Good morning
Brannavan. This new book, Credit in the Straight World, is your first to be set
in New Zealand. Is New Zealand the straight world?
Why not? A Canterbury Plains State Highway 1
world.
And what
populates the Canterbury Plains? Or more to the point, how do straightness and
crookedness come together in your novel?
People. And sheep. And now cows. And water
races. But unfortunately, no longer the South Island kōkako.
Straightness and crookedness come together?
That's a tough question. Does the characters' natural straightness create
the space for crookedness to dominate? Or is crookedness the natural
starting point, and straightness the tool used by the crooked? And who
gets to define what is straight and what is crooked? Lots of questions,
none of which will be answered in my book.
I'm curious about the concept of 'credit'. There have been many writings and
documentaries in the last decade on debt and credit, but I'm wondering if there
is any economic, social, philosophical, or perhaps even literary, treatment of
credit that inspired your writing.
Credit is given to somebody on the basis of hope,
belief, expectation that you would get something back in return
(interest!). You've got no guarantee that when you lend somebody $20 or
buy a round of beer, that you'll get it back in kind. Sure, the banks and
finance companies will model and assess risks, and probably financially be more
successful than if I set up the Brannavan Gnanalingam Finance Company Limited
today and started lending money at 2% interest to Lawrence and Gibson.
But ultimately, there seems a quasi-faith aspect to the functioning of
credit. So naturally, I was drawn to Kierkegaardian concepts of deism to
look at the nature of faith and capitalism. Who wouldn’t be?
Also, Balzac. Lots of Balzac. Money, credit,
power, and manipulation of markets – that's Balzac 101. The 19th Century
writers like Dickens, Zola, Trollope, and Balzac were writing about a
capitalism that was arguably simpler, but fundamentally not all that different
in its operation and its interplay with power.
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| Honoré de Balzac |
Do you have a personal view on where - and forgive the breadth of the question
- on where the world is now, seven years after the Global Financial Crisis?
Now I'm no big-city economist, but it strikes me as
no different to where it was before. Although arguably, things are worse
in that we've gone through a spectacular collapse and couldn't be bothered
changing anything. There has been little consideration of why the GFC
happened, of what its actual consequences were on the people who suffered in
it, little critical thought as to why New Zealand's finance companies got
themselves into such a vulnerable position, and whether our faith is
misplaced. Either that or I'm lazy in my research. The book is
structured around the cyclical nature of collapses, and it's obvious that it's
going to keep on happening unless something fundamental and drastic changes. The
complete insanity of the Auckland housing boom is an example that perhaps our
faith in markets is more than a bit irrational.
Were you lazy in
your research? Perhaps you could tell us a little about the research that went
into the writing of this book.
No, in fairness, I spent a lot of time
researching. Days were spent in libraries and also spent eavesdropping on
conversations.
Recently Eleanor Catton was told off by none less than the Prime Minister for
daring to comment on neo-liberalism. If you could be told off by any present
member of the National Party who would it be and why?
Can I go historical? I'd be told
off by George Forbes, the United MP who was prime minister between
1930-1935. That government was obsessed with trying to balance its budget
for faith reasons as it would show that it's a safe pair of hands during the
Depression. My mocking of his government in my book would likely cause
some choice words from Honest George, the good member for the Hurunui.
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| Prime Minister 'Honest' George Forbes |
A fine choice.
Can you imagine anyone within the fifth National government who might enjoy the
book, say, as a Christmas gift?
I think this would be right down Michael
Woodhouse's alley.
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| Michael Woodhouse |
You're also a prominent film critic for the Lumiere Reader. Did any films
influence the aesthetic or character choices for the book?
Definitely. Lav Diaz's film Norte the End of History
incorporates Dostoevsky and the punishing of "the idiot" in a way
that was definitely integral to my treatment of George in the book. Kira
Muratova's films mix black comedy and social commentary, and her incredible GFC
movie Melody for a Street Organ was an inspiration in terms of that film's tone
and fearlessness. Carmella Soprano – and her guilt/victim/wilful blindness –
helped form the voice i.e. someone who felt guilty but keeps on coming up with
excuses to justify his or her position. The Springfield of The Simpsons
was my basis for a fictional small-town. I could name hundreds of movies,
but also to mind: the tragic inevitability in Douglas Sirk's films, the satire
of the banal in Hong Sang-soo and Corneliu Poromboiu's films, the cruelty (and
humanism) of Ulrich Seidl, and the straight out humanism of Pedro Costa.
[Editor. Reviews
by Gnanalingam for some of these films can be found here: Norte;
What's next for you in terms of writing?
I'm working on a book about cricket. I love
cricket. I look forward to retiring so I can watch all five days of a test
match. But specifically why do people collectively come together and do
things these days. We apparently live in a post-structuralist,
neo-liberal, selfie-stick world, but yet (some) people still want to do something
collectively. Why??
Your day job is as a lawyer and I wonder if you've thought of incorporating
more from that world into your writing. Have you? And what would be the best
genre for a novel drawing on the legal profession?
I think the attention to detail and pedanticism
(which I need to work on) would work well to write espionage thrillers. Franz
Kafka trained as a lawyer too, so the er, Kafkaesque 'genre,' could be a
goer.
Thanks for your
time. It's been a pleasure. One last question: is there any artistic, musical,
theatrical or literary scene that excites you in New Zealand today? Is there
anything you're looking forward to in our cultural community?
There's always good stuff happening around the
place. There's great music happening in Wellington: the folk at Sonorous
Circle and Home Alone Record in Wellington along with folk like the All Seeing
Hand, Grayson Gilmour, Orchestra of Spheres, Glass Vaults etc. etc. I'm
looking forward to the moral panic that may hit Simon Denny's appearance at the
Venice Biennale, and the continued excellent literary output (which despite
less mainstream arts coverage, less funding, and fewer publishers taking on
fewer books) is still producing exciting stuff.
PRESALES - LAUNCH ON MAY 1
