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book, and I'm writing it quite easily. All my symbols are there,
and I'm also playing with time, with different ideas of time, with
all sorts of things like servants whom we feel to be there but who
never actually speak, for example, and with little children who
speak like grownups.
Christ:
What about its language or
idioma?
Donoso:
I use a language that is stilted, that which was used in the
prose of the last century. It's very much the prose of the Marquesa
de San Coeur. It's recovering that language, that possibility of a
novel. It's really an attitude towards life , a language is always an
attitude toward life.
Christ:
What about the language of Poe?
Donoso:
Oh, very much. He's the first short story writer I ever read.
It's pretty clear that you Americans invented the short story in its
modern form and that in America the short story is the greatest in
the world . We, I think , became aware of the short story through
American fiction and we were very much influenced by American
fiction at one point. But I have to talk about Poe as a very young
reader. I never read him again. Certainly he was a huge figure of
romanticism and the gothic. I mean, I certainly think I under–
stand gothicism through my relation with Poe as a young man, or
as a boy, really . I read Poe in English when I was what - twelve?
And I was absolutely fascinated . Native authors were read to
rebel against them, native authors being Spanish and Spanish–
American ones. Reading foreign writers meant a transgression
into another area.
Christ:
Wouldn't you place your stuff in the gothic tradition?
Donoso:
Well , I certainly think that there is a lot there . I mean, cer–
tainly I would relate to that.
Christ:
Are there any English-language writers who have importance
for you right now?
Donoso:
At this point? Funnily enough, you see - I think this is true
all the time - while one is being influenced, one doesn't notice the
influence . One only sees it in retrospect. So, I may be influenced
at this point by anything ... but I don't think I am, I don't feel it.
And I wouldn't know whom I could place my hands on. I read my
Latin American contemporaries with avid interest, curiosity–
and malevolence. I read them. I just can't stay away from them.
Then I read whatever falls into my hands pretty much. I'm not a
very tidy reader at all. I stroll all over the place. Since I've been
here , what have I read? A lot of Doris Lessing-somebody I
