Here’s the part two of our Q & A chat with Edmonton’s Dan Vyleta, author of PAVEL & I.

(click here to read Part One)

What motivates you to write?

There is a magic to writing.  I can’t describe it any other way.  Time disappears.  It’s what it must feel like for a professional musician to pick up their instrument.  It’s not that it isn’t work.  Of course it is work to sit down at the computer and figure out what happens next.  But there comes that moment when the book takes on a force of its own, and starts to carry you.  On some level I think everybody should be writing.  It’s wonderful.

When you first started your writing career, did you have a mentor or was there an author you particularly admired?

There were about a thousand authors I deeply admired (and still admire), though I can’t say there was one who made me write.  I did not show my work to a great many people, but those who did read it were very encouraging.  I never had any formal training in writing; for me reading has always been key. 

Is there a particular ritual which you adhere to when you’re writing a novel?

I listen to music.  PAVEL was written to Beethoven’s piano sonatas.  I am a huge Jazz fan, but there is something about those sonatas that put me in a PAVELesque mood.  Other than that, I need lots of coffee and tea.  I used to think I could only write at night, but that turned out to be a stupid excuse for not getting out of bed in the morning. 

How much of yourself goes into your work?

Who knows, exactly.  A friend asked me a while back: how much of what you write is true.  None of the big things, I said, but all the small.  I listen into myself, if that makes any sense, and try to trust my instincts.  One could inquire further, but maybe it’s best not to know.

As a debut novelist how did you cope with the self-doubt?

It’s suffering, pure and simple.  I don’t think I coped; I endured.  And then there is the conviction, deep down, that it’s a good story; that it has moved me, hence may move others.

What are you working on now?

A new novel, but the title is secret.  We mustn’t jinx it.

What do you do when you’re not writing?

I have been working at various Colleges/Universities for the past few years, teaching across the humanities.  Other than that I read, play with the cats, watch The Wire, go for walks, listen to Jazz, do sports, go to bars, the usual. 

What books are you reading at the moment and what made you pick them up?

I read a bunch of lesser known books by Graham Greene recently (e.g. The Ministry of Fear); a Walter Mosley mystery that I picked up in the public library (Fear of the Dark); re-read Faulkner’s Light in August in a funky 1960s edition that I got at a local second hand book store, and some essays by Joan Didion.  I usually decide to read something because I read the first page in a shop or at a friend’s place and liked it.  Howard O’Hagan’s Tay John is next on my list - I have just been to Jasper, in the mountains, and this looks like it’ll carry me back.

What was the last book you started reading, but couldn’t finish?

An American Dream, by Norman Mailer, who passed away recently and deserves a better reader.  The prose is fantastic, I just ran out of steam somehow. 

Could you introduce an author you think people should read, and suggest a good book to start with?

I think everyone should read some of the nineteenth century classics: Dickens (Bleak House, or, if that seems like too fat a book to tackle, Great Expectations), Dostoevsky (any, really; The Eternal Husband if length is an issue), James (Portrait of a Lady; the late James is great but takes some getting used to), Stendhal (The Red and the Black) etc.  For me this is the heyday of the novel - these books are popular and literary all at once, just great thumping reads. 

As for contemporary stuff, I think Pete Dexter is terrific - his Train is a wonderful novel, part crime fiction, part meditation on race in the 1950s. 

Do you have any favourite Canadian authors?

The jury is still out on this one.  I had read a number of very famous Canadian authors before moving here (Atwood, Ondaatje, Robertson Davies), and am trying to get to know the Canadian literary landscape more systematically now.  I have to say, I am tremendously impressed by the vibrant literary community that exists in Edmonton, and how proud people I talk to are of domestic authors. 

How are you finding life in Edmonton?

I’m enjoying myself.  The first day at -25 centigrade was a bit of a shock, but it’s a balmy -5 right now, and the snow’s sparkling down in the river valley.  Obviously, after Berlin, it’s a very different type of city: very spread out, for one thing, and architecturally less enticing.  I wish there were more independent cafés etc, though I keep discovering little gems.  What I do like is the way consecutive generations of immigration have shaped the place; nobody bats an eyelid at my accent (which is English, with just a hint of something else: my German background, and some time I spent in the US), and there is an understanding that the world extends beyond national borders.  I also like the French cultural presence.  Myself, I speak very little French, and I understand that there have been very serious tensions between the Francophone and English speaking populations of Canada at various points, but again it injects a complexity and diversity into the place from which it can only benefit. 

Thanks Dan! Good luck with book!