Jeremy
asked
Jeff VanderMeer:
First off, love the series, can't wait for the finale. I had to ask, have you read House of Leaves and if so, did it influence your idea of the tunnel in any way when writing? There are quite a few interesting parallels (obviously in completely original contexts) and I was just wondering if you were inspired at all by the book.
Jeff VanderMeer
I really loved the stairs into nowhere in that footnote from the 1600s in House of Leaves, and I'm sure my mind decided to, in a totally different context, follow that path down. But the tunnel is also from a real-world place in Sintra, Portugal, and the spiraling of it is like the spiraling through my mind of oil during the Gulf Oil spill, when it seemed like the oil would just keep gushing out forever, and it was a terrible pressure in all of our minds....so, the real answer is that influence is a strange thing that manifests in different ways and recombines its DNA to form some creature that is itself totally unique.
More Answered Questions
David
asked
Jeff VanderMeer:
You pull off a very tricky thing in The Southern Reach by making a story where relatively small events bloom, over the course of the book, into much creepier horrors *interiorly,* with characters who do a lot of analysis and rumination. How do you maintain so much tension under a quiet surface? And what authors have you drawn from in doing it?
Sheryl
asked
Jeff VanderMeer:
Regarding POV in Wonderbook: What is the best way to solidify an omniscient objective POV in the mind of the reader as they enter a story – without making the narrator a defined presence or character in his own right? I find that readers sometimes latch on to the first character to speak or act and respond as though the story was written in third person limited. Thus, POV shifts read as inappropriate head hopping.
About Goodreads Q&A
Ask and answer questions about books!
You can pose questions to the Goodreads community with Reader Q&A, or ask your favorite author a question with Ask the Author.
See Featured Authors Answering Questions
Learn more