THE STRANGE RECITAL
"A Podcast about fiction that questions the nature of reality"
The podcast begins with a reading of the beginning of a story by U.R. Bowie, "Such Is the Scent of Our Sweet Opalescence," followed by an interview with the author and reader of the text, U.R. Bowie
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NZo4T1756s&feature=youtu.be
Original Text of the Interview (Varies Slightly from the Recorded Version)
Such is the Scent of Our Sweet Opalescence
BR: Hello,
mister U.R. Bowie! You must get a lot of people making a bad pun on your
initials: “And you are….?”
RB: And
who are you? Actually, my real name is Robert Bowie. I always thought it was unique,
until I once googled it and found there to be scads of Robert Bowies all over,
including one serial killer in the state of Maine. I published three books
early on under my own name, but when it came time to start publishing my
fiction, I wanted something unique, so I just added the extra initial, U. And
the name is unique, except even it does not prevent me from running perpetually
into my nemesis on the Internet, David Bowie. Ask me why he’s my nemesis.
Why is he your nemesis?
Because his real name was David Jones, but
when he decided to become a pop star he borrowed my last name, without ever
bothering to learn how to pronounce it. So that the incorrect pronunciation of
my surname has spread wildly now, all over the world, like the coronavirus. It’s
BOO-EE, BOO-EE, BOO-EE.
TN: Thanks
for joining us by phone on the podcast. Even if you lived near our studio,
which you don’t, we would still have had to do this by phone because of the
lovely pandemic that has befallen us. Hope you’re staying safe and healthy.
RB: Well,
I’ve been sheltering in place, hunkering down. Actually, I was already hunkered
down about as far as I could get, and then they told me I had to hunker still
more. So I’m sheltering and hunkering, and social distancing. Which is easy for
me, since I’ve been doing it all my life: social distancing. We introverts know
how to “social distance.” Most writers of fiction are that type: basically
hermits. Nikolai Gogol was the ultimate extreme in social distancing.
BR: What
we just heard is the opening of a long-ish short story. So give us a rough idea
-- where does the story go from here?
RB:
It begins with a guy, UV Lamb, who was hit by
lightning and was supposed to die and did not. In not dying at his appointed
time, he somehow has violated certain principals of the universe—which says,
“Die when your time comes, sucker.” Consequently, he must suffer. So suffer he
does, until he suffers his way through to where the story began, and this time
he does it right—the way he should have done in the first place. Happy ending.
TN: I
like the fact that your main character, U.V. Lamb, is a professional
pataphysician. That’s a job I’ve always wanted. Where can I apply?
RB: Pataphysics is the science of that which
is superinduced upon metaphysics. To become a pataphysician you need
specialized training in France, where you have to study a lot of books written
in French, and listen to a lot of lectures in gobbledygook, given by professors
who have read similar deconstructuring gobbledygook in books by Foucault and
Blanchot. Stuff about how nothing on earth is real—as if we didn’t already know
that. The main character of my story, UV, cannot speak French, but he has
somehow picked up the necessary education to land a job at the Interlachen
Collider (in North Florida), working not only as patapysician, but also as
physics assister/insister and lead quarker. Ask me what a physics assister
does.
What does a physics assister do?
A physics assister assists physicists, and a
physics insister insists on assisting assisters who assist and insist
physicists. There.
BR: Opalescence…
what exactly is that, and what does it smell like?
RB: The
English language is full of beautiful words. Opalescence is one.
Another, just to take one example, is acquiescence. That would make a
great title for a book: Opalescent Acquiescence. I love the sound of the
word, opalescence, the very feel of it. What does it mean? Something opalescent
has the look of a pearl, it emits an iridescent shimmer, has a milkiness, like
that of an opal. So everything about the word is lovely. How does it taste?
Nice. How does it smell? Well, I quote from the story: “that milky-pearly and
pinkish kind of smell, reminds me of fresh papaya pulp.”
BR: I
wonder… are you the first to portray Death as a simple country guy from the
South who grins too much? Good name -- Delmas W. Pruitt.
RB: Good question. I don’t know exactly where
my subconscious mind came up with Delmas Pruitt. He’s not exactly Death, but he
is one of Death’s representatives on earth. His job is to do the dirty work of
Death and then accompany the demised to the Great By and By. I’m sure there are
scads of other writers who have written stories about encounters with the
representatives of Death, but I can’t think of any off hand. As for the names
in my fictions, I get them all out of the obituary columns in the local newspapers.
The obits are full of fascinating, even opalescent people with wonderful names.
TN: “Such
is the Scent of Our Sweet Opalescence” is the title piece from a collection of
stories. On the back of the book, it says these stories are, and I quote:
“written expressly for readers who disdain the dominant American insipid genre
of ‘domestic literary fiction.’” You’re definitely setting yourself as an
outsider. Can you say a little more about that?
RB: Probably
should not go into this here, as it sets me off on lengthy rants and raves. I
have written at length elsewhere on the sorry state of the American short
story. See my book reviews, for example, on the website, Dactyl Review,
where I am the contributing editor. Or look at the interviews posted on my personal
website, urbowie.com. In brief, I believe, for example, that The New Yorker
should stop publishing so much trashy fiction, and that all creative writing
programs in all American universities should be abolished.
BR: I’m
taking a cue from your website, where I see you’re a scholar of Russian
language and culture… I happen to be reading The Master and Margarita right now, and I know it’s a favorite book
of Tom’s. Has Bulgakov been an influence on your work?
RB: That novel, “The Master and Margarita,” was
hands down the favorite of all the books I taught back when I was a professor
of Russian literature. Take Jesus Christ and a mobster cat, who walks on his
hind legs, works for the devil, and shoots a pistol, and put all that together
into a love story. As for influence on my own writing, I could name practically
all the great Russians, but especially Chekhov, Bunin, Nabokov, Bulgakov, and
Gogol, Gogol, Gogol.
TN: It
appears that your latest work is a spy novel that comes in two thick volumes.
Give us a quick glimpse of that story, if you can.
RB: Yes, that’s by far the longest book I’ve
written. It’s not exactly a spy novel, but more like a takeoff on a spy novel.
I know a little bit about spookery, because back when I was in the army I used
to be a spook, doing field work for the None Such Agency. What I’ve done with
this book is take a lot of my own experiences and fictionalize them. The book,
in a word, tells the story of a semi-spook recruited to work with Russian
intelligence operatives in Central Asia, back when everyone was searching for
Osama bin Laden. While waiting in Samarkand for something to happen—nothing
does—the semi-spook goes back to his childhood and tells the story of how his
life in spookery began. He brings that story gradually up to the present, to
the day when he boards a Russian helicopter that is off to pick up Osama, to
purchase him from a group of Islamic terrorists who hold him in an open-air
cage in the desert.
BR: If
you had to identify a core philosophy or two that are essential to your
fiction, what would they be?
RB: “Core philosophy” is maybe too highfalutin
to describe my fiction. I guess the main thing is that I always have had an
intense love for words. Кто я?
Я филолог. Что делает филолог? Филолог любит. Что любит филолог? Филолог любит СЛОВА. I have a Ph.D. in Russian language and literature. I’m a philologist,
a practitioner of philology. It’s all there in the very word. From
“philos” (love) and “logos” (word). No one without an
intense love for words should be writing creative literary fiction. Okay, maybe
it’s okay to write fiction, but don’t pretend that the words “creative,” and
“literary” apply. Unless you love words. That’s the one prerequisite.
TN: Back
to what's on everybody's mind... how is our current condition of
self-quarantine affecting your work and your life?
RB: I sit here writing books every day, same
as always. As I mentioned before, I’m hunkered down about as far as I can get,
so I can’t hunker down any farther. Then again, I’ve always been afflicted with
chronic anxiety, so the virus can’t elevate the anxiety much more. In a word,
I’m fine! Then again, I pay close attention to all the medical advisories put
out by the office of Mike (The Dense) Pence. Here’s one that came out this
morning: “HELP STOMP OUT THE PLAGUE. If you see a virus bug flying through the
air, put on medical surgical latex gloves, grab the virus, put it on the
ground, and stomp on it. Three times. God bless America.”
BR: Thank
you, Robert. We appreciate your time and your contribution to our podcast. Take
care.
TN: I
hope the grocery store isn’t all out of papaya. I want to sniff some
opalescence.
RB: Sniff,
sniff, sniff . . . Ahhhhhhhh.
(END)
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