TV live interview/ entrevista viva…

Aqui, com a permissão de RTP, está a entrevista viva que eu fiz da Feira do Livro em Lisboa… Os limites do meu português são bem demonstrados *sorriso*

Here is an interview I did live for Portuguese TV (shown here with the kind permission of RTP) from the Lisbon Book Fair. It is in Portuguese – so it may not be of much use to those of you who are non-Portuguese speakers, however it does show me in motion – and proves, if proof be needed, that I am in fact a real, live person and not a puppet as has been rumoured… *grin*

entrevista / interview in Portuguese

Posted by Ricardo

writer and blogger

35 Replies to “TV live interview/ entrevista viva…”

  1. Just a small remark. Did anyone noticed the similarities between the events portrayed on the last book and what is going on in the world or it’s just me? =)

    Reply

    1. that shouldn’t be entirely surprising… the Stone Dance, in spite of being somewhat universal (because it is not set in any time or place fixed in ‘reality’), is also, naturally, a book of its time… it does deal with issues of power, exploitation and ecological degradation – further, it can be read as an allegory of current politics…

      a great thing about speculative fiction is that it is possible to make such grand claims! *grin*

      Reply

  2. It’s a pitty that the interviewer didn’t do his homework so that he could be prepared to understand what you were saying to him. But it is a good way to show your work in portugal anyway. I couldn’t go to the presentation because i live a bit far from Lisbon.And i agree with Daniel, i would like to read something about the bronken mirror period (i think i’m not wrong in the name:P). But it would be very interesting reading because it is the end of one very great civilization and the beginning of another. Really looking forward to read the Third God, haven’t had the chance to buy it yet.
    +1

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    1. we shall see if a book about the Broken Mirror period makes sense…

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  3. Thanks for posting this. I don’t know Portuguese but I like the way it sounds. People speak it various areas near where I grew up. Sometimes it sounds like Russian. Anyway, eve with the glaring TV light and trying to explain books like yours in Portuguese, looking charismatic, Ricardo! I had to explain hermaphroditism and ambisexuality at a convention in Germany once and it was all these words I had never discussed out loud in German, let along in front of an audience. I did survive, however, as one guy on the panel was willing to supply words if i whisper “Hilf mir!” LOL

    Reply

    1. yes, Portuguese is a beautiful language (imagine that all languages are likely to be beautiful – at least for their speakers)… As for the Russian sound – I say this myself, often, when describing what it is about Portuguese that means, for example, that its speakers can understand Spanish (and other Romance languages), but Spanish speakers can’t understand Portuguese. It does seem to me that the phonemes of Portuguese and Russian seem rather similar to my ear too…

      glad you think I’m looking ‘charismatic’ *grin* – at the time I felt a little bit like a rabbit in headlights…

      at the actual launch interview, I relaxed when I asked the audience to help me out – and they did… My experience is that people are so pleased that you’re making the effort to talk to them in their language that they will happily accept it being mangled… *wide grin*

      how come you know any German at all?

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  4. César Oliveira 15th May 2010 at 8:07 pm

    It’s a pitty that the interviewer didn’t do his homework so that he could be prepared to understand what you were saying to him. But it is a good way to show your work in portugal anyway. I couldn’t go to the presentation because i live a bit far from Lisbon.
    And i agree with Daniel, i would like to read something about the bronken mirror period (i think i’m not wrong in the name:P). But it would be very interesting reading because it is the end of one very great civilization and the beginning of another. Really looking forward to read the Third God, haven’t had the chance to buy it yet.

    Reply

    1. I don’t blame the interviewer in this case – my impression was that he must be doing quite a few of these interviews… and, considering how little time was going to be given to interviewing me, it would perhaps be too much to expect him to have read the books… not only are they long… but, let’s face it, complicated. On the other hand, I am not happy when doing a much longer, supposedly detailed interview, and the interviewer hasn’t made the effort to read any part of the books… In such cases, I can’t see that there’s much to talk about…

      As for the Broken Mirror Period there is certainly a story that could be told there… You may be interested to know that you will learn quite a lot more about it in The Third God

      Reply

      1. As we say here in Portugal, há muito pano para mangas. Meaning that there’s much yet to be told about The Three Lands. Good luck to your future projects and be sure that we all will be here waiting. 😉

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        1. parece que estás a falar dom fato para um polvo *sorriso*

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          1. LOLOL não era essa a minha intenção. Mas é verdade, ainda há muito para contar e escrever… 😉 And looking more throughly into your site, seeing the hard work that you did, well, I must bow before you, you have a such prodigious imagination. Bless you.

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            1. mas também há histórias em muitos outros mundos para contar… Yes, I did do a phenomenal amount of work to support the writing of the Stone Dance…

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  5. Very nice to see you in motion. Is it me or the interviewer was a bit nervous too? 🙂

    So no more future works around the Stone Dance world? 🙁 Well thats a shame, there’s so much more I would love to know about Carnie’s world.

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    1. yes, I thought he was rather nervous too… not entirely sure why…?!

      as for the Stone Dance world, there is a possibility of writing perhaps one more book in that world. However, as I try to say in the interview, the events of the Stone Dance occur as the culmination of a long historical process and, afterwards, there is another period of stasis – so that, the events of the Stone Dance are the defining ones for most of the history of the Three Lands… Still, there is this other possibility – one referred to in various ways in The Third God – but if so, not for now…

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      1. Daniel Cardoso 15th May 2010 at 2:49 pm

        Me wants a book into the past, about how the Chosen got to be the Chosen.

        *waves arms frantically*

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        1. *wide grin* well, of course, I know all about that… You know, another book in this world is possible… but my publishers here aren’t showing any great interest in it… the books have as yet just not been that successful :O( – though I’m pretty certain that this has more to do with the commercial cycle than anything else…

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          1. Money, is all about money. So similar to the Masters. I should have known better. And I wanted so much another book, if possible about the future. *on her knees, like the amonites, begging*. I would like to believe that Osidian…. ups, sorry, I almost did it. I think you understand what I mean. But a book about the past is also a very good idea. Unfortunately it all resumes to money in this world……. Good luck.

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            1. I’m not saying that I won’t write this book – just that it’s not the right time to do it. First there are some other books I would like to write… One good thing, considering how long you’ve all had to wait for the completion of the Stone Dance, another book set in the Three Lands could well not be just another such wait… we shall see…

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      2. Daniel Cardoso 15th May 2010 at 7:47 pm

        Also, I have a question for you, that I’m pretty sure you won’t answer:

        With all the anomy introduced by the events in The Third God, how can there be “another period of stasis” afterwards? Because at first sight, that would seem highly unlikely.

        Reply

        1. “anomy”?? – I’m not keen to discuss this because I don’t want to spoil it for people who haven’t yet read The Third God

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          1. Daniel Cardoso 16th May 2010 at 9:31 pm

            Apparently it would be more correct to spell it anomie, my bad! ^^’

            See, I knew you wouldn’t go there… But damn, like I said, I’d much rather have a book about the past of that world you created. Sort of – take no ofense, please – what the The Silmarillion was to LotR

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            1. I still had to look it up in a dictionary *grin*… what I will say is that the events in the Stone Dance form the key crisis point in a period spanning millennia…

              yup… the past would probably be more interesting… because of an obsession with ‘foundations’ I do know quite a lot about that…

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              1. The word was linked to Wikipedia, so you wasted a trip to the dictionary *grin* Sorry, but I blame my faculty teachers for knowing words like that. *hides*

                You couldn’t be Jung-ian and not have an obsession with the past; most great authors were greatly obsessed with the past of their own tales/worlds. I’d love to download the part of your brain that has all of that info *Matrix moment, here* 😀

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                1. ah! yes, it is linked… If they’re using the word to achieve a nuance of meaning otherwise illusive, then I approve – if they’re just trying to impress each other, then I don’t approve…

                  hmmm… I do wonder if our fascination/obsession with the past isn’t a form of ancestor worship…

                  *makes sure his brain is behind a firewall* :OP

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                  1. Daniel Cardoso 19th May 2010 at 3:45 pm

                    The term anomie was coined a long time ago, and it stuck. Since you’ve seen the meaning of the word, I’m sure you understand what I meant. After TTG, I’m pretty sure anomie settles in, that’s why I tend to disagree that a “period of stasis” as you called it, is what happens after the book.

                    I think our fascination with the past is partially a way for us to acquire a horizon for our own intelligibility, as historical and social subjects. But then again, I’ve been reading way too much Judith Butler and Michel Foucault lately.

                    *tries to hack into the firewall* 😛

                    Reply

                    1. actually, I’m still not entirely sure how you’re applying this term “anomie”… its definitions seem various. I still think my term “stasis” is applicable… The Stone Dance describes the fracture point in a historical process. Preceding it is a long period of stasis. What follows is another period in which nothing much will happen – at least on a ‘global’ level…

                      I’m sure Butler and Foucault are right – but my comment about this being a form of ‘ancestor worship’ still stands: it is, surely, merely the application of ‘reverence’ to the achieving of said intelligibility… further: isn’t all religious feeling the application of reverence to processes of intelligibility…?

                    2. Daniel Cardoso 26th May 2010 at 6:37 pm

                      SPOILER ALERT

                      The absolute mess of a world that’s left after TTG would make that society lose it’s bearings, thus provoking a caos of sorts as society shifts and turns to readapt, to come to a new point of stability. That is, in my view, the exact opposite of a “stasis”. Historically, it would seem to me that that period would be in over-drive.

                      Yes, I would say you’re correct as for religion and intelligibility, but then worshipping becomes not an end in itself but a means to someting else, which was my point.

                    3. Daniel Cardoso 26th May 2010 at 6:38 pm

                      edit:

                      obviously, I meant “its”

                    4. seems to me that we’re actually in agreement about both points…

                      my point about the Stone Dance differs from yours only on the level of scale – you’re looking at it ‘locally’: I’m looking at it globally. I would think that you’re right: that what would result from the events of The Third God is ferment on a local level. However, there is much evidence provided in The Standing Dead to suggest that, left to their own devices, the societies of the ‘Green Lands’ would relax down to subsistence level tribalism…

                    5. Hmm, I see your point, but on a more global scale, why do you reckon the marumaga wouldn’t go on a power-struggle to try to fill the void left?

                    6. the marumaga will be scattered utterly and deprived of the world which they understood and whose structure alone gave them any power… In the new world they would stand out as a ghostly reminder of the old regime. Though this might give them some residual power, they would, most likely, be universally hated… AND suffering from post traumatic stress disorder… Consider the state of mind of the mixed-race remnants of the European empires in the post colonial period and what power they might be able to exert…

                    7. Daniel Cardoso 1st June 2010 at 9:32 am

                      Yes, I see, indeed you make an excellent point.

                      Hah, it’s so different to bounce ideas off the author 😀

  6. We’ll have a look this evening! Should be interesting, even when incomprehensible.

    About being a puppet – I still see you more as Bert (of Ernie)… Especially since you wore a striped shirt in Portugal! 😉

    Reply

    1. *grin* I showed the “Bert and Ernie” to some friends recently when we were discussing said luminaries – it caused much hilarity… I shall put that image on a blog sometime soon…

      Reply

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