This is the second of three books in which I invent the Republic of Tinieblas—its history, geography, politics, and “atmosphere,” as well as a number of its inhabitants. The books are related in theme as well as in setting. Certain actors appear in all three, now as principals, now as supporting players, now as extras. And there are interlacings done for my private amusement. Each book, though, can stand on its own and bear separate viewing, so that while The Dissertation (1975) was done after The Prince (1972) and before Mandragon (1979), I think of it less as tome two of a trilogy than as the central panel of a triptych.
Its structure is, for better or worse, unique. No one else has ever written a novel in the form of a Ph.D. thesis, and no one else is likely to write one now. Pale Fire (in the form of a poem and commentary) provided a measure of precedent I gratefully acknowledge this and other debts to the master. The chief inspiration or irritant (See Note 12) was furnished, however, by an academic colleague. We both were in our mid-thirties. Neither of us had the Ph.D. He, though, was working en his and urged me to do likewise. I told him I couldn’t be bothered: if I was going to spend two or so years writing something no one would ever read, I preferred to go first class and write a novel. (I was then the author of six unpublished ones.)
“Why not admit it?” he sneered. “You couldn’t do a dissertation, you haven’t the grit.”
The remark rankled. It lodged, in fact, like a splinter in my mind’s paw. A few years later, when I was finishing The Prince, I resolved to teach the fellow a lesson: I’d do a dissertation and a novel at once, and (in passing) a send-up of Ph.D.s and their foolishness. Many hundreds of times during the next four years I regretted that resolution, but true grit (or blind pigheadedness) saw me through.
What I had, then, when I started this book was the form. I decided to locate the action in Tinieblas, but not because I intended to do a triptych. That came later. I’d invented large tracts of Tinieblas writing The Prince and was in the position of a film producer with a spacious, costly set all carpentered together standing idle. The thrifty thing to do was use it again, expanding and refurbishing as necessary. But I hadn’t any story, any “content”; I had the form first.
I consider this a very good procedure, though I confess I haven’t followed it since. The form gave me the makings of one chief character, Camilo Fuertes: dissertations, after all, are written by scholars. It suggested a style—long, balanced, periodic sentences, and a possible leitmotif of historical allusion. It was time I got some practical benefit out of all the dabbling I’d done in history books. It allowed me to use the method of counterpoint: one story in the Text, one in the Notes. (I have favored contrapuntal storytelling, both as addict and pusher, since the summer of 1943, when a lucky sniffle plucked me from the beach at Neponsit, Long Island, and deposited me in Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Africa.) Finally, the dissertation form compelled me to an invention that brought me infinite delight and agony, and besides, pleased some readers: the afterlife according to Camilo. Dissertations must be documented. Camilo’s researches groped back more than a century into Tinieblan history. I found it tiresome to invent imaginary texts and hit on the idea of making him a spirit medium so that he could cull his data from imaginary “dead” people. All sorts of wonderful things ensued.
There is something more. Anthony Burgess has written somewhere—and unlike Camilo (see pages XVIII-XIX) I have searched and searched for the reference—that the adoption of odd forms is useful both in revivifying the genre of the novel and in stimulating the novelist. I don’t know anything about revivification, but as to stimulation I can say this: the form’s outlandishness and intricacy, the number of balls (plates, indian clubs) it obliged me to keep in air at once, the difficulty of packing story into a box designed to carry scholarship imposed mind-breaking tensions that goosed me to the very top of my game.
The Dissertation is my favorite book, the unrivaled love of my literary life. Like all great loves it caused me torment, but it always made everything up to me sooner or later. As for its reception, the reviewers applauded and fans wrote from distant lands. Bantam, Morrow, and Norton did paperback editions. Now Overlook has brought it back for another encore.
Many good things happen if you live long enough.
—R. M. K.
Panama, August 2013