The Writing of “Cargo Fever” - by Guestblogger Will Buckingham

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Will Buckingham’s first novel “Cargo Fever” is set in Indonesia, using a myth from the region as the basis of his story. He speaks Indonesian and is an expert on Buddhism - and I am delighted that he is joining our fusion community here at Fusion View with a post on how he came to write his novel, his connection with Indonesia and what he’s working on now.

Will writes:

When I travelled to Indonesia, it was not with the intention of writing a novel. The novel came much later. I had recently graduated in Fine Arts, and was planning to undertake postgraduate work in anthropology. In between, I had a year to spare, and I had been fortunate to be given a grant to undertake research in east Indonesia into the work of wood-carvers. So I caught three planes, two boats and finally another plane to Saumlaki in the Tanimbar Islands (http://www.tanimbar.org.uk), where I spent several months.

It was in Tanimbar that I first decided to write a novel. It was, I sometimes think, something as simple as nostalgia for the English language that got me started on my career in fiction. For months I had been speaking only in Indonesian and I missed my native tongue. So just after the rainy season had begun, when I borrowed a manual typewriter to write up my field notes towards the end of the stay, one afternoon a story came to me. I put a fresh sheet of paper in the typewriter roll, and I wrote. I still have the original story—a fable called “George’s Devil”—and whatever its literary virtues, I remain particularly fond of this tale that for me marks the beginning of my life as a writer.

It was almost ten years before my experiences in Indonesia, both good (the generosity of my hosts, watching master craftsmen at work, the insights into another culture) and bad (malarial fevers and exorcisms) found their way into what is now officially my first novel, Cargo Fever. I say “officially” because there are several now abandoned projects that preceded it. My first attempt at a book was a travel book, but somehow I felt restricted by writing non-fiction. Then I turned to fiction, writing two novels on other subjects, neither of which (I hope) will ever see the light of day. Somehow, however, I kept returning to my experiences in Indonesia. There was something that remained unsaid, and it wouldn’t leave me alone.

When I got round to writing it, however, it was not the novel that I had expected to write. At first I’d planned the novel as a kind of Heart of Darkness for the twenty-first century, but somehow it did not seem to take off. It was not until a small and curiously furry creature wandered into my mind—an orang pendek, the “short man” of Indonesian legend—that the story came together. So I left my fantasies of becoming the new Conrad behind, and wrote the first scene: Ibu Nilasera, a pious Christian, walks into the church one Sunday afternoon holding a clutch of plastic flowers that she is going to offer to the Virgin and sees, seated in the front pew, a devil, its head bent in prayer. It was a short scene, but by the time I had finished it, I knew I had my story.

From this moment to the final draft—sent to my publishers only a week or two ago—much has changed. Early on, I decided to shift the scene from the all-too-real Tanimbar islands to the fictitious island of Kenukecil: the change allowed me to invent much more freely than otherwise would have been possible. Whilst I was writing my second draft, I picked up the newspaper to find that my short man was front-page news: in a cave on the Indonesian island of Flores, archaeologists had discovered the remains of what they believed to be a new species of tiny human, Homo floresiensis. It was a strange experience looking at the front page and seeing a real-life prototype for my mythical hero.

In the constant writing and rewriting, my sense of the novel itself has changed. There are stories that I would have loved to have told, but that didn’t fit into the flow of the narrative. Inevitably many things have had to remain unsaid. But now that the novel is ready to go to press, it is a question of casting it adrift and seeing how it fares in the world. I wish it—and its protagonist—well. For now, however, my mind is on other things. The next novel is already in the early stages, set far away from Indonesia in Bulgaria and Paris.

Written by Guestblogger: Will Buckingham

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Will Buckingham blogs on literature and related subjects at http://www.willbuckingham.com/blog and on Buddhism at http://www.thinkbuddha.org.

Cargo Fever is due out from Tindal Street Press in the spring, and can be pre-ordered from amazon.co.uk - click here to pre-order Cargo Fever

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