More from Issue 60, Winter 1974 Buy this issue! And eventually, I attempted using white space to achieve resonance, to make the reader receive things intuitively, hear the silence in the wind, for instance, that is a constant presence in the book. In fact, I can only recall one simile in the whole book. So from the start I was feeling my way toward a spare form, with more air around the words, more space: I wanted the descriptions to be very clear and flat, to find such poetry as they might attain in their very directness and simplicity. I was moved by the stark quality of that voyage, everything worn bare by wind and sea-the reefs, the faded schooner, the turtle men themselves-everything so pared down and so simple that metaphors, stream-of-consciousness, even such ordinary conventions of the novel as “he said” or “he thought,” seemed intrusive, even offensive, and a great impediment, besides. I started work on the book in 1966, and since then, it’s been put aside many times, but I never tired of it. Q: James Dickey feels that Far Tortuga is a turning point in the evolution of the novel, that you are “creating our new vision.” Would you say something about this book’s development?Ī: Far Tortuga is based on a sea turtle fishing voyage off Nicaragua: tortuga is the Spanish word for sea turtle, and sometimes refers to a cay where green turtles are found.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |