{"id":160040,"date":"2022-06-08T11:43:07","date_gmt":"2022-06-08T15:43:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=160040"},"modified":"2022-06-13T10:15:43","modified_gmt":"2022-06-13T14:15:43","slug":"infinite-novel-theory-jordan-castro-and-tao-lin-in-conversation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2022\/06\/08\/infinite-novel-theory-jordan-castro-and-tao-lin-in-conversation\/","title":{"rendered":"Infinite Novel Theory: Jordan Castro and Tao Lin In Conversation"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Castro and Lin working on their novels in 2019.<\/p><\/div>\n

Jordan Castro\u2019s <\/span><\/i>forthcoming novel <\/span><\/em>The Novelist<\/span><\/a> takes place over the course of one morning in which the protagonist tries to write his first novel. During this time, he sometimes G-chats and emails his friend, Li. Tao Lin\u2019s\u00a0<\/span><\/i>Leave Society<\/span><\/a> is about someone named Li who is writing a novel documenting his recovery from dominator culture. Castro and Lin have been friends since 2010. This conversation was composed from October 31, 2021 to June 8, 2022 on Google Docs and sometimes on Gmail and G-Chat. That material has been shortened and then reorganized freely to suggest thematic continuities, but also discontinuities, in the time, mood, and medium of the interview.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

LIN<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s December 19, 2021. Yesterday, I opened the galley of <\/span>The Novelist<\/span><\/i> and looked for something to quote in my tweet of a photo of it. I flipped around a little and saw and chose this: \u201cI opened Gmail. Li had emailed me again. \u2018Fuck off,\u2019 the email said, simply.\u201d I wonder what readers of that tweet\u2014who know my novel\u2019s main character is named Li\u2014thought about that quote. In the context of your novel, the \u201cFuck off\u201d is playful, causing the first-person narrator of your novel to grin. What\u2019s your narrator\u2019s name?<\/span><\/p>\n

CASTRO<\/span><\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t give him a name. But the name of the protagonist of the third-person, autofictional novel he is initially trying to work on is named Calvin, which is the name you gave to the character based on me in your 2013 novel <\/span>Taipei<\/span><\/i>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

LIN<\/span><\/p>\n

Yes, I remember choosing the name Calvin. It sounds like Jordan. What time period does the novel that the narrator of <\/span>The Novelist<\/span><\/i> is writing span?<\/span><\/p>\n

CASTRO<\/span><\/p>\n

His book takes place during three days in 2015, but has a flashback from 2014, and another flashback from \u201cyears prior\u201d to 2015, and another undated flashback, during which \u201cCalvin is Gmail-chatting with Paul\u2014a character based on Li\u2014and rationalizing their drug use: children were prescribed Adderall and Xanax, and in some cases opiates, to take daily; others ate junk food which, in many ways, was less healthy than drugs; Calvin listened to music every day, and while alone, which didn\u2019t mean he \u2018had a problem\u2019 with listening to music; drugs helped him to be productive, to cope with stress and anxiety and depression; they were fun.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

LIN<\/span><\/p>\n

It seems original to me that your dark novel about heroin addiction is embedded as a small thing within the more positive and hopeful <\/span>The Novelist<\/span><\/i>. It would be like if my novel <\/span>Taipei<\/span><\/i> existed only as a fragment in <\/span>Leave Society.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

CASTRO<\/span><\/p>\n

Thanks. <\/span>The Novelist<\/span><\/i> literally contains <\/span>Taipei<\/span><\/i> inside of <\/span>Leave Society<\/span><\/i>, since Calvin\u2014a side character in <\/span>Taipei<\/span><\/i>\u2014is in the narrator\u2019s novel-in-progress, and Li\u2014the protagonist of <\/span>Leave Society<\/span><\/i>\u2014is in the novel itself.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A G-chat on February 22, 2022<\/b><\/p>\n

TAO: worked on interview some. maybe we could try the gchat idea. i feel like my question was not good<\/span><\/p>\n

JORDAN: laughing a little re how this is going. the commentary, in gchats etc, vs the actual content so far<\/span><\/p>\n

TAO:\u00a0 just laughed at how it\u2019s going too. it would be good to use one of these for one of the sections, or could be a meta section<\/span><\/p>\n

JORDAN: grinning, that sounds good. i had this in a document, re our most recent interaction in the google doc: \u201cI vaguely remember, a long time ago, reading an interview in which you talked about how bands like Rilo Kiley had bleak albums initially, then something changed and they weren\u2019t as bleak\/relatable anymore\u2026 Do you remember this interview? Have we become \u2018Kileyed\u2019?\u201d im not gonna start with that. just showing u the \u201cb sides\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

TAO: laughing again. imagining our interview just being mostly this, mostly trying to do it<\/span><\/p>\n

JORDAN: our novels, our worldviews. we have to snap out of it. it\u2019s go time<\/span><\/p>\n

TAO: laughing still<\/span><\/p>\n

JORDAN: im laughing too. the structure of the interview could be \u201cexperimental.\u201d we could \u201cthrow it together\u201d …\u00a0 from many different sources.. google docs, email interview… a dynamic mix of this kind of thing.. and longer, more serious things….<\/span><\/p>\n

TAO: finally stopping laughing and smiling. yes, that would be good<\/span><\/p>\n

JORDAN: nice<\/span><\/p>\n

TAO: it seemed like we had a lot of time, and now it\u2019s been 2 months<\/span><\/p>\n

JORDAN: 2 months, laughing. we still have a lot of time until the book comes out<\/span><\/p>\n

TAO: laughing again. we should have a section about the first section, criticizing it like we did, that seems original<\/span><\/p>\n

JORDAN: that sounds good. i feel like we didn\u2019t even really criticize it though. just sort of softly abandoned it. laughingly abandoned it<\/span><\/p>\n

TAO: we started suggesting other ways we could do the interview. back-up plans<\/span><\/p>\n

JORDAN: right<\/span><\/p>\n

TAO: laughing<\/span><\/p>\n

***<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CASTRO<\/span><\/p>\n

Tao\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

LIN<\/span><\/p>\n

Jordan\u2026 It\u2019s March 10, and we\u2019ve completed one section. We\u2019ve discussed this conversation\u2014commenting on the slow rate of production, suggesting back-up plans\u2014more than we\u2019ve had the conversation itself. We\u2019ve done 222 words in ~2.5 months. Now it\u2019s your turn to say something. I\u2019ve said more than you in this conversation so far.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

CASTRO<\/span><\/p>\n

I have a question that might lead to more of me talking eventually. There can be a dynamic flow of lengths. <\/span>Early on in <\/span>Leave Society<\/span><\/i>, you write that Li was inspired to \u201ctry to understand his own reality\u201d and so started paying less attention to \u201cfiction, newspapers, and magazines\u201d and began reading more nonfiction books. As a result, \u201cThe world seemed more complex, terrible, hopeful, meaningful, and magical than he\u2019d previously thought or heard.\u201d What do you think the nonfiction books offered that fiction, newspapers, and magazines didn\u2019t, that produced the effect you described?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

LIN<\/span><\/p>\n

The nonfiction books offered perspectives outside of what Li had encountered before 2014. The fiction he\u2019d read was about characters who were depressed and lonely; this offered a larger perspective than the newspapers and nonliterary magazines, which were mainly from mainstream liberal and conservative perspectives. When he started to consume media from outside of those perspectives, he noticed problems with them: they believed governments and corporations too much, promoted pharmaceuticals over natural health, trusted technology over nature, and often viewed the other political party as the main or only problem. They seemed limited or inaccurate in many ways.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Relatedly, you\u2019ve become interested in Christianity over the years. I\u2019ve known you since you were sixteen, and now you\u2019re twenty-eight. What is your history with Christianity?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

CASTRO<\/span><\/p>\n

I wasn\u2019t raised in a religious context, and by the time I was \u223c12 years old, due to the influence of punk music and books, I hated Christianity. I related to some of Li\u2019s experiences: seeing \u201cGod\u201d on money, for example, and feeling totally alienated from the God concept. Religion, and Christianity specifically, seemed obviously fake, something used by powerful people to keep less powerful people in their place.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When I was younger, I thought I was really smart. But now I feel like I was scared and prideful and hid behind a flippant dismissal of any worldview that would require me to focus on changing myself before I tried to change others. I\u2019d come up against myself, and I\u2019d try to exert my will, but it seemed like the harder I tried, the worse things became. Someone suggested I try prayer and meditation, and I started doing that, and I started changing, and my life got better. I still didn\u2019t \u201cbelieve in God\u201d or even know what that could mean, but the fact that I felt different after I prayed, even though I viewed it as something like a trick of the mind, was undeniable. When Nicolette and I started dating, she had recently become a Christian, and she didn\u2019t fit into any of my previous ideas about what a Christian was like or believed. I started to read more, and met more Christians who were smart and nice, and slowly my defenses eroded, and I realized that everything I thought I knew about Christianity was wrong. At the same time, everything in the world\u2014politics, culture, academia, the lit world\u2014was seeming increasingly insane. My experiences repeatedly came up against my conception of reality, and my conception of reality couldn\u2019t account for my experiences without becoming incoherent. Far from being irrational, Christianity made these disparate aspects of myself and the world more comprehensible and harmonious. I was baptized during the pandemic.<\/span><\/p>\n

Riane Eisler, whom you frequently cite, promotes Jesus\u2019s \u201cpartnership\u201d qualities: that he associated with women, preached nonviolence and spiritual equality, and more. <\/span>Leave Society<\/span><\/i> criticizes Yahweh\u2014God in the Hebrew Bible\/Old Testament\u2014but seems to praise Jesus. What are your thoughts regarding Christianity?<\/span><\/p>\n

LIN<\/span><\/p>\n

I hate it. No, just kidding. I constantly heard negative things about it, growing up listening to punk music, and felt alienated from it and\/or far from it for most of my life\u2014I wasn\u2019t raised in a religious context either\u2014but I like what I\u2019ve increasingly experienced of it, over the past five or so years, through you and Nicolette, and through books by Riane Eisler and others with a positive view of Jesus.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

CASTRO<\/span><\/p>\n

During your Zoom conversation for Bookpeople with Deb Olin Unferth, she asked you about the partnership societies that Li learns about in <\/span>Leave Society<\/span><\/i>, and whether or not it matters to you whether or not they actually existed. As you know, I\u2019ve been interested in Rene Girard\u2019s work for the past couple of years. He has a different view of humanity\u2019s past\u2014that we emerge from societies of ritualistic, violent scapegoating\u2014but, interestingly, comes to a similar conclusion, that we need to personally eschew violence, domination, rivalry, and so on. Like Eisler, he also has a theory about human history\/evolution, and cites evidence from <\/span>\u00c7atalh\u00f6y\u00fck\u2014a city that existed from around 9,000 to 7,500 years ago in modern-day Turkey<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

LIN<\/span><\/p>\n

Interesting. I\u2019ve heard you talk about Girard for years, but I haven\u2019t heard you connect him with Eisler\u2019s work in that way. Where does he write about that conclusion?<\/span><\/p>\n

CASTRO <\/span><\/p>\n

I can\u2019t remember if he ever phrases it in such prescriptive ways, but it\u2019s there in most of his books, I think, especially <\/span>I See Satan Fall Like Lightning <\/span><\/i>and <\/span>Battling to the End<\/span><\/i>. He was a Catholic, and one of his main ideas was that most of our problems stem from what he called mimetic desire: the idea that we want what other people want <\/span>because <\/span><\/i>they want them, and so we imitate them, and this can lead to rivalry, envy, etcetera. For Girard, Christ entered into a world rife with imitation, and tells us to imitate him instead, and a lot of what he did involved eschewing violence, vengeance, etcetera, in favor of forgiveness, love, and so on. Relatedly, I\u2019ve thought that the partnership society idea reminds me of the Garden of Eden idea, that, in the past, humanity was in a harmonious situation, but then, due to \u201cthe fall\u201d\u2014or as Girard would say, \u201cmimetic rivalry and the scapegoat mechanism,\u201d or, as Eisler might say, \u201cdominator values\u201d\u2014humanity has been caught in an escalating web of violence for some time. Do you conceive of us as needing to \u201creturn\u201d to a former way of being, or as needing to \u201cprogress\u201d toward something new?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

LIN<\/span><\/p>\n

I think both returning and progressing, and also that history might be cyclical too. I\u2019ve been reading about The Great Year. It\u2019s ~25,800 years. Ancient Egyptians, Greeks, Mayans, Ancient Indians, and other cultures knew that every ~25,800 years the stars \u201cprecess\u201d\u2014moving across the sky in one cycle. The dominant modern theory is that it\u2019s due to the Earth having a wobble, but a more convincing theory to me is that the sun moves in a spiral, maybe due to orbiting a shared center with a binary star. According to Laurie Pratt, Vedic texts say that we\u2019re currently in an ascending period, after reaching a low from 498\u20131698 A.D.<\/small>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

***<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LIN<\/span><\/p>\n

I started my reread of <\/span>The Novelist.<\/span><\/i> I\u2019ve read eighty-six pages. I enjoyed grinning and laughing and thinking while reading. I liked the variety of sentence lengths and forms, and the range of the gaps between sentences: \u201cI felt disturbingly similar to a fish. What a shitty way to start the morning.\u201d This sentence seemed innovative and effective: \u201cI ran my hand through my hair\u2014I hated Facebook.\u201d This surprised and pleased me: \u201cTo my delight, I had finished pooping.\u201d This made me snicker: \u201cMy body felt at once empty and full; my neck felt weak, like it might crumple under the weight of my head, leaving me with no neck.\u201d Your prose is clear and particular despite its task of describing complex processes that seem hard to notice. I\u2019m interested in your use of poop<\/em> instead of shit<\/em> or something else. What was your process with that word choice?<\/span><\/p>\n

CASTRO <\/span><\/p>\n

Thank you for noticing the sentences. In general, I chose poop<\/em> because shit<\/em> sounded too vulgar, and defecate<\/em> sounded unnaturally literary. There are some uses of shit<\/em> later in the book\u2014when the narrator is \u201cprojectile shitting\u201d on the walls due to withdrawal\u2014because Kendall, my editor, thought poop<\/em> was \u201ctoo silly\u201d for that particular moment. I just realized that the narrator goes from shitting<\/em> in the past to pooping<\/em> in the present\u2026 A sign of progress\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

LIN<\/span><\/p>\n

I like poop<\/em> also because it seems to treat solid human waste as the normal, not-bad thing that it is, instead of some vulgar and obscene thing, shit<\/em>. I\u2019m glad your book uses both. Your book also has around five pages on peeing. I enjoyed this sentence: \u201cIn the past, due to opioids, I would often have to stand in front of the bowl for inappropriately long stretches, waiting for the liquid to flow forth, oozing slowly like squeezed sludge through the tube to my tip, like something thick.\u201d Do you know of other poop and\/or pee scenes in literature?<\/span><\/p>\n

CASTRO <\/span><\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t when I wrote mine, but when I was editing I Googled it, and learned that Beckett and Joyce had famous poop scenes. I went back in, after learning a little about each poop scene, and tried to add some subtle things that obliquely referenced them, so reviewers who knew of them would be more willing to take my book seriously, but I edited them out later. In the Kirkus review, however, the reviewer mentions Beckett\u2019s Krapp\u2019s Last Tape<\/em>, which I think might have poop in it. When I search \u201cpoop\u201d in <\/span>Leave Society<\/span><\/i>, it references Dudu\u2019s poop, rodent poop, and a note from a super that says \u201cPlease do not poop in the stairway, people can slip.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Your sentences in <\/span>Leave Society<\/span><\/i> are the most varied of any of your novels, I think, ranging from long and complex to two words. I thought the style of the book was great; a progression from, and a mix of, your other styles. One thing I noticed was that the prose seemed to become elevated in proportion to Li\u2019s imaginative lucidity, and during bleaker sections\u2014like when describing the effects of society on health\u2014the style was much starker. The book as a whole, as opposed to what I\u2019d call \u201cflat and bleak\u201d (<\/span>Shoplifting<\/span><\/i> from American Apparel<\/span><\/i>) or \u201cneurotic and hyperaware\u201d (<\/span>Taipei<\/span><\/i>) is instead more dynamic, more human. Why is the style of <\/span>Leave Society<\/span><\/i> the way it is?<\/span><\/p>\n

LIN<\/span><\/p>\n

I wanted a varied style that offered unusual language and techniques, but remained clear and readable, especially for the parts that reference nonfiction books. I wanted many places where the reader could pause, like paragraph, chapter, and other breaks. I viewed nature as a model, which encouraged me to be fractal and diverse. Also, I had a neurotic aversion to words being on their own line; this encouraged me, across drafts and font sizes, whenever there was a hanging word or words, to try to find words to delete so that the hanging word, or sometimes words, could fit on the previous line. That affected my style too. Why is the style of <\/span>The Novelist <\/span><\/i>the way it is?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

CASTRO <\/span><\/p>\n

I wanted to make <\/span>The Novelist<\/span><\/i> fun to read, and for the sentences to propel the reader forward. One thing I got from you originally, I think, was using concrete language to describe things. I remember, with the first draft of <\/span>The Novelist<\/span><\/i>, you underlined a couple of things\u2014the phrases \u201clet my guard down\u201d and \u201chad come to a head\u201d\u2014and wrote \u201cclich\u00e9.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

LIN<\/span><\/p>\n

I haven\u2019t seen anyone use semicolons like you do. Your consistent and semi-frequent semicolon usage expanded the basic form of your sentences. Your style seemed to teach me its semicolon philosophy through examples, and then to do innovative and funny things through that philosophy.<\/span><\/p>\n

CASTRO <\/span><\/p>\n

People are biased against semicolons, and I\u2019m not sure why. When I was a pre-teen, some of the first \u201cliterary\u201d books I read were by Kurt Vonnegut, and I still remember a line he has where he disparagingly calls them \u201chermaphrodites,\u201d or something. I just found the quote\u2014it\u2019s even worse than I remembered: \u201cHere is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you\u2019ve been to college.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I wrote <\/span>The Novelist<\/span><\/i> without a bachelor\u2019s degree, and edited it a little more after getting one, but I\u2019ve never taken a creative writing class. I recently watched a Vonnegut documentary and found him to be basically repulsive. Full of cynical, empty \u201cwit\u201d like this\u2026 Did you ever read Vonnegut?<\/span><\/p>\n

LIN<\/span><\/p>\n

I did. I read eight to ten of his books from ages ~17\u201325. My favorite was <\/span>The Sirens of Titan<\/span><\/i>, a science fiction novel. What else do you remember of his writing?<\/span><\/p>\n

CASTRO <\/span><\/p>\n

I can\u2019t remember much, besides that he drew a butthole that looked like an asterisk, and had some pun related to \u201cbeaver\u201d in <\/span>Breakfast of Champions<\/span><\/i>, which I liked a lot as a teenager. I also remember that he promoted Eugene Debbs, an American socialist, in at least one of his books, then seeing a bust of Eugene Debbs\u2019s head in a museum at some point later in my life, and having a vague good feeling that I knew who this bust was, since often I don\u2019t know who the busts of heads at museums are.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

LIN<\/span><\/p>\n

I strongly remember that Vonnegut smoked a lot of Pall Mall cigarettes. It seems like a lot of writers used to smoke cigarettes and have author photos with cigarettes.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

***<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LIN<\/span><\/p>\n

We haven\u2019t had any short sections in this interview. We\u2019d planned to have a variety. What\u2019s an exercise you\u2019ve enjoyed doing recently?<\/span><\/p>\n

CASTRO<\/span><\/p>\n

Bench press. It used to be one of my least favorites, but I\u2019ve been focusing more on it lately, and enjoying it. Hbu?<\/span><\/p>\n

LIN<\/span><\/p>\n

Clearing land with a machete and a handsaw, and other gardening-related activities, like digging and shoveling.<\/span><\/p>\n

CASTRO<\/span><\/p>\n

Nice. What are you gardening?<\/span><\/p>\n

LIN<\/span><\/p>\n

Pineapple, mango, lychee, longan, watermelon, jackfruit, jalape\u00f1o, luffa, aloe, okra, rosemary, arugula, eggplant, thyme, basil, bay leaf, bamboo, catnip, inch plant, snake plant. tobacco, yarrow, mugwort, mullein, and probably 30+ other plants.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

*<\/span>**<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LIN<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a photo of my partner and I\u2019s cat Leo. He\u2019s around a year old. He was lost for 3.5 months.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Can you send me, as part of this conversation, a photo by you of one or more clouds? (I like imagining this post having calm nature photos.)<\/span><\/p>\n

CASTRO<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

***<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CASTRO<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0You write about \u201cthe mystery,\u201d which at one point Li thinks is \u201crevealed through connections.\u201d Can you give an example of this?<\/span><\/p>\n

LIN<\/span><\/p>\n

Connecting hydrogen and oxygen atoms produces water.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

***<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

A pot with hibiscus, oregano, papaya, and avocado.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Five Emails from October 31 to November 3, 2021<\/b><\/p>\n

JORDAN (October 31, 2021 \/ 5:32 P.M.<\/small>): i think there is this way in which people can kind of \u201cworship death\u201d – they say \u201cdeath makes life absurd\u201d or \u201cdeath gives life meaning\u201d or \u201cwe\u2019re all going to die, so live in the moment\u201d – always framing things in the context of death, and giving death primacy. but more and more i\u2019ve been thinking that life gives life meaning; death doesn’t make life absurd – not embracing life, or not ‘stepping forward\u201dinto your own life makes life feel absurd. so many of the \u201cdeath is horrible and makes everything meaningless\u201d ppl seem already dead, their thoughts and lives. it\u2019s almost like they say ‘i\u2019m afraid of death\u201d but they really mean \u201ci\u2019m afraid of life\u201d…<\/span><\/p>\n

i have a line in the new novel I\u2019m working on, \u201cmuscle man\u201d about how literary people and academics will say things like ‘life itself is absurd,\u201d but it\u2019s really just because their lives are absurd lol<\/span><\/p>\n

i view your stuff about the possibility of a life after this life, that is unimaginably \u201cmore real\u201d than this life, etc, and some of the other ideas in leave society, as a move away from death worship<\/span><\/p>\n

TAO (October 31, 2021 \/ 5:59 P.M.<\/small>): i like your idea of death worship. giving death primacy, people do seem to do that<\/span><\/p>\n

daoism is good at talking about death, viewing it as just a change<\/span><\/p>\n

JORDAN (October 31, 2021 \/ 7:19 P.M.<\/small>): this could be good for our novels convo<\/span><\/p>\n

TAO (November 2, 2021 \/ 3:01 P.M.<\/small>): yes. we could paste this into that file to remember to talk about it. we could, like, build the conversation, transplanting stuff from emails<\/span><\/p>\n

did you ever find a word for things surrounding on inside and outside? i\u2019ve been needing to find a word like that, currently i\u2019m using ‘surround and permeate\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

JORDAN (November 3, 2021 \/ 9:21 A.M.<\/small>): I asked on Twitter and i didn\u2019t find a word for it. someone made up the word \u201cimmermeate\u201d (immerse + permeate), which i liked. my friend hunter replied with \u201cblessed,\u201d which got the most likes of my replies, and though it isn\u2019t actually what i was asking, it was nice in a poetic way, since its implications involve both inside\/outside.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

***<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LIN<\/span><\/p>\n

What\u2019s something positive you\u2019ve thought about our conversation?<\/span><\/p>\n

CASTRO<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve laughed every time I\u2019ve read the first meta section, and thought that the interview seems \u201cpleasant.\u201d I also like that we talk about UFC and Liver King [now deleted]. How about you?<\/span><\/p>\n

LIN<\/span><\/p>\n

I typed, \u201cIt\u2019s starting to have more variety in section-lengths.\u201d Then scrolled up and down and saw it was still almost all long sections, then came back here and typed this answer. I\u2019ve been feeling negative in part due to being inflamed from some rashes I got a week and a half ago.\u00a0 It\u2019s May 9. We\u2019ve worked on our conversation for almost five months.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

***<\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CASTRO<\/span><\/p>\n

Leave Society<\/span><\/i> deals with larger expanses of time than any of your previous novels, and engages with different ideas about cosmology, prehistory, religion, and more. <\/span>The Novelist<\/span><\/i> takes place over the course of only three hours, and is, on the surface, very \u2018tethered\u2019 to the material world. But both of the novels share an orientation, or an attempt at an orientation, away from oneself and toward something larger and more meaningful. I was reminded of the Infinite Universe Theory\u2026 and came up with Infinite Novel Theory. If you zoom in very closely or expand out to millennia, you can get to the same place\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

LIN<\/span><\/p>\n

Nice. And for readers who don\u2019t know what Infinite Universe Theory is, it\u2019s a theory, by Glenn Borchardt, that says the universe is infinite in both directions\u2014going down toward atoms or up toward stars, with smaller and larger things appearing forever.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

***<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LIN<\/span><\/p>\n

There\u2019s a character in your novel named \u201cJordan Castro\u201d who, mysteriously, seems only vaguely based on you. For example, while you\u2019re the author of one novel, Jordan Castro the character is the author of two novels\u2014one on weightlifting, one on drug addiction. Your novel’s narrator, who has published zero novels, says, \u201cI looked at Jordan Castro\u2019s Twitter frequently, but didn\u2019t follow him, because I didn\u2019t want to have to explain to anybody why I followed him.\u201d Have readers of your book asked about Jordan Castro?<\/span><\/p>\n

CASTRO<\/span><\/p>\n

In a now-deleted line from our (forthcoming) <\/span>BOMB<\/span><\/i> interview, Juliet Escoria said she \u201c<\/span>took [the Jordan Castro character] to be some Jordan Peterson, Bret Easton Ellis, Slavoj \u017di\u017eek hybrid\u2014a public pseudo-intellectual person that is definitely not you.\u201d<\/span> Dean Kissick, in an email, said, regarding the Jordan Castro character, \u201c<\/span>I couldn\u2019t decide how important this gesture is to the book; whether it’s the experimental, avant-garde heart of the story (a Kafkaesque nightmare of the self, a Girardian performance of mimesis), or just a running joke, or both.\u201d In a potentially-to-be-deleted line from our (forthcoming) <\/span>Los Angeles Review of Books<\/span><\/i> interview, Crow Jonah Norlander asks whether there is \u201csomething inherently fraught about creative inspiration,\u201d because of how the narrator catches himself parroting Jordan Castro and then feeling embarrassed by it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I had some articulated thoughts about the character while I was working on it, and I thought I wrote some notes about it too, but I can\u2019t find the notes, and I seem to have forgotten again\u2026 <\/span>Did you have more thoughts about the character?<\/span><\/p>\n

LIN<\/span><\/p>\n

When I read the final draft recently, I was surprised that it now seems to be based on a combination of people, and I felt excited imagining readers, not knowing what I knew, having a strange and new reading experience, wondering who \u201cJordan Castro\u201d was, giving your novel a sci-fi or fantasy element.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

CASTRO<\/span><\/p>\n

I remember you mentioning that you might want to write a sci-fi type novel. Have you thought more about that?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

LIN<\/span><\/p>\n

I have. I\u2019ve worked a little on a novel written in first-person by an extraterrestrial\u2014an advanced humanoid from another star system.<\/span><\/p>\n

CASTRO<\/span><\/p>\n

Are you \u201cdone with autofiction\u201d?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

LIN<\/span><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know. I think it could be interesting to write, however elliptically, about my whole life in fiction across like 6 or 8 novels. I\u2019m excited to read your second novel. In an email from February 12, 2022, you told me, \u201cWorking on<\/span> Muscle Man somewhat feverishly […]\u201d <\/span>The Novelist<\/span><\/i> references this second novel. Will <\/span>Muscle Man<\/span><\/i> reference or foreshadow a third novel?<\/span><\/p>\n

CASTRO<\/span><\/p>\n

It doesn\u2019t currently foreshadow a third novel, but I\u2019ve only written some notes for my third one, so I\u2019m not exactly sure what it will be.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A G-chat on May 11, 2022<\/b><\/p>\n

TAO: i feel like the conversation is long enough actually<\/span>
\ni just worked on it<\/span>
\ni added a place where we can have some photos earlier on, pet photos<\/span>
\nyou adding a dated section in end seems good<\/span>
\ncan i see one of your questions?<\/span>
\nor more. it could produce some short sections, helping with variety of section lengths<\/span>
\nadded a question requesting a photo, after the vonnegut addition<\/span><\/p>\n

JORDAN: yeah i\u2019m in the park waiting for la times phone call but when i\u2019m home i\u2019ll send them<\/span><\/p>\n

TAO: succulent<\/span>
\nmy photo question might be bad<\/span><\/p>\n

JORDAN: no i like it, i can take one now<\/span>
\nyour answer\u2026 feeling negative \u201cin part\u201d due to rash\u2026.<\/span>
\nare you feeling negative about our convo<\/span>
\nfor non rash reasons<\/span>
\ni was gonna ask in document but didn\u2019t want to make it another long section<\/span><\/p>\n

TAO: no, i like it a lot. it just has felt hard to work on it, and also it seems like we have enough or nearly enough<\/span><\/p>\n

JORDAN: sure\u2026<\/span>
\nsure, tao<\/span><\/p>\n

TAO: i\u2019m telling the truth<\/span>
\ni just feel bogged down from the rash to work more on it<\/span><\/p>\n

JORDAN: sure\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

TAO: fortunately, we have enough already<\/span>
\nso all is good<\/span>
\nlaughing<\/span><\/p>\n

JORDAN: idk if i can trust that you\u2019re laughing<\/span>
\nwere you laughing before, truly, on the first meta section\u2026<\/span>
\nyou\u2019ve hated it this whole time just say it<\/span>
\njk<\/span>
\nim taking pics of clouds<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

i\u2019m at a park near my house where i come to do phone interviews and podcasts but it\u2019s infiltrated by groups of ppl<\/span><\/p>\n

TAO: these are good. we could end with what we just said maybe<\/span>
\nbring back the gchat theme<\/span><\/p>\n

JORDAN: laughing<\/span><\/p>\n

TAO: it would make sense to have another gchat section<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

***<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

CASTRO<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s May 12, 7:16 P.M. <\/small>EST. I just had the thought that it could be good to end with the line \u201cit would make sense to have another gchat section,\u201d but I am adding this additional tidbit, because we agreed to close it out with a dated section, thus \u201crounding out\u201d the meta component, and bringing our many-parted interview to a close.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Jordan Castro is the author of two poetry books and the former editor of <\/span><\/i>New York Tyrant Magazine<\/span>. He is from Cleveland, Ohio<\/span><\/i>. The Novelist<\/span> is his first novel.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Tao Lin is the author of ten books of prose and poetry. His fourth novel, <\/span><\/i>Leave Society<\/span>, was published by Vintage in 2021. He edits Muumuu House.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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