Josh Ritter Finds Humor in Tragedy and 'Untrustworthy' Angels for New Novel
- Posted on Jun 30th 2011 1:15PM by Dan Reilly
- Comments
Erika Goldring, Getty Images
Mixing humor and heartbreak, the book follows Henry Bright, a World War I veteran who loses his wife and tries to protect their newborn from her murderous father, all the while conversing with an angel that he believes followed him back from the trenches of France. The story started as a song, but when Ritter realized the scope of the narrative, he decdied to go for broke and turn it into a novel. Spinner recently spoke with Ritter about his writing process, why he finds humor in tragedy and why he's excited about the predicted end of the world.
You must be pretty excited to have the book out.
Totally. It's pretty amazing. I remember the first time I got a record back in the mail, the nerves. This is that way too. It's pretty great. I'm excited and nervous, which is awesome. I totally live for the moment when you can whip the sheet off the statue. All that you really know is that you worked really, really hard and you think it's good. And then it's just fun to share it.
How long ago did you start this project?
Two years ago. I wrote it in about two, two a half months and then edited it for about a year. It's along the same kind of lines as a record -- you take your time on it but there're sections where you blaze.
Did it start in a blaze?
I did. I hardly ever write songs about a single moment. There's usually some sort of narrative going on in there. I really believe that a good song can be unfolded into a novel so I went into it with this song that I'd been working on that was not going to be on 'So Runs the World Away' because I was just finishing recording that. I wanted to save it and I also thought that here's this whole story in front of me. Very blindly, I started out. Almost immediately, the story started to change. Knowing that there was a synopsis in the beginning gave me the confidence to start.
When I first started moving away from the song and moving into writing the story in prose, it initially was such a freeing feeling to not be bound by a meter and not be bound by rhyme. When it came time for a second, third, fourth, fifth, all those drafts, it became less about the meter being important or the rhyme, just looking down on every word as important in its own way. It really wasn't that far from a song.
Someone once told us that a story or poem is never finished, it's abandoned. What's your stopping point?
A lot of the times, it's just knowing when to take the pen off the page, but also knowing when something is OK but not good enough. Something things are irreparable, and you have to just say, "Well, it doesn't quite work." I definitely wait for the feeling that I know it's right. It's like you've lit a match and you're carrying it from candle to candle and you really guard that match, that little spark of whatever it is. It's you, it's inside this story or the song. You're the only one that recognizes it. I wait around for that. And then you try not to mess it up.
Between the novel and your song 'Galahad,' it seems like you enjoy writing about funny, somewhat corrupt angels. Was that a conscious thing?
It was an idea. This was far into writing the book, I realized that I was writing about these untrustworthy angels for a while without really realizing that it was adding up into this story. Whether it's the angel in 'Galahad' or any angels in the Bible, these are scary, potentially very violent and not necessarily trust-inspiring beings. And whether or not the angel that talks to Henry Bright is real or not I something that I never wanted to answer. I almost didn't think it mattered. The vagaries of Henry Bright's experiences in the war, his loss of faith in some sort of a divine plan, were just as easily expressed by an angel as they were by his own mind, his own search for a reason.
You were raised by neuroscientists and almost became one yourself. Did you also grow up with religion?
I did. My parents were scientists and were always kind of free thinkers. My ideas about religion are not bounded by any particular creed, although I do think religion and science are all ways of just answering questions, or posing questions, I should say. Attempting to answer questions by posing good ones. A lot the times I think that the problem with religion is that it seeks to have answers instead of just embracing the fact that no one knows. That's where it's most powerful, I think.
And that's where conflicts arise. People say "You're wrong" because of their beliefs.
Or that we have the Apocalypse happening on May 21. Which is totally exciting to contemplate, but a little misguided [laughs]. Amazing.
We can see you writing a song about that too.
Oh man, I was tempted to. Actually, I'm excited because apparently, the actual End of the World is on Oct. 21 and it's my birthday. So, my fingers are crossed [laughs].
A horse and a goat are big parts of this novel. Did that have anything to do with your upbringing in Idaho?
Definitely. My brother and I grew up very far out of town. The chickens, the cattle. Even to this day, my parents have donkeys and all kinds of odd animals. They are a collectors of strange. A few donkeys, iguanas, that sort of stuff. I think that every dog that we've ever had has been a complete psychotic. It's nice to realize that pets are people too. We had a dog for years who was unhappy unless he was in the water, with prolonged stretches of complete depression.
You've called your song 'Folk Bloodbath,' which is about murder and death, a comedy, and the book has some funny moments during really shocking scenes. How would you describe your sense of humor?
When I read or see something, I don't quite understand the distinction between comedy and tragedy. It's just not quite there. I think that 'King Lear' is this enormous, towering tragedy, but when you look at it, it's also really funny. There is so much in it that is so tragic, all you can do is just laugh at the creativity of this scene. My favorite stuff is an apt mixture of those two things. Life is too short not to find some comedy in everything. We are owed humor!
What else do you have planned when all this book tour?
I'm working on writing some songs and going to be recording in the fall. It's great thing being able to come back to after having taken a bit of a break and remembering how much I love writing those and how much I love that I have to rhyme. It's beautiful. I want to write another novel. I want to write multiple novels. It's such an exciting thing. I love that each album or writing songs for a record is kind of like long weekend away from each other and you can appreciate the differences and the challenges of each. It's been a real education.
Download Josh Ritter Songs | Buy Josh Ritter Albums
1 Comment