The Matt Walsh Show - Matt Walsh Has An Honest Conversation With Andrew Klavan： Making Conservative Art

00:00:00.000 well sitting here with uh someone you may have heard of andrew clavin uh this

00:00:18.320 set is way too nice for an interview with you i think i think it is i'm actually out of my league

00:00:23.420 here we stepped it up way too much we've got to dial back a little bit uh so you have a book that

00:00:29.960 just came out a woman underground is what it's called i wanted to talk to you about 1.00

00:00:33.780 kind of the creative process first of all it goes into writing books because i'm just fascinated

00:00:37.600 by that uh and then and then some other things but before we get into that so what what and there's

00:00:43.060 the book right there what tell us about the book first of all well this is the fourth book in the

00:00:47.420 cameron winter series and it's kind of the the crisis book cameron winter is kind of unsteady

00:00:53.180 mentally is kind of cracking up and he finds that the woman that he uh loved his whole life this kind

00:01:00.840 of flame that he's kept and he's lost track of her he starts to he finds her he realizes she's still

00:01:07.080 around and he starts looking for and as he starts looking for he realizes that a killer is looking

00:01:12.300 for at the same time and he has to see if he can find her before that it's also takes place in the

00:01:17.360 midst of riots and extremist politics and kind of an america like this america but a little bit

00:01:23.480 dialed up so it's it's not a political novel but it's a novel that has a lot of politics in it

00:01:27.500 so what the so that that book's probably but 280 pages or something yeah it's close to 300 yeah uh

00:01:32.300 when i and i've written a few books none of them were very good but uh non-fiction and i want to

00:01:39.440 talk about that too because we're talking off air a little bit about non-fiction versus fiction

00:01:42.700 i can't even wrap my head around writing a novel like writing a story i can't i just can't even i

00:01:50.320 wouldn't know where to begin and you've written how many novels over 30 yeah yeah so i don't even

00:01:58.720 know how to ask the question exactly but how do you how do you organize your mind to sit down and

00:02:04.340 start writing that that book like what what's the actual process that ends with that book sitting

00:02:09.020 there well you start you start out a lot of times with a what if you know what if this happened what

00:02:13.160 if you know the the only woman you ever loved came back in your life but was in trouble what if uh you

00:02:18.200 walked in to look at your baby and make sure she was okay and she was gone you know what what if

00:02:23.020 some some wild thing just pops into your head and you kind of let it just sit you know sometimes for

00:02:29.400 years and until it finds the perfect person to be in the story which is one of the interesting

00:02:35.960 things about writing a series is you have to have stories that actually resonate with the character

00:02:40.660 because you don't care if a guy solves a mystery you only care if what happens to people internally

00:02:46.760 so for me everything has to work as as a character thing so even if i have a fight scene or a chase

00:02:53.180 scene or something it has to be important to the guy internally because it's a book it's not a movie

00:02:57.960 it's like you can't just watch something and think that's exciting so as it unfolds you think what

00:03:03.420 would happen if this you usually come up with some kind of ending and then you start to build the

00:03:07.820 steps that go on and it's always it's always about the character and the story for me it's always like

00:03:12.520 you know it's always why is this hard for this guy to do you know not just why is it hard to do but why

00:03:18.760 is this does it challenge this guy and so winter is a very psychologically oriented character you know

00:03:24.400 he's kind of trying to fix his he he used to be a government assassin essentially and now he's come

00:03:29.880 back to the country and the country is kind of falling apart it's corrupt he starts to wonder

00:03:33.280 what what was i doing you know what was i fighting for and it makes him unravel you know so you have

00:03:38.140 to really be dealing with the guy from the inside out and and that's the way that's the way it gets

00:03:42.600 built over time do you outline it i do yeah a lot of people a lot of people like just sit down and

00:03:48.320 write but i i know everything i'm going to say before i say it how long does it take you to write

00:03:51.740 that this one it takes about a year from start to finish including editing and all that yeah

00:03:56.900 yeah um including various drafts yeah yeah and you you've also written of course screenplays

00:04:03.320 yep take six weeks and you get paid better yeah i was gonna so so i i i assume it's it's a quicker

00:04:09.840 process there's a lot less writing that goes into it but is even like the creative the way you think

00:04:14.800 about it is that different too are you also starting with a what if and building it out or is it a

00:04:19.640 different you do start with that but first of all the characters the first film i ever did uh was

00:04:24.720 called shock to the system is based on a novel by simon brett and i i was a novelist so i wrote

00:04:30.320 it like a novel i did long long character sketches and what was he going to be like and all that they

00:04:34.440 hired michael cain to be in it and i saw the first day of rushes you know the first rough cut of it

00:04:39.080 and michael came and i thought what was i doing michael cain creates the character it's going to be

00:04:43.000 michael cain you know it's going to be whatever he says it's going to be so it's much much easier it's

00:04:47.140 kind of like building the frame to something and they the director and the actors all put it

00:04:51.120 together and seriously if if it takes you six weeks to write a screenplay it's probably because

00:04:57.780 you were busy doing something else you know it's very few words it is kind of every word has to

00:05:03.620 every word that appears on screen has to be great so every line of dialogue has to be great but the

00:05:08.820 descriptions only have to convince people in hollywood to buy it they don't have to be that

00:05:12.780 good you know so it's it's much easier what what drew you into novels to writing novels to begin

00:05:18.020 with i just loved them as a kid i just loved them and like i they formed a lot of my role models

00:05:24.360 like you know for what a guy was like should be like like i started reading tough guy detective

00:05:29.180 stories and uh raymond chandler philip marlowe stories uh the maltese falcon by doshel hammett

00:05:35.000 and those were the kind of guys who kind of spoke to me because i was kind of living in this suburb

00:05:39.900 this leafy suburb and everything like this and i i thought no these are the guys who like never bend

00:05:44.920 they never bend and like raymond chandler had this great essay about his character he invented

00:05:50.640 the phrase mean streets and he said down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean

00:05:56.200 and i must have been 15 when i read that and i thought bingo that's that's what i want to be

00:06:01.220 like and so i just started creating stories about those kind of characters i'm not like that but i

00:06:06.020 create stories about those characters what what do you think it takes to be a good a good writer

00:06:10.060 what does it require the the first thing is some people have talent and some people don't yeah you

00:06:16.300 can just see it the minute you start reading you know and like i always had a gift for it i always

00:06:20.020 had a an ability to do it and then i did stuff if you don't have the talent you think it's just

00:06:24.640 there are some people you just don't have it and that's it there there's some people who have no

00:06:28.520 talent except that they know how to build crappy stories that people will buy and they make a lot of

00:06:33.340 money and that's all good but i can't get past page three because the minute i start reading i think

00:06:38.460 this is garbage you know i won't name them but there are a lot of them on the best sellers list

00:06:42.760 you know um why don't you name them name one no i can't okay i can't even name one but but they know 0.97

00:06:48.820 who they are do you well i don't want to go off on a on a different tangent but i think about this a lot

00:06:53.460 too about talent do do you think because this this applies in in in many fields yeah pretty especially

00:07:00.380 any creative field uh and i i think i generally believe that it's like you either have it or you don't

00:07:06.420 yep uh and if you don't have it you never will or is it possible to you don't have it and then to

00:07:13.080 somehow gain it no you know it's why i have this magic touch for because i grew up my father was a

00:07:19.680 famous dj and i grew up in in radio and i have a magic ability to hear broadcasting talent so the first

00:07:27.360 time i heard shapiro on the air i actually got in touch with him and i said you know you you could

00:07:31.820 have a big career he was on some little you know la station with doing three a show with three people

00:07:37.500 in it and i said they should take those other two people off the air uh i and uh you know you have

00:07:42.200 it nulls nulls can pretend to have it um i was just talking to glenn beck today glenn beck is the

00:07:48.760 greatest broadcaster alive you know like uh and i was before i went on the air i was on the phone

00:07:53.660 listening to his commercials and i was embarrassed that i ever went near a microphone just listening to

00:07:58.460 back work because he just has this thing it just it just comes across the mic and and look you you

00:08:04.260 know in your movie i can see it i can see that you have this way of communicating through the camera

00:08:08.840 it's just something people have or they don't have you cannot buy that you cannot buy it you can hone it

00:08:14.020 you know like kevin costner it doesn't work very hard he strolls on and he's handsome there are a lot

00:08:21.520 of people these days having a fair amount of success in creative fields even though they have no

00:08:26.360 talent they suck yeah because yeah because we don't we don't reward talent we were you know

00:08:31.880 people reward stuff that fits in with the narrative and all these things and i it's it's really 0.98

00:08:36.800 interesting for me because the other thing now after all these years i can tell a good writer when

00:08:41.400 i see one and you can read one paragraph and you just think this is garbage but it might have

00:08:47.280 something that the audience is going to like and it is a business and if you sell copies you sell copies

00:08:51.900 what tells you in one paragraph so in one paragraph you could tell someone's a good writer

00:08:56.480 yeah what are you what are you looking for in a paragraph it's not something you're looking for

00:08:59.940 it's a kind of magic that just comes across that the the scene leaps to life um you know one of the

00:09:05.740 things that that people keep saying about this is they start it and they can't finish it they can't

00:09:09.580 that's because i'm good at what i do you know and it's like you see that you can see it immediately

00:09:13.540 that i'm in the story i see the things that they're describing and they kind of resonate with me and

00:09:18.860 and then you can see somebody who's just phoning it in or working really hard but just doesn't have

00:09:24.100 what it takes uh we were talking off air a little bit about non-fiction versus fiction you were saying

00:09:28.940 it's the the challenges of uh not only writing fiction but also getting people to read fiction

00:09:34.140 wow especially in the right yeah yeah and i and i'm totally uh a i'm i'm a culprit here because

00:09:40.940 i generally only read non-fiction i i'll go through weird phases i went through a weird phase like

00:09:46.820 eight years ago where i just got into russian literature and i started reading dostoevsky

00:09:51.160 yeah yeah tolstoy but and then i just and i i'm not interested anymore and then i go on to

00:09:55.980 non-fiction uh but i also recognize that that's a like that's a problem i i know that there's real

00:10:01.740 value in reading fiction and this idea that you should only read non-fiction because you're learning

00:10:05.940 like you're learning about a thing that actually happened and that right there's only value in that

00:10:09.160 and i think that's kind of the thought process especially if conservatives only read non-fiction

00:10:13.140 that's sort of my thought process but i also recognize that that's not right what's the value

00:10:17.680 of fiction fiction grows your life there's just no question about it if you read really good fiction

00:10:23.500 and it can be genre fiction be fantasy mysteries all these things if it's really good it grows your

00:10:28.700 life you are you get to turn off all the things that you're you that are usually on in life your moral

00:10:35.620 sense your anxiety your worries about things all of a sudden you just can observe the world and

00:10:41.640 experience the world it's not fiction is an experience it's not an actual thought process

00:10:45.720 you read something and you live it somebody dies you cry somebody you know murder somebody you're

00:10:49.840 afraid you're horrified so it's an actual experience and then you have an experience that you would

00:10:54.260 never have had in your life and you get to live it without having to make decisions about it and

00:11:02.480 somehow like i've read a lot of fiction all i've been reading it all my life and somehow you just know

00:11:07.380 life better afterwards it's an amazing amazing thing and conservatives are very um you know

00:11:13.460 practical people a lot of times and also very suspicious of people telling them why are you

00:11:18.880 telling me this if it's not true you know and it's really interesting and men read less fiction

00:11:24.180 than women and i'm kind of a man's writer and so it is it really is a challenge it's you know i've

00:11:30.840 written a couple of non-fiction books and you can get interviews on every conservative

00:11:34.940 venue there is you know they know who i am they want to talk to me and here i am talking about a

00:11:39.720 subject that i have a book they get that but if you have a book that's a fiction a story they don't

00:11:45.960 understand unless it has a news hook they don't understand what's what it's about there are few

00:11:51.420 exceptions glenbeck is one of them glenbeck reads fiction so when he talks to you you actually know

00:11:55.860 he actually knows what you're doing uh russell limbaugh used to read a certain kind of fiction

00:11:59.980 but most conservative guys are like that you know we're moralists and so fiction is beyond morality

00:12:08.100 it's kind of a meta thing the the morality you get from it is is understanding life better and so

00:12:13.100 that's a moral enterprise but fiction can have bad guys who win and good guys who lose and unfair

00:12:19.100 things that happen and drives conservatives crazy you know we talk a big game about traditional values

00:12:23.800 but how many of us are actually walking the walk when it comes to prayer let's be honest with

00:12:27.920 ourselves for a moment most of us are about as consistent with our prayer life as congress is with

00:12:32.000 balancing the budget we've all been there prayer feels so daunting to get started we end up not

00:12:36.640 doing it at all make excuses i'm too busy i don't know how i'll do it tomorrow the list goes on enter

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00:13:06.320 game look whether you're a prayer novice or a seasoned pro hollow's got something for you who

00:13:11.300 knows you might even become a slightly less annoying person to be around that would be a bonus so do

00:13:16.260 yourself a favor put down the remote close twitter and download hollow at hollow.com slash matt

00:13:21.900 walls for an exclusive three-month free trial that's hollow.com slash matt walls for an exclusive

00:13:27.000 three-month free trial of all 10 000 plus prayers and meditations what do you say to the argument

00:13:33.180 that the novel has been replaced these days by shows and films and that's that's sort of our version

00:13:39.800 of the novel yeah is that the same value no there's nothing as intimate as the novel there's nothing like

00:13:45.440 there's nothing at three o'clock in the morning when you're alone you can actually connect with

00:13:49.860 another mind in a novel and it's just incredibly direct you know you it's michael cain creates a

00:13:56.800 character but now you're no longer reading me i wrote what he said but now you're getting it

00:14:01.080 interpreted by michael cain where this you're getting something direct you're getting a vision

00:14:05.520 of life direct and it's a remark it's when you pay attention and when it's done well it's a remarkable

00:14:10.240 experience and people who love novels will tell you that you just you just get carried away in a way

00:14:14.680 you don't anywhere else and so the novel is is now no longer what it was when i was a kid which was

00:14:21.400 the major form of entertainment i mean that's the movies actually even when i was a kid it was still

00:14:26.440 the the movies but it's still different it's like theater you know theater is not the main form of

00:14:32.240 entertainment but there's nothing like going on and seeing a live play seeing an actor work live it's

00:14:36.620 remarkable and there's nothing like picking up a story that's going directly from one mind to another

00:14:42.180 have do you think there are any television shows that have almost made it to the level of a novel

00:14:47.480 in terms of the intimacy of the storytelling and the depth of it nothing is is intimate but there

00:14:53.780 are some that have been as complex like uh the sopranos i think was was up there when i watched the

00:14:59.780 sopranos i knew i was watching a work of art when i watched a couple of seasons of games of game of

00:15:05.060 thrones i thought that um tv has just gotten so much better than it used to be when you go back and

00:15:09.660 look at television it's amazing how bad it was and it's it really has gotten better but it still

00:15:16.160 hasn't got that in utter engagement that you get with a book for me now uh i hate to pay you a

00:15:22.580 compliment but oh yeah you are you're a real writer you're like an actual you're a good writer you're

00:15:27.260 an actual writer yeah uh so you're an artist yes um there's not a lot of company you don't have a lot

00:15:33.100 of company on the right uh especially among conservative commentators um a lot of conservative

00:15:41.060 commentators write books and 99 of them are just god-awful terrible uh why is that like why why is

00:15:50.280 it so rare you know actually this book is a good answer to this question this is a book in which it's

00:15:59.340 about american life now and so it has to have politics in it right it has to have people on

00:16:04.420 the right and people on the left and the kind of tensions that we're all living with now you can't

00:16:07.680 write about a contemporary america without writing about politics but the main character has no politics

00:16:14.480 he doesn't care he keeps it it's one of the running gags that people keep trying to convince him

00:16:18.500 of their politics and he just says i don't care i'm just looking for this girl you know i just want

00:16:21.720 to find this girl to do that takes a lot of discipline you really have to understand what

00:16:29.020 the novel is about to not tell people what to think but to let the experience live and conservatives

00:16:34.940 want to tell you what to think and sort of leftists you know that's why that's why so much left-wing 0.88

00:16:39.340 art is crap you know it's like it's like they want to preach to you about what's right and what's wrong 0.75

00:16:43.440 and i just want to each character to sort of make his case in the story i mean this has a main character 0.98

00:16:49.020 and you live in his head but there are a lot of characters and they're very very different and

00:16:52.500 every time one of them opens his mouth you're getting an entirely different consciousness an

00:16:56.340 entirely different way of looking at the world and that's not something like political people are

00:17:00.840 very comfortable with you know i mean it is the way i look at the world even when i'm talking about

00:17:05.700 politics i kind of look at the world like i understand there are people who disagree and see it

00:17:09.640 from a different way and all that stuff and they should be in prison of course but that's not the way

00:17:13.680 i write a novel when i write a novel i put it all aside and just let the characters live in the story

00:17:18.320 it's hard to do yeah i mean and it's true that the extreme left is has the same problem which is

00:17:23.520 why they do terrible art these days yeah but also you don't have to go back back that far to find a

00:17:27.420 time when liberals were making great art yep yeah at least films and shows and even music and it it does

00:17:38.820 just seem that like for it's only liberals were doing it it's like it's like almost all the great artists

00:17:47.420 certainly in modern american culture have been liberals and probably if you go back historically

00:17:52.760 all the great ones were liberal by their own standards well but liberal is different than

00:17:57.560 leftist i think i think you're right that you have to be liberal in the sense that you allow each person

00:18:04.420 to be himself you know i don't know about you but i always get these letters how can i convince so

00:18:08.660 and so to believe so and so and i think you know just leave them alone you know just be who they are

00:18:13.040 which is what art is about in a lot of ways is letting people you know i don't think shakespeare

00:18:17.680 was a villain but when he wrote mcbath he let mcbath be this complete person who had motives for what

00:18:21.580 he was doing and and a reason for being in a way of looking at things and so it is you do have to be

00:18:27.440 liberal in that sense but there are plenty of political conservatives they keep their heads down

00:18:32.820 who have been great art and cormac mccarthy just died i'm absolutely positive he was a conservative

00:18:37.900 and you know he never came out about it all the i don't know if you saw that thing with um

00:18:42.820 uh cubrick stanley cubrick where they were objecting to the fact that donald trump

00:18:47.800 used full metal jacket in one of his ads and cubrick's daughter came out and said he voted for

00:18:52.400 reagan he would have loved trump you know and he just kept it quiet so there are a lot more

00:18:56.400 politically conservative artists but you can't be conservative in the sense that you believe

00:19:01.800 there's only one way to live or that anybody who disagrees i mean for instance i'm an ardent

00:19:07.680 anti-feminist but this book has a feminist in it who's an absolutely lovely person and who act 1.00

00:19:12.880 and who the the hero who's a patriot very patriarchal guy he loves her he thinks she's a wonderful person

00:19:19.520 even though he can't stand anything she writes or says you know and that's kind of you have to be

00:19:23.700 liberal in that sense i think to create art um now we got to wrap it up but what do you how do you

00:19:29.760 think we get conservatives more involved in in art well i've been banging this drum for 20 years this is

00:19:34.820 why i started talking about this because when i lived in england for a long time and i came back

00:19:39.620 and found our culture so sickened and twisted that i was shocked and so i started giving speeches to 0.62

00:19:45.500 conservative groups saying you know this is about the movies this is not about winning elections this

00:19:50.100 is about talking to people about what life is really like and showing them what life is like

00:19:54.200 20 years ago when i started doing that they looked at me like i was nuts like they kind of thought i was

00:19:59.640 cute because i was working in hollywood and i dressed all in black and they thought like wow this is

00:20:03.480 cool you know hollywood guy but they had no idea what i was talking about today they do today they

00:20:08.000 get it they still think that what we need is more propaganda movies that will sell you know

00:20:13.840 conservatism but but it's starting to change i mean this place look at this place i mean you you

00:20:18.560 you made two cultural things i know they're non-fiction but they're still cultural works

00:20:23.120 jeremy understands obviously that movies have to be you know created by people like us that's the

00:20:30.340 important thing it's not that we write conservative things it's that conservatives make stuff you know

00:20:34.700 so i think it's changing and i think i i would describe it as a field of ice with little sprigs

00:20:41.340 you know popping up through it so i'm kind of hopeful about it and i just think you got to keep explaining

00:20:46.640 to conservatives what art is and the fact that conservative art is not like conservative life

00:20:51.640 you know i live a conservative life i'm a married man a family man a religious man i you know love my

00:20:56.600 country that's the life i live but that's not what art is about art is about like you know dramatic

00:21:01.200 things that happen because of clashes of personality and that's a very different thing

00:21:06.040 and it's like i said it enlarges your life the people who wrote the constitution and the declaration

00:21:11.960 read shakespeare they read you know euripides they read the greeks they read art you know they

00:21:18.560 that's why they had that broad way of looking at life that helped them to form a government

00:21:23.320 and if you read the federalist papers those were written by people who understand what people are

00:21:27.160 like and people like that have read the arts you know where can people buy the book any anywhere

00:21:33.680 anywhere if you get it you can get it at our shop the daily wire shop so i should say that out of

00:21:37.900 loyalty if you get it on amazon and move it up the list that helps it a little bit good talking to

00:21:42.520 it's always great talking to you

00:21:43.600 no i won't you

00:21:45.380 if you met my wife

00:21:47.840 you

00:21:59.680 you

00:22:04.180 you

00:22:06.500 you

00:22:07.320 you

00:22:08.500 you

00:22:08.580 you

The Matt Walsh Show - October 19, 2024

Matt Walsh Has An Honest Conversation With Andrew Klavan： Making Conservative Art

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