're all kind of tied to
larger questions of literary
fiction today.
Who's it for?
Jennifer: To me, the reason
fiction still exists is that it
is still relevant, because we do
have a curiosity to be inside
the minds of other people.
One of the things that we can
never actually do in real life,
it won't happen.
Jeffrey: So far.
[Laughter]
Jennifer: I made up the machine.
We don't understand the brain
enough to actually do it.
But there is one slight problem,
which is that we are so
image-fixated as a culture now,
and the screens reinforce that
every moment.
And we are so used to skitting
around and not focusing that
long on any one thing, that the
muscles that are required to
actually read a book can feel a
little flabby.
I just want to keep people, keep
people's imaginations strong and
nimble enough to have those
experiences.
Jeffrey: So you're worried a
bit, but you're a true believer
in fiction's power.
Jennifer: I'm a true believer in
fiction's ability to offer
something in the form of
entertainment that nothing else
is quite doing.
So, yes, I think it is still
relevant and I hope people will
keep reading it.
Jeffrey: Alright, the book is
the candy house.
Jennifer Egan, thank you very
much.