Helllooooo, Serbia!

So, a few days ago, a guy named Zeljko Obrenovic pitched up in my inbox and said ‘hi’, and shall we do an interview to appear on his website in Serbian. Since I am a publicity slut of the first water and a grand high mugwumpist of promotiness, I said ‘yes’.

While he translates the whole thing into Serbian, Zeljko is content that the piece should appear on this site in English, because, basically, the guy is pretty relaxed. So you actually may be reading it before Serbia, which seems slightly unfair, but on the other hand you get it without all the cool accents and other stuff which Serbian requires, so you’re really the poorer.

Several other observations:

If Zeljko’s Facebook friends are anything to go by, Serbia is populated exclusively by gorgeous people who are unwholesomely good at graphic design.

Serbia looks like a really interesting place – although, clearly, we’re going to start feeling that they don’t love us if we don’t get some points in Oslo in 2010 – more people from the UK should go there and get to know it, because frankly it’s a bit shameful that we don’t know very much about it.

I want to go to the Tesla Museum. ‘Cos, you know. Tesla!

Anyway… here’s the good stuff:

1. Your first novel is a mixture of adventure and post-apocalyptic war story. With ninjas, of course. So much influences in one book. Is it accumulated inspiration or something else?

I was boiling over! I’d been writing film scripts, which can be very constrained, and I wanted desperately to do something fun. I wanted to break out of the box, and I just allowed everything into the story which felt as if it could be there.

2. Where did you get idea to put ninjas in your novel? I must say it was one of the things that made me read it.

Ninjas are great. They’re fun because they suggest that one person can be an effective force, can make a real difference. The ninja, like the gangster or the boy wizard, is someone who can bring an army to heel. And they’re soooo 70s. They have a kind of retro charm for me.

I think the most important thing in an adventure is the villain. If the villain is scary, the hero can be properly heroic. Otherwise, no. Anyone who can take on a big group of ninjas is someone you can look up to.

3. Your novel is full of reflections in a way Chuck Palahniuk’s books are. Do you think that being aware of modern world and its threat is most important for an author?

It’s very important. I try not to think too much about the ‘task of the artist’ and so on; I think it interferes with writing to theorise too much. But the world is not what we think it is. It is infintely more complex and interconnected, and the threats we face are often things we simply haven’t paid attention to and do not understand.

One of the things which drives me crazy is that otherwise quite intellectual people – especially in the UK – somehow believe that it is acceptable to say “Oh, I don’t really understand anything about science.” They’d be horrified if someone said “oh, well, books aren’t for me” but to ignore the whole of science is somehow okay. That’s insane. Science reveals more and more about our world and ourselves, and writers cannot write about the world entirely without reference to those understandings. And yet many do, and no one picks them up on it.

4. Just before your novel, I’d read Generation Kill. I must say there are some similarities, a tone which gave validity to fantasy elements. Did you think about that?

I read Generation Kill as part of my research. I’ve never been a soldier and I didn’t want to make an idiot of myself. You’re never going to convey war if you haven’t been in one, but I wanted to do something which wasn’t stupid. I was fine with someone saying “it’s not actually like that,” but I was horrified by the idea that they would feel I had trivialised or mistaken the whole thing.

So I read that, and Jarhead, and some other things. It seems to have been enough.

5. How much research did you do for The Gone-Away World?

Well, some, as I say, but in the end, I made up the world from what I knew and what I thought would make it interesting. Other than a little work to be sure my war wasn’t ridiculous, I let the story take care of itself.

6. Do you love your book? (I know a lot of writers who hate their books when they are finished, but enjoy the process of writing.)

Right now, I’m slightly in awe of it. I’m terrified that people won’t love the second one as much. I do love The Gone-Away World, though. I read bits to myself and sort of forget that I wrote it and I think “wow, this guy’s not bad!” and then I remember it’s me. Good feeling.

I don’t really believe in writing-as-therapy or writing-as-process; I just want to tell a story. I leave the other stuff to other writers. So for me, if I re-read my own work and hated it, that would be a disaster.

Which is not to say I don’t look at the book and go “Oh, hey, I could have done that better. Hm. There’s a bit here which should go ten pages later, and this bit…” etc.

But at some point, you have to stop. It’s better to put the book out there and let people enjoy it than to fiddle around with your last one percent trying to make it perfect. It’s never perfect.

7. Do you watch TV-shows such as Lost, The Wire, Middleman, Veronica Mars? Some tell that’s the future of media. And that movies are surpassed. What do you think?

I’m a big fan of House, and of My Own Worst Enemy, and some other things. I think The Wire is a masterwork. I don’t think movies have been superceded any more than theatre or books. The experience is different.

The problems for media are elsewhere – I think there are going to be more and more battles over copyright and so on, and ultimately people are going to have to accept that the production process for media costs money and if they demand that everything is free, quality will suffer. That said, copyright holders have to loosen up, and start making more of their new opportunities. It’s a complex issue.

But to answer your question, I’m not sure that one medium replaces another any more. I think maybe that’s one of the traits of Late or Post Modernity: nothing goes away.

8. Your favorite novel of all time is?

I have no idea. There are too many. I love Einstein’s Dreams. I’m re-reading that at the moment.

9. The best novel recently?

I read a translation of Paris Noir, which was amazing.

10. Your favorite comic-book?

I’m a huge POWERS fan.

11. The best comic-book recently?

Probably Fables. But there’s a lot of great stuff around.

12. Favorite comic-book character?

Again, so many. But from the mainstream, I’m a Batman fan, preferably when he’s written by Grant Morrison.

13. Which super-power would you like to have?

Definitely as many as possible. But if you’re making me choose, I’ll take Wolverine’s healing factor.

14. Can you tell us something about the book you’re working on?

Well, I can say something very general; if you think of The Gone-Away World as a western, this new one is a gangster story.

15. Would you like to come in Serbia and promote your work?

I’d love to at some point. I have a friend who goes there all the time and says it’s wonderful. Do you think I’d be welcome?