My Aim is to Create Vivid Characters
- An interview with Vita Andersen
By : Mette Winge
An interview with the writer Vita Andersen about her new novel Sebastians kærlighed (Sebastianīs Love).
Sebastians kærlighed (Sebastianīs Love) is the story of an unusual boy, of loss, longing, and loneliness, - but also of vitality and happiness. Sebastian lives (mostly) with his mother Carla, who is a painter. They have a close and extraordinary relationship, Sebastian is a much-loved child, but nevertheless his life is tragic in several ways.
Vita Andersen, who is Sebastian?
"Sebastian is a hero, because the novel Sebastians kærlighed is a sort of modern fairy-tale whose hero, Sebastian, has lots of adventures and is subjected to numerous trials, which he overcomes and survives, albeit not without great suffering; but he does survive. He has a strong and extraordinary relationship with his mother, who loves him as though he were a little sungod. Sebastian is a child with a very vivid imagination, which always leads him to wonder and surprise. Everything is a source of wonder to him. His mother taught him at an early age that nothing is merely what it appears to be. And this imagination and wonder embellishes his life. His senses are incredibly highly developed. He experiences so much and sees so much, and in contrast to many other children, who have to file their experiences inside their heads because they have no one to relate them to, Sebastian call always turn to his mother, when she has the time. She is only unavailable to him when she is painting.
Sebastian is of course also a child, displaying the usual childish traits of egotism and lack of consideration as well as a very strong will. He wants to he noticed. Egotism belongs to childhood and children need it in order to acquire a strong sense of their own worth in relation to the world.
Sebastian also does some strange and unfortunate things. When his mother, Carla, dies, he chooses to live alone, because he knows that it will not be good for him to live with his father, Felix. He knows that in the same way that everyone deep down knows what is good for them, so he too knows what is best for himself - and that is to live alone. But that filter which we all possess, which permits but a small portion of sensations to actually penetrate our perceptual apparatus, that filter disappears in Sebastian. That filter which sorts out impressions is destroyed by loneliness. Sebastianīs world becomes strangely surrealistic and he starts doing strange things such as taking Masja home with him. He manages to change her a little, and he also takes on responsibility for her, both physically and mentally, but it cannot last."
How did you find Sebastian?
"I couldnīt write about a girl again, because I had done that in Hvaī for en hånd vil du haī (Choose Which Hand). But there is also a little boy inside me, and I wanted to write about a child who has not been let down, who is not a victim. A child who is loved. To go beyond the cliched situation of "hurting a child". Nobody is hurt here, and them are no victims in Sebastians kærlighed. It is just much harder to write about happiness and effervescent life than it is to write about suffering and pain."
Your style in Sebastians kærlighed is different, warmer, than in your earlier books?
"I wanted a more freely imaginative and sparkling style. I feel that the stumbling block of any earlier books was the language which I used, so I broke with the matter-of-fact, naturalistic framework and turned the whole thing into more of a fantasy - including the style."
What is Carla's relationship to Sebastian?
"Before I go into that, we have to look at Carla herself. Carla is an artist, and she harbours a great suffering, with which she struggles all her life. But there is also a great happiness, which she transfers to Sebastian, and she teaches him to love. It is parents who give their children the ability to love others. Carla feels that she had an unhappy childhood as a "child of the ballet", but her own mother, Samsara, believes that she gave her daughter a good childhood. They have a pronounced love-hate relationship. I regard the family as the most nourishing and the most destructive of places.
Carla is a successful artist, and it was hard for me to write about a woman and an artist who was successful. But she is, also as a mother. She loves Sebastian, he is her life. Some people have asked me whether she doesnīt love him too much. I donīt know, but there is a strange relationship between them. As I said, Carla is an artist and a very complicated person. She encompasses many different personalities, and she acknowledges them all. She is very magnanimous, and so is her lover, the photographer, and even though they are in love with each other, they do not forget Sebastian, although he still becomes terribly jealous of them during a trip the three of them make to Spain.
The relationship between the two adults breaks up, and it is at this stage that Sebastian encounters evil. He sees something attractive in evil people. They have a fascinating aura, which good people lack."
Carlaīs mother is called Samsara, and she is a most unusual character, holding a special fascination for the reader. How did you hit on her?
"Originally I had planned separate voices for Carla, Felix (Sebastianīs father) and Sebastian himself. But in the end it is largely Sebastianīs voice the reader hears. On the way I thought about Carla so much that her mother began to emerge. The mother, Samsara, is also an artist. She was a ballet dancer. You will note that all the characters in Sebastians kærlighed have professions which require them to break new ground all the time. Their jobs demand everything of them: body, mind and soul. These are very rewarding jobs, but they are also professions which reject them when they are no longer in top form. They live on a knife-edge. If they are to succeed as artists, they also have to have another life, but their work is so demanding that there is very little left for anything else. But they are not to be pitied, because there is no alternative for them, they are artists. Samsara has had a hard life herself, and the book actually poses the question of whether it is possible to have such a demanding profession and be a parent as well. Carla wants to be a good mother, she is in love with both Sebastian and with childhood itself. But it is almost to much to cope with."
Masja, that hard little thing that Sebastian takes home - where did you find her?
"I suppose in some way or other one is all the characters one writes about. Masja is such a complicated child that it is difficult to like her. She is strong - strong willed - and so inconsiderate that she chooses to revenge herself on her parents, and she does this by going home with Sebastian.
It proves to be a nightmare, but Sebastian needs her too, because he cannot stand living alone. So Masja becomes one of his many trials.
I have written a TV play about the Masja character, a play entitled Nina, den onde pige (Nina, the Evil Girl), which Danish Television is currently producing. The main character is actually evil, and some children are evil. We all bear a legacy within its, and children are not innocent. There are intolerable adults, and there are also intolerable children.
By the way, I enjoy switching between different genres. When I have been working on a novel for a long time, I long to write something else; so it is good to change, and I love writing dramas."
You have also written a very popular children's book, Petrushkas laksko (Petrushka's Patent Shoes), which has been translated into several other languages. Is there much difference between writing for children and writing for adults?
"There isnīt really much difference. It is probably more difficult to write for children. In a book for adults you can include the whole world and presume that the reader will be familiar with it. You cannot do the same in a childrenīs book. Here you have to make a choice. You also have to take great care with language in a children's book otherwise it will not turn the children on. I have learned that from my own children. There is an awful lot that doesnīt run them on. I enjoyed writing about Petrushka and Mary, and I would like to write more books for children."
Hvaī for en hånd vil du haī, your novel published in 1987 and Sebastians kærlighed are similar in many ways and are very different. How do you yourself view these two books?
"I think they are very different. There is much more bubbling vitality in Sebastians kærlighed and much more humour. But there are similarities: they are both about children, and they are both, each in their own way, a tribute to the mind of the child and to its vast perception. Adultsī eyes are dead compared to those of children; adults see the same things over and over again - a child sees something new each time.
I am captivated by the inner life and perception of children. It is my ambition and great desire to write about people who are alive, so that others may visualize them too.
This article first appeared in Danish Literary Magazine nr. 4 1993
Translated by Vivien Andersen
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