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Small stories in great scenarios |
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| 12/12/2009 |
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Jonathan Rabb and Matt Haig close out this year’s Dark Page.
Set in Berlin in 1927, the second adventure of Chief Inspector Nikolai Hoffner (following Rosa), Jonathan Rabb’s Shadow and Light, captures the advent of two of the biggest totalitarianisms of the 20th century: show business and Nazism. “For this novel I did both traditional research (I am lucky to have an academic background – I was a professor of the theory of political doctrines) and read a lot of fiction written in those years or about those years. Above all the novels of Alfred Doblin – especially Berlin Alexanderplatz, which is a fundamental book in depicting Berlin then – and certain stories by Erich Maria Remarque and Nabokov.”
In this novel, the chief inspector investigates a crime at the heart of which lies the invention of the talking pictures, and which involves film legends Fritz Lang, his wife, screenwriter Thea von Harbou, and Peter Lorre. The book’s main character, however, is Berlin. Said Rabb: “Berlin in 1919 was a city that didn’t know what to do. It went through this identity crisis for a very long time, at least until 1936, the year in which the Hoffner trilogy ends. Hoffner resembles the city and over time will become a worse detective but a better man. I think a writer’s duty is to figure out how to condense great scenarios into small stories.”
Which is what Matt Haig does as well. The writer came to Courmayeur to present The Last Family in England and told audiences: “Not all bad things come from bad intentions. Sometimes we do the wrong thing but our original intentions were good. As a writer I think one must work on ambiguity, and emphasize it. It’s not a matter of finding the right answers to things, but of asking the right questions.”
Haig has a habit of making specific Shakespearian references in his work. “I read a lot of fiction, both genre and non, and I cannot compartmentalize it. I can’t do that with my own work either. I’m a narrator and that defines me. I don’t believe writers who say they write only for themselves. If that were true, they wouldn’t have to publish their books. But thinking of the audience doesn’t mean making compromises. Just by putting our thoughts down on paper we make compromises because we don’t think in a structured form – but when we write we have to create a structure for our thoughts. The only important thing is being sure of yourself.” |
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