“This storm,” a hurricane named James Ellroy
The good thing of having 71-year-old and be healthy, according to James Ellroy (Los Angeles, 1948), is that it keeps the memory intact. I give faith, because, as you see me, recognize me from the last time we met, five years ago already. Then, we went to a piano recital by Stephen Hough, who left quite disappointed (“next time, pick better”, he jokes) and we share a table at one of these restaurants in madrid of fourth range that serve burgers clonic seizures. But your memories most vivid are from a time past that was not always the best. Ellroy remembers, with accuracy, of the Cold War, in those years in which it seemed that everything could jump into the air as Kennedy or Khrushchev would give them by sneezing. Also, the Hungarian Revolution against the soviet domination, which left thousands dead. Even retaining in your mind the images of the attack on Pearl Harbor that he was fascinated by seeing, as a child, in the back issues of the magazine “Life” stacked up in your house. Those memories are the proof that History does not always learn, and, also, that you may live long troubled, yes, but there was worse, much worse. And so far, so what the american writer is willing to weigh in on the present. Theirs is the past, and that is why you write (to hand) him. In particular, from 1942, the year in which starts “This storm” (Literatura Random House), new delivery of the second “Quartet of Angels” in which he gives free rein to their higher instincts literary as it happens the Second World War.
His books are always very demanding of the reader, but perhaps this latest novel is even more, nearly has challenged us…
I Will tell you several things that make “This storm” to be unique, singular. It is the most perfect expression of my new style. I have carried the conciseness and brevity to its fullest extent. Is my book more complex from an emotional point of view and political. Access is much more to the interior life of the characters in any of my previous works. And, although it is a book of great violence, is the most fun.
really?
Yes.
why?
Because game with the policy to laugh. The a lot of ridiculous things that make the fascists, the communists…
The nazis…
Yes, all those people, I laugh at the absurd things in which they believe that they and I also river of them. What it tells me of the nazi league black? Or of african americans that like Hitler? In the united States there is a great lack of control after the attack of Pearl Harbour, and in Los Angeles specifically: the people gave the alcohol… The cops have always drunk a lot, and they always will.
You have a very peculiar with the Police…
I love the cops, I love, I like a lot of those types.
what in spite of everything?
Yes, I don’t mind the amount of shit they do. I fall well. Obviously, I would not do many of the things that they did in 1942, but we’re talking about a work that is a product of my imagination. Yes, I have to say that the Police are the people most promiscuous I’ve seen, even more than the people of the world of film and rock. And above are in the Second World War… The people are erotizada, so to speak.
Is clear that it is an exciting time in the history of the united States.
Yes!
And I think that this novel also is born out of his obsession by that time.
I’ve always looked back.
why?
The truth is that I don’t know. I started reading when I was very small.
how old were you?
Three and a half years. My father taught me to read. He was a lonely child, didn’t have any brothers or sisters, he spent a lot of time alone, I liked to read and I loved reading those stacks of issues of the magazine “Life” that I had in my house. I always set in the past. That is the source of my curiosity. When my mother died, I was ten years old and my curiosity was diverted towards the crime world, the conduct psychosexual, police investigations…
did you searching for answers?
Probably, unconsciously, yes. What I wanted was to move me, that I conmovieran things, have fun, enjoy. I have not read many books, apart from the black genre. For example, I tried to read a book Faulkner and… (makes noises simulating that hoarse) was soporific.
What book was it?
Perhaps it was the “Light of August” or “The noise and the fury”, I don’t remember. It bores Me, I prefer to read a novel, frankly. In addition, I have always been interested in the past.
Before you mentioned the death of his mother. His ghost was present again in this novel.
Yes, it is Joan Conville. But this is the last time, no longer appears in my books.
And what has come to coexist peacefully with your ghost?
Yes, a long time ago.
I am surprised your detachment with regard to the present, his disinterest towards her.
I am interested in other things, I don’t want to write about something that writes all of the world. This is my place, and my place is the past, not the present. I am not a journalist and I am not here to expose anyone now, I don’t care, I’m not interested. The only thing that’s there now is noise.
Yes, but we have to live with that noise.
I don’t, I don’t know.
And how does he do?
I Just do it, it is very easy. I do not read newspapers, do not watch the news, I don’t speak with my friends about current issues… I don’t give a damn.
In some way, the writers use fiction to better understand the reality that surrounds them. But I’m afraid that is not the case…
No, it is not. If someone wants to say that this book reflects modern America or the world today, say so, but I don’t think so, it is not so. It is a world that has vanished and to me I like to live in it.
do And how to live in that world?
I like To be alone, I aíslo. I like to think, I like to reflect and I like to work. And my career has not finished yet, I want to write great novels.
Clarify your fixation with Orson Welles. Not someone that me I fall down particularly well, but in the novel… until I get to give worth.
why don’t you like Orson Welles?
I find it unfriendly, a pretentious.
I agree with you. It is the intention with legs!
But that is not very politically correct…
why? You can say what you want from who you want, what you want. What if it says: “I Think that Orson Welles is a pretentious”? Are you going to point the finger?
what if I say that to me, “Citizen Kane” seems to me a movie aburridísima?
is that it Is so boring… It’s a movie stupid and pretentious.
I am pleased that coincided, because there is an opinion very popular.
What it does is a shit. And it was a fat, that’s why I call him “El Gordo” (shouts in Spanish).
I like it, because lately I have the feeling that I am submitting to that kind of dictatorship of the politically correct that is spreading, little by little, like a virus throughout society.
Yes, but do you know what happens? It is only in the arts.
what Just, you think?
Yes, yes, really. Most of the people give a damn what you say. Yes, there is the dictatorship of political correctness in the arts, but this book… ja, ja, ja (makes a cut sleeve)… Vaffanculo! (he laughs).
We have talked about Orson Welles and I could not help but flash back to Hollywood and his experiences there, not very good, I think. How that ended for you?
I’m Not going to re-sign, ended. I wrote scripts, but I have to admit that I did it for money and now I have a pension from the guild of writers, which is very good. In addition, the scripts that I wrote were reviewed by others, and the films made from those scripts were bad, very bad.
what Now tends to go to the cinema?
No, but I have seen a movie recently that I really liked a lot, and in addition is a change, because I never liked the films of that director.
What movie is it?
The last of Tarantino, “once Upon a time in Hollywood”. It is the best film in the history of Hollywood, it is very, very good. They are almost three hours of film. I have to say that mr. Tarantino, I’ve said all sorts of horrors, but now I repent, I owe him an apology.
Well, what better time than this?
you are right: I’m so sorry, I apologize, friend (laughs).
In some occasion, has said that his limit is 1972, which never write something that happens in later years. Why?
Because from that moment there is nothing that interest me, and I knew it, my intuition had said. Most of the people who made things then he is alive, Watergate, all of that is still active and all over the world has written about it. I had to look back and create my own territory.
