Ocean Wung: “War is the most common and stable reality of our species”

This harassed the story. It comes from Hemlet. “Your worm is your only emperor … we thicken us to thicken all organisms and we thicken ourselves to magots.” Nobody goes to heaven without going through Magot. And for me, it was a great book how I think of work and life. And also, Wallace Stevens – “is the Emperor of Emperor Ice Cream”. That poem is about a funeral. I like this contradiction a lot. The title looks very victorious, Regal. But as you study, you find that the book is trying to redefine an emperor. An emperor Hog is named who will eat it. It does not rule anything. And Gladness is a city that does not exist. And so, to be the emperor of happiness, nothing has to be the emperor.

You have said earlier that the sound and rhythm of words, many times, matters more than the story. How do you guide the sound when you write prose?

Gosh, I really don’t know. When I grew up, I learned about Sonnets and Ibic Pentmetors. And I really opposed that rhythm. Da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da au aid waste I was so, there is another way to dancing, galloping. English poets have used this rhythm for hundreds of years. But for me, it is very stable. Perhaps it is reported by Vietnamese, perhaps an internal rhythm, but I try to look for a different eco when writing. A sentence is almost like a music score and it is always different for every task.

When you were published for the first time We are briefly very beautiful on earthThis immediately became an incident. Did that success affect the way the other book exposed to another book?

Well, it would be derogatory to say not at all. Although it is not conscious of me. Being a Buddhist, I have learned that ‘you make something and it is not you’. And so, I do not really have a close relationship with fame, or notorious, or ideas of success. I accept it. I know it’s there. But I was very surprised that (on earth) did so well.

Small dog On earth And is from Emperor of Gladness It seems that they are versions of each other. You have also described Emperor of Gladness As On earthDo you want to give the same voice a new body and a new life?

Thank you for saying that. On one hand, it is modeling after the spiritual idea of ​​rebirth. But on the other hand, we are often asked as writers, musicians and artists to resume themselves, re -prepare themselves, do something new. Even in grocery corridors – “Now taste better!”, “Now with a new look!” – This is always a worry of newness. And I never felt that the questions I was asking to be true: colonialism, violence, memory, family, migration, queue, loneliness. How can a book extinguish all these questions? Our questions can be a lifetime of work and they still cannot be. I wanted to show that I could go back and ideas are not complete. And then, in a world that gives importance to progress and development, is intentionally like a final taboo to live in one place.

I was particularly the way you dealt with the long -term effects of war, not only those who are fat, but also during generations. How has war shaped your world approach and writing?

I think war is the most common and firm reality of our species. If you think about the work first, I mean, Mahabharata Is about war. Gilgamesh, The Iliad, The Odissi – About all wars. In the world of publishing, which is made up of large -scale upper middle class people, most of life in literary literature is about living in the suburb, in relationships and affairs! But you realize that this is a foreign, rare thing; Most of our human life is about geopolitical violence and war. Most of the hybro literature considered as literature, it is about stable, safe, suburban or city life. And then when you read fantasy, it is all about war. I think it is interesting that those books are more honest for our human state, even if they are about non-abusiveness. Therefore, for me, it was really important about how war is about our life, history and our physical production, including novels.

The story focuses on those who have forgotten, especially those who lose themselves into drug addiction. What did you draw to focus on this part of American life?

Well, it is the most common part of American life and I did not see it (reflected in literature). When I saw it, most of it felt like “poverty porn”. These disciplines and communities are used by a person outside the community as symbolic pawns, who are monetary from their lives, and then this material will be read by someone outside that community. If you drive through the USA, you will realize that very, very few places look like New York City or Hampton. Most of the places are down-and-out trailer parks, break the infrastructure, and there are dirt roads. I do not believe that my work is corrective, but it is just adding something new and can demonstrate the novel.

One of my favorite lines in the book is, “It is better to be happy.” Where does this philosophy come from, and how does it shape your writing?

Well, I think this is the answer to the fetish of happiness. In fact, there is a painful thing that parents say to their children, “I just want you to be happy.” It sounds very comfortable, but I was so, do you know how difficult it is to be happy? There is no process or map for this. Happiness is often so random and subjective. And in this culture, it is occupied by commerce. Do you want to be happy? Take this pill, get this car, go to another retreat. The goalpost of happiness is being transferred, so that we can keep the money money in the system. So, I thought, if we will resume the passion with pleasure with a goal for satisfaction, satisfaction, “fine”? Also “fine” is such a Western/American privilege! Because there are people in the world who will give everything to be “fine”.

The novel is based on the time to take care of someone with dementia, and that person takes the form of Grazina in the book. How did that period of your life contribute to your understanding of your memory? And does it affect the way the story tell in any way?

Gosh, nobody ever asked me that, this is really a wonderful question. I think it impressed more than I know. I was 19, perhaps 20, and (Grazina) 84 years old. And when you go through him as a young person, you put your blind during the day and go through the day. I think the main thing I learned was that there is no true reality. Just a reality that most people confirm, and then reality that a small minority confirms. And people with dementia or mental illness make this minority. They see something that most people do not see. You know, a fly has compound eyes, it sees hundreds of images. And we see an image. So, this is the question – whose truth is true? But both are real. I think it taught me that, in imagination, all points are valid; That there is no ultimate, central truth for what I am doing. This helped me write different characters.

The book is surprisingly fun. There is an abundance of sharp jokes and also a soft moment of laughter. Was that border of humor always a part of the story, or was it a conscious option?

Well, humor is a part of my life. My friends always say, “You are very foolish, but your books are very sad.” In the first book, I did not really want to be funny. I had jokes, but I did not keep them because I was not writing about my history. I was writing about the history of my elders and I had to handle it with care and reverence. I knew that most of my readers would be non-Vietnamese people, and I did not want to invite non-Vietnamese people to laugh at my elders. The line between laughing with you and laughing at you is very, very thin. And I did not want to renounce the material by making (book) in a joke and cheat my elders.

You wrote the first draft for this book with hand. Does writing by hand affect the way you write?

Writing by hand is more searching. When you write by hand, something happens in the middle of the sentence. You realize, “Oh, it’s not what the sentence is about. It’s about something below.” And then you start digging under the sentence. If this happens on every sentence, or on every other sentence in the novel period, the novel suddenly starts to rise. Writing by hand allows you to deep, deep depth.

If you make “Ocean-Wowong Reading List”, which books will be on it?

There are many. I mean James Baldwin Giovanni’s room, gilid By Marilyn Robinson, by Wongut SlotterAgota is a great book that is actually a great book that is said by Kristof NotebookThis is a trilogy. She was a Hungarian refugee in World War II, who then learned a very underdeveloped French and then wrote in that underdeveloped French. The sentences are very simple and small, but it is very beautiful. Ways to see By John Berger. The Claris Lister is one and one. Star’s bell Really beautiful. This is just prose. In poetry – Theresa Haq Qong Cha DictatorshipBhanu Kapil Human In fact, is really beautiful.

I read that you have a plan to publish only one more work. You talked about the two -edged sword of success, and how the authors published whatever later. As a fan, I have to ask, of course it is a matter of never saying! I hope you will get more than one work.

I said that yes, yes. But I said another collection of poems. Overall, I hope to write eight work after eight times the path. So, I am half there. There is a lot of our world, especially as a successful writer, endless production. And I also came to know that there is a double standard for meritocracy. When I was a struggling poet, a lot of magazines, magazines, publishers were saying, “Oh, you need to be better. This is a qualification. But now that I earn money to everyone, they want anything – they want a grocery list. It’s not a grocery list, therefore, I think I think it is important for me.

Rutwik Bhandari is an independent writer. He lives in Pune. He is a reader and a material manufacturer. You can find him talking about books on Instagram and YouTube.