The protagonists in your novels all have profound relationships with literature. How did your relationship with literature begin? Who are your favorite novelists?
I read a lot when I was a child, but I had somewhat rarified taste—Albert Payson Terhune until the age of twelve and then Colette and Dostoysevsky. And I don't mean they were my favorite writers—they were very nearly the only writers I read. I was at that time trying to decide between being tormented by the demands of the body or being tormented by the demands of the soul. In college, I read wonderful literature, but it was all written in Latin and I really didn't go past the thirteenth century. I had decided on the torment of being a graduate student. It wasn't until I left school that I really discovered literature. And it had nothing to do with torment. I suddenly realized that I could read simply for the joy of reading. It started with Dickens. It may sound odd that a supposedly well-educated and self-proclaimed literary person had never read Dickens, but as he wasn't Colette or Dostoyevsky and wrote after the thirteenth century, and in English, I hadn't. It was a revelation. I love Dickens in a very particular way because of that. And Trollope, who seems to me so subtle psychologically and morally and, too, as a craftsman. And Jane Austen, of course. I am also a devoted fan of Pictures From An Institution by Randall Jarrell. It is the funniest book ever written. I read it the way some people read the Bible. Of younger more contemporary novelists, I love A. J. Verdelle, who wrote The Good Negress, and I've just discovered Lois-Ann Yamanaka. And Penelope Fitzgerald and Muriel Spark and Salman Rushdie who, weirdly, had a big influence on me. Made me see the beauty of excess. Tim Parks is a really good writer. I also read a lot of nonfiction.
Readers of your novels often experience other literature through your characters' bedside reading or literary obsessions. Do you have a larger mission here? To point readers toward cherished books? Is one of your goals as a novelist to capture the pleasure and excitement of reading?
I'm not proselytizing. It's just that in Rameau's Niece, The Love Letter, and The Evolution of Jane, certain writers or books or kinds of books were actually part of the story.
Your novels seem well-suited to movie adaptations. They are fast-paced, witty and smart—one thinks of the classic screwball comedies. Do films inspire your literary imagination? Which movies in particular? Do you write the screenplays or would you rather someone else adapt your work?
The only time a movie consciously contributed to a book was with Rameau's Niece, which I did very much model on The Awful Truth. Other than that, I have often thought that I wish my books could capture a certain feeling and view of the world I see in Ang Lee's earlier movies, like The Wedding Banquet and Eat Drink Man Woman, which are both so uncompromising and humane, and funny. But in general I don't experience movies in the same way that I do books. I don't know if I could write a script for one of my books. I'm working on a screenplay now, but with someone with a lot of experience, and it's not based on a book. And I've enjoyed it. But my books follow words around, and scripts follow behavior. I wonder if I could make that transition with one of my own books.
Have you ever lost a friend as Jane did?
Yes. It still bothers me. I still think about it.
The Evolution of Jane alternates between Jane's and Martha's adult lives and childhoods. What are the challenges of distinguishing between the two eras and the perspectives of the characters at various ages?
I didn't try to write in a child's voice. Well, that's not true. I did try and quickly gave it up. I also tried to include some sections in the historical past (Jane's sea-faring ancestors), and gave that up too. All I can say is, it's good for a writer to take chances and try new things, but, to quote former Mets player Mookie Wilson, "You gotta stay within yourself."
Your descriptions of the Galapagos Islands are extremely vivid, providing a real visual map for the reader. Did you visit before writing The Evolution of Jane? If so, how was that experience?
I did go to the Galapagos with a group called The American Littoral Society. I have wanted to go there since I was a child. Like Jane, I wanted to be a naturalist but was too lazy to actually go outside. The trip was wonderful, exhausting, and I found that in addition to the natural marvels of the islands and their historical and scientific resonance, which is very powerful when you're there, there was this other experience that was equally new and powerful, which was being on a boat for ten days with fifteen strangers. It was like being caught in the most bizarre elevator of all. It was great.
What other kind of research did you do?
I read a lot. I went to the New York Public Library and read about Cuba and eighteenth century shipping and I also read Darwin and books about Darwin and biology textbooks so I could understand the books by Darwin and about Darwin. Darwin is a beautiful writer—exploding with excitement at what he sees, and yet writing in a very straightforward prose style. And there are so many great popular science writers around like Stephen Jay Gould and Dawkins, etc. I was lucky to be able to read writers who could really write, even while I did research.
One of the most provocative aspects of The Evolution of Jane is the investigation of Charles Darwin's writings. Jane frequently applies Darwinism to her own life—and the results often depress her. Do you believe Social Darwinism to be a reality—even if a highly unfair one? What role does it play in the context of human relationships? Why did you choose to write about friendship with Darwinism as a backdrop?
Social Darwinsim is like astrology, I think. It's a pseudo scientific system based on a crude and wrongheaded reading of a subtle insight. Jane's musings are based on Darwin's thoughts and the ideas and controversies of evolutionary theorists who followed him, but they are used as metaphors, not as real explanations. I wasn't interested in the nature-red-in-tooth-and-claw stuff, which is the heart of Social Darwinism. I wasn't even interested in sexual selection. It wasn't what the book was about. The book was about change, and that's what evolution is about, really.
The Barlows' family history is linked with economic and political issues—the maritime industry, the relationship between Cuba and the United States, wealth and poverty. How does this factor into Jane's social world?
I liked the idea of her parents coming from very distinct but lost worlds—from Cuba and Brooklyn. And I wanted to write about change, about the moment when one thing changes into another. I liked the idea of a family tree. Of her family having a history
The Evolution of Jane has a lively cast of "minor characters"—Aunt Anna, Gloria Steinham, Jeremy Toll, and Dot Cornwall, among others. What function do such characters serve in the novel and what do they contribute to the book as a whole?
I usually become almost more attached to my minor characters than to my main characters. In this case, Jane was on a boat with a bunch of strangers about whom she had theories, just as she had theories about everything. And as with everything else, her theories about them were wrong. For me, comedy has a lot to do with misunderstanding.
Excerpted from The Evolution of Jane © Copyright 2008 by Cathleen Schine. Reprinted with permission by Plume. All rights reserved.
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