Books
INTERVIEW WITH STEVE HERMAN ABOUT HIS BOOK,
THE GORDIAN KNOT
How did you get the idea for this book?
It actually came to me in a dream. I dreamed about half of it. A few months later, I was in Greece, and I started to think about Greek mythology, and I thought, well this, if you kind of turn it around, and then turn it inside out, and then do this, it's kind of like the Orestia. Then I just happened to come across the Golden Bough, and realized that the stories were connected, and then wove that in, with the murder scene. And then there were some interesting law school issues, and I just went from there.
Where does the novel take place?
I don't know. I'm not sure why, but, instead of choosing a setting, I just made it up. From scratch. On the one hand, it's probably lazy. Cheating. Don't have the baggage or the limitations of an actual setting. But, I guess you could say that it makes the story more universal.
What makes this book different?
It is, to my knowledge, the only book of its kind. It is a book that's written in the third person, but it's not omniscient. There is no narrator. The reader doesn't see or hear anything that he or she wouldn't see or hear if they weren't standing right there in the room. It's like a movie. It's like the "show, don't tell" you hear about from your teachers, but no one ever actually does it. At least not commercially.
Well, isn't that because, and aren't you concerned that, it's hard for people to "get into it"?
Yes. I'm sure that's a problem for a lot of readers. Or would-be readers. But I, personally, don't like reading these artificial backgrounds, and quirks, and a bunch of other b.s., most of it completely irrelevant, or predictable, or cliche, because someone needs "character development". But the bottom line is that gaps create suspense. I think. The not knowing creates suspense – up to a point. Then you reach a point of diminishing returns, and it's just too confusing, and frustrating, and people put it down. Some people are more "modern" readers; some people like to be spoon-fed more. Depends upon the audience as well.
I've got to believe that someone else has written a third-person non-omniscient book; I learned about that in grammar school.
I'm sure someone has. I'm always looking for it. Every once in a while I will see someone, like Michael Crichton, for example, on Book TV, and someone will say something about not getting into the character's heads and making the book like a movie, and I will run out to the bookstore and flip through his novels, but he's still "cheating" at times to get from point A to point B. Which sounds absurd to criticize him. I'm not saying my way is better. He has sold millions of books. People like that. I'm just trying to do something else. I want to eliminate the narrator. Similar to A Day in the Life of Timothy Stone. Do millions of people want to read a book like that? No, probably not. But there's plenty of books out there. There's no point, in the grand scheme of things, in writing another Airframe. I have the luxury of not having to write for a living. (Except briefs.) If I am going to invest the time to write a book, I want to try to do something different. Not better, necessarily, but at least different.
Does that mean you don't think too much of bestsellers from a literary standpoint?
Not at all. First of all, I might be a snob about a lot of things, but I think that people can and do see value, pleasure, insight, genius, in almost anything. From MTV to the Discovery Channel, Michael Crichton to Shakespeare. And I'm not trying to pick on Michael Crichton. I'm jealous of Michael Crichton. I could never do what he does. I wish I could. But, back to the point, I don't equate commercialism with lack of literary or artistic merit; nor do I equate lack of commercialism with literary value of any kind. A book can be boring, difficult to read, and bad, all at the same time. Or a book could be entertaining, easy to read, and good. I see a lot of literary quality in bestsellers. In Ken Follet books, for example. Umberto Eco. Jonathan Franzen. Can't remember the author's name, but Seven Types of Ambiguity. I think of the Fountainhead as "commercial", and I think that's probably one of the three best novels in American literature.
What are the other two?
The Sound and the Fury and Moby Dick.
