Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 2002. Vol. 8. Eger Journal of American Studies.(Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 28)
Studies - Zoltán Abádi-Nagy: Conversations with Raymod Federman: Take It or Leave It and The Voice in the Closet
Q: Kostelanetz refers to your "individually defined pages" as "visual prose." The prevalence of the visual and the typographic elements may also define your early work as concrete prose. Can you accept this term? FEDERMAN: I'm not sure the expression "concrete prose" is appropriate for my work. It's true I did write some concrete poetry which perhaps grew out of my fiction, but I don't think that the visual and typographical aspects of my work have anything to do with what goes on in Concrete Poetry as it has been defined, let's say, by Haroldo de Campo in Brazil, who was the first to use the expression for this kind of poetry. I prefer the term "visual" to "concrete." I think some people were too quick in connecting concrete music with concrete poetry, but when it comes to the novel, I don't think it can be called concrete just because of its unusual typography. The novel cannot evacuate meaning as concrete poetry does, or else it would really die. I think it is important to realize that what made my novels possible (and of course this is true of all novels which also play with typography) was the typewriter. The action of the typewriter is an integral part of the writing process, of the creative process in my work. In those days I was not working with a word-processor, but I could easily claim that, in writing Double or Nothing and Take It or Leave It, I invented the possibilities of the word-processor as we use it today. Q: What are the functions you want the typographical play to fulfill? Graphic presentation of an idea as a new source of aesthetic pleasure? Or fuller reader-participation by forcing us to concentrate harder since automatic reading habits are frustrated? FEDERMAN: Several of these functions. The first one —expressed in my Surfiction essay —was to challenge reading habits. I am convinced that many readers feel a sense of frustration and boredom when they confront a 600 page book and know they can only move in it from left-to-right, left-to-right, and down the page. Therefore I wanted to question all this and introduce in it an element of diversity and playfulness —an element of amusement. Another reason was to 95
