Карлос Кастанеда. Разрозненые материалы за 1994 год -
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into writing. Ethnography is always writing. That's what I do. What happens when spoken words become written words, and written words become published words, and published words get ingested through acts of reading by persons unknown to the author? Let's agree to call it complex. I've been extremely fortunate to have a wide and diverse readership throughout much of the world. The entry requirement is the same everywhere: literacy. Beyond this, I'm responsible for the virtues and vices of my anonymous audience in the same way that every writer of any time and place is so responsible. The main thing is, I stand by my work. What does don Juan think of your global notoriety? Nada. Not a thing. I learned this definitively when I took him a copy of The Teachings of Don Juan. I said, "It's about you, don Juan." He surveyed the book -- up and down, back and front, flipped through the pages like a deck of cards -- then handed it back. I was crestfallen and told him I wanted him to have it as a gift. Don Juan said he had better not accept it, "because you know what we do with paper in Mexico." He added, "Tell your publisher to print your next book on softer stock." Earlier you mentioned that don Juan deliberately made his teaching dramatic. Your writings reflect that. Much anthropological writing gives the impression of striving for dullness, as if banality were a mark of truth. To have made my astonishing adventures with don Juan boring would have been to lie. It has taken me many years to appreciate the fact that don Juan is a master of using frustration, digression, and partial disclosure as methods of instruction. He strategically blended revelation and concealment in the oddest combinations. It was his style to