Readers Place

Arthur Japin interview/review

Your first novel concerned two African Princes. Your second is again based on a true story, but this time it is set in Venice and Amsterdam. How did you discover Lucia and what made you want to tell her story?

Years ago, long before I became a writer, I went to Venice and took along some books, including Giacomo Casanova’s Memoires de ma Vie. It struck me that he turned all his love affairs into glorious adventures, except for the very first. Lucia, his first love, is only mentioned briefly, twice. The first time, he tells how they met at the estate where her parents worked, how they fell in love – the first time for both of them – and then had to say goodbye after one glorious summer. When he returned from Venice next spring, he tells us, Lucia was gone. He felt so betrayed and hurt that he made a decision that influenced the whole rest of his life. From now on, he pledges, whenever love comes my way, I’ll pluck it, eat it and throw it away. This is the decision that makes him into the man we now remember.

Then, years later, he mentions her again. Traveling as a French emissary, he comes to Amsterdam to arrange a loan for France. With a friend he visits a brothel. There she is, a whore, not just old and ugly – Casanova says – but horribly deformed.

And that is all. After I read that I became so curious to know HER story. How was she disfigured, how did she get to Amsterdam, how did she become a whore. What did that do to her? And most importantly: why hadn’t she waited for him all those years before? Why did she betray him or, as it turns out: why did she sacrifice her love for him.

I started reading up on Lucia and her time, and over the years her story developed. In the meantime, I happened upon another historical fact that intrigued me enough to become a writer. This was the story of the two African princes Kwasi and Kwame, given as a present to the Dutch King in the 19th century. I turned this into my first novel The Two Hearts of Kwasi Boachi. Looking back on both these historical novels I see they have one thing in common: they are both really about me. Apparently, the characters that intrigue me enough to delve into their lives and live with them over the years are always outsiders. I grew up very isolated, and I long felt I needed to make the same choices Kwasi and Kwame had to make: to join the crowd, or to go my own way no matter what society expects of me. Lucia, after leaving Casanova, had to deal with these same issues.

Lucia’s voice is completely convincing. You are a man. How difficult was it for you to think and feel as a woman?

That was the easiest part. I remember giving a lecture about the Two Hearts of Kwasi Boachi at Howard University in Washington. A young African American asked me : “While reading the book I was convinced you were black. How can you as a white man know so exactly how we feel?” I answered him that asking that question suggested that there was a wall between him and me. That I couldn’t possibly know how he feels and thinks and loves and cries. That is of course not true. Basically all human beings feel the same things. At the core, all emotions are the same. The way you grow up, the expectations others have of you, and millions of different influences make people different, but with a bit of imaginative sympathy it is really very easy to think and feel like your neighbor.

In that sense there is no difference between black and white, just as there is no difference between men and women. And I know you have these books that tell you then men are from one planet and women from another. I say: throw them out. And if you have husband who doesn’t understand you, he should be the next out the door. A man who doesn’t understand a woman is just lazy.

In what way do you think women most frequently err in relations with men?

Lucia is this perfect metaphor for the age of Enlightenment, a simple girl who makes her choices emotionally, then gets educated in sciences and arts and learns to decide with her head rather than her heart. For a long time I struggled with this as well. I have always seen that at first people always make the right decision, emotionally. Then they hesitate and reason themselves into the wrong choice. Writing In Lucia’s Eyes made me see a perfect combination between the two is possible. This is the journey Lucia makes.

Her first mistake, sacrificing herself for the man she loves, was a mistake made by reasoning. She felt one thing (wanting to be with him) and did the opposite. I think the mistake most people make is not to dare trust their feelings. Remember: your intuition is always right. Don’t be misguided by insecurity, fear of rejection, anything. One lesson Lucia is taught is: you always only want one thing at a time. Whenever you feel torn, close your eyes, take a few deep breaths and you will feel which longing is the strongest. Act upon it. Whenever real love comes along there’s no mistaking it. Everything else becomes secondary.

Your evocation of 17th century Venice is so apt that even Venetians like Andrea di Robillant have praised it. How did you come to know the place and why do you suppose it is such fertile ground for stories of romance?

It is the most beautiful and extraordinary city in the world. Anyone who has ever been there will tell you that they sensed the mystery. The beauty of its great age is so perfectly preserved that it is not hard to imagine yourself walking through those very same corridors in another age. It just sparks the imagination.

I love coming to Venice but do it far too infrequently. I came there in my early twenties and immediately fell in love. When Lucia, who lives in Pasiano, some way away from the lagoon, comes to Venice for the first time she is sad, looking around for her lost lover, and disappointed in Casanova’s home town. It was hard writing that scene, but when I describe the squalor of the canals in those days, I think I managed to avoid the obvious clichés.