Erendis
Master Pretender
Edward Rutherfurd é o pseudônimo de Francis Edward Wintle, nascido em Salisbury, Inglaterra em 1948. Educado no local, e nas universidades de Cambridge, e Stanford, Califórnia, trabalhou na investigação política, venda de livros e publicação. Após inúmeras tentativas de escrever livros e peças de teatro, ele finalmente abandonou a carreira no negócio de livros em 1983, e voltou para sua casa de infância para escrever “Sarum”, um romance histórico com uma história de dez mil anos, situado na área ao redor do monumento antigo de Stonehenge e Salisbury. Quatro anos mais tarde, quando o livro foi publicado, ele tornou-se um best-seller internacional instantâneo, permanecendo 23 semanas na lista de mais vendidos do New York Times. Desde então, ele escreveu mais sete best-sellers e está atualmente trabalhando duro em outro grande projeto. Seus livros foram traduzidos para mais de vinte idiomas. Por mais de três décadas, Edward tem dividido o seu tempo entre a Europa e América do Norte; também é um sócio vitalício do Friends of Salisbury Cathedral, do Salisbury Civic Society, e do Friends of Chawton House, que está localizado na aldeia de Jane Austen e se dedica ao estudo de mulheres escritoras. Ele também tem sido um Patrono do Teatro Nacional da Irlanda (o Abbey Theatre), em Dublin. Em 2005, a cidade de Salisbury comemorou seus serviços para a cidade, nomeando uma das ruas principais de "Rutherfurd Walk”.
Bibliografia
Russka (1991) - Russka: the Novel of Russia (não lançado no Brasil)
London (1997) – Londres, o Romance (lançado pela Editora Record)
The Forest (2000) – A Floresta (lançado pela Editora Record)
Dublin: Foundation (2004) – Os Príncipes da Irlanda (lançado pela Editora Record)
Ireland: Awakening (2006) – O Despertar da Irlanda (lançado pela Editora Record)
New York (September 2009) - (não lançado no Brasil)
Paris (April 2013) - (não lançado no Brasil)
Site oficial
como eu não encontrei muitas referências nacionais ao escritor, bem como estou lendo o primeiro livro dele, vou deixar aqui uma "entrevista" em inglês, eu li e é bem interessante, ele dá várias explicações sobre os assuntos dos livros, a pesquisa, o que o levou a escrever, etc.:
Rutherfurd por Rutherfurd
Books
Q. Your books are epic novels, sometimes covering thousands of years of history. You tell stories of fictional families set against a highly researched historical background, often in a single place.
A. Multi-generational sagas is the term in the book trade.
Q. They have been bestsellers in your native Britain, North America, and countries around the world. In the USA, you are called the successor to James Michener.
A. I owe him a huge debt. Elisha to his Elijah.
Q. Yet it's unusual for books which contain so much information to be bestsellers. Why do you think they have been so popular?
A. It's true that my books contain both fiction and non-fiction. I think they're an easy way to learn history. But above all, I try to tell gripping stories that move along with pace. It's the storyline that excites me, the art of telling a tale. And is it unusual for bestsellers to be highly informative? Michener, Arthur Hailey, Tom Clancy, Frederick Forsyth - all their books are packed with information. Another feature people like, judging from my fan mail, is that the books often deal with family roots. There's a huge and growing interest in genealogy all over the world.
Q. After the publication of Sarum, a former Dean of Salisbury Cathedral, Sydney Evans, wrote in a review: "I marvel at the comprehensiveness of his imagination."
A. Especially when I think of the person in question, I take it as one of the greatest compliments I've ever been paid. I believe I've some ability to absorb complex information and retell it in a compelling way. I'd like to think I might have made a good schoolteacher.
Q. Others have said that you have a talent for evoking atmosphere.
A. I hope so. But if so, it must be something inborn, because it happens through some process of osmosis that I don't myself understand.
Q. Do you have a typical reader?
A. No. Unusually, the books seem to sell equally to male and female readers, and to all age groups.
Q. How would you describe the books yourself?
A. My work is strictly popular fiction; but I take enormous pains with the research and make the books as good as I can. The books also popularize history; and I believe that a knowledge of history is one of the most important things any citizen can possess.
Q. You have said in interviews in the past that you refuse to cheat on history. What do you mean by that?
A. My fictional characters are free to follow their personal destinies; but I never alter the historical record just to suit my convenience, or my prejudices. Novelists and movie-makers are sometimes tempted to do that and maybe they believe it doesn't matter. I think it does matter.
Q. Why?
A. Because so much bad feeling - and so much political propaganda - is based upon the falsification of history. An extreme example would be the medieval blood myth told against the Jews - that they kidnapped and sacrificed Christian children. Absurd, but widely believed for a long time. A small example would be the movie The Patriot. The bad guy English officer burns an American congregation alive in their church. This was pure fabrication. A deliberate lie. No such thing happened. Fortunately, many critics and journalists pointed out the error. If they hadn't done so, millions of people would have believed it, and no doubt many people still do. It seems to me that those of us in the business of storytelling, in books, plays or movies, have an ethical obligation not to mislead our audiences over the historical record, especially when subjects may be emotive and affect our attitudes to others. The bigger the audience, the greater our responsibility; and I don't think we can evade that responsibility, whether we like it or not.
Q. Your books are epic novels, sometimes covering thousands of years of history. You tell stories of fictional families set against a highly researched historical background, often in a single place.
A. Multi-generational sagas is the term in the book trade.
Q. They have been bestsellers in your native Britain, North America, and countries around the world. In the USA, you are called the successor to James Michener.
A. I owe him a huge debt. Elisha to his Elijah.
Q. Yet it's unusual for books which contain so much information to be bestsellers. Why do you think they have been so popular?
A. It's true that my books contain both fiction and non-fiction. I think they're an easy way to learn history. But above all, I try to tell gripping stories that move along with pace. It's the storyline that excites me, the art of telling a tale. And is it unusual for bestsellers to be highly informative? Michener, Arthur Hailey, Tom Clancy, Frederick Forsyth - all their books are packed with information. Another feature people like, judging from my fan mail, is that the books often deal with family roots. There's a huge and growing interest in genealogy all over the world.
Q. After the publication of Sarum, a former Dean of Salisbury Cathedral, Sydney Evans, wrote in a review: "I marvel at the comprehensiveness of his imagination."
A. Especially when I think of the person in question, I take it as one of the greatest compliments I've ever been paid. I believe I've some ability to absorb complex information and retell it in a compelling way. I'd like to think I might have made a good schoolteacher.
Q. Others have said that you have a talent for evoking atmosphere.
A. I hope so. But if so, it must be something inborn, because it happens through some process of osmosis that I don't myself understand.
Q. Do you have a typical reader?
A. No. Unusually, the books seem to sell equally to male and female readers, and to all age groups.
Q. How would you describe the books yourself?
A. My work is strictly popular fiction; but I take enormous pains with the research and make the books as good as I can. The books also popularize history; and I believe that a knowledge of history is one of the most important things any citizen can possess.
Q. You have said in interviews in the past that you refuse to cheat on history. What do you mean by that?
A. My fictional characters are free to follow their personal destinies; but I never alter the historical record just to suit my convenience, or my prejudices. Novelists and movie-makers are sometimes tempted to do that and maybe they believe it doesn't matter. I think it does matter.
Q. Why?
A. Because so much bad feeling - and so much political propaganda - is based upon the falsification of history. An extreme example would be the medieval blood myth told against the Jews - that they kidnapped and sacrificed Christian children. Absurd, but widely believed for a long time. A small example would be the movie The Patriot. The bad guy English officer burns an American congregation alive in their church. This was pure fabrication. A deliberate lie. No such thing happened. Fortunately, many critics and journalists pointed out the error. If they hadn't done so, millions of people would have believed it, and no doubt many people still do. It seems to me that those of us in the business of storytelling, in books, plays or movies, have an ethical obligation not to mislead our audiences over the historical record, especially when subjects may be emotive and affect our attitudes to others. The bigger the audience, the greater our responsibility; and I don't think we can evade that responsibility, whether we like it or not.
Sarum
Q. You decided to write Sarum straight away?
A. Not quite. For about three months I thought about several projects, but none seemed right. The idea of Sarum came to me quite suddenly one day in New York, in the Frick Museum. It has a wonderful painting by Constable of Salisbury Cathedral*, seen across a meadowland. And as I was staring at the painting, the whole of my early childhood came back to me with a great rush, the magical presence of the place, of Salisbury Plain and Stonehenge. I was just standing there, staring at the painting. Then it hit me: of course, that's it, the subject has to be Sarum. So back to Sarum I went.
Q. Back to your roots.
A. From Silicon Valley to Stonehenge.
Q. You had a subject, but Sarum is a novel covering ten thousand years, from the Ice Age to the present day. Why such an ambitious treatment?
A. The more I thought about the place and its history, the more the subject seemed to demand it. The book kept growing in my mind until I couldn't see any other way to do it.
Q. This was when Michener became the model, I imagine.
A. Exactly. James Michener invented this genre, an act of literary genius, really. I'd read and liked several of his books, especially Chesapeake, which has a lyrical quality. James Michener led the way and I owe him a huge debt. It was a daunting task all the same. I knew I'd have to give myself to the book completely, full time, for as long as it took.
Q. How did you manage for money?
A. Some savings, a small legacy from a relation and a very kind cousin who had a cottage in the area which she let me house-sit. That was a big help. I knew I could hold out financially for a while.
Q. Did you have a publisher or agent?
A. No. I had nothing to show them.
Q. You were out in the cold. How did it feel?
A. Cold.
Q. What did your former colleagues think of your move?
A. I never asked. But I was told afterwards that there had been general derision. Even those publishing friends I consulted were dubious. The wisdom at that time was that historical fiction didn't sell, and nor did long books. And this book would be both. So it was going clean against the perceived market which, if you want to succeed, is usually what you should do.
Q. What kept you going?
A. Many things. Firstly, the local historians who helped me with the huge research required were encouraging. One especially, John Chandler, who'd written a wonderful book on the city, became a friend. Then my cousin Diana, the owner of the cottage, which had a thatched roof and a chalk-walled garden, was a great support. She'd come down most week-ends from London and we'd meet on Friday nights at a local pub which cooked an excellent curry. Saturdays we'd meet friends and have a wonderful old-fashioned English currant bread called "lardy cake" for tea. I was sometimes a little spacey because I was so deep in the book, but she never complained.
Q. Did you get discouraged sometimes?
A. Anyone who has ever tried to write a book - especially a novel, or autobiography - knows how personally exposed and vulnerable you feel. Your early drafts are probably terrible and you think: I can't write. What I tried to learn was to be more objective. The right question to ask is always: How can this text be made better? The name of the game is re-writes. By the time we finally got to proofs, I believe the chapter on Stonehenge had been re-written seventeen times. Perspiration, not inspiration.
Q. But there must have been inspiration as well to keep you going.
A. Yes. Sarum itself was the sustaining vision. It wasn't just the place, which I loved, but the sense of the universal which, in that area, is an abiding presence. For five thousand years, men have been seeking the eternal there, by building and carving in stone. It has a cosmic aspect also. Stonehenge was a huge prehistoric observatory. Salisbury Cathedral, with its astounding spire, seems to be pointing at the heavens too. When I was a little boy, four or five years old, my father had a powerful flashlight with a narrow beam. And I always remember one night, he pointed the beam at the cathedral and slowly moved it up the gothic arches, then to the high tower, up that, then to that soaring octagonal spire and all the way up that, four hundred feet into the sky to the point and the cross, and then up into the sky and the stars. That memory was always a kind of inspiration to me.
Q. How long did it take to write Sarum?
A. Three and a half years. But I was only out in the cold for a little over two years. By that time I had a forty page synopsis and a quarter of the book written. Then I found my wonderful agent Gill Coleridge.
Q. Like the poet Coleridge?
A. Same family. Small world. She made me do some re-writing, then she went to work. In a matter of weeks I had six figure offers from both sides of the Atlantic. I was astounded, and my life changed entirely from that moment.
Q. You turned down a larger American offer for a smaller one. Is that correct?
A. Nearly. In America, the book went to auction. At the end of the day, we accepted the generous offer that topped the bidding and the auction closed. But then, after it was closed, the under-bidder came back with an offer that was a hundred thousand dollars more. That was a huge sum to me then - and still is. So then Gill was trying to track me down to ask what I wanted to do. Fortunately she knew my habits. So I was in the local pub with my cousin Diana, having a curry, when a rather puzzled barman came to say I was wanted on the telephone; and then Gill told me about the new bid.
Q. So what did you do?
A. I told her: Tell them no. We already shook hands on a deal. It was the right thing to do, and I believe my US publishers appreciated it.
Q. I see. Then what?
A. Went and finished my curry.
Q. When it came out Sarum made publishing history.
A. In Britain, thanks to Anthony Cheetham the publisher, whose then wife Rosie was my editor. He brought the book out with six different covers, each representing a different period of history. It caused a lot of publicity and we went straight on to the bestseller list. In North America, we went to #1 in Canada, and stayed on the New York Times bestseller list for twenty-three weeks.
Q. How did you celebrate this success?
A. I got married and had my first child.
Q. You decided to write Sarum straight away?
A. Not quite. For about three months I thought about several projects, but none seemed right. The idea of Sarum came to me quite suddenly one day in New York, in the Frick Museum. It has a wonderful painting by Constable of Salisbury Cathedral*, seen across a meadowland. And as I was staring at the painting, the whole of my early childhood came back to me with a great rush, the magical presence of the place, of Salisbury Plain and Stonehenge. I was just standing there, staring at the painting. Then it hit me: of course, that's it, the subject has to be Sarum. So back to Sarum I went.
Q. Back to your roots.
A. From Silicon Valley to Stonehenge.
Q. You had a subject, but Sarum is a novel covering ten thousand years, from the Ice Age to the present day. Why such an ambitious treatment?
A. The more I thought about the place and its history, the more the subject seemed to demand it. The book kept growing in my mind until I couldn't see any other way to do it.
Q. This was when Michener became the model, I imagine.
A. Exactly. James Michener invented this genre, an act of literary genius, really. I'd read and liked several of his books, especially Chesapeake, which has a lyrical quality. James Michener led the way and I owe him a huge debt. It was a daunting task all the same. I knew I'd have to give myself to the book completely, full time, for as long as it took.
Q. How did you manage for money?
A. Some savings, a small legacy from a relation and a very kind cousin who had a cottage in the area which she let me house-sit. That was a big help. I knew I could hold out financially for a while.
Q. Did you have a publisher or agent?
A. No. I had nothing to show them.
Q. You were out in the cold. How did it feel?
A. Cold.
Q. What did your former colleagues think of your move?
A. I never asked. But I was told afterwards that there had been general derision. Even those publishing friends I consulted were dubious. The wisdom at that time was that historical fiction didn't sell, and nor did long books. And this book would be both. So it was going clean against the perceived market which, if you want to succeed, is usually what you should do.
Q. What kept you going?
A. Many things. Firstly, the local historians who helped me with the huge research required were encouraging. One especially, John Chandler, who'd written a wonderful book on the city, became a friend. Then my cousin Diana, the owner of the cottage, which had a thatched roof and a chalk-walled garden, was a great support. She'd come down most week-ends from London and we'd meet on Friday nights at a local pub which cooked an excellent curry. Saturdays we'd meet friends and have a wonderful old-fashioned English currant bread called "lardy cake" for tea. I was sometimes a little spacey because I was so deep in the book, but she never complained.
Q. Did you get discouraged sometimes?
A. Anyone who has ever tried to write a book - especially a novel, or autobiography - knows how personally exposed and vulnerable you feel. Your early drafts are probably terrible and you think: I can't write. What I tried to learn was to be more objective. The right question to ask is always: How can this text be made better? The name of the game is re-writes. By the time we finally got to proofs, I believe the chapter on Stonehenge had been re-written seventeen times. Perspiration, not inspiration.
Q. But there must have been inspiration as well to keep you going.
A. Yes. Sarum itself was the sustaining vision. It wasn't just the place, which I loved, but the sense of the universal which, in that area, is an abiding presence. For five thousand years, men have been seeking the eternal there, by building and carving in stone. It has a cosmic aspect also. Stonehenge was a huge prehistoric observatory. Salisbury Cathedral, with its astounding spire, seems to be pointing at the heavens too. When I was a little boy, four or five years old, my father had a powerful flashlight with a narrow beam. And I always remember one night, he pointed the beam at the cathedral and slowly moved it up the gothic arches, then to the high tower, up that, then to that soaring octagonal spire and all the way up that, four hundred feet into the sky to the point and the cross, and then up into the sky and the stars. That memory was always a kind of inspiration to me.
Q. How long did it take to write Sarum?
A. Three and a half years. But I was only out in the cold for a little over two years. By that time I had a forty page synopsis and a quarter of the book written. Then I found my wonderful agent Gill Coleridge.
Q. Like the poet Coleridge?
A. Same family. Small world. She made me do some re-writing, then she went to work. In a matter of weeks I had six figure offers from both sides of the Atlantic. I was astounded, and my life changed entirely from that moment.
Q. You turned down a larger American offer for a smaller one. Is that correct?
A. Nearly. In America, the book went to auction. At the end of the day, we accepted the generous offer that topped the bidding and the auction closed. But then, after it was closed, the under-bidder came back with an offer that was a hundred thousand dollars more. That was a huge sum to me then - and still is. So then Gill was trying to track me down to ask what I wanted to do. Fortunately she knew my habits. So I was in the local pub with my cousin Diana, having a curry, when a rather puzzled barman came to say I was wanted on the telephone; and then Gill told me about the new bid.
Q. So what did you do?
A. I told her: Tell them no. We already shook hands on a deal. It was the right thing to do, and I believe my US publishers appreciated it.
Q. I see. Then what?
A. Went and finished my curry.
Q. When it came out Sarum made publishing history.
A. In Britain, thanks to Anthony Cheetham the publisher, whose then wife Rosie was my editor. He brought the book out with six different covers, each representing a different period of history. It caused a lot of publicity and we went straight on to the bestseller list. In North America, we went to #1 in Canada, and stayed on the New York Times bestseller list for twenty-three weeks.
Q. How did you celebrate this success?
A. I got married and had my first child.
Russka
Q. In your second book, Russka, you told the story of Russia. Why did you choose that subject?
A. My grandfather, though English, lived abroad, including a period in Russia during Tsarist times. My oldest aunt spoke quite fluent Russian. Some of the first music I ever remember was the Russian music, especially Prince Igor, that my father liked to play. Russian music, it seems to me, from liturgical chant to Prokofiev, has a special sense of space that one doesn't find elsewhere. As a boy, it was always a haunting subject in my imagination.
Q. You were retracing your grandfather's footsteps?
A. Yes.
Q. In researching the book you travelled to Russia. Were you able to move about freely?
A. Fairly. This was the Gorbachev era. A few of my travel requests were refused, but not many. I made about six trips, on average a month each, travelling alone but usually with an Intourist guide. As well as the obvious places, they let me visit the Golden Ring of ancient cities round Moscow and took me out to Riazan. Also the Baltic, Novgorod, the Ukraine, the Crimea and even Samarkand. There were visits to the houses of Tolstoy, Pushkin, Chekhov, Tchaikovsky, the artist Repin, and the monastery of Optina Pustyn, the setting for part of The Brothers Karamasov. One of my visits to St. Petersburg was during the magical 'White Nights', when it doesn't get dark.
Q. You spoke Russian?
A. Not nearly as well as I'd like, but enough to get by. Russian is a beautiful but difficult language. A writer's language.
Q. Did you read the literary classics like Tolstoy in Russian?
A. In English translation. But passages, and short stories I'd read in Russian, sometimes with an old Russian emigre who coached me. In New York, one could also go to the Russian Orthodox services. The liturgy is beautiful and very moving.
Q. Going round Russia, did you sense that the Soviet Empire was falling apart?
A. The total and sudden collapse was a surprise. But Russia was like what used to be called a 'Potemkin Village' - a big facade behind which lay a very poor and disorganised country. In many ways, even in people's attitudes, as soon as you got past the facade you were in the Tsarist nineteenth century. Even in major provincial cities, people were still getting water from a pump.
Q. Did people talk to you, and what did they say?
A. Some of the more sophisticated ones were astonishingly frank in private. "You realise," one said, "that nobody actually believes in socialism." But the most striking thing was the young. They wanted me to tell them about their history. All the old stalinist history books had been thrown out, but the replacements had not been written. They were uninformed but hugely curious; it was touching. I had some strange adventures in Russia.
Q. I have heard you say that it was hard not to get depressed writing Russka. Why was that?
A. Some aspects of Russia's historic culture are morbid. The book downplays the domestic violence, for instance. When you immerse yourself in a culture and try to live through your characters, whether the story derives from the dark days of Ivan the Terrible or the morbid intensity of Maxim Gorky's childhood, these things can get to you. The great tragedies of Russian history, especially of the Stalinist era, are profoundly moving. Russka took three and a half years to write; by the final chapter I was fairly drained.
Q. You had difficulty finishing the book, I believe.
A. It would have been longer, to be precise, but my US editor then, Betty Prashker, said I had to close it down. I would have gone on for another hundred pages. She'd been a good editor and is a friend. She'd even come out to Russia with me for a week in preparation for the editing. So at the end, she just turned up at our apartment, lay on the sofa, and told my wife and I that she wasn't leaving until I finished. She had to stay there for days!
Q. In your second book, Russka, you told the story of Russia. Why did you choose that subject?
A. My grandfather, though English, lived abroad, including a period in Russia during Tsarist times. My oldest aunt spoke quite fluent Russian. Some of the first music I ever remember was the Russian music, especially Prince Igor, that my father liked to play. Russian music, it seems to me, from liturgical chant to Prokofiev, has a special sense of space that one doesn't find elsewhere. As a boy, it was always a haunting subject in my imagination.
Q. You were retracing your grandfather's footsteps?
A. Yes.
Q. In researching the book you travelled to Russia. Were you able to move about freely?
A. Fairly. This was the Gorbachev era. A few of my travel requests were refused, but not many. I made about six trips, on average a month each, travelling alone but usually with an Intourist guide. As well as the obvious places, they let me visit the Golden Ring of ancient cities round Moscow and took me out to Riazan. Also the Baltic, Novgorod, the Ukraine, the Crimea and even Samarkand. There were visits to the houses of Tolstoy, Pushkin, Chekhov, Tchaikovsky, the artist Repin, and the monastery of Optina Pustyn, the setting for part of The Brothers Karamasov. One of my visits to St. Petersburg was during the magical 'White Nights', when it doesn't get dark.
Q. You spoke Russian?
A. Not nearly as well as I'd like, but enough to get by. Russian is a beautiful but difficult language. A writer's language.
Q. Did you read the literary classics like Tolstoy in Russian?
A. In English translation. But passages, and short stories I'd read in Russian, sometimes with an old Russian emigre who coached me. In New York, one could also go to the Russian Orthodox services. The liturgy is beautiful and very moving.
Q. Going round Russia, did you sense that the Soviet Empire was falling apart?
A. The total and sudden collapse was a surprise. But Russia was like what used to be called a 'Potemkin Village' - a big facade behind which lay a very poor and disorganised country. In many ways, even in people's attitudes, as soon as you got past the facade you were in the Tsarist nineteenth century. Even in major provincial cities, people were still getting water from a pump.
Q. Did people talk to you, and what did they say?
A. Some of the more sophisticated ones were astonishingly frank in private. "You realise," one said, "that nobody actually believes in socialism." But the most striking thing was the young. They wanted me to tell them about their history. All the old stalinist history books had been thrown out, but the replacements had not been written. They were uninformed but hugely curious; it was touching. I had some strange adventures in Russia.
Q. I have heard you say that it was hard not to get depressed writing Russka. Why was that?
A. Some aspects of Russia's historic culture are morbid. The book downplays the domestic violence, for instance. When you immerse yourself in a culture and try to live through your characters, whether the story derives from the dark days of Ivan the Terrible or the morbid intensity of Maxim Gorky's childhood, these things can get to you. The great tragedies of Russian history, especially of the Stalinist era, are profoundly moving. Russka took three and a half years to write; by the final chapter I was fairly drained.
Q. You had difficulty finishing the book, I believe.
A. It would have been longer, to be precise, but my US editor then, Betty Prashker, said I had to close it down. I would have gone on for another hundred pages. She'd been a good editor and is a friend. She'd even come out to Russia with me for a week in preparation for the editing. So at the end, she just turned up at our apartment, lay on the sofa, and told my wife and I that she wasn't leaving until I finished. She had to stay there for days!
London
Q. You turned to London next, a place you knew well. Was the process similar to Sarum?
A. I was very fortunate in finding a wonderful team to help me at the Museum of London which is the best and most creative historical museum I know. These curators and historians let me use their library, shared their knowledge and corrected my texts. One day, for instance, one of them showed me a little clay mold they'd just dug up outside the Old London Wall. It had been used to produce forged coins in Roman times, and the curator and I spent a while imagining together the little guy who might have used it, and how he might have been nearly caught. That became the story in the Roman chapter of the book. They'd found a Roman leather bikini as well, which reminded me to give him a girlfriend.
Q. Archeology comes to life.
A. Thanks to those wonderful curators. Working with them really changed the way I looked at museums. When I go into a museum now and see the objects, - a golden ring, a clay pipe, a sword - I don't just see an artefact any more, I see something that belonged to a person just like you and me, with hopes and fears and loves. Every object has a human story, if only we could guess it.
Q. London took five years. Was it a strain?
A. It was fun; but because there was so much to work in, it was technically complex to write.
Q. Was it, like Sarum, an eternal city?
A. London is about the ever-flowing River Thames. It's about the river of life.
Q. It was a huge bestseller.
A. Fortunately. Five years is a chunk of your life.
Q. You turned to London next, a place you knew well. Was the process similar to Sarum?
A. I was very fortunate in finding a wonderful team to help me at the Museum of London which is the best and most creative historical museum I know. These curators and historians let me use their library, shared their knowledge and corrected my texts. One day, for instance, one of them showed me a little clay mold they'd just dug up outside the Old London Wall. It had been used to produce forged coins in Roman times, and the curator and I spent a while imagining together the little guy who might have used it, and how he might have been nearly caught. That became the story in the Roman chapter of the book. They'd found a Roman leather bikini as well, which reminded me to give him a girlfriend.
Q. Archeology comes to life.
A. Thanks to those wonderful curators. Working with them really changed the way I looked at museums. When I go into a museum now and see the objects, - a golden ring, a clay pipe, a sword - I don't just see an artefact any more, I see something that belonged to a person just like you and me, with hopes and fears and loves. Every object has a human story, if only we could guess it.
Q. London took five years. Was it a strain?
A. It was fun; but because there was so much to work in, it was technically complex to write.
Q. Was it, like Sarum, an eternal city?
A. London is about the ever-flowing River Thames. It's about the river of life.
Q. It was a huge bestseller.
A. Fortunately. Five years is a chunk of your life.
The Forest
Q. So, under duress, you wrote The Forest instead.
A. Not under duress. I proposed the subject. It was a return to one of the most-loved places of my childhood, and I had a wonderful time writing it.
Q. The Forest in question is the New Forest - only in England would a thousand-year-old hunting ground be called 'New'. But why write about a place so close to Sarum?
A. Geographically close, but completely different, the other side of the coin. If Sarum is about eternal building in stone, The Forest is about the great, dark, renewable chaos of nature. The life of animals and trees, as well as humans. Vegetation above ground and below. Parts are about ecology, actually.
Q. Some of the characters are animals.
A. I'd always admired the way Michener would bring animals and birds into his books, sometimes telling the story from their point of view. So I wrote part of one chapter from the point of view of a New Forest deer. It seemed to work pretty well. There's a section on the complex life of trees as well.
Q. You also touched on the dark side. In the past, the New Forest had a reputation for witchcraft.
A. I knew nothing about the subject when I started The Forest, but I couldn't ignore it. So I read some books on Wicca, which nowadays seems to be a mixture of classical witchcraft and more modern, almost ecological ideas. This enabled me to hint at an ancient, hidden aspect of the Forest's history.
Q. You say it was a happy time for you.
A. I loved the Forest people. Many of the Forest families have been there since before the Norman Conquest. Reading the records of the medieval law courts in the local library, I'd see so-and-so accused of poaching deer in the year 1230, and see his descendant, with the identical name, sitting at the table beside me. The local historians were very kind to me and I made some treasured friends.
Q. This book went quickly.
A. Nineteen months from start to corrected proofs, and delivered ahead of schedule. It was less complex.
Q. So, under duress, you wrote The Forest instead.
A. Not under duress. I proposed the subject. It was a return to one of the most-loved places of my childhood, and I had a wonderful time writing it.
Q. The Forest in question is the New Forest - only in England would a thousand-year-old hunting ground be called 'New'. But why write about a place so close to Sarum?
A. Geographically close, but completely different, the other side of the coin. If Sarum is about eternal building in stone, The Forest is about the great, dark, renewable chaos of nature. The life of animals and trees, as well as humans. Vegetation above ground and below. Parts are about ecology, actually.
Q. Some of the characters are animals.
A. I'd always admired the way Michener would bring animals and birds into his books, sometimes telling the story from their point of view. So I wrote part of one chapter from the point of view of a New Forest deer. It seemed to work pretty well. There's a section on the complex life of trees as well.
Q. You also touched on the dark side. In the past, the New Forest had a reputation for witchcraft.
A. I knew nothing about the subject when I started The Forest, but I couldn't ignore it. So I read some books on Wicca, which nowadays seems to be a mixture of classical witchcraft and more modern, almost ecological ideas. This enabled me to hint at an ancient, hidden aspect of the Forest's history.
Q. You say it was a happy time for you.
A. I loved the Forest people. Many of the Forest families have been there since before the Norman Conquest. Reading the records of the medieval law courts in the local library, I'd see so-and-so accused of poaching deer in the year 1230, and see his descendant, with the identical name, sitting at the table beside me. The local historians were very kind to me and I made some treasured friends.
Q. This book went quickly.
A. Nineteen months from start to corrected proofs, and delivered ahead of schedule. It was less complex.
Ireland
Q. Yet the next project turned into the longest and most difficult you had ever undertaken. The two novels on Ireland, which between them cover a span of history from the time of St. Patrick to the twentieth century.
A. I had a home in Ireland and I'd wanted to tackle the subject for years, but hesitated. I wasn't sure that, not being Irish myself, I could do it, or that my efforts would be welcomed.
Q. What decided you to take it on?
A. Some of my Irish friends in Dublin. They thought I could do it, and as for my fear of the reception from Irish writers and reviewers, they just laughed. "You're better off coming from outside," they told me. "At least you haven't any enemies."
Q. Irish history is a subject full of controversy and highly-charged emotions; Irish against English, Catholic against Protestant, the memory of Cromwell and the Famine, and much more besides. How did you handle all that?
A. The problem is even more complex than you have stated, because over the last generation historians in Ireland have reevaluated so much of their history, and much of what any Irish student would learn in school and university nowadays has yet to work its way into popular literature. That complexity, however, was also an opportunity to tell the story in a new way and produce an up-to-date and balanced book for the general market.
Q. You needed more than usual guidance when you did the research, then.
A. I was fortunate. A good friend of mine from Cambridge days, James McGuire, not only has tenure at University College Dublin's history department, but was also the editor of the Dictionary of National Biography. Thanks to his kindness, I was able to work with some of Ireland's leading historians in every period covered. They advised me, made suggestions for plot and incident, read and corrected my chapters. I was able to read an important new thesis and some other articles still in preparation. I think it quite amused the historians to see some of the latest research being popularised before it even got off the academic presses. I had wonderful local sources also. For the Famine, for instance, the local history society in Ennis, County Clare, had put together a detailed, almost day-by-day account of what really happened there during the Famine years. My characters and their stories are closely based on real people.
Q. The project took six years and produced two books. But that wasn't the original plan.
A. Originally we planned one book. But the story just kept running away with me, so that finally I had to ask my publishers to let me deliver two separate novels. My British publishers were hesitant, but wonderfully supportive. Doubleday in America said: "Go for it."
Q. And both books went onto the New York Times bestseller list. Which parts of Irish history did you most engage with?
A. The period around the mission of Saint Patrick is highly interesting. From his own writings and other sources he emerges, it seems to me, as a surprisingly modern man. A saint, but a politically cunning and aristocratic one. This is how Irish historians would see him now.
Q. You also put a human sacrifice in that chapter.
A. It was a part of the Celtic, druidic culture that would still have been, at the least, a memory at that date.
Q. Another period, from the first book?
A. The time of the making of the Book of Kells, for two reasons. The process of medieval manuscript illumination is beautiful, powerful and moving. It was also appropriate to set part of the story in the lakeside monastery of Glendalough, up in the Wicklow Mountains, one of the loveliest places in Ireland. I go there whenever I can.
Q. The second novel is a tale that takes us from the days of Cromwell and the English Ascendancy over Ireland, through the Famine to Irish Independence in the twentieth century. These were some of Ireland's most turbulent and desperate times. How did it affect you, writing about them?
A. The tragedies of Cromwell's conquest of Ireland and of the Famine are intensely moving. And there were day by day accounts - even minute by minute in the case of tragedies like Cromwell's siege of Drogheda - that I could use. Modern research has also highlighted all sorts of information which broadens the human story of great events - the huge role of women as couriers, nurses and sharp-shooters in the 1916 Easter Rising - for instance. Scores of these women left vivid daily accounts of their lives. But the two great lessons of modern Irish history, which have hugely affected my outlook on life, are lessons in political culture.
Q. Lessons in religious oppression, I imagine.
A. Subtler. And I believe even more important. The first is about the power of propaganda and dogma. For centuries people in England and Scotland, often of the same stock as the Irish, and whose ancestors of course had been Catholic, genuinely believed the Irish Catholics were like wild beasts. Dehumanised them. These prejudices lasted into the twentieth century. Similarly, people all over the Irish diaspora have often in the past been given a view of Irish history so propagandised that it obscured the richness and complexity of their own culture and history. Cromwell's regime in Ireland, for instance, turns out to have been confused, corrupt and disorganised. The great tragedy of the Famine was the result not of an English desire to destroy the Irish - and the English were guilty of much in the Famine - but of an economic free-market dogma, shared by some Irish people too, that, misunderstood and misapplied, blinded people in London and Dublin to the human reality of the catastrophe as it took place. Our beliefs can make us blind.
Q. But the greatest problems of Ireland have been religious. Are you saying that people would be better off without religious beliefs as well?
A. Absolutely not. But the story of Europe in general and Ireland in particular makes me admire more and more the wisdom of the American Founding Fathers when, for the first time in human history, they insisted upon the separation of Church and State. It's the only way to protect all religions, and to end religious persecution. It was perhaps America's greatest gift to the world and it should be cherished.
Q. The two novels were well-received in Ireland.
A. They were. We had some good reviews, including a lovely one from Maeve Binchy, whose wonderful Irish novels I admire so much.
Q. Yet the next project turned into the longest and most difficult you had ever undertaken. The two novels on Ireland, which between them cover a span of history from the time of St. Patrick to the twentieth century.
A. I had a home in Ireland and I'd wanted to tackle the subject for years, but hesitated. I wasn't sure that, not being Irish myself, I could do it, or that my efforts would be welcomed.
Q. What decided you to take it on?
A. Some of my Irish friends in Dublin. They thought I could do it, and as for my fear of the reception from Irish writers and reviewers, they just laughed. "You're better off coming from outside," they told me. "At least you haven't any enemies."
Q. Irish history is a subject full of controversy and highly-charged emotions; Irish against English, Catholic against Protestant, the memory of Cromwell and the Famine, and much more besides. How did you handle all that?
A. The problem is even more complex than you have stated, because over the last generation historians in Ireland have reevaluated so much of their history, and much of what any Irish student would learn in school and university nowadays has yet to work its way into popular literature. That complexity, however, was also an opportunity to tell the story in a new way and produce an up-to-date and balanced book for the general market.
Q. You needed more than usual guidance when you did the research, then.
A. I was fortunate. A good friend of mine from Cambridge days, James McGuire, not only has tenure at University College Dublin's history department, but was also the editor of the Dictionary of National Biography. Thanks to his kindness, I was able to work with some of Ireland's leading historians in every period covered. They advised me, made suggestions for plot and incident, read and corrected my chapters. I was able to read an important new thesis and some other articles still in preparation. I think it quite amused the historians to see some of the latest research being popularised before it even got off the academic presses. I had wonderful local sources also. For the Famine, for instance, the local history society in Ennis, County Clare, had put together a detailed, almost day-by-day account of what really happened there during the Famine years. My characters and their stories are closely based on real people.
Q. The project took six years and produced two books. But that wasn't the original plan.
A. Originally we planned one book. But the story just kept running away with me, so that finally I had to ask my publishers to let me deliver two separate novels. My British publishers were hesitant, but wonderfully supportive. Doubleday in America said: "Go for it."
Q. And both books went onto the New York Times bestseller list. Which parts of Irish history did you most engage with?
A. The period around the mission of Saint Patrick is highly interesting. From his own writings and other sources he emerges, it seems to me, as a surprisingly modern man. A saint, but a politically cunning and aristocratic one. This is how Irish historians would see him now.
Q. You also put a human sacrifice in that chapter.
A. It was a part of the Celtic, druidic culture that would still have been, at the least, a memory at that date.
Q. Another period, from the first book?
A. The time of the making of the Book of Kells, for two reasons. The process of medieval manuscript illumination is beautiful, powerful and moving. It was also appropriate to set part of the story in the lakeside monastery of Glendalough, up in the Wicklow Mountains, one of the loveliest places in Ireland. I go there whenever I can.
Q. The second novel is a tale that takes us from the days of Cromwell and the English Ascendancy over Ireland, through the Famine to Irish Independence in the twentieth century. These were some of Ireland's most turbulent and desperate times. How did it affect you, writing about them?
A. The tragedies of Cromwell's conquest of Ireland and of the Famine are intensely moving. And there were day by day accounts - even minute by minute in the case of tragedies like Cromwell's siege of Drogheda - that I could use. Modern research has also highlighted all sorts of information which broadens the human story of great events - the huge role of women as couriers, nurses and sharp-shooters in the 1916 Easter Rising - for instance. Scores of these women left vivid daily accounts of their lives. But the two great lessons of modern Irish history, which have hugely affected my outlook on life, are lessons in political culture.
Q. Lessons in religious oppression, I imagine.
A. Subtler. And I believe even more important. The first is about the power of propaganda and dogma. For centuries people in England and Scotland, often of the same stock as the Irish, and whose ancestors of course had been Catholic, genuinely believed the Irish Catholics were like wild beasts. Dehumanised them. These prejudices lasted into the twentieth century. Similarly, people all over the Irish diaspora have often in the past been given a view of Irish history so propagandised that it obscured the richness and complexity of their own culture and history. Cromwell's regime in Ireland, for instance, turns out to have been confused, corrupt and disorganised. The great tragedy of the Famine was the result not of an English desire to destroy the Irish - and the English were guilty of much in the Famine - but of an economic free-market dogma, shared by some Irish people too, that, misunderstood and misapplied, blinded people in London and Dublin to the human reality of the catastrophe as it took place. Our beliefs can make us blind.
Q. But the greatest problems of Ireland have been religious. Are you saying that people would be better off without religious beliefs as well?
A. Absolutely not. But the story of Europe in general and Ireland in particular makes me admire more and more the wisdom of the American Founding Fathers when, for the first time in human history, they insisted upon the separation of Church and State. It's the only way to protect all religions, and to end religious persecution. It was perhaps America's greatest gift to the world and it should be cherished.
Q. The two novels were well-received in Ireland.
A. They were. We had some good reviews, including a lovely one from Maeve Binchy, whose wonderful Irish novels I admire so much.
New York
Q. From Ireland you turned to another huge subject: New York. What inspired you to take it on?
A.In fact, I'd considered the project back in 1991. I had been working in the city, on and off, for nearly a decade, first as a bookseller, then a writer, and I'd lived on both the East and West sides of the city. I was even serving on the board of a coop. But though the publishers were keen, I wasn't satisfied that my draft synopsis had the right technical structure for this particular subject, so the project was shelved, and I wrote London instead. Fifteen years passed before William Thomas, my editor at Doubleday, urged me to take it up again, and it was thanks to his gentle editorial persuasion, solicitude and enthusiasm that this book was born.
Q. And the technical structure?
A. There have been so many important strands of immigration into New York, and there are so many communities, that it would have been impossible to run, say, ten families, all in parallel. In the end, I chose a single central family to carry the storyline, with other families grafted on to this central stem, as required. So it's very similar but subtly different from the structure of my previous books.
Q. And you got every community in?
A. Of course not. No novel could ever be written that would encompass the city in all its aspects. Not even a great writer like Tom Wolfe, or Balzac could do it. But I hope that the story gives a good historical overview of the city's history, and some account of seven or eight of the most important communities.
Q. You have said that in each of your books there's an underlying theme that holds the book together. In Sarum it was Man's quest for the eternal through building in stone. What's New York about?
A. Freedom.
Q. From Ireland you turned to another huge subject: New York. What inspired you to take it on?
A.In fact, I'd considered the project back in 1991. I had been working in the city, on and off, for nearly a decade, first as a bookseller, then a writer, and I'd lived on both the East and West sides of the city. I was even serving on the board of a coop. But though the publishers were keen, I wasn't satisfied that my draft synopsis had the right technical structure for this particular subject, so the project was shelved, and I wrote London instead. Fifteen years passed before William Thomas, my editor at Doubleday, urged me to take it up again, and it was thanks to his gentle editorial persuasion, solicitude and enthusiasm that this book was born.
Q. And the technical structure?
A. There have been so many important strands of immigration into New York, and there are so many communities, that it would have been impossible to run, say, ten families, all in parallel. In the end, I chose a single central family to carry the storyline, with other families grafted on to this central stem, as required. So it's very similar but subtly different from the structure of my previous books.
Q. And you got every community in?
A. Of course not. No novel could ever be written that would encompass the city in all its aspects. Not even a great writer like Tom Wolfe, or Balzac could do it. But I hope that the story gives a good historical overview of the city's history, and some account of seven or eight of the most important communities.
Q. You have said that in each of your books there's an underlying theme that holds the book together. In Sarum it was Man's quest for the eternal through building in stone. What's New York about?
A. Freedom.
Paris
Q. You next book took you to Paris. Did your publishers say: "Give us another big city, Rutherfurd."
A. They asked if I had any other big cities in mind. And I said: "How would you feel about Paris?" And they said they'd feel good! But actually, the reasons why I suggested Paris were pretty personal.
Q. You had family there, I believe. Rutherfurds?
A. No, on the other side of my family. My grandmother was orphaned and lived with the family of her aunt, who'd married a Frenchman. My grandfather, who was also English, met her in France, where they married. Their children were sent to English schools, but were mostly brought up in France, and one of my aunts married a Frenchman whose family came from near Chartres. From that marriage I have fourteen cousins in Paris, and a huge extended family network of their cousins, mainly based in Fontainebleau. Knowing them, and their family stories gave me a wealth of personal material to work with.
Q. Back to the Belle Epoque and the days of the Impressionists?
A. Certainly. One old lady could remember the Statue of Liberty being built, not a hundred yards from the family apartment in Paris where I usually stayed. Another old man had been in the First World War and gave me a little lighter made in the trenches. That gift had a lot of sentimental value for me, and also features in the story. The same man had been a friend of Marc Chagall in the Paris of the 1920s. It wasn't only their memories, but the way they thought and spoke that was so helpful to me as a writer. And for a sense of atmosphere, there were family houses, like one in Fontainebleau that features in the book, where the family had been living - with the same furniture - since Napoleonic times.
Q. The story reaches its climax during the Nazi occupation of Paris in World War II. Did that period also have resonance for you?
A. Yes. My Anglo-French aunt had a house in the Pyrenees, so that she could help with the escape route during the German occupation in World War II. Her son, my cousin Jean to whom the book is dedicated, escaped across the mountains joined the Free French, and advanced with them through Italy. One of my English uncles, who'd spent years teaching at the French army's Staff College in Paris, went to work with the French Resistance. He was betrayed and imprisoned by the Vichy, but he was able to persuade his French guards to go over to the Resistance - the whole garrison. I grew up knowing these people, and that sense of shared patriotism was part of the family identity. It still means a lot to me.
Q. You were often in Paris yourself since childhood. What's your most vivid memory?
A. The Paris Uprising of May 1968. I was a young teenager, but I managed to get behind the lines in the Latin Quarter. I saw it all. I also fell in love with a Frenchwoman. It was the most dramatic and romantic month of my life.
Q. You next book took you to Paris. Did your publishers say: "Give us another big city, Rutherfurd."
A. They asked if I had any other big cities in mind. And I said: "How would you feel about Paris?" And they said they'd feel good! But actually, the reasons why I suggested Paris were pretty personal.
Q. You had family there, I believe. Rutherfurds?
A. No, on the other side of my family. My grandmother was orphaned and lived with the family of her aunt, who'd married a Frenchman. My grandfather, who was also English, met her in France, where they married. Their children were sent to English schools, but were mostly brought up in France, and one of my aunts married a Frenchman whose family came from near Chartres. From that marriage I have fourteen cousins in Paris, and a huge extended family network of their cousins, mainly based in Fontainebleau. Knowing them, and their family stories gave me a wealth of personal material to work with.
Q. Back to the Belle Epoque and the days of the Impressionists?
A. Certainly. One old lady could remember the Statue of Liberty being built, not a hundred yards from the family apartment in Paris where I usually stayed. Another old man had been in the First World War and gave me a little lighter made in the trenches. That gift had a lot of sentimental value for me, and also features in the story. The same man had been a friend of Marc Chagall in the Paris of the 1920s. It wasn't only their memories, but the way they thought and spoke that was so helpful to me as a writer. And for a sense of atmosphere, there were family houses, like one in Fontainebleau that features in the book, where the family had been living - with the same furniture - since Napoleonic times.
Q. The story reaches its climax during the Nazi occupation of Paris in World War II. Did that period also have resonance for you?
A. Yes. My Anglo-French aunt had a house in the Pyrenees, so that she could help with the escape route during the German occupation in World War II. Her son, my cousin Jean to whom the book is dedicated, escaped across the mountains joined the Free French, and advanced with them through Italy. One of my English uncles, who'd spent years teaching at the French army's Staff College in Paris, went to work with the French Resistance. He was betrayed and imprisoned by the Vichy, but he was able to persuade his French guards to go over to the Resistance - the whole garrison. I grew up knowing these people, and that sense of shared patriotism was part of the family identity. It still means a lot to me.
Q. You were often in Paris yourself since childhood. What's your most vivid memory?
A. The Paris Uprising of May 1968. I was a young teenager, but I managed to get behind the lines in the Latin Quarter. I saw it all. I also fell in love with a Frenchwoman. It was the most dramatic and romantic month of my life.
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Como eu mencionei anteriormente, é a primeira vez que estou lendo um livro dele (A Floresta), a forma de escrita é bem interessante, como ele conta "1.000 anos de história nos bosques da Inglaterra" ele não segue uma única história, como foi mencionado nas entrevistas, são sagas ambientadas em vários períodos, através das gerações de habitantes da floresta ou seja, vários contos, ambientados num mesmo local e contados através da mais genuína mistura de história com ficção.
Eu realmente nunca havia lido nada nesse estilo, se você procura personagens profundos e bem detalhados num livro, passe longe do Rutherfurd, o negócio dele são as descrições detalhadas dos locais
, a forma dos acontecimentos, as implicações históricas e a forma como afetaram a vida dos personagens.Pra quem, como eu, curte a história da Inglaterra, Irlanda e Escócia, é um prato cheio!
