Forrest Aguirre Bio & Previous Interviews:
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| Aguirre with Totenkopf |
Forrest's
short fiction has appeared in over fifty venues, including Asimov's, Gargoyle,
Apex, and Polyphony. He is a World Fantasy Award winner for his editorial work,
with Jeff VanderMeer, on the Leviathan 3 anthology. His novel, Heraclix& Pomp is releasing now by the Underland Press imprint
of Resurrection House (Oct, 2014). Forrest Aguirre has been interviewed
several times already (see selection below), but this aims to cover some new ground.
The primary theme across all S.E.Lindberg Interviews is “Beautiful Weird Art/Horror” and there is plenty of that in Heraclix & Pomp.
"As a child, I always thought I would die at age 36..." F.Aguirre 2014
How does weird fiction deliver beauty?
What about
dark, surreal subjects do you find beautiful? You have a sustained interest in weird fiction, including
being the editor of the 2002 Leviathan #3 and #4, collections you described as
being "darkly beautiful surreal stories." The paradox of finding beauty in dark things
is the topic we want to explore here: what about dark, surreal subjects do you
find beautiful?
FA: Before we begin, let me say that I find beauty in light, as well.
I’m a bit of a brooder, admittedly, but I love, for instance, going to our
city’s flower garden. I just happen to be willing to peek behind the petals at that
dead frog lying on the wood chips and am able to appreciate the irony and
pathos there, as well. I think the beauty in the dark and surreal is twofold.
First, there is the notion of contrast. Sameness, to me, is not beautiful. Unfortunately, it’s not ugly,
either. If it were ugly, at least it would be interesting. It’s contrast that
I find intriguing.
I’ll give an example (that may or may not work
for you): a few years ago, my family and I had been out watching my two oldest
boys running in a cross country race. It was a beautiful fall afternoon. The
leaves were saturated with yellow and red, it was a cool, pleasant day, with
blue skies and a few wisps of white cloud here and there. We came home and, as
dusk fell, dark clouds started marching in across the western sky. These were
odd, though, not your usual rain clouds. They were thin and tall, reminding me
a lot of the famous Hubble space telescope shot of the “Pillars of
Creation”. I don’t know that I have seen
anything like that before or since. The sun set, the stars came out, and the
clouds kept floating in like some sort of dark ghost sentinels. The sky between
each pillar was so clear that I could see the stars with no obstruction other
than where the clouds occluded them. Then, as I watched, lightning arced from
one of the clouds to another, then back again, across the stars! It was one of
the most majestic views of the universe I have ever had, from my little vantage
point on my front doorstep. I was stunned. Filled with awe. It’s this sort of contrast,
lightning arcing between two dark clouds across a field of stars, that I find
so compelling. It is unexpected, strange, and fills the viewer with
simultaneous respect and terror. This is what I seek in the “darkly beautiful
surreal”.
Second, and the example I just gave leads into this, there is an
expansiveness about the dark that is begging to be filled. When we’re filled
with awe or wonder, it’s not about what we see, but about what we don’t see.
When we stare into the void and the void stares back, the viewer is the source
of both actions. Imagination fills in the gaps that the senses can’t grasp, and
darkness leaves much to the imagination. White emptiness won’t do for this
triggering of the imagination. While a blank page might be filled with
awe-inspiring imagery, it’s not the white page that generates the artist’s
ideas. It is in the dark recesses of his or her mind that the image is formed,
then that emerging image is plotted onto the page. This creation from the
imagination engages the viewer.
This is why people of an artistic bent often
enjoy books more than movies. How often have you heard someone say “I didn’t
like the movie as well as the book because the way it was shown in the movie
wasn’t what I had imagined”? When all the images are provided for you, you are
merely a witness. When your mind creates art of its own volition, in the spaces
left for you by the author, you become a participant in the art. Weird fiction
just provides more quick focus for the imagination. By providing unusual
imagery, it homes in on the experience of feeling the strange. I think of
Mieville’s Perdido Street Station as
a good example of this. Because we begin by focusing on Lin, who has a scarab
beetle for a head, and we are introduced to a well-described artificial
construct, a gaunt bird-like being who has had his wings sawed from off his
back, and other minor, bizarre characters, it is easy for the imagination to
populate the rest of the city with all manner of strange beings. We
extrapolate, we expand, and our expansions are simultaneously bound and freed
by the weirdness that has been provided us by the author. This, in our minds,
creates a strange kind of beauty: a contrast to the “normal” world in which we
live. I, for one, am appreciative of the gift of being able to enter this dark
world and take in its beauty.
Comment on “art” born from death? Were you affected by hermetic muses?
“Think that you are not yet begotten, that you are in the
womb, that you are young, that you are old, that you have died, that you are in
the world beyond the grave; grasp in your thought all of this at once… then you
can apprehend God.” ― Hermes Trismegistus, Hermetica
Heraclix & Pomp opens with a quote from the father (god?) of mysticism, Hermes Trismegistus. Although the Thrice Great Hermes purportedly wrote 100-300 AD (long before the 1700’s in H&P), hermeticism enabled the connection of the intangible of nature (god, life, death…) with artificial, human powers (art, thaumaturgy, theurgy) and was influential during Europe’s Renaissance and Age of Enlightenment. Indeed, before the 20th century,
most scientists were also artists since they had to record their observations
without photographs or computers (Da Vinci, Ernest Haeckel, Robert Hooke, etc.),
so the scientists were the ultimate creators.
Assembling and resurrecting a human via
necromantic rites (i.e., Heraclix’s birth) certainly demonstrates mystical
beauty. Can you
comment on “art” born from death? Were
you affected by hermetic muses?
FA: Death is the ultimate darkness, the ultimate mystery. As I stated
before, the human brain has a way of filling in the gaps created by mystery.
Now, the mystery of Heraclix is his past: what was he before he died and was
reborn? The death itself is of little or no consequence. It was what happened
before death that concerns him. But, it
is only as he travels through the veil of death and into Hell that Heraclix
really begins to understand who he (or they) was (or were). I suppose losing
one’s memory is a kind of death, in an abstract way. And memory and
forgetfulness, change and rediscovery, were the main themes behind Heraclix’s
journey. He is not who he thought he was, but he doesn’t know who he was. So
many concern themselves about what is coming, about the inevitability of death.
Heraclix is concerned with what came before life, a question which many people
are even more terrified to explore than the fear of death.
Pomp, on the other
hand, has no innate concept of death. It is only when she realizes that there
might be an end to her existence, that it is possible for her to die, that she
begins to even understand a concept of time. Her question is: can one
understand time, unless one is faced with death, the possible cessation of
time? So death itself is merely a trigger to this question. She is not so
concerned about what happens after we die. But because of death, the here and
now becomes acute and comes into sharper focus. She can’t be as carefree and
whimsical as she used to be, because she does not have an infinite amount of
time available to her, or at least she realizes now that this is the case.
Furthermore, death is the ultimate consequence. As a result of her brush with
death, Pomp begins to realize that there are consequences to one’s actions,
consequences that affect her and others. So the prospect of death creates
empathy within her, as well.
These existential problems can inform art, though they don’t
necessarily have to do so. Again, death is a mystery. And art that is drawn
from death or that portrays death, allows the imagination to expand and fill in
the gaps of knowledge that are inevitably caused by our inability to see beyond
death or beyond birth, as in Heraclix’s case.
"...art that is drawn from death or that portrays death, allows the imagination to expand and fill in the gaps of knowledge that are inevitably caused by our inability to see beyond death or beyond birth, as in Heraclix’s case." F.Aguirre 2014
Do you consider Mattatheus Mowler an artist?
Your necromancer Mowler is reminiscent of Mary Bryce Shelly’s Victor
Frankenstein, the infamous artist and scientist, who pieced together body parts
to create life via alchemy. In her prologue, Shelly described how her
muse worked though her:
“I
saw-with shut eyes, but acute mental vision-I saw the pale student of
unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the
hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some
powerful engine, show signs of life, and stir with an uneasy, half-vital
motion. Frightful must it be; for supremely frightful would be the
effect of any human endeavor to mock the stupendous mechanism of the Creator of
the world. His success would terrify the artist...” (Mary Shelly, The Modern
Prometheus 1818)
Were you affected by haunting muses? Do you consider your character Mattatheus
Mowler an artist?
FA: Mattatheus Mowler is motivated by fear. I don’t know that he would
consider himself an artist, though he does have an artistic flair. He’s an
artist, I suppose, in that he’s an actor, but all of his actions are based on
his fear of death. If he’s an artist, he’s an accidental artist, except in the
theatrical arts, where he is very intentional!
Do you
have a curio cabinet at home, full of Etsy-purchased art? Where did you procure
that Totenkopf (death’s head Fez)?
Like Mowler, you don a peculiar Fez cap. The juxtaposition of skull-and-crossbones on the timely
headpiece (popular in the 18th century) represents the necromancer, indeed the
entire book, well. You claim
not to be an artisan as much as you are a writer, but you
have a fascination with artifacts; collecting them seemed integral our creative
process, at least in (your many virtual "treasuries" on Etsy). Why brainstorm in a real marketplace of
artifacts? Do you have a curio cabinet at home, full of Etsy purchased art? Where
did you get that death’s head Fez?
FA: Well, I’m not a hoarder,
as such. The Etsy lists served many purposes. They helped me visualize things a
bit better when I required some focus. They helped me to get the word out about
the novel to people who might not otherwise get direct exposure to it. Finally,
I just plain love Etsy and want to support the artists there. Since I can’t
just go and buy everything on Etsy, I thought I’d give some of these Heraclix
& Pomp related pieces a “signal boost”. I don’t know that I can take
credit, but some of the pieces in those lists have sold since
I posted them on my treasuries list. I do have
a sort of curio cabinet or cabinets in my writing area. I collect a lot of
knick-knacks that serve as writing prompts, distractions, or objects that spur
the imagination. I have, among many other things, a small “crystal” (read:
cheap clear resin) skull, a number of retro-rayguns, several metal miniatures
(killer robots, martians a’la “Mars Attacks,” creatures from the Lovecraft
mythos), a few European Renaissance-era and early modern silver coins, a
meteorite, a bird cage filled with origami ravens (and a copy of Poes “The
Raven” in paperback), and so forth. My Totenkopf was purchased from
fez-o-rama.com. I couldn’t afford to buy an authentic Totenkopf (I think starting
bids for these were around $2500 on ebay, last I checked). So the $50 I spent
on my Totenkopf was well worth the price. They don’t make that particular style
any more, but I do know that they recently put up another skull-emblazoned fez.
And that reminds me, it’s not a “pirate fez” as I’ve heard so many people say.
It’s a decidedly germano-slavic design. I am trying to educate the world about
this, but it often feels like I am spitting into the wind. Cretins . . .
Is
"mortality" one of your muses? Is there beauty in impermanence?
Heraclix & Pomp explores the boundaries of life and death,
which a presumptive interviewer may assume is reflective of a mid-life crisis
plaguing the rapidly again author.
Having recently celebrating 45yrs of youth, is "mortality" one
of your muses? Is there beauty in impermanence?
FA: As
a child, I always thought I would die at age 36. I have no
idea where I got this notion from, but it was stuck in my head, nonetheless. As
I approached my 36th birthday, I was less and less worried about the prospect.
On that birthday, I woke up, looked around and thought “well, that’s over”. My
mother’s mother lived to be 96, and since my father was adopted and I don’t
know his biological parents, I have no idea what my genetic longevity could be
like. For all I know, I’ll live to be 100 or I’ll die on the way to dinner
tonight. I think that, more than mortality being a muse, adventuring into the
unknown is one of my muses. And going into middle age and, hopefully, old age,
is a bit of an adventure. I’m enjoying the ride.
Any tips on
how to incorporate humor into Dark Art without ruining the ambience?
Trailblazing weird authors
(i.e., Clark Ashton Smith, Howard Phillips Lovecraft) considered their dark
fiction beautiful, but they steered away from incorporating humor. You style seems is indeed “weird” but you include
doses of intellectual laughs. For instance,
Pomp’s idiosyncrasies and mischief are a welcome contrast to H&P’s darker
settings. Any tips for writers who want
to incorporate humor without ruining the ambiance?
FA: Once I had Pomp firmly
planted in my head, she did the rest. I’ve always had a strong sense of humor,
partially because I lived in England during my teenage years and developed a
dark, python-esque sense of humor while I was there. But for Heraclix & Pomp, I didn’t set out to
write something humorous. Pomp just sort of took me there. I love Pomp’s
whimsy. It’s a healthy contrast to so many grim things happening. The character
of Von Graeb also brought a lighter touch to the novel, I think. He’s not
hilarious, but he is good-natured, the kind of guy you like to be around at a
social gathering: real, but willing to laugh at life. I think many works today
are very sarcastic in their humor, and I can appreciate that, in fact the
science fiction novel that I’m working on right now, Solistalgia, has a character with as sarcastic a sense of humor as
anyone could have. But cynicism mingled with laughter has become endemic in
fiction nowadays. In the case of writing Heraclix & Pomp, I wanted to keep
the cynicism at a fairly low level, compared to my normal work. Again, Pomp and
Von Graeb helped me out a great deal. They kept things lighter than they
otherwise would have been, had I let my natural grim sense of humor have its
way.
How does your
Humanities and African History degrees (Brigham Young University and Madison-WI
respectively) inform your weird fiction?
FA: Keep
in mind that I was raised as a bit of a gypsy. My dad was a sergeant in the US
Air Force. I was born in Germany, lived in the Philippines (which I still can’t
spell, after all these years - thank you, autocorrect), Italy, England, and even
Nebraska, for a time. I’ve lived all over the US except the Deep South. And I
mean lived in these places, not just
visited. It would take me some time to enumerate the countries I’ve visited.
So, from my birth, I’ve had a bit of the wanderlust. It’s just how I was
raised. I’m amazed when I look back at my time living in Wisconsin. 18 years, it’s
been. In my first 18 years of life I had lived in four different countries and
four different states: Texas, Nebraska, Minnesota, and Wyoming.
When I went to
college at BYU (in Utah, for those unfamiliar with BYU), I studied humanities
with a history emphasis. Most of my history classes were in European History,
medieval, renaissance, and modern. It wasn’t until the summer between my junior
and senior year, when I did my senior thesis on the Battle of Tanga in German
East Africa, that I began to become interested in Africa. That’s what led me to
apply to UW-Madison and pursue a Master’s in African History. After I ran out
of funding and ambition, I quit grad school and worked in the “real” world
(where I am still gainfully employed) and writing fiction whenever I could
manage it. We write what we know, so, of course my travels and my studies
inform my work. As I mentioned earlier, I’m working on a science fiction novel
set, where else? In space. I guess I’ve moved beyond this
planet, for a short time, anyway. But I’ll be back. I have a feeling that Heraclix
and Pomp might just return at some future point. There are no guarantees, but I
hear that there were some interesting things happening between the time of
their first adventures and now, maybe something in colonial Africa or in the
American west. I’ll ask them if they were involved.
Creative
Processes
You already
covered your writing process in other interviews, and revealed that H&P
evolved, in part, from role playing games, and that you prefer to write the
first draft of a story with a real ink pen (see interview list above). Would you like to comment more on your
creative process?
FA: It probably goes
without saying that writing, for me, is a holistic experience. I typically burn
incense when writing and am rarely without a dark chocolate bar of some kind
nearby when I write. Music is critical, too, as you can see from the
acknowledgements in Heraclix & Pomp.
Each of my
characters has his or her own soundtrack, really, and when I need to get into
character quickly, I turn on the appropriate music to tune in to that
character. Lighting is also an influence for me. My writing area is
admittedly dim, as harsh lights tend to blind my imagination, a bit. I am a
visual and kinesthetic learner/creator, so this is fairly important to me. I
guess, in summation, writing is a whole body, immersive experience. Writing is
one of my “happy places,” and you don’t get to your happy place without
preparing for the journey!
"Each of my characters has his or her own soundtrack, really, and when I need to get into character quickly, I turn on the appropriate music to tune in to that character." F.Aguirre 2014
Do you find
any of your own weird fiction as beautiful?
FA: I do. And I don’t say that to be vain. There’s something in
my blood, probably from my mother, that compels me to create. I don’t have the
talent or the patience to be an artist (though my kids are wonderful artists),
and though I’ve done acting in the theatrical realm a couple of times, I find
that the preparation and execution of acting requires me to “stuff down” my personality.
It’s a real chore. Creating through writing, though, comes quite naturally. The
experience of writing is a drug, a hallucinogen that brings beautiful things
out of my mind. Sometimes, I’m able to capture them and show others, sometimes
not. But when I can, I’m not afraid to acknowledge their beauty. I can
sometimes look at a sentence and say “That, Forrest, is a great sentence. You
rule!” This is to counteract the many times when I have to overcome the sense
of inadequacy that arises from those times when I know I haven’t quite captured
what I’ve seen or heard in my thoughts. Take your victories as you can, I say. Don’t be afraid to
acknowledge the beauty you create. But do be willing to acknowledge when
someone else, usually an editor, finds an even better way to express what it is
that you thought you had expressed well in the first place. Be
proud. Be humble. Just be both at the appropriate times. There’s no shame in
creating something beautiful and feeling a sense of satisfaction in not only the
creative act itself, but in the results of your efforts. You’ve made the world
a more beautiful place for yourself and others. Congratulations!
Thanks Forrest Aguirre for sharing!
Chronicles of Hate by Adrian Smith
