Interview with Writer Anthony Doyle
“I would read in bed, and I was the kind of kid who would keep going until the eyelids mutinied. I think reading before bed is one of the best things a kid can do. It’s exercise for the imagination”
Welcome to the Imaginarium that is writer Anthony Doyle’s mind! Born in Dublin, Ireland, and now living in Brazil, Anthony is a multi-passionate creative who has written speculative fiction, a children’s book, and translated numerous published works of fiction, non-fiction, and screenplays from Portuguese. His latest adventure is his new poetry collection, Jonah’s Map of the Whale and Other Poems, of which he did the illustrations, cover, and interior of the book.
The following is an interview based on those in the Sunday New York Times Book Review section. Don’t forget to read through to the final question. Enjoy!
Practice for when you get the “By the Book” Interview in the New York Times:
Q: What books are currently on your nightstand?
A: Right now I’ve got a few books on my nightstand. One is a new novel by a Brazilian author named Carlos Eduardo de Magalhães. It just came out and I can’t wait to start it. I’m currently reading The Magician, by Colm Tóibín. It’s about Thomas Mann, and it’s really good. There’s also a philosophy book I bought a while ago, but haven’t been able to get to yet. It’s called The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Imagination, edited by Amy Kind.
Q: What kind of reader were you as a child?
A: As a kid I used to read a lot of horror comics. Then I graduated to C.S. Lewis and Tolkien. I would also read non-fiction, especially about sharks (a fascination of mine) and mysteries. I would read in bed, and I was the kind of kid who would keep going until the eyelids mutinied. I think reading before bed is one of the best things a kid can do. It’s exercise for the imagination.
Q: What’s the last great book you read?
A: The last great book was one I only got around to reading recently, Iris Murdoch’s The Bell. I loved it. I regularly find myself thinking back to scenes from that novel. I feel as though there is still some meaning in there that I haven’t grasped. Plus, if a writer can make words turn into images that stay in the mind like that, it’s because they’ve done something great. It’s a subtle but haunting book. An old bell at the bottom of a lake—it’s genius.
Q: What’s your favorite book no one else has ever heard of?
A: I’m sure a lot of people have heard of it, it’s certainly very well known in Brazil, though maybe not so much outside it. It's a collection of short stories called O pirotécnico Zacarias (literally, The Pyrotechnician Zacarias) by a Brazilian author called Murilo Rubião (1916-91). I’ve never seen anyone do short fiction quite like Rubião. His magic-realist stories are wild and insanely creative, but so tightly written. It’s as though each story were a compressed file. Wonderful stuff.
Q: Who is your favorite fictional hero/heroine?
A: There are so many. Count Dracula is one. One of the best renditions of an archetype I can think of. Molly Bloom is another, proof that imagination transcends identity (something often forgotten these days). Various characters from Dostoyevsky, an absolute giant. Tiresias and Hephaestus from mythology, because they set the mold for so many other characters to come.
Q: If you could invite 3 writers, living or dead, for dinner, who would you choose?
A: T.S. Eliot, because he’s my favorite poet ever. Walt Whitman, because he’s my other favorite poet ever, and Martin Amis, because I imagine he had just the right mix of wisdom and wickedness to get the very best out of the other two. That could be an eventful dinner.
Relating to your newest book, Jonah’s Map of the Whale and Other Poems:
Q: Tell us where the seeds of this collection began. Were there poems already written that started to take this shape or did the ideas coalesce in your mind first?
A: Jonah is in three parts: Flounder, Blundra, and Jonah’s Map of the Whale. Each section is about a different character. The third part was written first, as a standalone work, and it was all intricately planned out. It’s related to the Jonah story, except here the whale is a three-day coma during which the character revisits episodes from his life. It’s actually one long poem in sections, and it was all carefully thought out in advance.
The other two sections emerged more gradually, without any prior plan. I like writing around characters, and they tend to change as the work goes on. It was only when both Flounder and Blundra were already two-thirds done that I realized I should put these three sections together as a single book. They’re all about epiphany, and different relationships to it. Flounder, the first character, is too “unconscious” (and often too drunk) to grasp the sea of meanings he's submerged in. He is sometimes literally swimming in meaning, but can’t process it. Blundra is really well inserted in her world but craves some deeper meaning, which she associates with the figure of her dead grandmother. She’s open to epiphany, inviting it, and waiting for it to come. Then there’s Alex Iden Grey, who spends his whole life running from any meaning that might draw him out of the material world he thrives in. He keeps fleeing until epiphany literally “bites him in the ass” in the form of a bull shark. So I strung the three blocks together and was very happy with the result. After all, the “map” of the Whale will be different for everyone, because the Whale is different for everyone.
Q: What kind of research black holes did you find yourself going down for this book, if any?
A: Part III, "Jonah’s Map of the Whale", required a lot of research, as it presents episodes from the character’s life woven into wider historical backgrounds—wars, financial crises, social changes—and that required some research. There’s also a mythological backdrop that needed research too—the Bull, Mithras, fertility symbols. I did go overboard at times, to the point of checking the weather for specific dates back in the 90s or 2000s to see if it was raining or not, but I soon gave up on that.
Q: What is your favorite poem in the collection?
A: There are a few, and for different reasons. I really love the opening poem, “O’Keano’s”, for its rhythm and playfulness. I’m also very fond of the opening lines of Jonah, because they came to me a few years ago at a café and totally changed my direction as a poet. They went into the book exactly as they came to mind that day, which is very rare for me. I generally tinker a lot.
Q: What question do you never get asked in an interview, but already have an answer for, and what is the answer?
A: The Question: What did you think of the Star Wars sequels? My Answer: Sacrilege! Lazy writing (repeating the original story arc—come on!); awful villain/not-a-villain (Anakin/Vader force-ghost hanging head in shame); deplorable treatment of the original Star Wars characters (who kills Han Solo like that?!); making all the bad guys seem like buffoons really didn’t work either (is this Star Wars or Mel Brooks’ Spaceballs?); and trying to replicate the original character dynamic with far less charismatic knock-offs—except for Rose Tico, she was cool. Basically awful, awful, awful. I’d rather chew on a kyber crystal than watch them again. Rant over.
Ellis Elliott is a published author and poet. Join her Bewilderness Writing Workshops and use free writing to find yourself and your voice on the page. Order her poetry collection Break in the Field.