The Sword and Laser discussion

Hello! Sorry if this is posted in the wrong section; I wasn’t quite sure whether it should go in the Last Wish section, but this is about the author, not the book, so I thought it should probably be separate.

There was an author event at my local Waterstones bookshop recently, which I thought I’d share here in case some people find it interesting. :-)

(Andrzej Sapkowski is the author of the Witcher saga of books, which inspired the video games series, and S&L also read the first book ‘The Last Wish’, a collection of short stories about the Witcher Geralt.)

I was pretty excited about this event. As well as enjoying the books (I’ve read the first two so far) and loving the games, I’ve read some things online that paint the author as quite a colourful character, so I was looking forward to seeing what he’s like! The room used for author events – up far too many flights of stairs to the very top of the building, with sloping wooden beams and windows looking out over the roofs and old buildings of Nottingham – feels appropriately like a meeting hall from a fantasy story. And it soon filled up. In fact, we were told not to leave empty seats as the event had completely sold out! It seemed everyone else was pretty excited to meet Andrzej Sapkowski too.

It soon became apparent that he is, very much, a colourful character. Andrzej was being interviewed by his English translator, David French, who provided a nice mix of fun and serious questions. Does he have a favourite character? That, Andrzej declared, would be like choosing who is prettiest out of your several ugly children. Why do so many fantasy books start in taverns? The author questions if they really do, and thinks that his must have been one of the earliest. The books, David French observes, feature characters with a wide range of views. Is it hard to write characters with beliefs that are very different from the author’s own? Yes, Andrzej replies, certainly it’s hard, but there is one thing that helps. It’s called talent.

Throughout the interview, this playful side of Andrzej emerged, playing up the role of a slightly cocky author who knows he’s good at what he does and isn’t shy to say it. I can’t say for sure how much this was joking and how much was the real Andrzej – when asked to recommend other Polish fantasy authors, he joked that he didn’t want to help the competition. When discussing his first short story, which was written for a writing competition and placed third, he laughingly observed that no one now remembers the stories that came first and second but plenty of people know the Witcher. When asked about the games, he said that he’s never played them because he wouldn’t have time to commit to them – and between us, he said, they’re a bit silly. These were all said with a twinkle in the eye, but I think also a sense of truth behind the words. It was certainly very different from most other author interviews I’ve seen, and Andrzej seemed to charm the audience with this almost roguish character. If authors are perhaps expected to be a bit humble, he isn’t going to play by the rules.

How far did the author plan his series in advance while writing? Andrzej likened this to telling a joke. You wouldn’t begin a joke without knowing where you were going with it, and you would certainly need to know what the end will be. So, he wouldn’t begin a story without having a very good framework and an end goal in place.

What would Geralt think of Brexit? ‘Is it in the book?’ Andrzej replied. No? Then he can’t really answer.

‘Is it in the book?’ became a repeated answer to several questions, a response that seems to reflect the author’s belief that every element of his stories – every character, location, event and scene – exists only for the good of the plot. I thought this was one of the most interesting things Andrzej talked about – there is a sense that there is a real economy to his books, not that his prose is functional rather than beautiful but that everything must have a purpose in the story. If it doesn’t, no matter how much he loves it, he must be ruthless and cut it out. Every character’s viewpoint and ideology is therefore included for a purpose, because it shows something important or moves things forward in some important way. In other words, what isn’t in the book is almost pointless to speculate about, because it would have nothing of importance to contribute to the story he has told. Again, this feels to me like quite a different perspective from what we’re used to in current fantasy, where authors often have vast worlds of extra detail for fans to explore, and where the story, characters and worlds often doesn’t simply end with the last page of the book.

In a similar way, he says, no character is ever a mouthpiece for his own views, and he will never base a character on a real person. In doing so, he would not be serving the plot. However, he will include certain elements and storylines because the fans like them, and he is happy to do so. But this doesn’t mean, he said, that he ever writes what he doesn’t want to write. Rather, he provides more of what fans love while at the same time staying true to the story he wants to tell. Here he quoted Terry Pratchett – ‘It would be a very unwise author that did not listen to his fans. It would be an incredibly stupid author that did everything the fans suggested.’

Andrzej also touched on fantasy tropes, such as elves and dwarves, expressing the belief that clichés are not necessarily bad just because they’re clichés. Things often become clichés because people like them, and, well, people really like dwarves and elves in fantasy. They are part of the tradition of fantasy storytelling. Where does he get the ideas for his monsters and creatures, a member of the audience asked. Three places: some he makes up himself, some he gets from folklore and mythology (though he stressed that he doesn’t think of his books as particularly Slavic so much as just generally fantasy in theme), and lastly, some from roleplaying bestiaries.

Who are Andrzej’s fantasy influences? Like many fantasy fans, he read and loved Tolkein when he was younger, but it was a long time before he realised that fantasy itself was a genre, rather than one book with ideas that begin and end with Tolkein. When he did discover the genre, he soon caught up with the classics, and he mentioned Ursula Le Guin, Roger Zelazny, Jack Vance, and Fritz Leiber as influences.

So how did Geralt come to be? When Andrzej entered a short story competition run by a science fiction magazine, he decided to write fantasy because he thought not many others would choose this genre. He was wrong – in fact many of the entries were fantasy, but he still managed to stand out enough to win third place. And so the Witcher was born. This was only ever intended to be a one off story, but the reaction of the readers was so positive – they all wanted to read more about Geralt – that he decided to continue the Witcher’s story. Now it is a saga of many books featuring Geralt and his surrogate daughter Ciri, and he is promoting the latest English translation to come out: The Lady of the Lake.

One of the really interesting things about having Andrzej’s translator there was the discussion of various translation quirks and misunderstandings that came up with the books. For instance, one particular tricky translation either has a character being sent to a monastery to become a monk, or depending on changing just one letter, castrated. Quite a difference! Andrzej related a story where his Russian translator didn’t understand a scene in which a character claimed he was only drinking spring water but then spluttered when he took a drink. Andrzej explained that the character was lying – he was really drinking spirits. The Russian translator said yes, but why would someone splutter when drinking spirits? Also mentioned was the difficulty of finding the right word when subtle meanings differ. In Polish, there are many more words for different kinds of magic user, many that carry subtly different meanings as to whether the magic user is good or bad. Andrzej mentioned an Italian saying: The translator is a traitor. This is because, he said, a very accurate and true translation is unlikely to catch the beauty of the language used, but a beautiful translation is never going to be fully accurate.

(Perhaps Sword and Laser could do an interview with a translator at some point, whether David French or someone else? It was really interesting getting this unique perspective, and it would be fun to hear their take on how language can change stories.)

Finally, Andrzej was asked about a Hollywood movie of the Witcher that was announced a couple of years ago and is supposedly going to come out some time in 2017. Andzrej didn’t know much about it, but as far as he is aware it’s still going ahead. Many of the Polish members of the audience were familiar with the director’s past work (mainly animation) and both audience and author seemed positive about the project. Andrzej was asked who he would cast in the roles, which he couldn’t answer because he isn’t familiar enough with modern actors, but he did mention that once upon a time he had imagined Kevin Costner in the role of Geralt! (Not something I would have imagined myself, but I can totally see it. What do others think?)

All in all, it was a good evening and Andzrej turned out to be just as colourful a character as suggested (though I can never agree with him that the games are silly!). Hope some of you have enjoyed this account as well. I’m definitely going to read more in the series, and I’m looking forward to that movie too – hope it does go ahead! :-)

Thanks for the detailed report - sounds like a great time!

Oh hell I meant to reply to this when it was first posted. This was an awesome read. Thanks for taking notes and posting! :)

Thank you Victoria! I agree with your idea about having a translator interviewed on the show to answer questions about the challenges (and humorous aspects) of translating SF and Fantasy novels.

Very cool, thank you Victoria. :)
I have listened to him, being interviewed and at panels, at two Eurocons now, in Dublin in 2014 and last year in Barcelona. Rest assured I will never go out of my way to do so again, really don't like the man. Reports such as this one is close enough. ;)

Add my thank you, I read the Ciri books in anticipation of Lady of the Lake and am about halfway through that. Excellent series.

Thumbs up for this excellent post. Thank you!

Nice read. Thanks for sharing.

Thanks for sharing this! To your suggestion about translators on Sword and Laser, Ken Liu was on the show last year and talks a little about his translation work: http://swordandlaser.com/home/2016/4/...