Standing in the Rainbow - Fannie Flagg [214]
FF: The grass does always seem to be greener somewhere else, doesn’t it? I think it is just human nature to want something we can’t have or to wish we were somewhere else or somebody else. I know when I was younger I often wished I could live parallel lives. As I recall when I was about ten I wanted to play violin in a symphony orchestra, be a nun, a famous ice skater, play piano and sing in some smoky little cocktail bar in Paris, be married to an Italian and have six children, and here’s the real stretch, be an English professor at Oxford University. But the truth is I have barely managed the one life I have. And I am happy to say as I have become older I am perfectly content with who I am and where I am. A very wise person said, “We are exactly where we are supposed to be.” I don’t know who the wise person was, but I tend to believe that more and more as the years go by.
SV: You consistently show how much you care for your characters. You may laugh at their antics but you never really stand above them, looking down. It’s more like standing beside them, looking on. Where does your feeling for older people come from? And for female friendship? And for strong, not always silent, men?
FF: I’m lucky enough to have a lot of friends, both men and women, and enjoy them thoroughly. As it so happens, many are older than myself. Being an only child, I was around adults for most of my young life. It wasn’t until I was in my thirties that I felt entirely comfortable with my peers, not until they were grown people I could relate to. I still tend to find older people much more interesting. They have so much to tell about and have lived through so much and know so much more. I am waiting to become old and wise. So far I’m older but seem to be none the wiser.
SV: The roles you’ve played are quite varied. You can’t be said to have been typecast. Yet in your novels, you have set a new standard of your own so that other writers’ books are being compared to your work. How would you describe a Fannie Flagg novel?
FF: I don’t think I can describe my own work. I don’t even know what my style of writing is. I don’t even know how I do it. So I am the last person to ask. I am still baffled by the entire process. I still don’t understand how something that was only in my head and can’t be seen can become a book, a solid object that you can pick up and carry around.
SV: Your books have been printed in fifteen different languages. How do you feel about that? How do you think people’s reactions to your novels in Europe or China, etc., differ from those in America?
FF: First of all I am still so amazed that anyone other than Americans understands my books. It is so funny to see them in strange covers and printed in so many different languages. I asked a French friend who had read the French version of Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe how he was able to understand the story and he said France has small towns just like every other country. I suppose no matter where you live people can relate; language may be different but by and large human nature remains the same the world over. As far as their reactions, judging from the letters I receive, they seem to be the same. Only the reviews may be different from the ones I get here, mostly because the foreign viewers do not know me as an ex-actress and tend to review the book only. Most American reviews and articles still mention that I used to be an actress and appear on television.
SV: Your work has taken you to many places. Are you a good traveler?
FF: I am a wonderful traveler, as long as I do not have to get on a plane. I hate to fly. Not only am I a white-knuckle flyer, I always feel like I have been sucked through a vacuum cleaner backwards and shot out the other end. Needless to say, I love motor trips and the train.
SV: If you weren’t writing novels like Fannie Flagg’s, who would you most like to write like?
FF: Certainly someone who writes much faster than I, more like my friend Sue Grafton, who pops out a book a year. I am in awe of that! You may have noticed I am a very slow