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The
Saturday Boy
Dan Rhodes
interview by
Jon Andriessen
Dan Rhodes has written two collections of short stories,
Anthropology and a hundred other stories and Don't Tell Me the
Truth About Love, as well as the award winning novel Timoleon Vieta
Come Home: A Sentimental Journey. In 2003 he moved publishers from
Fourth Estate to Canongate and was subsequently listed by Granta as
one of the Best Young British Novelists.
Jon Andriessen: A lot of people, both readers and writers, become
involved with books to escape the pettiness of the real world. To what
extent has your experience as a writer opened you up to the pettiness of
the media and publishing industries?
 Dan
Rhodes: I’ve already been awarded an MBE for my whinging, so I don’t
think I’ve got much else to prove with my weapons-grade negativity. And
also, things are trundling along quite nicely for me at the moment, and a
lot of that has to do with having a good publisher and lots of people who
write for newspapers being nice about my stuff, so I’ve now seen both
sides of the biz. I’m selling a few books and I’m able to keep away from
real work, so I can’t complain any more. Ah, I miss the old days…
JA: Is the institution of literary awards a metaphorical weapon of
mass destruction for any free thinking writer?
DR: Two days ago I would have given you a ten thousand word
diatribe against the whole awards scene, but I’ve just won my first prize
ever (the QPB New Voices Award in America, which will pay for my bathroom
to be done up – it’s been horribly avocado since I moved in five years
ago) so I’m afraid I’m particularly well-disposed towards the awards scene
at the moment. Really though, it’s something not to take too seriously.
DBC Pierre very obviously didn’t set out to win the Booker with Vernon
God Little, so it’s really great that he won it. Among writers,
award-chasers are pathetic creatures. There are lots of them out there,
too. Awards are a nice boost if they drift by, but they don’t really mean
a thing beyond giving authors an ego trip and an opportunity to de-avocado
their bathrooms.
 JA: After reading Anthropology, could you tell me whether
it’s better to have loved and lost, than never loved at all? And is
Anthropology a pretty fair assessment of modern love?
DR: I think it must be great to never have loved at all. Imagine a
world that isn’t peopled with ex-girlfriends. I wrote Anthropology
thinking that it was putting a lid on a particular period of my romantic
life, but it didn’t work. Since then I have continued to be tormented by
beautiful girls with extraordinary names.
JA: Which book do you wish you had written?
DR: Many. If I had to choose one, today it would be Rhapsody
by Dorothy Edwards, a criminally forgotten Welsh writer who threw herself
under a train at 31, before she had a chance to get old and boring. It’s a
collection of short stories that is a very serious lesson for any writer
of fiction. I defy any author not to feel dwarfed by her. 31 is the age to
commit suicide in obscurity - John Kennedy Toole did it too. I’m 32 in
three weeks time, so hopefully I’ll have made it past the danger point.
JA: Modern writers are increasingly being urged by their publishers
to promote their books with tours and readings around the globe. Has the
image of the writer become more important then the text?
DR: Salinger said something about how an author’s face should never
be known, and I agree that that is the ideal. Total invisibility is the
perfect situation, but being realistic there’s an element of the
travelling salesman that it’s almost impossible
 to escape from
in the current publishing climate if you’re going to find readers. The
image of the writer is much more important than it should be. The
four-line potted biography in a book can be more important than the book
itself, in sales terms. It’s deeply unhealthy, but it’s something I
secretly plan to have lots and lots of fun with… Tours can be bloody
marvellous too. Last year I travelled all over Great Britain and visited
Ireland, Spain, America, Canada and Holland in the name of work. There are
worse jobs in the world, but it really is a shame that authors who really
can’t do that, for whatever reason, might be disregarded. Also, every
author I’ve spoken to about this has said that the promotional rounds are
absolutely creatively debilitating, so I think it’s important to know when
to say a firm NO to promotional activities and shut out the world and
start writing again.
JA: How did you end up opening for The Flaming Lips on your last
book tour?
DR: There’s a fantastic festival in Holland called Crossing Border
which mixes music, film and literature. I can thoroughly recommend it to
anyone fancying a weekend away in November. You buy one ticket and wander
around about a million stages. The first year I did it (2000) I opened a
stage that my heroes The Magnetic Fields closed, and last year I happened
to be scheduled just before The Flaming Lips, which was a great end to the
tour. I watched them from the side of the stage, but sadly I was too
bashful to ask Wayne if I could join in.
JA: Which would you prefer, performing with The
Flaming Lips at Glastonbury or S-Club Juniors on Top of the Pops?
DR: Well, 'New Direction'
by S-Club Juniors is, undeniably, a world class pop song. Apart from that
they are reprehensible on every level. So I think The
Flaming Lips would be better. Certainly for my reputation.
 JA:
Although much of your writing seems to revolve around a romantic ideal of
beauty, love and loss, you seem to usurp any of the sentimentality often
associated with these themes by incorporating large spoonfuls of absurdity
and bathos. Do you believe in love and can it ever be taken seriously?
DR: Hell yeah. Of course I believe in it. Yes, it can be taken
seriously but not in a po-faced way. Life’s too ridiculous for that. As I
type I’m listening to 'The Saturday Boy'
by Billy Bragg – I think him and Mozzer and Gedge must have been formative
influences. They all combined heartache and humour. When I was writing
Anthropology I was trying to get fiction as close to the pop song as
it had ever got. I think I succeeded too. I really can’t think of a book
that’s as pop as Anthropology. I just wish it had had big pop
sales.
JA: Have you ever written anything now published that you regret or
wish you could revise?
DR: No. I stand by everything in all my books. When Anthropology
gets reprinted there’s one word that’s being changed but that’s because it
has something to do with somebody who I loathe from the very pit of my
stomach and whose fingerprints don’t deserve to be on the book. I wouldn’t
write any of my books the same way now, but that doesn’t mean I’m not
ludicrously proud of them. They’re better for me not writing them now.
Interviews are different. As you may have noticed, I don’t half spout a
load of cobblers in interviews.
 JA:
Is there an English translation of the name Timoleon Vieta?
DR: Er… Dunno.
JA: You often talk about retiring from writing.
If you do decide not to write another book, would you consider
selling the copyright of your name on Ebay so that someone else could make
use of it?
DR: I tried it once, but it didn’t meet its reserve of £1.50. There
was someone in Portugal offering £1.25, but they just wouldn’t go up…
© Jon
Andriessen
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