Polish Wharton interview

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William Wharton interview, translated

Thanks to the anonymous Polish guy who translated this Polish interview (and who is very fond of Medley and Stasys)

I wouldn't mind being a falcon

It's a hot Saturday afternoon. Even though the air conditioner is on it's difficult to breath. The tiny room is as messy as it can get - open bags, clothes tossed all over the place. Heaps of books and sheets of paper on the only table. A tray with cookies. And a little bottle full of a bright yellow liquid with a tiny piece of a tangerine swimming in it. An older man looks as tired as Santa Claus. But he's more like a modern saint - in blue jeans, white T-shirt and barefoot. His feet are very tanned and his eyes are very blue. This man is Williamm Wharton. A Parisian painter, American writer, darling of crowds. A completely normal person.
A: Polish teenage girls are as crazy about you as about a rock star or a very popular actor.
W.W. (laughing): I don't believe that there exists any group of girls who would be in love with me, it's totally impossible.
A: But it's true that teenage girls don't read "Anne of Green Gables" anymore. Now it's "Birdy" and "Tidings". Our reader poll on the best book of 1995 put five of your books in the top ten. How can you explain this?
W.W.: Hooray! It's much better for them to read my books than to watch TV. An hour of TV a day is quite enough. Maybe they like me because I tend to like young people more than the older ones and women more than men. The upshot is that I like young women most.
When I was 18 I was in the army and I had to fight. I dreamed of some kind of a magic spell which would turn me into a woman. I wanted to have kids and to take care of them. I thought I would be the best wife in the world. Life would be much better if I could stay home and cook a dinner and were not forced to shoot to people who also wanted to kill me. Being a woman seemed to me like a great idea then.
A: Wouldn't it be an escape, being a coward?
W.W. (laughing): No, it would be just a change of sex. I like cowards, they don't harm anyone, they don't want to impress anyone, they don't want to convince anyone. All heroes I know are fools and bores, concerned only with themselves. Cowards are more interesting.
A: You were seriously wounded during the war, they had to reconstruct your face. You survived your when your house in California burned down. There was a fire at your studio in Paris. Several years ago you lost your daughter, your son-in-law and two granddaughters in a car crash in Oregon. Life was not too kind to you. If you could choose - would you be born as yourself once again or would you prefer some other life?
W.W.: I would like to be just myself. If I could choose once again, I would choose to be a falcon. You can fly, and not many people hunt you.
A: You are not only a writer but a painter as well. Light, sound and color have a special meaning for you. You don't like TV, you've escaped from it out of the US. But what about cinema?
W.W.: Cinema is not an art. A work of art has only one creator, from the beginning to the end, but every movie is a result of a collective work of many people. Besides, all movie directors are thieves, stealing the ideas of others. The capricious behavior of movie stars, the money involved - should it be worth anything from the viewpoint of an artist? The modern cinema kicks viewers in the balls and chains them to their seats (?) so that the viewer stays in front of the screen forever.
A: What movies do you like?
W.W.: I like movies which engage the mind or at least the emotions. A movie should be a challenge for the human brain, it should improve intellectual capabilties and it should be interesting. It should help develop our emotions and our hearts should grow and become better. Movies such as "Il Postino", "Sense and Sensibility", "Pride and Predudice" based on the novels by Jane Austen. Everyone should see these movies.
A: And what books should everyone read, except for the ones you've written, of course.
W.W. (laughing): I'd suggest several such books. Young girls should read Dostoyevsky, Camus and of course "Huck Finn". And "Sometimes a Great Notion" by Ken Kesey. All of them present a good intellectual level.
A: But none of these books is a love story. Don't you like romantic books?
W.W.: I like romantic books which haven't been written yet. The reason is romantic itself (?).
A: What would you like to tell young girls who love your books and who have their whole lives in front of them?
W.W.: Respect yourselves. Respect your parents and not because of what they are saying (because they don't say all the wise things all the time) but because they are your parents. If you want to do something, follow the famous Nike ad and just do it. Daydreaming, unfulfilled dreams, doing nothing - it is just too easy and leads nowhere good. And one more thing: do not spend more than one hour a day in front of a TV!

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