Tim Parks: not Mister Meditation

(© Basso Cannarsa)

A Writers’ Europe, an event organised by Flagey and Passa Porta, will welcome Tim Parks this week. The British author’s recent work focuses on silence and meditation, illness and health.

Tim Parks, who currently lives in Italy, made his breakthrough with the novel Europa and is also well-known for his non-fiction books like Italian Neighbours and An Italian Education. But Tim Parks’s recent novel The Server and the non-fiction book Teach Us to Sit Still, published slightly earlier, are two well-written testimonies about his introduction to meditation inspired by Eastern Zen philosophy. They helped him – a sceptic – to relieve his chronic physical pain and his hectic, competitive lifestyle.

Did these two books bring you a new readership?
Tim Parks: When I wrote the first chapter of Teach Us..., and sent it to my agent, he told me not to write the book. So did my publisher. He said: just don’t do this, it is a big mistake. They had understood that it was going to be a sad book about urination, but I knew the book was going to be alright. When it finally came out I was a bit anxious, but I didn’t lose any sleep. And then I started receiving an enormous number of e-mails and letters from people basically saying “thank you”. It is remarkable how many people recognised my situation.

Have your experiences also changed you as a writer?
Parks: What has changed is the way I feel about what I’m doing, rather than the writing itself. I’m a bit more relaxed. I realised that the whole obsession with achievement and recognition is just destructive and stupid. It would obviously be wonderful to get tons of recognition, but I’ve learned to sit down and enjoy writing books. People worry far too much about being grand. In the end it is always better if they do things because they want to, and not to earn a million dollars or win the Nobel Prize.

Do you still meditate?
Parks: An hour every day. It helps you to start the day well.

You obviously are also familiar with the vipassana-retreat that you describe in The Server.
Parks: I’ve been to a few. It is nice to know that you can go to these places. But I don’t want to make it a kind of duty.

That is a recurring issue in The Server: the sometimes amusingly severe rules (“no sex, no talking, no writing, only one banana per person”) can also be broken.
Parks: Those kind of communities have a whole different approach to rules than say a Church community. The point of the rules is simply that they will help you to come to a calm state of mind when you meditate. If somebody breaks the rules it is his problem, and he will only be bothered about it if it becomes a problem for other people too.

The “total surrender” seems to be tricky. Doesn’t the Zen approach risk wiping away your personality and the exciting things in life?
Parks: That is a classically Western phobic reaction to it all. You’re just learning to sit still for a while and to get a bit more intimate with how your body and mind are intertwined. It is funny that people don’t worry about losing their personality when they take tranquilizers.

You are invited to a colloquium of the Brussels University on “Silence”.
Parks: Yes, I’ve had invitations from other places too, like the London Pain Clinic, a group of neurologists in Holland, etc. In Germany they even wanted to make a movie of me meditating. But I said no to that. The last thing you want is to become Mister Meditation.

A Writers’ Europe: Tim Parks • 24/10, 20.15, €8/10, Flagey, Heilig Kruisplein/place Sainte-Croix, Elsene/Ixelles, 
02-641.10.20, www.flagey.be