Cast the Long Shadow (2011) is Lou Drofenik’s fourth novel
1. Your novel Cast the Long Shadow is one of initiation and emancipation. How much truth is there in this?
When I reflect upon it yes, you are right this is a
novel of initiation and eventual emancipation. I had a very clear picture of
Charlie Scicluna growing up during the war years in Malta. A teenager who is
quite lost, confused by what’s going on around him. The shock when he sees his
neighbour burnt to death, the
deprivations of the war years, his father’s aggression, his own premonitions
and his mother’s death. Then there is
his love for his cousin Angelina and what happens between them which wakes him
up from a kind of total confusion. I also had a very clear picture of Edward
Pisani growing up in a foster home, away from his family, the knowledge that
his parents have actually received money for him. The anger and frustration he
feels on the island and then his eventual migration. I feel that for Charlie
and Edward migration freed them from a past which held them in bondage, gave
them a new identity - a new life almost.
2.
The
recurrent motive of the racing pigeons, Charlie Scicluna’s frequent dreams.
Symbolism as one of the major narrative mechanisms you use in Cast the Long Shadow. How do you react
to such a statement?
Many of our neighbours in Birkirkara where I grew up
and many of the older migrants I met here, were deeply involved in raising and
racing pigeons. For some it was more than a hobby, it took over their lives.
For migrants, keeping pigeons was a link with their past, it was part of their
culture, part almost of their Malteseness. They also had that knowledge which
they brought with them and they used it. Thinking about your question perhaps
for pigeon fanciers to see a pigeon soar high up in the sky and then return to
its loft was a symbol of freedom and faithfulness. Yes perhaps Charlie’s
pigeons were symbolic of what he yearned to do. As for his dreams they were
part of his makeup. That’s how I saw his character forming and developing, he
was a person who was gifted with dreams.
3.
Other
narrative mechanisms are the appeal to the sense of smell in relation to
domestic-familiar spaces, and of colour in relation to childhood. How important
are these in your prose, also in relation to memory?
I think smells are so evocative! They take me
straight into that place and time of memory and bring up visions clearer than
if I video taped them. The distinctive smell of fig leaves on a hot day and I’m
a little girl playing in my grandmother’s garden, the smell of burnt onions and
I’m in a neighbour’s house. And colour too, coming from a place where the sea
and sky of my childhood were so beautiful arriving here on a bleak August day
with the grey sea beating under a leaden sky. Oh that was a sight which tore my
heart apart! I think in writing, these images and smells come without knowing,
they are there tied to the people who inhabit my work.
4.
It seems
that you give great importance to space in relation to action in your novel.
Why is this?
Do you mean the space here? Perhaps this is because
one of the things which up to this day (after fifty years living in this
country) still fills me with awe; is the space. The breadth of the sky, the
long endless country roads, the immensity of the oceans, the never ending
beaches. Space moves me and that perhaps is why it works itself in the
characters’ lives and what they do.
5.
Family,
the past, childhood and memory are important elements. Do they only have a
narrative function in the novel, or is there more to them?
No I think they are deeper than that. While I was writing Cast the Long Shadow I slowly came to the realisation that Charlie
and Anton were taking me inside their moral world. Their upbringing, very
different from one another, impinged quite strongly into their migrant lives.
The decisions they made were always based on the values they brought with them
from their countries. Both Charlie and Anton, treated their families well and
would do anything for them. They brought with them the value of family and
though neither of them went to church they were quite moral persons.
6.
The
writer’s starting point is biographical and personal, while his/her finishing
point is universal. How much is this so in your case?
You are right. In Cast the Long Shadow the first page, although it is written in the
third person is personal. I actually
wrote that when the second draft of the book was finished and I was reflecting
on the story on one of my long walks. I could see quite clearly where the
second half of the novel had come from, it had been there all the time lurking
in my subconscious waiting for the right time to reveal itself. It seemed right
to put it down at the start of the book, I think it not only gives the story a
personal touch but a kind of look-ahead to what the story will have inside it.
7.
Action
in your novel spans from 1939 to 1967; Malta just before the Second World War
and during this conflict, and post-Independence. Is there a specific reason
behind this choice?
No not really. Writing this book was like a dream,
the characters came to me, I did not seek them out. That’s when the Scicluna
family lived. Of course being a post war child myself the stories in Cast the Long Shadow must have been
incubating inside my head for a very long time. It also happens to be a
very interesting time to write about, so
much happened then, so many millions of stories still to be told.
8. Cast the Long Shadow also deals with a number of daily social
problems in modern society. What is behind this: realism, moralism, simple
description of the facts or more than that?
That’s a very interesting question! I think it’s
realism. So many choices we have to make in our daily lives and some of them
are so difficult and their repercussions are so long lasting. George Scicluna’s
decision to look after Neville’s stolen goods almost killed him, Pawlina’s
decision to be sterilised affected not only herself but the husband who loved
her. Men and women have to make many hard decisions, no matter where they live
and no matter what the hierarchies (be they religious or political) dictate.
9. The reader of
Cast the Long Shadow notes that you
insist on woman’s strength and determination, and on the other hand you tend to
unveil man’s vulnerabilities. Why is this?
In this novel I was moved to write about male
characters. I didn’t set out to unveil their vulnerabilities, on the contrary I
wanted to find their moral strength. I didn’t want to write about male aggression,
there is too much of that. I was looking
beyond that. I wanted to look at goodness.
I wanted to see how decent men coped
with moral dilemmas. How would a man react when his wife died after a botched
abortion? How would he raise his child through this heartbreak? How would
another find it in his heart to forgive his wife for not telling him about her
disease and what she did before she married him? How did Sam Scicluna find
solace after he lost his family in one fell swoop? Each of these men found a way
to cope with the situations in which they found themselves. Of course it wasn’t
easy, but they did it. I really wanted to go inside their heads, find out what
was inside their hearts.
10. Many of the
sections are given the names of the characters you describe and develop in your
novel. Why?
I think this is a way of sectioning the book and
reminding myself who I’m writing about.
11. Reconciliation with oneself and with others
around us. How important is this in Cast
the Long Shadow?
Yes I think this is an important theme in the book. I see
Lily as having reconciled herself to her past and also Edward. I think the day
he cried In Lily’s kitchen was an opening of his heart, leading to the time
when he pours his story out to Ange, telling her what his parents had done to
him. I think that’s when he forgave them.
12.One last
question: can you describe or list the different phases during the process
between the conception and the publication of Cast the Long Shadow?
This was a very enjoyable book to write and it only took
me about six months to finish the first draft. I usually start writing at six
in the morning till eleven, have a break for lunch, go for a walk and then do
the dreaded housework. This book came to me when I was in Torquay (a beachside
suburb) with my daughter and her
husband. There was a surfing carnival on, and I heard a a competitor with a
Maltese name called out. I thought I can write a book about a Maltese man
coming down here, living close to the ocean. I did a few drafts and didn’t like
them. Then as if he was there waiting Charlie’s name came up. There were a few
stories at the back of my mind I had heard from Maltese men about their war
years in Malta, about coming out here, their settlement years, their trials. I had lots of notes from
my travels to Malta and Slovenia and going over them a story started to take
shape. I finished a first draft and gave it to my editor. She loved it. I gave
it to a second editor and she also said it was good. The manuscript won a first
in the Northern Region Literary Awards and they published it. This book has
done well, it has been read by book groups and individuals and the feedback
from readers has been very positive.
(An interview by
Patrick Sammut)
