JOSE DONOSO
35
ary stuff. For a young boy it was okay, I suppose. But somehow I
am not really a painter at all , at all. For me, the movies came very
late in life and painting came very,
very
early . I remember
huge
fights with my father over Ingres when I was about twelve . And
that was very much my world. In my life one of the great things
has been the visual arts: painting, sculpture , but especially archi–
tecture, urbanism, gardening.
Christ:
The Boom in Latin American painting has not been nearly as
widely recognized as the Boom in literature. Is that a question of
quality or publicity?
Donoso:
I don't think publicity has anything to do with it, actually,
and I don't think that quality has a great deal to do with it either .
In the first place, the world of plastic art at this point is in a
very
difficult spot. It speaks to very few people; it speaks to very few
minds. And it hasn't really renovated itself to a great extent, and
it hasn't found a voice the way that I think the novel did find
vOIces.
Christ:
But you are concerned with the "plastic" quality of literature,
aren't you? I have heard you speak of Hemingway's "transpar–
ency," of Proust's "density," of your not liking to have pages of
solid type in your novels .
Donoso:
There's a pretty tightly connected ecology within each novel.
The "plastic" quality of the written page , which I tend to be fussy
about, is another link in that ecology, an unconscious component
which, by focusing the in-attention on itself, liberates the imagi–
nation to concentrate on other aspects of writing.
It
is, neverthe–
less, a very minor link - as far as I know - of the ecology of my
novels.
Christ:
Related to this question of density is the question of audience.
Whom do you think of as your audience?
Donoso:
You . People like you . People who are sensitive, intelligent,
and probably well-read. You know, I would love to be popular,
God knows, but I know I never will be. Not because I make great
intellectual demands because, after all, outside of
The Bird,
none
of my books is very demanding-pretty simple and straightfor–
ward things .
The Bird
is demanding - I recognize that. My books
are not easy only in the sense that they're not easy to relate to.
People like to relate to things; people like to see themselves pic–
tured, like to see themselves reflected. This I don't do with great
ease . And then people like to be right in the middle , in the hub of
life, of contemporary life. I'm not. I am not . I don't relate to that.
