PROFESIONISTII: FELIX TZELE works hard @DEBUTE LITERARY BOOK.mpeg

FELIX TZELE greets EUGENIA VODA in his studio: Yes, this is quite true, I’m currently staying in my literary studio, really GRINDING and FLEXING to finish a 100 A4 pages book that contains(like a container) three quite poorly written yet mildly entertaining novellas or nuvele(hope this is the right term, I really do care a lot about literary form).

EUGENIA VODA: Thanks for inviting me to your literary den, FELIX. Please tell me, why did you choose to write nuvele? I mean, those 10 people(family included) that read your literary work know that you write SHORT FICTION. What happened?

FELIX TZELE(tweaking some knobs on a gigantic narrative synthesizer): Well, Jeni, the main motif I published only short stories was laziness and lack of experience. I didn’t know how to keep things going for more than 8 pages. Three years ago, when I was living in Pantelimon, I bought from Dragonul Rosu a bottle of CANTHARIS, a natural afhrodisiac that really enhanced my literarry capabilities. So, yes, now I can write 20–30 pages in, like, one week, it’s much better.

EUGENIA VODA: Quite interesting. The book is terminata?

FELIX TZELE: Terminata it is, but it’s not written. I finished a nuvela about my experience working on a commisioned graphic novel about a famous Romanian photographer, it contains a lot of defaimare, lies, sjw and I also plagiated some paragraphs from various newspapers(more or less), I really hope I’ll get sued for this piece of fiction. I’m currently working at the second nuvela, it will be the longest and the central piece that will give the name of the book, but I cannot speak about it beacuse if I do I won’t be motivated to write it. All I can say is that it will include some Romanian quacky UFOLOGISTS that have some sort of a political cult. For the third one I have the synopsis and general idea written, it’s about a deserted village, I hope to finish it in 20–30 years. I’m not thinking about publishing. I’m spending time thinking about the stories and procastrinating at work. I’m liying myself that I need some sort of vacation to write. I’m currently discussing with Cuban embassy to give me a writing bursa in Havana for like 2–3 months. But this is just fantasies, most probably I’ll write the nuvele in KFC or mcdonald’s, I try not to fetishize writing.

EUGENIA VODA: Is there IDEOLOGY and POLITICS in your stories?

FELIX TZELE: This is a very good question. In the past I used to write science fiction, horror, fantasy and other frecventabile postmodern subgenres. I moved to a more realistical approach in the last three-four years, after I attended some creative writing classes. Of course I’m preoccupied with politics in my stories, that’s why I’m abonat to left wing political memes pages. I’m trying to find a balance between politics and aesthetics in my stories. I also try to bring a contraintuitive discourse in my stories. After long trials and tribulations, I understood that if, for example, I want to write a story about the 80s in Romania, realism is not the best choice. I would end up reading a lot of that fucking postcommunist analysis, official history and the result will be just another boring anticommunist book. I don’t need this. So I came up to the conclusion that the best way to approach this ideology vs aesthetics thing is to be REALISTICALLY NEVEROSIMIL. I try my best to create marginal characters and ludicrous situations that can challenge or avoid what the current literary hegemony tries to promote as fiction. But I don’t want to be pushy about political ideas, I create characters that I can relate to, not just containers for spreading propaganda. Otherwise, I know the current moda is to write pseudopsihological literature that heals and personally develops the individual to survive and cope with a quite oppresive capitalistic system. I’m not into that DeLillo and Frazen et al, postmodern plastic realism that has nothing to with the realism from, let’s say, the 50s or 60s, it’s more like hyperrealism. I still think that literatura should show the conflict and contrasts between conditie si individ, so yes, ideology is important to me and neverosimil realism might be my solution to my arta poetica dilemma.

EUGENIA VODA: Wow, I couldn’t understand a fucking thing from what you said, but let’s move on to the last question. What do you think about Nicolae Manolescu?

FELIX TZELE: What can I say, I hope he’ll sue me too after he finds out what I did, haha. Cannot divulge more.