Interviews & Essays
An Interview with Victoria Strauss
In an exclusive interview with Barnes & Noble.com in January 2004, Strauss talked about her fascination with religion, and the motivation behind writing The Burning Land.
Paul Goat Allen: Victoria, as a graduate of Vassar College with a degree in comparative religion, you're obviously interested in belief systems. What was your motivation for creating the very intricate religion of Āratism? I was fascinated by the mix of Old Testament ambiance and poetic Taoist philosophy.
Victoria Strauss: It's interesting that you should mention the Old Testament, because that was something I initially set out to avoid. I wanted to come up with a religion that wouldn't specifically resemble the Judeo-Christian tradition -- I really wanted to do a fantasy that would have an Eastern rather than a Western feel. Most of my initial research was concentrated on Eastern religious traditions: Taoism, the various forms of Buddhism, Shinto. But I also wanted Āratism to be monotheistic, and as a result a lot of elements crept in that are more Western than Eastern, such as the idea of a human prophet taking direct dictation from the god. The Way of Ārata wound up being about an equal mix of East and West. I also wanted to create a religion that would feel real. Many fantasy religions are little more than window dressing or scene setting, or else they're highly conventionalized versions of pantheism, with gods that serve whatever purpose is needed by the plot and maybe some priests and nifty rituals -- but not a lot of thought-out legend or theology. I wanted the Way of Ārata to seem like a living faith, a faith that some group of people somewhere in the real world might actually follow.
PGA: I loved the striking color imagery throughout this novel. It was as if the blood of the sleeping god was manifesting itself in all of its creations -- "the scarlet sand," "crimson silk," "redback ram," "the blood orange light of sunset," etc. Was this imagery a conscious decision?
VS: Color imagery is important to Āratists: According to scripture, the god's skin is red and his eyes and hair are gold, and Āratist clerics wear these colors as an expression of reverence. So color was a theme from the start, especially as Gyalo and the others travel through the Burning Land, where they believe the sleeping god lies. I'm also a very visual writer; I see what I write about like a movie in my head, and things like color, texture, light, and shadow always play an important part. In fact, I often use visual aids -- for instance, when I was working on the segment of the book set in the Burning Land, I had pictures of Petra, the ancient Jordanian city that's the inspiration for the lost community of Refuge, and the Australian Outback, on which I based most of the geography of the Burning Land, pasted up around my office. But I also think that a lot of this sort of imagery creeps in unconsciously, especially when you're working from a concept that you feel very strongly. I didn't realize until your question how much red there actually is in the book. It's nice to know my conscious and unconscious writing minds were on the same track!
PGA: Was the character of Gyalo, the reluctant prophet, based loosely on any historical figures?
VS: No. I wanted Gyalo to be his own person. I also wanted him to be an archetypal figure, if that doesn't sound too pretentious, in that he experiences dilemmas of faith and loyalty that readers will recognize as universal. That's somewhat harder to achieve if you also bring in the expectations and associations that result from an identification with a specific historical figure.
PGA: I heard that The Burning Land is the first book in a duology. What is the tentative title and publication date of Book Two, and can you give your readers a little hint as to what transpires in it?
VS: I'm still at work on the second book. The publication date isn't set, but I'm hoping it will be out in 2005. It doesn't have a title yet. I'm superstitious about titles, since the only novel for which I had a title right from the start is also the only novel I never finished. I'm afraid that if I come up with a title too soon I'll jinx myself. I don't want to say too much about Book Two, for fear of spoilers for The Burning Land, but I can tell you that Gyalo makes the choice he tried to avoid in Book One (though I'll leave you to guess which way he chooses), Axane continues to question, the Brethren get their comeuppance, and Rāvar discovers that vengeance isn't all it's cracked up to be. I'm hoping to answer all the questions raised at the end of The Burning Land, but in ways the reader doesn't expect.
Read a Sample Chapter
The Burning LandChapter One
The rush of water caught Gyalo full in the chest. It felt completely real; he gasped and leaped aside before he could stop himself, brushing at his face and clothes. Even as he did, he understood the trick, and straightened up again, angry at himself for being taken in.
He thought he could see the one who had done it: a skinny postulant with the yellow headband of a trainee Shaper, leaning over the back of a passing parade cart and grinning in Gyalo's direction. Packed in around him, other trainees tossed blessings to the crowd: a shower of spangles,streamers of transparent gauze, a burst of rainbow brilliance. These were not true shapings, which changed and shifted matter and properly could be performed only in the context of Âratist ceremony, but illusions, substanceless manipulations of light and air: a symbolic reminder of the sacred power bestowed by the god on humankind before time began.They vanished even as the spectators laughed and snatched at them.
The water had not been entirely illusory, though. Gyalo could feel dampness on his cheeks, and the fine golden silk of his Shaper stole was spotted with wet. Under other circumstances he might have seen the humor in it -- the people nearby clearly did, though in deference to his Shaperhood they hid their smiles behind their hands -- but he had spent time and care dressing himself, and so he was not amused.
"Here, Brother." One of the bystanders, a young Arsacian woman, offered him her stole. "For your face."
She spoke shyly, but laughter twitched the corners of her mouth. Well, Gyalo thought, it was funny. Ruefully, he smiled at her and took the stole.
"Thanks for your charity, lady," he said, giving it back into her hands. "Hopefully I can manage to keep dry the rest of the way."
She giggled. "Great is Ârata,"she said, making the god's sign. "Great is his Way."
"Go in light."
Gyalo moved on. To his left the spectators were a mass of packed bodies and laughing faces; to his right the procession trundled along, an exuberant juggernaut of color, noise, and smell: ox-drawn parade carts festooned with ribbons dyed in the god's colors; groups of Forceless monks on foot, beating drums and blowing kanshas, great trumpets that curved over the shoulder and made a sound like a mythic beast dying in agony; drays bearing huge wood-and-gilt statues of Ârata in his four guises of World Creator, Primal Warrior, Eon Sleeper, and Risen Judge; litters with smaller images of some of Ârata's more powerful Aspects -- Dâdarshi, Patron of luck, Skambys, Patron of war and weather, Hatâspa, Patron of fire and weaponry, Tane, Patron of crops and the moon -- carried by hymn-singing devotee-priests. Between these groups walked postulants with rods of burning incense, and more monks shouting out rhythmically: "Wake, O Ârata, wake. Wake and deliver your children from exile."
Like the blessings, the cacophony was symbolic: No one imagined that all this noise could actually rouse the god. It was meant for the human spectators, to remind them of the waiting that was their lot, that had been the lot of every living creature since Ârata first lay down to sleep. It echoed deafeningly back from the high blood granite walls that enclosed the avenue; Gyalo's ears rang from it, and his eyes burned from incense smoke. Another day he might have ducked through one of the archways that gave access to the tangled side streets, in search of a less crowded way to go. But though he had long known Baushpar's plan by heart, he had never actually set foot in the holy city until six months earlier, and the map in his head did not always guide him properly. He could not risk, today of all days, getting lost.
Which reminded him, with unwelcome sharpness, that he was nervous.
The avenue terminated upon a vast walled square paved in russet ironstone, at whose center rose the monumental bulk of the First Temple of Ârata. The Temple's original core had been erected more than eleven centuries before, but it had been expanded many times since then, in a score or more of different styles and motifs lent harmony by the yellow honey granite of which the whole was made. Images and carvings covered every inch of the huge façade, worn to varying degrees of featurelessness by time and weather, but here and there, where the construction was newer or there was protection from the elements, showing sharper and more perfect. Above it all a dozen domes reached toward the sky, like fat lotus buds about to open. Recently regilded, they reflected light even on this overcast day;when the sun shone, they were blinding.
Gyalo had been raised on tales of the First Temple's magnificence, and it justi fied the stories in every respect, even marred by decades of neglect and the more substantial depredations of the Caryaxists, who had helped themselves to floor tiles and wall inlays and anything made of metal, and scraped all the gold leaf off the image of ÂÂrata Eon Sleeper that reclined at the Temple's circular core. Still, the Temple was too huge, and -- even for the Caryaxists -- too sacred to be razed or ruined, as other temples and shrines and monasteries all over Arsace had been. It rested on the ironstone paving, a golden island atop a russet sea, as colossal and serene as the dreaming god himself.
Gyalo and the procession parted company -- the procession moving left, preparing to round the Temple, Gyalo turning right, toward the square's western side. The spectators made way for him, dipping their heads respectfully and making the sign of Ârata as he passed. Elsewhere the square was thickly populated by food vendors and offerings-sellers, but there were none here. The western wall marked the boundary of the Evening City ...
The Burning Land. Copyright © by Victoria Strauss. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.
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