Oliver Friggieri describes how he interprets the Maltese way of life in
his novels and short stories, now translated into many languages .
Of all forms of writing, be it scientific or creative, writing a novel is perhaps the best way for a person to establish a considerable degree of truth regarding the discovery of basic aspects of living. Fiction frequently tends to be underestimated and academic research implicitly underpins that belief, which is utterly mistaken, even if understandable. A novel, being the complex result of a creative imagination, is also the end product of observation and whatever goes with it. Narrating the real meaning of being born and living on a tiny island, given its geographical and cultural characteristics is indeed an intriguing challenge. It takes many years to accomplish, and is indeed highly rewarding.
Is it more rewarding than academic research? With hindsight, after having dedicated so many years to the reconstruction of Malta’s literary history in Maltese and Italian, I would say it is. My last three novels have proved to be quite a rewarding experience. People from all walks of life really appreciate works which, whatever the language, and especially if it happens to be their own native one, delves into the problem of what it entails to be what one is. Identity, in a post-modern, perhaps post-human, sense is indeed a truth not far detached from the traditional one posed by romantics and existentialists throughout Europe.
Literature, the source of discovery
Literature has been my earliest choice, and it is still my latest. I have dedicated my life to writing since I was about 10 or 11. My earliest preference was poetry, which I wrote avidly and with ever-increasing desire to attain technical and logical coherence. As time went by the idea of constructing a novel became more inviting. It goes back to the late sixties, even though I tend to appreciate my later works much more.
Recent works, in the personal album of a writer, are always “l-imfissdin”, the cuddled ones. Apart from this, novels like Gizimin li Qatt ma Jifta, It-Tfal Jigu bil-Vapuri and La Jibbnazza Nigi Lura, were all inspired by a deep wish to rediscover the past as the basis for the present, or better, to understand the present by unearthing the past. That is what I intended to do in these novels, which are intentionally written in a simple, almost popular, manner, evoking the manner in which mothers used to narrate a bedtime story to lull their children to sleep. That is not easy, if it is in a literary manner.
As in all other instances, when writing a narrative work one evasively relates a specific reality and eventually reaches out for much more. One’s own perspective is what really matters trying to shape life, namely to put it into a functional structure called “novel”. In this case I always hoped I could describe the character of the Maltese people, and then, once that point is identified, move ahead towards an interpretation of man on the real island, the planet of all, wherever one may be. In that sense a novel has become for me a way of establishing that constants do exist, and that literature can only be contemporary if it identifies them.
The birth of a novel
It would be very difficult to recall how each of my six novels was put together. A thought, an incident, a recollection, a fleeting meeting with a real friend, anything could have prompted the birth of a novel But from where? Where does a novel start? Was it conceived in Malta or abroad? Huge excerpts of some of my novels were given shape in remote countries, but their landscape, their own soul, belong to somewhere here, and inevitably so. Any answer is incomplete. What can be safely said is that the life of a novelist is best lived through wilful loyalty to that choice: meaningful narration.
If a novel is to sound Maltese, local, it also has to attract the attention of whoever happens to be different from that. The local character has to lose identity, and become a condition with which any hypothetical readers can easily identity him/herself. For instance, in narrating Balzunetta of the late fifties in Gizimin li Qatt ma Jifta (Jasmines that never bloom), a reality emerged which is perhaps timeless, identical to the ideal patria that looms in the mind of most people nowadays
Thus one thinks in terms of plots, people, actions, characterisation, and above anything else universal truths. My novels intentionally look provincial, historical, tied to a specific time and place and ideally put life in a sort of time warp. That is how the sense of what is contemporary can be described. All this can constitute what may be defined as a Mediterranean novel. “Mediterraneity” is an attitude, and then a method of writing.
The precariousness of an islander is the fundamental theme from which all variations may emanate. To me that is the source of inspiration in all its forms. My islander has always lived on the cutting edge and his nature has been moulded over the centuries by the many civilisations that occupied his island. In a character there has to be a fusion of influences, all contributing towards the formation of a specific Mediterranean type. The inhabitant of Malta is born on a tiny land and takes pride in being a stubborn survivor, defying time, absorbing the lessons of time. That makes him /her equally resolute and undecided. Invasions and occupations have indeed moulded such an islander into a crusader in search of a promised land which ultimately must be somewhere within. In my novel Fil-Parlament ma Jikbrux Fjuri (No flowers grow in Parliament, 1986), the protagonist is an average worker, ironically called Karlu Manju, who wearily plods his way towards self-recognition in terms of political belonging and philosophical enquiry. He ultimately understands that both dimensions converge within his conscience. He is a Maltese pilgrim.
The question regarding what it really means to be the end-result of so many diverse civilisations is perennially intriguing and answers, both scholarly and literary, can be provided. I have sought both over a period of over 30 years. It is safe to conclude that both are components of one selfsame interpretation.
The awareness of Malta forming part of the southernmost end of a continent, facing the northern frontier of another, and the fact that diverse cultures meet within the Maltese spirit: that to me has been a continuous source of inspiration in both my poems and novels. In Stejjer ghal Qabel Jidlam (Koranta and other Short Stories from Malta, 1994) the warmth and the complexity of the south are hopefully conveyed through people who painfully or otherwise illustrate the sociality of individual life.
An island like Malta primarily embodies antiquity. It has to be that in a modern way. A paradox is thus meant to be lived and transcended.
A novel may suggest how.
The dualism is inherent in all this, and various parallel manifestations of it can be identified: God is timeless, and history conveys that sense through the transience of time; the land, which is limited, faces the sea, which looks infinite; the self is supposedly known, whereas otherness (what lies beyond the visible ocean) is unpredictable. My sort of outsider may not be existential, but he is definitely political, historical, deeply rooted somewhere in the middle of the Mediterranean where Malta stands as a sort of meeting place, a spiritual hub, a timeless roundabout. The protagonist of Il-Gidba (The Lie, 1978) strives to attain freedom as he almost instinctively falls in love with chains.
Such a frontier country cannot be understood if not in terms of what is a sort of precariousness. An ex-colony which managed to outwit history and emerged as a fully fledged nation State, a country on its own, sufficiently strong to form part of the European assembly of nations: that is indeed a novel with a happy ending. Both Gizimin li qatt ma Jifta (Jasmines that never bloom, 1998) and It-Tfal jigu bil-Vapuri (Children come by Ship, 2000) depict life in the past, eventually transforming memory into fantasy, history into a fable.
That to me is an interpretation of life in both local and universal terms. The present unfolds itself, mysterious in the process. My island stands midway between isolation and integration, representing the condition of the average inhabitant of the place as well as that of any human being. The environment of La Jibbnazza Nigi Lura (I will return when it clears – 2006) is a tiny village “on the edge on the world”, a stage beyond which none can go. Otherness is envisaged by islanders in geographical terms and the implications are cultural, political and whatever. They involve a worldview. Such a situation is then transformed into a metaphor of an existential nature. The post-modern era has its specific preoccupations disguised in various ways. Communication with the outer world is what the islander as well as any person anywhere is seeking. The setting is a constant: the south of Europe, an island in the centre of the Mediterranean, a country that has to strike a middle course between tradition and modernisation. A paradigm of the universal condition: that is how I hope I have provided an interpretation of being Maltese in terms which are common to all else, equally though different islanders. Smallness is thus seen as a condition, not as a limitation.
Living on an island as tiny as Malta also involves getting the right idea about whether, eventually, it is possible to be equally complete. Most of the problems faced in such a situation are due, as a rule, to the conflict inherent in the definition of a country as being both autonomous and small. The fact that such an entity is also an island makes all the difference, which in itself is quite incomprehensible to any outsider, including scholars. A writer, in a manner quite different to the one adopted by a sociologist or an anthropologist, can delve into the problem through analysis and intuition. It can be quite an intriguing and inspiring journey, as I believe it has been in my case. Both scholarly research and creative literature (fiction and poetry) contribute a lot, quite distinctly and differently, towards the cause of self-recognition.
Ultimately, a literary viewpoint will inevitably lead to the discovery that the island surrounding the inhabitant is only a glimpse of the island being carried within. From then on the writer of an island faces the question whether all men are, wherever they happen to be born and live, islanders by definition. Twentieth century literature, especially the one associated with French existentialism, has somehow given shape to this belief. The so-called “theatre of the absurd” has further divulged the idea through specific situations experienced by individuals rather than by a whole human race. We are still loitering somewhere in the whereabouts of this query. For countries of average size the situation can change according to the whims of fashion and time, but in the case of islanders it may be permanent, both materially and spiritually. That makes it all the more interesting and inspiring, at least from the standpoint of a narrator.