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UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Tuesday, September 19, 1967
Writer feels pain of character in novel
By Scott Nunley Special to the Kansan
"A writer should be aware that he's writing a lie, that it's fiction, something made up."
Glasses and beard hide the face of the young novelist. Opinions float in a soft voice. Behind him in St. Louis waits his wife and two children and an "underground" newspaper, "The Millcreek Valley Intelligence." Ahead of him
lies the Coward-McCann January publication of his first novel "The Artificial Traveler."
Will you care?
Warren Fine, 24, will you care how the critics read your first novel? "Not if they don't like it. Or if they like it, but don't know what the hell I said; I'd hate that worst of all."
In Lawrence reviving friendships, Mr. Fine recalled KU-1965
WARREN FINE
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and the encouragement of visiting novelist John Hawkes. "Hawkes led me to his publisher, Harper and Row, and the novel should have been out last year. But I followed my editor when he moved to Coward-McCann."
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"I mean the origin . . ."
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Warren Fine approves of Kansas and its University. In fact, he hints broadly for a position teaching creative writing. "I'm a Midwesterner, basically. My novel is set in Kansas City and Western Kansas. I'm rural-oriented—if I had $10,000 to blow, I'd buy a little farmhouse and get some work done on my second novel."
On dream-worlds
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"Compare it to Dante, or to 'The Tempest.'"
Mr. Fine shifts, crosses and uncrosses his legs, smoking another cigarette to the skin. How does he begin to describe a novel you haven't seen? "Let me explain the title, 'The Artificial Traveler.' I mean the origin of the word, an artificer, a maker. I could have said "The Traveling Artificer," but well I didn't."
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It's the artificial, the created quality of art that obsesses him, in his own fiction and in the occasional criticism which he writes. "Even automatic writing is artificial. I don't think much of Ginzberg for thinking that it's not. It's a lie, but a lie that actualizes experience. Aristotle."
The author smiles in apology as his explanation trails to a close. "Hope is something to be arrived at fictiously," he adds in the silence. "You can see that these places, even Gardner, Kansas, are dream-worlds. This isn't reality, this is fiction, artifact. 'Fellini's Juliet of the Spirits' is very similar to my book—a dream and an exorcism. But I don't mean I'd seen the film and and been influenced."
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Warren's Fine' s fiction grows organically? He agrees. "I start around a central image, then the book grows. There are signposts: plot ideas, notes to myself, general directions. I usually work four or five hours a day, about two sheets of legal paper which I rewrite at once. Then I rewrite when I type it out, and again and again."
DERBY, England — (UPI)— Tight-fitting shorts and blue jeans have been banned for hikers in this hilly area, for health reasons. The ruling was prompted by medical findings that three youths who died in a climb during a 1964 blizzard might have survived if they had been more warmly clad.
The plot of "The Artificial Traveler" is deceptively pure. The novel moves through three parts—"The Madonna of the Ferris Wheel," "The Novelty Factory," and "The Donor"—in pursuit of Cyril Cane and his family.
Painful dissection
The difficulty lies in extracting only facts from Cyril's embarrassed creator. Mr. Fine mumbles and interrupts himself, taking refuge in digression and confusion. He feels the life of his creation and the pain of dissecting it before strangers. The pattern emerges as much in your own imagination as in his words.
Cyril's son Maxwell befriens a homosexual artist set upon by surrealistic demons. Demonic Herman Gottlieb—"her man God love," an ironic name—is at last defeated in "The Madonna of the Ferris Wheel" by the two friends. The demonic elements are more successful, however, in "The Novelty Factory" and Cyril's young son Clair is killed. "The Donor" is Cyril's dream of the Arthurian land of Sarras. With Sir Palimino and the Wandering Jew, Cyril quests in opposition to a comic-demon Monk. Since Cyril achieves his quest and the monk is overcome, Mr. Fine considers his novel a true comedy:
He recalls a final point, and spews smoke in his haste: "My character, Cyril Cane, is a Jonah. He's called to be a prophet and he tries to run out. He knows what his life's work is, but he refuses. When he accepts at last, the people of Sarras honor him as a prophet. They call him 'Lucky Cyril, the man who wasn't crucified.'"
Musicians meet this week
More than 800 KU students will join the various University vocal and instrumental groups this week through competitive tryouts or enrollment.
KU's four choral groups, two
bands and symphony orchestra give public performances and make tours each semester.
Students earn one hour of academic credit a semester in each of the organizations.