I was asked by “Writing Magazine” to fill out a questionnaire for a new author interview they may be doing about me later this year (yippee!), and one of the questions they asked was about whether I had any especially interesting experiences surrounding the research I did for “Tangled Roots”. I actually had been thinking about this quite a bit lately, as it happens, because the main research I did for the book was to go to Moscow and see what present day life was like there, check out the scientific community, and investigate what remains of a Jewish population. I came away with a very clear impression of what it might be like for a Westerner to live and work in Moscow in a time which I thought would be a sort of generic “now.” And that’s what I wrote about. Luckily, as I wrote the book, the date of the action became very precise, ie June-December 2004, and I say luckily because what I discovered back then is certainly not the case now.
When I spent my week in Moscow, travelling around with a personal guide, seeing sights both on and off the tourist trail, I was experiencing what I now understand to be a very unique window in the history of Russia. 2004 was a time when capitalism was new and exciting, and a Western-style democracy seemed desirable and within reach. People were starting businesses. Everyone was exploring new ways to make money, and each regular Sergei freely talked about what he thought and what he was doing. But now, four years later, Russia is different. Or, perhaps, it is back to what we had always thought it was, and my brief window is what is different. It all makes me think about the use of time in fiction and the question of verisimilitude. I have always thought that when writing fiction, you don’t need to go for “the probable,” just “the possible.” But the world, and especially politics, moves very quickly now, and what was once possible a few short months ago, may not be possible today, or perhaps ever again.
Yet the more things change, the more they stay the same. Have my concerns moved on all that much from, say, Shelley, when he was writing in the early 1800’s? Here’s the first stanza of his fabulous and important poem, “Mutability.” He says it better, of course, than any:
The flower that smiles today
Tomorrow dies;
All that we wish to stay,
Tempts and then flies.
What is this world’s delight?
Lightning that mocks the night,
Brief even as bright.
That’s really interesting. I must admit that so far I’ve veered away from writing fiction about things other than my ‘here and now’. Maybe I should give it a go.
But I wonder if, despite the politics, people’s lives are basically the same, maybe harder maybe easier for some. Basic human drives don’t change. I think we give the external world too much power sometimes? Cor, that was a bit thoughtful for me!
that’s very interesting – our ‘now’ changes so fast, you’re right, and I do think our ‘who’ is , aside from the universal things, shaped by their era. think of people’s reactions to something like ‘Lady Chatterly’ from smuggling it in from Paris, reading it under the bedclothes,(guiltily, I bet), to the trial and the WH Smith paperback.How yoru average person would feel toward someone who admitted to reading the book way back then..and what about the person who read it? It’s a whole snake pit of attitudes and behaviour.
What a bit of serendipity that you got to Moscow at that time.
That was really interesting to read!! My cousin was in Russia studying politics in 2004 so I’ve heard quite a lot about the changes that took place there (both physical and mental). I shall recommend he goes and gets a copy of your book when it’s available
C x
Thanks all. And C — thanks for thinking of telling your cousin about the book. The May launch is (frighteningly) just around the corner! xo