"AN INTERVIEW WITH DAVID WATMOUGH"

di Vittorio Curtoni

Q: In the States, in  Canada  and  in  the UK you are a well
known and respected writer.  Here in Italy  you  have  never
been  translated,  so our Italian readers don't know a thing
about you.  Would  you  please  introduce  yourself and your
literary opus?

A: I am a 70 year-old gay author of four  novels  and  seven
volumes  of  short stories.  I was born in London of Cornish
parentage where I  grew  up.   After  graduation from King's
College, London University I went to Paris to write my first
book (on the priest-worker movement in the Catholic Church).
There, in 1951, I met my California-born lover, Floyd,  with
whom  I  still  live (and love!) some 46 years later!  Since
Paris we have lived  in  New  York  and San Francisco before
settling here in Vancouver in the early 1960's where we both
became Canadian citizens.  It  is  in  this  beautiful  city
under  the mountains on the edge of the Pacific Ocean that I
have  written  all  my  fiction  which  is  centered  on  my
alter-ego - a character  named  Davey Bryant.  It is couched
in the First Person  so  very  often  people  mistake  Davey
Bryant,  the  protagonist,  with  David Watmough the author.
The two certainly  have  things  in  common (nationality, an
ongoing-love, gayness etc) so the mistake is understandable.
But it is not quite accurate, nevertheless!

Q: So tell me something about Davey Bryant.

A: I don't know the correct  Italian  word  but  the  German
"doppelganger"   fairly   sums   up   what  I  mean  by  the
relationship between Davey and  David.   What I am trying to
do with all my novels and stories is to compose a  fictional
biographical portrait of a 20th century gay man.  Jane Rule,
the novelist, has described Davey Bryant as "the Everyman of
the  gay  world."  Writing in The Canadian Encyclopedia, the
critic Stanley Gordon  wrote  (rather grandiosly!) about me:
"Since  the  stories  are  written   as   a   mature   man's
recollection  of his past, and since they are intended to be
read as parts of  a  single, extended work, comparisons with
Proust are inevitable: as autobiographical writing they have
been ranked with that of Dylan Thomas."

Q: You were born in England, have  travelled  all  over  the
world,  lived  in  various countries.  Why did you choose to
stay in Canada?

A: Because it  is  so  totally  boring it doesn't interefere
with my literary creativity.  Exciting  countries  I  prefer
funneled through the media so that I can switch them off.  I
was  born at the hub of an Emire that ruled a quarter of the
earth - and  fled  it.   I  moved  to that powerful Republic
which inherited that power on behalf of the English-speaking
Peoples - and fled it.  Now I  belong  with  just  30,000,00
fellow  citizens  in  an  empty landscape composed mainly of
tundra and rock who immerse  themselves in nonsense like ice
hockey, speak in grunts and are  generally  ignored  by  the
rest  of the world.  In other words, for the solitary author
- perfection!

Q: Do you think that the world has really changed its points
of view (or better, its bias) on homosexuality?  What's your
personal experience?

A: My longterm  experience,  plus  my optimistic temperament
suggests I say that for middleclass,urban  dwellers  in  the
First World things are certainly better than when I was sent
to  jail!  Many European and North American places have more
liberal legislation - at  least  in  some degree.  But to be
blind to ongoing injustice, persecution,  and  blackmail  by
fear of losing a job or promotion means wearing blinkers and
inhabiting  a  fool's  paradise.   For me as an "out" author
living with a  university  professor,  the  gay label hasn't
been a heavy one.  But I am very aware that the same  cannot
be  said  for  a  gay  policeman,  a  gay  bank clerk, and a
thousand other jobs that the majority of gays have.  No, the
struggle is not yet over  but  there  is still reason to say
thanks.

Q: How do you treat your homosexuality as a literary theme?

A: We have  a  saying  in  North  America:  Q.  How  does  a
porcupine  make  love?  A. VERY carefully!  It is so with my
utilization of my gayness in my art.  It is there as a basic
constituent   -   like   hair-color,   gender,   weight   or
nationality.  But  I  prefer  the  description  of a fiction
writer who happens  to  be  gay  rather  than  "gay  writer"
because  my  literary,  spiritual,  and  emotional  horizons
extend beyond my loins.  And I should hasten to say they did
when  I was twenty so it's not just a matter of getting old!
On the other hand,  I  am  proud  of  my gayness, have never
denied it since I was arrested  and  imprisoned  in  wartime
Britain   for   importuning   in  a  public  toilet  when  a
seventeen-year-old sailor.  It  becomes  a  viable theme for
me, I think, when I use the fact of gay  marginalization  as
an  opportunity  of  looking  at  the rest of the world.  As
cricket spectators  say:"  The  onlooker  sees  most  of the
game." I also think my gayness relates  me  to  women  in  a
special way and that is reflected in my fiction - especially
my  most  recent  volumes.   Certainly I receive a number of
fan-letters from straight  women  to  whom  I  seem to speak
directly.

Q: HUNTING WITH DIANA, your recent, splendid  collection  is
made  of  stories that tell of your electronic encounters on
Internet.  Why did you choose this particular theme?

A: I chose  this  theme  because  I  wanted to highlight the
latest technology in the context  of  the  most  ancient  of
western  myths  and  legends.  All against the backdrop of a
dying twentieth century.  I also wanted to have a dig at the
moral  complacency,  witch-hunting,  and  puerile  sense  of
history that characterises too  much of today's thinking and
which is aided and abetted (in North America  at  least)  by
the  crappiest  level  of  TV  etc.  I also simply wanted to
fulfill my  vocation  as  a  story-teller.   I  LOVE writing
stories!

Q: HUNTING WITH DIANA is a book full of dark, black stories:
suicide, homicide, incest, mutilation...   At  times  I  was
reminded  of  Shakespeare's most tragic works.  Was I right?
And why did you  choose  this  particular approach?  Is this
your view of today world?

A: Yes, you are dead on!  I believe  that  Shakespeare,  and
the  Ancient  Greeks  (  and Latins!) before him are just as
relevant today as before.  I  do  not think that man evolves
morally.  He is as selfish, as craven as jealous, as fearful
today in a Turin apartment as he was in yesterday`s cave  in
southwestern  France!   Morality  is  not a fashion fad like
food  or  clothes  but   an   integral  part  of  the  human
composition and the source  of  both  his/her  splendeur  et
misere.  I think behind all novelists, fiction writers, is a
lurking historian who wants to put the record right and hand
down  to  unborn  generations a composite picture of blacks,
whites and (above all) grays - in other words, how the world
really is and NOT  the  trite  simplifications dolled out by
the media.  For gays this means, for instance, to preserve a
proper distinction between enjoying a teen-age lover as  the
Greeks   most  certainly  did  and  pedophile  molesters  of
vulnerable little children who  deserve the protection of us
all.

Q: Your use of the classical myths in HUNTING WITH DIANA  is
quite  explicit  and  very  clearly elucidated in your final
notes to the stories.  You  refer to a world that possessed,
in its mythology and also often in its everyday  behaviours,
a  much  more  common  and  tolerated,  when not encouraged,
quantity of what  today  we  call  "deviant behaviour".  Why
this change in the course of the centuries?  Was it just the
advent of Christianity?  Or is this concept of "deviancy"  a
by-product  of the so called modern civilization?  Why do we
today consider deviant  what  in  a less technologized, more
natural world was considered normal?

A: All human mores down through the ages are relative to the
orthodoxies of the  time.   In  Medieval  England  half  the
clergy  lived  with  concubines.   The  ratio  has  remained
roughly  so AFTER the reformation and down to current time -
only now they are  called  clergy  wives!  You simply cannot
"judge" particular ages but  you  can  have  favorite  ones.
Mine  was  probably  the  late  Eleventh  Century  and early
Twelfth when there seemed  to  be  a  lot of edifying vision
about and more Idealism than I  find  currently  observable.
But chacun a son gout...

Q:  I  have  recently  translated  a rather amusing novel (a
noir) by an American writer,  Joe Lansdale, MUCHO MOJO.  One
of his two main characters is  a  black  gay.   In  a  scene
halfway  between  tragedy  and  black humor, a priest throws
sodomy in the  face  of  the  black  gay,  and the black gay
throws in the priest's face some of God's more debatable (or
less  intelligible,  if  you  prefer)  doings  in  the   Old
Testament.   The  priest simply replies by saying that God's
acts are not always,  can't  always  be intelligible to man.
This seems to me the most classical and  annoying  behaviour
of  the  Catholic  Church.  What do you think of the current
positions  of  the  Church  on  homosexuality?   And  of its
positions on sexuality in general?

A: The Church has always  been  rather  duplicitous  in  the
matter  of  sexuality.  Due in part to the Manicheean aspect
i.e.  that sexuality is, per se, evil that permeates Pauline
theology.  (It was G.B.   Shaw,  I think, who suggested that
St.Paul turned Christianity into Crosstianity.) and distorts
the teachings of  a)  St.   Augustine  and  b)  St.   Thomas
Acquinas.   The  opposing factor, the teachings of St.  John
in both the  Fourth  Gospel  and  the  Joahannine Epistle is
crucially under-played and  causes  the  current  heresy  in
Catholic  (and  extreme  Protestant)  dogma.  90% of "Pulpit
Teaching" by  the  Church  is  vested  in  ignorance.  Jesus
Christ NEVER condemned homosexuality.  Nor is there a  verse
in  the  New  Testament  about  the  subject,  per se.  Why?
Simply because the Ancients  had  never heard the word!  (It
is, after all a  bastard  compilation  with  a  quasi  Greek
prefix  and  a  Latin  suffix.)  The  contemporary Church is
accustomed to a schizophrenic theology wherever and whenever
sex is  involved.   It  tells  the  local  Faithful that God
through his Polish Rep believes that Catholic priests should
be celibate but NEVER adds that  is  only  a  local  Western
discipline.   The  Eastern  Uniate Christians who believe in
the Pope as Vicar  of  Christ  but  follow the Eastern style
Liturgy have ALWAYS had a married priesthood and  still  do.
Also  Anglican  married priests who become RC priests do not
have to divorce, imprison or  slay  their wives.  It is this
kind of double behavior that puts off thinking folk.

Q: By the  way,  do  you  believe  in  God?   What  is  your
philosophical position about the universe and the meaning of
life?

A.   Yes,  I suppose I believe in God as the Life-Force that
animates the fabric of life from the simple cell to the most
complicated organism.  But anything  that betrays the Divine
impulse  in  Mankind  to   scientifically   comprehend   and
aesthetically  appreciate  living  life on this planet - and
perhaps others - earns my undying opposition.  I have come a
fair way from the days when  I  was a student of theology at
London University and author of A Church Renascent and  some
of  that  journey has been painful.  Is painful.  I shall be
at Mass on Easter Day but  tears  will blind me from what is
going on at the altar.  Why not call  me  an  Anglo-Catholic
Agnostic - unable at present to suspend disbelief?

Q:  You  often  told me that you consider humor an essential
component of your work.  I  completely agree with you.  Life
without humor would be the most dry of deserts.  At the same
time, I nourish a strong love  and  respect  for  completely
tragic novels like LA NAUSEE by Sartre or LA PESTE by Camus,
or  movies  like  THE  SILENCE  by  Ingmar  Bergman.   Am  I
schizofrenic,  or  is  it  normal for the human nature to be
able to enjoy  both  opposites?   And  why, in your opinion,
even really great artists choose to express  themselves,  at
least at times, completely without humor?

A:  All  artists  should  be in the position to say with the
18th century English  Methodist  preacher, John Wesley, "The
world is my parish!" Nothing, but NOTHING, lies outside  the
novelist's  purview  - and humor, as much as tears, life and
death, hedonism and asceticism are all potential gold in the
motherlode  of  an  artist's   craft   to  be  used  in  the
implementation of his/her vision.  On the  other  hand,  one
doesn't  HAVE  to  write  about  this or that.  I get rather
tired when (mostly young but  not all) gay writers feel they
MUST write about their sexual Rites of  Passage  -  what  in
English  gay lingo is called "coming out".  I think it might
be more interesting if  they  were  to  chose to write about
something like their early reactions to  such  things  as  a
bull's  balls  or ads for underwear in magzines designed for
youngsters.  Personally,  I  don't  like exclusively "jokey"
books but then I would look  askance  at  a  meal  comprised
solely of salad or bread!

Q: Your love of Italian opera and your hate of Italian pasta
are  resounding  themes  in the contemporary literary world.
How do you defend yourself from these infamous accusations?

A: I love opera because my opera-critic roommate would sling
me  out  if  I  didn't.    And   I  hate  pasta  because  my
pasta-loving roommate adores it and I need a little space in
our relationship after forty-six years of  his  cooking  for
me!   All great love affairs, you see, are based on a bit of
prudence and a little  naughtiness.   And I am privileged to
enjoy one of the greatest.

Thank you David!  You're a very wise man!