"The evil is in each one of us"
Carlos Ruiz Zafón wears jeans and a sweatshirt with unmistakable Ralph Lauren inscription. Although it's lunchtime, he does not want to eat, but settles for a Coke Zero. He seems very calm, not tired, not tense, not excited about the success of his new bestseller, "The Game of the Angel" (Carlos Ruiz Zafón: "The Game of the Angel", t: Peter Schwaar, 713 p., 24, 95 euros, S. Fischer Verlag), in Germany. Enviable, this inexperience, one might think. The author answers all questions in perfect English, almost always in the same low pitch. A Zafónomat? No, he is too sympathetic for that.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde WOMAN: Señor Zafón, we are sitting here in a stylish Berlin hotel. Can you talk about the scary in such a cool place?
Carlos Ruiz Zafón: Oh, no problem.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde WOMAN: Her new book is even darker than "The Shadow of the Wind". Barcelona as a scene is rainy, windy, scary - actually to run away. Do you want to salty the soup for the tourism managers?
Carlos Ruiz Zafón: I do not want to show a realistic picture, do not write a travel guide. I know the city very well, I was born and raised there. Of course there is also a touristy Barcelona, with nice shops and boulevards, but that's not the actual city. The soul of Barcelona is rather dark for me, and that fits in with the scary elements in my books.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde WOMAN: You've been home in California for 14 years, commuting back and forth between Barcelona and Los Angeles. A pretty contrast program.
Carlos Ruiz Zafón: Definitely. Already as a child I knew that I wanted to leave Spain, from Barcelona, I found the city already oppressive. There are many beautiful buildings, but they belong to a past time. I'm interested in what's going on in literature, in cinema, in music today. I find all that in California. It stimulates me, and I do not feel like a stranger there.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde WOMAN: As a child, you went to a Jesuit school in Barcelona for eleven years, a huge red brick building. Did you scurry there?
Carlos Ruiz Zafón: Not at all. The building has inspired my imagination, these tall towers, long corridors, stairs, shadows. The architecture of the shudder, the uncanny interested me. I came up with hauntings and ghost stories that suited the ambience. In addition, the Cathedral of the Sagrada Familia by Gaudí has attracted me a lot. I grew up very close and always slipped in as a child.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde WOMAN: Secret tunnels, hidden trap doors?
Carlos Ruiz Zafón: Well, not so mysterious. But in the past, the cathedral was rather neglected, no one paid any attention to it, while today it is one of Barcelona's main attractions. I knew all the entrances, went into the crypt, ran everywhere, I liked the bizarre, slightly maddened church. Others find it grim and morbid, and certainly that's true. But I wanted to know how it is built, how the optical effects come about. That's why I was not scared. If you know how a trick works, it has no power over you.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde WOMAN: So it's a misconception that someone who is at home in the genre of the horror novel is a weird, world-shy type?
Carlos Ruiz Zafón: In my case this is certainly not true. I am a rational guy and not someone who acts from the gut - neither in life nor in writing.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde WOMAN: You once said that your novels are like "word cathedrals" to you.
Carlos Ruiz Zafón: For me, writing is comparable to the work of an architect. I find it exciting how individual parts create a complex whole.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde WOMAN: But you do not build sober offices, but always scary locks. And the reader gets, without realizing it, in its spell. Why does the uncanny really fascinate us like that?
Carlos Ruiz Zafón: Because our innermost feelings are addressed: fears, desires, greed, aggression. We would like to banish them, but they are ours and we are forced to deal with them.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde WOMAN: There is also something like pleasure-fear, the secret joy of scare.
Carlos Ruiz Zafón: horror stories hit this nerve. We know that our usual security zone is breaking, and suddenly we are in the middle of menacing feelings. We defend ourselves, but we can not escape.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde WOMAN: What happens to the reader when, in your new book, he traces David Martín's story, which concludes a Faustian pact with the cynical publisher Corelli?
Carlos Ruiz Zafón: He embraces Martíns fears, his hopes, his anxiety. As Martín runs out of gas, the reader identifies with him and inevitably asks: what would I do in his place? What do I discover when I look into my own soul?
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde WOMAN: But ultimately, we know that what we read is art worlds.
Carlos Ruiz Zafón: Nevertheless, they stir a lot in us. The evil - for example in the form of Corelli - is scary to us, because it is in us as well. It's easy to believe it's from some demons whispering evil things in our ears. We would like to see ourselves as good people, evil does not fit into our narcissistic, selfish love concept.
"In a world full of lies, the genre of the horror novel thrives especially"
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde WOMAN: I understand that scary novels are a kind of training camp for the soul. But do not they also offer the possibility of fleeing from reality because they lead us into completely different worlds?
Carlos Ruiz Zafón: Of course, escapism is also involved. If the books are well done, they will actually kidnap us. At the same time they bring us back to the back door of reality - that is, the reality of our feelings. It is no coincidence that the genre of horror novels flourishes especially in times when the world is full of lies. The Victorian era in England was morally rigid, very hypocritical, and it was at this time that many horror novels came into existence. They have the function of a valve and lead us indirectly to our repressed feelings.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde WOMAN: Here we are with Dr. med. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the man with the two faces from the famous novel by Robert Louis Stevenson. Where is your Mr. Hyde hidden?
Carlos Ruiz Zafón: Hm.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde WOMAN: Or would you say that this dark side is not yours?
Carlos Ruiz Zafón: Yes, of course. But I try to be reasonably acceptable as a human, considerate of my surroundings. When I sense negative feelings - jealousy or whatever - I want to understand them before I go blind.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde WOMAN: Sounds good. But you have not yet answered the Mr. Hyde question.
Carlos Ruiz Zafón: Difficult.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde WOMAN: Is there a quality you do not like about yourself?
Carlos Ruiz Zafón: I'm afraid I have a tendency to be selfish, not paying enough attention to other people's interests.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde WOMAN: Were you as a child already?
Carlos Ruiz Zafón: I was a bit strange, at least my parents and teachers saw it that way. At school I was fatally bored, I felt pressed into a mold and my thoughts were elsewhere, in the clouds. I had friends, but I still felt alone. My favorite part was my own world, the world of books and movies. Even as a kid I've read a lot: Charles Dickens, Robert Louis Stevenson, but also a lot of comics.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde WOMAN: Do you still have that feeling of strangeness today?
Carlos Ruiz Zafón: Yes, but it does not bother me that much anymore. I probably just got used to it. As a child, I really suffered from it ...
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde WOMAN: ... and to make up for it, dreaming of someday becoming a famous writer.
Carlos Ruiz Zafón: Exactly. I was overprotective. At the age of eight, I knew that writing was my destiny. As a teenager I wrote a monstrously thick novel and sent it to several publishers. The publishers found the book peculiar, but some encouraged me to keep going. I was very impatient. I wanted the world to move as fast as my brain, but that did not work, life has its own rhythm.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde WOMAN: Did your parents help you become a writer?
Carlos Ruiz Zafón: Not at all. My dad thought it was a suicidal thing, that I was going to die of hunger. He would much have preferred that I had become a doctor or a lawyer. He himself came from a very modest family and had to work hard as an insurance agent. After all, he liked to read and had a high opinion of the world of books. Nevertheless, his own son should not write any better.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde WOMAN: Your father's fears have not been confirmed, you have fulfilled your dream.
Carlos Ruiz Zafón: That's right. However, the ambitious child has never disappeared from my consciousness. If the zafón of today says: It's all right, what you do, what you write, says Carlos, the child: That's not enough, you could do better.Then I would like to say to him: be quiet, leave me alone, I'll do what I can.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde WOMAN: Does Carlos make you unhappy?
Carlos Ruiz Zafón: Not that. But when I was younger, I always felt I was too late. When I published my first book at 28, I thought I was very old. Today, the pressure is not so strong, but I would not say: I am satisfied as I am.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde WOMAN: Can you really enjoy it?
Carlos Ruiz Zafón: I like beautiful things, music is my passion, occasionally I compose too. Life is short, and before it's over, we should be grateful for the good sides. I'm not only rational.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde WOMAN: David Martín in your new book looks a lot different than you at first glance: he works like a berserker, is constantly overheated, nervous, drives depletion with his health. Are there still parallels between you and the character?
Carlos Ruiz Zafón: You are right: I am much cooler than Martín. But there are parallels. We're both writers, and he has a skeptical worldview, like me. I would put it this way: David Martín is a possible different version of my person.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde WOMAN: What does that mean?
Carlos Ruiz Zafón: Under other conditions, maybe I would have become like him. There are always different possibilities of our self, we all carry different people in us, but a version comes into play, depending on the circumstances of life.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde WOMAN: Is one fixed in the course of his life on a version?
Carlos Ruiz Zafón: I think we have more choices than we think. We should always try to evolve, to become a better version of ourselves.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde WOMAN: Would you say that you are currently a good version of yourself?
Carlos Ruiz Zafón: I do not know. If I look at myself now, I would say, it's okay.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde WOMAN: That does not sound good.
Carlos Ruiz Zafón: Well, I work on myself.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde WOMAN: Can you imagine having children?
Carlos Ruiz Zafón: Not so concrete, but I do not rule it out. Life means that something happens when you have other plans. Until now, my books have been my children, to whom I spend a lot of time ...
"The night is my vampire time"
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde WOMAN: ... and this always happens at night when all cats are gray.
Carlos Ruiz Zafón: Exactly. I write very late, from midnight to sunrise - this is my vampire time. Some writers write at dawn, but that's not my time.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde WOMAN: So maybe your books are so dark and mysterious because you write at the witching hour?
Carlos Ruiz Zafón: I do not think so. I would write the same way if I sat in a café at lunchtime, with many people around me. I prefer to work at night, because there are no calls, no distractions.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde WOMAN: In your novels one has the feeling that writing and reading are something sacred. There are beautiful old bookstores, passionate readers and even a cemetery of forgotten books. Is this perhaps a kind of evocation: that the book does not die out in times of internet, television and electronic books?
Carlos Ruiz Zafón: I believe that the book has a long way to go, that literature and storytelling will always play an important role. We learn through stories, communicate through stories, they express our values, our beliefs. Books are part of us.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde WOMAN: So no chant on the book.
Carlos Ruiz Zafón: No, certainly not.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde WOMAN: Most of all, you like fantastic fabrics, and it's fitting that your friends call you "Dragon." Would it bother you to go down in literary history with this nickname?
Carlos Ruiz Zafón: Not at all. I like kites, Barcelona is a city of dragons, you can find them everywhere, on many facades. At home I have a collection of at least 400 toy dragons, a large part of which I got from friends.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde WOMAN: Does your wife call you "Dragon"?
Carlos Ruiz Zafón: Sure. That does not mean that I spit fire at home, devour princesses or kill knights in shiny armor - at least not all the time. So: I'm more of a nice, reliable dragon.
About Carlos Ruiz Zafón
Carlos Ruiz Zafón was born in Barcelona in 1964, where he also grew up. There he first worked as a copywriter in an agency. In 1993 he published his first novel, "The Prince of the Mist". Zafón went to Los Angeles in 1994, writing novels, scripts and articles for Spanish newspapers.After several youth books he published his novel "The Shadow of the Wind" in 2001, which sold around ten million copies worldwide and has been translated into more than 30 languages. Carlos Ruiz Zafón is married since 1993, his wife is a translator.
