Multiple award-winning author and Booker Prize nominee William Boyd talks to ANANYA BORGOHAIN about his literary preferences, latest novel Sweet Caress,and James Bond, whose continuation novel, Solo, was written by him in 2013
William Boyd’s new novel, Sweet Caress, traverses through some of the most pertinent moments of modern history, and is told through the camera lens of an engimatic woman and photographer, Amory Clay. Her magnificent journey takes her “to wars, to lovers, husbands and children as she continues to pursue her dreams and battle her demons”. Author Boyd tells us more about her and the book.
How do you compartmentalise the different formats you write in — screenplays, novels, non-fiction, plays, and so onIJ Do you also have different ways of contemplatingIJ
Well, it all depends on what I’m writing. All the forms are different and each one requires different mindsets. The novel is the most free and most autonomous, you can do anything in a novel. On the other hand, Film, TV, theatre are all collaborative media — I know that other minds, other intuitions, will have a bearing on the finished product — therefore I adjust my own expectations accordingly. Because I have the total freedom of the novel, I actually welcome the collaborative, collegiate experience of film and theatre.
Would you agree that Amory’s story, at least in the initial stages, shares biographical similarities with your life as wellIJ
No, I don’t agree. Amory’s early life has no connection with mine. I was born in a British colony in West Africa in 1952. My father was a doctor. The first nine years of my life were exclusively African, not really British at all. The only moment where Amory’s early life and mine overlap is that she went to a boarding school — as did I. But, a girls’ boarding school is an entirely different place from a boys’ boarding school. It’s only later in Amory’s life that her attitudes to the human condition and mine begin to come together — to a degree.
Which was your first camera and do you have any memories of taking photographsIJ
I do remember my first camera. A Kodak “Box Brownie”, the late-1950s version. I took various photos with it — now lost — in Africa. My father had a rather splendid camera and occasionally I took photographs with it. But I have to say my photographic experience in my early life wasn’t that exciting.
Beginning from the Edwardian to the modern era, the novel encompasses a magnificent piece of history. How did you finalise your timelineIJ
I taught English literature at Oxford University for many years so I am very familiar with the history of the English novel — and indeed of the canon of English literature. Perhaps because of this immersion I take great care NOT to try and see myself in any tradition — in any line of writers. The only place I situate myself is in the tradition of realism. I am a realistic novelist — you are meant to believe in the world I create and the characters that populate it. That’s as far as I go!
You too have grown up in the years you mention in the novel and have also been privy to the colonial system. Why did you choose a woman protagonist instead of, say, an eponymous heroIJ
Funnily enough, I’ve often written from the point of view of a woman. It started with my novel Brazzaville Beach in 1990. It’s a wonderful liberation to be able to change sex for the duration of a novel. However, in this instance, the decision came about because I realised I’d written two long novels — two long lives — about men, The New Confessions (1987) and Any Human Heart (2002). I wanted to write another long life — from cradle to grave — and it seemed almost instantly obvious to me that I should write a woman’s life. Almost as if to correct the imbalance.
Is Amory’s development in the novel still defined by a male absence (her father) and a male presence (Greville) in her lifeIJ
No. If there’s any outside force that inadvertently shapes Amory’s life, it’s war. Her father, her brother and her husband are all cruelly touched by the great conflicts of the 20th century. Her brother dies and her father and her husband are both traumatised by what they’ve gone through.
What was the biggest challenge in thinking like a woman, shaping Amory’s psychologyIJ
Actually, I don’t see it as a challenge any more because I’ve done it so often. I have a particular method that allows me, a man, to get inside the mind of a woman. To put it very simply, I ignore all issues of gender and sexuality and concentrate entirely on character and personality. It’s surprisingly effective!
Please tell us about the photographs you’ve used in the novel.
I have a real interest in photography and I first used anonymous photographs in my famous “art hoax” Nat Tate: an American Artist (1998). Because I decided to make Amory a photographer I thought it would be an interesting experiment to see if I could include — intrinsically to the narrative — photographs she had “taken” and photographs of other characters in the novel. All the photos are anonymous — I have no idea who the subjects are or who took the pictures — and I bought them in junk shops, antique fairs and online. I think they have an amazing effect in the novel — that I haven’t fully analysed yet. They make it seem incredibly real — yet every reader knows, intellectually, that everything is made up, is pure fiction. A strange kind of alchemy is at work, I think.
History, memory, experience, and political events are so integral to your works, but why have you not written more historical non-fictionIJ
Actually, I have written a lot of non-fiction — but almost all of it is journalism (a lot of it collected in my book Bamboo). I’ve a significant parallel career as a journalist — I’ve written about all manner of subjects over 30 years.
Given the grand themes of your works, how long do you take to finish a bookIJ
For me, it seems to take me about three years to think, research and then write a novel. I can’t go any faster but at the same time I don’t want to take any longer. I actually write the first draft in longhand. I used to write in pencil but now I’ve moved on to a pen. Then, when I’ve finished the first draft, I type it all on to a computer and continue working on a screen.
What are the most important elements without which your story cannot progressIJ
A very hard question to answer. An idea for a novel can be quite ephemeral — a sentence in your head. A title, even. A glimmer of an idea for a character. But in that embryonic idea you recognise a kind of “mass”, a “potential”. This can fill 300 pages, you think to yourself. At the end of the day it is a question of instinct: You have this idea — you think it will work, and then you begin to explore it.
How do you look at Sweet Caress — as a political account or a personal accountIJ Can the personal and political be distinctive without any overlappingIJ
As a personal account. I’m not interested in introducing political ideas into a novel. If you want to write about politics, write manifesto. The novel is, at root, about human beings and the human condition.
If you choose to write a James Bond screenplay, who all would be a part of itIJ Any particular James Bond film and novel you didn’t likeIJ
Well, I couldn’t choose — I’d have to be asked and I suspect my freedoms would be very limited! Personally, I’d like James Bond to go back in time to the 1950s and ‘60s when the novels were written. The contemporary Bond of the films is far less interesting than the character Ian Fleming created. I think my interest in the Bond franchise began to diminish when Sean Connery left the role. Though Daniel Craig is making Bond more intriguing once again.
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