Juan
Benet by Marie-Lise Gazarian Gautier
Benet is the author of numerous novels, short
stories, essays, and, plays. Among his book are Nunca llegaras a nada (You´ll Never Amount to Anything), 1061;
The “region” he describes in many of his
novels is inspired by the settings of
He has lectures extensively both in Europe
and the
This two-part interview was conducted at St.
John´ s University and at the Gramercy Hotel in
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Part I
MLG: Juan,
you are equally successful in two professions: as an engineer and as a writer.
How can you function in both worlds and reconcile them?
JB: Is
very easy, because I do not try to reconcile anything. I am really an engineer
who writes on Sundays and during my free time, which is fairly extensive. For
this very reason, you cannot say that I have two professions, one in which I am
successful, and the other in which I am not, or in which I am successful to a
different degree. I am really a man of one profession, the one that supports
me.
MLG: You
have given many lectures throughout the world: in
JB: Life as engineer is undoubtedly the more
interesting of the two because I get to travel the world and come face to face
with more problems, people, and situations t that are rather unique. Life as a
writer consists of sitting at a desk with a pencil and paper, and the problems
to be faced are purely of a technical nature, which I don´ t think merit the
attention of the public, although perhaps they might be interesting to critics
and professors. On the other hand, life as an engineer, as a “civil engineer”
as it is called here, is undoubtedly far more interesting. I have to live in
the countryside, and each project presents new problems and the opportunity to
meet new people.
MLG: But
isn´ t the same true of your writing? Each work is something new…
JB: Yes, but that is something new in my own
world, it is not something objectively new. It is neither a new landscape nor
new people.
MLG: New
Characters?
JB: They´ re not. Maybe my characters are
always the same boring, tired and taciturn individuals.
MLG: What
are the factors that drive you to write?
JB: The main one is that I have a lot of free
time. All engineers have free time. It is generally assumed that my profession
is very tiring and exhausting. But that is not the case with me. I am an
engineer who likes the country more than the city and the office. Therefore,
even though I live in
MLG: So,
for you, writing is means to let off steam?
JB: To let off steam? No, no, because I am
never steaming. To enjoy myself.
MLG: Jorge
Luis Borges once said he left more like a reader than a writer. Reading your
work, one immediately recognizes your extensive knowledge of world literature.
What does reading mean for you?
JB: I spend a lot of time reading. Not as much
as Jorge Luis Borges used to, but, apart from writing, it is perhaps my
favourite pastime, and the one which takes up the most time.
MLG: You
have a very cosmopolitan vision of the world, but you nevertheless are
thoroughly involved with
JB: I don´ t really think that I have a very
cosmopolitan vision. I don´ t think I am a man of the world, in the sense in
which that expression is understood. It is one thing for thorough involvement
to have nonlocal connotations and perhaps, even if this sounds a bit
presumptuous, universal implications. But I think that any individual who is
truly involved with his surroundings, even though they may be in the most
remote setting, can, should, and finally will achieve that universal
understanding. There are many examples of this. For instance, writers who were
closely constricted in terms of location, like Thomas Hardy in the nineteenth
century, and Faulkner, García Marquez and Rulfo in the twentieth. Because of
their talents, they immediately achieved that universal understanding, using
nothing more than the localisms in which they lived as a resource.
MLG: You
have written novels, short stories, essays, and even plays. With which genre do
you feel most comfortable?
JB: In the one that is most appropriate to the
moment. That depends on inspiration or the first cause. Ultimately, I am not
comfortable with the theatre, and that´ s why I don´t write and plays, because I have no ideas for
it. Recently, a friend of mine, who is a film producer in
MLG: So you
are very independent?
JB: Let us say that my will is more
independent that I am, because I would very interested in doing that script. If
I must be sincere, however, I don´t feel I have enough drive to begin writing
it.
MLG: Do you
believe in inspiration?
JB: Yes, unfortunately I believe in
inspiration. So I move along a shady path.
MLG: In
what short of inspiration do you believe? Divine inspiration? A muse? Enthusiasm? What is for you?
JB: Not divine. Etymologically, enthusiasm
means something like being transported or elated: And that elation is probably
related to strength. Perhaps not a superhuman strength, but certainly a
strength that is greater than the one individuals can muster under
circumstances. But, irrespective of where it comes from, inspiration is a
phenomenon that will not be denied. It moves the author, compelling him to
write. In Latin etymology, inspiration is like infusing breath, it fulfils like
an approaching wind, perhaps the Holy Spirit, so that one is transported. And
since I don´ t have that inspiration for the script, I cannot be moved to write
it. But we shouldn´ t try to explain. It has always seemed to me that looking
for the causes of those phenomena and attempting to psychoanalyze them is
somewhat superfluous. The phenomena occur nevertheless. Someday when you are
walking down the street, for instance, or when you are reading something, or
for any other reason….
MLG: Or at
this very moment?
JB: Or at this very moment an idea springs
forth that can lead to another, which the smallest experience can expand, and
in this way an ensemble of ideas develops, a nebulous set that acquires a shape
of its own, compelling one to write.
MLG: Reading
your work, I notice how dedicated you are to polishing it. What does style mean
to you?
JB: Let ´s distinguish. Polish is one thing
and style is another. If I am dedicated to polishing, it must be because I am
naturally uncouth, so I have to polish in order that the public will accept the
product. It is quite possible that a writer who is more refined than I, and
there are many, does not need as much polish. But the style is something else.
Style, for example, produces raw material, whether it is of good or bad
quality. To go back to etymology, style is like a graving tool which Greek
sculptors used in such a way that, even when two of them were making the same
object at the quarry, one would be distinguishable from the other. It was a
tool used to collect, so that one sculptor would not get paid for an object his
colleague had graves. And that “style”, which Buffon would later qualify as the
most secret and intimate part of an individual, is what makes an object unique
and distinguishable from the competition. That polish which speak of might not
even be necessary, because another tool could come along that would give a work
its finish.
MLG: Do you
believe in a plurality of styles, or in just one?
MLG: Do
your characters speak as Juan Benet?
JB: Yes, how can I not believe in the power of
dialogue? But, we ought to make some distinctions between written dialogue and
the conversation we are having, for instance. Of course, it was very hard for
me to write the first novel I published, Return
to Region. It is very hard for me to do anything. For many years, I tried
sending it to a series of publishers who replied with silence, as was customary
in those days. After scouting for publishers in
MLG: Do you
give priority to style, emotion, or imagination?
JB: I don´ t think that there is any question
of priorities here. Style is a tool. Style is what one has handy to sculpt a
block of stone, which can sometimes be marble, sometimes granite, and sometimes
clay. Style treats feelings, circumstances, and the description of nature is
the same way. It is the most important tool. Giving priority to one thing or
another depends on the paragraph, on that mysterious equilibrium that we are
never sure is going to turn out well. At those moments, a writer may stop and
say: “I need a little more description of the landscape here”, or “I have to
say something about the character there, he is badly drawn,” or “I must make
some philosophical observations”. This is the way it goes. There are no
priorities.
MLG: You
have an analytical mind that makes you a very demanding and original critic. Do
you approach your own work with the same criterion?
JB: For better or for worse. I have a mind
rooted in the study of mathematics. I don´ t know if that gives me analytical
powers, probably not. And if it does, what it usually does not give is the
ability to observe, which is a much more useful tool for a writer.. Coming to
your second point, I think that an accumulation of criteria in exaggerated
proportions and with maximum intensity should be applied to one´ s work. And
for this reason, it is my work that is the only worthwhile thing about me. I
shouldn´ t have to be looming behind it, and I have
nothing to add to it. I thing self-criticism is implicit in every book. And if
a book is written with that awareness, there is nothing to add to it afterward.
I have never understood those writers who complement their books with a
preface, an introduction, or critical notes. Even a writer as complex as Henry
James, in his last novels, when he was at his most creative, devoted himself to
writing prologues expounding on the implications of his characters. He took advantage
of these prologues to comment on the literature of his day, even on the novels
of George Eliot. But I have always thought of this as “superfetation”, or
overexplaining, which indicates in some way the author´s discontent with what
he has done. Another facet of this is that there are many authors who like to
go around the world explaining their work. I recall an anecdote about a famous
dancer from the first quarter of this century, Pavlova, who was once asked:
“How do you explain your art?”, to which she replied, “If I could explain my
art, I wouldn´ t dance”. This is the same thing, I must emphasize that
self-criticism should be implicit in every page of the book.
JB: No, I don´ t think there is much of a
likeness between Vargas Llosa´s work and what I do. In fact, I began to be
published eight to ten years after Mario Vargas Llosa, even though he is much
younger than I am. So there is not even a chronological relation, if we are
going to speak in terms of precise figures. Mario Vargas Llosa began writing
and was published when he was in his twenties. I was first published in my
forties, although I had been writing since the time of Luis Martín Santos. To
tell you the truth, that famous Boom caught us when we were already over the
hill. So there isn´t any parallel between my work and the Boom, whether it be
on stylistic or thematic grounds. My novels are European or Spanish; they don´ t
have much in common with Latin American works. Of course, the language is the
same, but within that language there is room for anything. And yet, even the
Boom is not a unified literary experience. It is a coincidence in time. Look al
the difference there is between Rulfo and Borges.
MLG:
Flaubert wrote a moral chronicle of his age. You work also has moral
ramifications, since it is an account of post war
JB: I don´ t know, but, irrespective of
whether is or not, I wash my hands of it because I do not believe in
categorizing conscience. When a critic says that Flaubert wrote the moral
chronicle of his age, what he is doing is applying a label to evade the far
vaster problem of what is a generalized conscience. When people bring up
concepts like “historical conscience”, what are they really saying? That there
is a part of their conscience that is historic in contrast to another part that
is not? Or that an individual can separate his historic conceptions of the
world from the non historic ones? I believe that conscience is one, and that
not only morality, but history, society, and the world of values in which we
live, are all indissolubly tied to this conscience. In this world of values, an
individual has an awareness of the society and the history of his time, of the
moment in which he was destined to live, of his friends, of his country, of his
landscape, of what the human soul is –which all correspond to what he
experienced. It cannot be any other way. And with regard to that very
pretentious phrase that says that he was the writer or the artist of his age-
who is not? Who is anachronistic? It would be very nice if we could free
ourselves from our moral, social, and historical conditioning, so that we could
travel to another time and another place. But we can´ t.
MLG: Why do
you attach so much importance to the return of your characters?
JB: I don´ t give it any more importance than
if they did not return. There are some characters who return, and others who
stay. Perhaps what I give importance to is the contrast between those who
stayed and those who came back. In the words of a brilliant, contemporary,
young Spanish writer, “Returning is the greatest of infidelities. “ Perhaps you
are referring to the circumstances in which I have depicted some of the
characters of my novels as returning from a somewhat hypocritical exile to face
the basically sordid reality of post war
MLG: You
have said, “The man of letters who writes only about what he knows is a false
scientist. “ Since you are also a man of science who likes to differentiate
between one point and another, what is the proper mix of reality and fantasy
with which you craft your works?
MLG: Region
is a mythical area you invented and where three novels, of your unfinished
cycle take place. How did you come up with Region, that distance town which
symbolizes post war
JB: It is a region of my own making, but it is
not mythical. Ricardo Guyón is the one who said it was mythical, in an article
that he wrote. Other critics continued with that designation, and since then it
has been labeled as such. I came to that area when I finished my engineering
degree, and I began working on some hydroelectric projects in the northwest
MLG: Do you
think censorship caused you to create symbols?
JB: Symbols are created by critics and
professors.
MLG: Why
did you call that world “Region” when it is really
JB: But I didn´ t call it that! I emphasize
that it was a professor who said that Region symbolized
MLG: It has
been said that A meditation is one of
the most important novels of the post war era and one of the most lyrical works
of the last thirty years. What does poetry mean for you?
MLG: have
you written poetry?
JB: I´ m going to reveal that. I don´ t know
how to read it. I have no background for it. I cannot read poetry for more than
half an hour at a stretch. I will never succed in spending a whole afternoon
reading poetry. In the space of one year, if I read one hundred volumes of
prose, I may manage to read three of poetry. So my lyrical education is very
deficient. But that has nothing to do with the designation I gave to that
novel, which was a general definition. When I said that I wanted to give the
first novel an ethical bent, I merely meant that I wanted to describe certain
events that, although not supernatural, are uncommon, singular, and outside the
normal course of things. The epic is always the narration of extraordinary
events with words that are very normal. Leaving aside the shape this
description can take, the lyrical can in some way be described as the narration
of normal events with very cautiously chosen words. But there are no great
conflicts or catastrophes. Narration is the conjunction between both things in
a neutral zone.
MLG: In A Meditation there is not just one
pilot, but rather a series of arguments that help sustain the structure of the
novel. You give readers a puzzle, and leave it to them to put the pieces
together. Do you see the work of art as an exercise in hieroglyphics? Why do you
force your reader to do mental gymnastics?
JB: It is possible that readers may see A Meditation as a challenge to which
they have to respond by deciphering and unthreading a tangled ball. But that´ s
not the point at all. Moreover, that jumbled web is not sufficiently thought
out, so it can´t be unravelled. And
anyone who tries to is wasting his time. That book is like a tangled web
because that is its aesthetic, but is it meant to be read or enjoyed line by
line and phrase by phrase, without any further ado. And if the general flow of
the novel is broken at some point, well it is broken, and it is not necessary
to know the relationship between some characters and others, or the temporal
sequence of events that are described, or the chronology, or the geographical
setting. Everything is as is, no more. If the reader accustomed to analyzing,
conditioned by logical puzzles, and steeped in my mystery novels, wants to
untangle the ball, then fine. But I can warm him right now that he will reap no
rewards, because that is not the main objective of this novel.
MLG: You
wrote that novel without paragraphs. It is true that you used a continuous roll
of paper with your typewriter?
JB: Yes.
MLG: Why?
To convey that continuity?
JB: No, I didn´ t want to write on a continuous roll of paper like toilet paper. What I did, with the help of a carpenter friend of mine, was to built a device, which we place behind the typewriter, so that the paper would enter the carriage and then wind itself into another roll. I did this on purpose so that as I wrote the text, what I was writing would get rolled up and out of view. I wanted to trust in my memory alone, even when it might introduce contradictions, breaks, and falsehoods into the text. So, this is what I did, even if it meant creating a mess. When I finished the roll, and the publisher asked me to give it a somewhat more accessible form before printing it, I wrote it in folios with the same device. And then, of course, I corrected certain structural brutalities, and in a way I amended the text fairly extensively. But I stuck to the basic system I had developed of not depending on anything more than what I remembered from the previous day. I won a prize for that book, by the way.
MLG: What
did you think when you read the English version of that work?
JB: It is much better in English than in
Spanish.
MLG: Why?
JB: Because MR. Rabassa did an excellent translation, and I think the book is more interesting and readable in English than in Spanish. The Spanish version was well received but little read. I don’t know if it will be equally well received in English, but I´ m sure that, thanks to Rabassa, it will probably be more extensively read. He has accomplished the remarkable feat of making me read my own novel twice. It was very interesting, because I had practically forgotten the work, and many of the pages written with an English phrasing sounded quite new. I liked it.
MLG: What
does destiny mean for you?
JB: In a way, destiny is a conjunction of
circumstances.
MLG: And
what about time? Do you like to play with it?
JB: No, time likes to play with me. I don´ t
play with time. Time plays with me the way a master plays with his disciple, or
the way a boxer spars. It is time what teaches us, and I am just one more
person. I understand that I am a bad student, and that time, that old teacher,
sometimes gets impatient with me and throws me out of the classroom. But all I
try to do is follow that whimsical and irreducible master, and take advantage
of “his” complex and never-ending lessons.
Part II
MLG: Do you
still work as an engineer?
JB: Yes, and I will never stop working as long
as they put up with me. I will never stop working because, first of all, that´s
how I make my living. Secondly, even if I could earn a livelihood writing, I
would prefer to write in my spare time. To be a writer, you really only need to
be al home between eight and ten every evening.
MLG: Which
do you prefer?
JB: I can´ t say. But in any case, I don´ t
want to give up being an engineer until I have to retire.
MLG: Your
experiences as an engineer have undoubtedly influenced you.
JB: Yes, because, as I told you, my first
experience was living in a very unusual place, the mountains of León, where I
spent ten years. The view from my window became the basis for the world I
called Region. But I have few anecdotes to tell. Life as an engineer is like
any other. There were some encounters that were interesting, like meeting some
old miners, or an aged guerrilla. In the world of public works, there are
always very varied people.
MLG: And
where do your characters spring from?
JB: From the imagination, although sometimes
the characters have certain traits of people I have known. But generally I don´
t draw exact likenesses.
MLG: You
recently said samething very interesting about style. You said that structure
was the most important thing for you. Do you think the reason for this is that
you are an engineer, so that structure is fundamental?
JB: I´ ve been told that before, but the structures that an engineer thinks of are definitely very different from those that a writer imagines. Perhaps I cannot avoid the need to have some sort of structure. But it is as if you said to me, “You are an engineer,so your house has to be arranged in a set fashion. “Well, you can be an engineer and have a very chaotic house.
MLG: And is
your house chaotic?
JB: No, it isn´t. I have to admit it isn´t. My
life is very simple and peaceful. I have a little to boast about.
MLG: Do you
feel humble before your work?
JB: I don´ t care to be like those mothers who
speak about their children as if they were the most handsome, intelligent, and
outstanding in their class.
MLG: Do you
see yourself as an intellectual writer?
JB: I have never understood what is meant by
“intellectual”. What does it mean? In contrast to the United States, in Europe
an intellectual is understood to be someone who delves in politics and embodies
certain political ideals, be they of the Right or the Left, although they
usually more leftist. Those are the European intellectuals. In the
MLG: Or like Borges in
JB: Or like Borges, of course. But in
MLG: Do you
have any new projects in the works?
JB: No, this last one will take a long time,
perhaps two or three years. And once it is done, I will have covered the Civil
War definitively, I hope. I cannot imagine or see beyond this.
MLG: So you
think that after two years you will finally be done with the Civil War?
JB: Yes, personally, I will be. Although I
don´ t discount the possibility that I may write a book of essays on the war
someday, from the point of view of its military operations. But that would no
longer be fiction. And until I finish this novel, I don´ t plan to devote
myself to anything else.
MLG: It´ s
incredible the impact the Civil War continues to have, even after all these
years.
JB: Yes, but it is nothing to marvel about.
Keep in mind that Tolstoy wrote War and Peace
eighty years after the invasion of Napoleon, and Faulkner wrote his saga eighty
years after the Civil War in the
MLG: You
have produced a remarkable work, for which you even invented a map. What
willpower?
JB: That is more a product of free time and a
willingness to have fun than willpower. It´ s a lot of fun to draw a map. The
places on the map, by the way, are almost all named after my friends.
MLG: Do
they know it?
JB: Yes, they do.
