Ale v rámci propagace svého oblíbeného autora bych rád přetiskl jeho odpověď na na otázku "Proč to vlastně čteme?"
Q: Returning to the “essential narratives”, you give four novels as examples – Frankenstein, Doctor Jekyll And Mr Hyde, Animal Farm, and Nineteen Eighty-Four. Of those four, two have supernatural or Gothic overtones, and all are fables of a sort. Your own books have often shaded into the Gothic. Why is it such books, from not what you’d call respectable genres, can reach out to the extent they’re known by people who rarely read while the literary fiction which attempts to closely map how people live their lives doesn’t have the same grasp on the popular imagination?
Michel Faber: One of the ways intellectuals define themselves is by their ability to derive pleasure from things that most human beings find boring. There’s something to be said for that. At the same time, if you’re making generalisations about literature, you have to include allliterature, all the things that people like to read. And it’s an inescapable fact that the vast majority of people want thrills – big thrills. A frightfully intellectual novel in which an introspective academic wrestles with middle-aged ennui or the dilemma of whether he will attend a conference or not, or whatever, is not going to thrill the mass of humanity. And let’s be honest, such a book probably won’t last. It will get admiring reviews in the literary papers and it might get nominated for the Impac Prize, but fifty years from now, it will be forgotten. If you’re serious about creating narratives that will remain meaningful, you have to be honest about what people like and what the ingredients are for a durable yarn. I’m always looking for a fusion between profoundly serious literature, literature that invites people to engage with the most serious and complex issues imaginable, and giving people rip-roaring entertainment. And one of the most obvious ways to provide rip-roaring entertainment is to use “genre” elements: gothic, Sci-Fi, horror, Victorian romance. I don’t think there’s any shame in using them. I enjoy them. I use them with respect and relish. I read a lot of comics, always have, and one of the reasons I keep returning to Jack Kirby’s work on the Marvel superheroes, for example, is that these are big, brave myths. I find them more exciting than some of the solemn, self-consciously intellectual graphic novels that have been published in recent years and which it’s now socially acceptable for well-educated grownups to admire. Also, it annoys me when literary authors cherrypick elements of a disreputable genre to add a frisson to their own work, then go to great pains to loftily distance themselves from that genre. A deadly dull literary novel is not improved by having a ghost or a serial killer tossed into it. People will still be reading Dracula in a hundred years but they won’t be reading most of the books that have won the Booker Prize, and I think that more of our serious authors ought to put more thought into why that is and what they can do about it. A strong book, whether it’s well-written or not so well-written, should be haunting. I’m doing my best to write books that will haunt people.