Transcripts For KQED Charlie Rose 20150406

Book, the buried giant. It comes as a slight surprise people think its so different. I come at these things from tin side. Im a bit like someone is trying to build a flying machine, before aviation when all the guys used to make funny flying machines in their backyards. I feel a bit like that. Im trying to get this thing that will fly. For a long time it doesnt fly and im putting this piece on and finally it kind of flies. Rose yeah. Rose Kazuo Ishiguro when we continue. Rose additional funding provided by and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and Information Services worldwide. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. Rose admiral Michael Mullen is here. He served as the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff from 2007 to 2011. He was the top military advisor to president obama and president bush during the wars in iraq and afghanistan. He was also influential in the dont ask dont tell and americas relationship with pakistan. His parting piece of advice to the American Public after four decades of service was to take care to have generation who mas fought a decade of war. His message holds zig as president obama continues to end two wars along a slough of global crisis. Pleased to have admiral back at the table. Welcome. Thank you charlie. Rose how is retirement . I think its terrific. I think best put by the younger of my two sons when someone asked him about that. He said, well my dad has about half the schedule and 2 to have the stress and i think that was a pretty good formula. So its been good. Im teaching at princeton in the fall. They asked me to teach a course in the Woodrow Wilson school on the use of u. S. Military power and u. S. Diplomatic power and getting the right balance. Im on a couple of boards, General Motors and sprint. Deborah and i spend a lot of time with veterans and families with the issues that are challenging them, these extraordinary young men and women who served so nobly for decades but certainly the ones very close to us in these two wars. Rose every person i admire who served with distinction in the pentagon as an officer or as someone appointed as the president lets say secretary of defense, has always come away in their most important thought is how well did i do for the men and women fighting for america. Yeah. Rose it is the single thing. I take them at their word that burns in their soul. Well, certainly and i think thats true for everybody. Rose for everybody. Seems to me this time we live in right now is as difficult as we have seen in a while. It certainly, from my perspective, i came in in the vietnam war in the late 60s and have watched us move through very challenging times. It is as complex as anything ive seen. It is as uncertain as anything ive seen. I think the United States is in a position where we cant do it alone anymore. I think were also continuing to devolve out of the cold war, out of that bipolar, freezetheworld relationship we had with the soviets then which, when the wall came down, that devolution started and i think there are still vestiges of that very much a part of whats going on now. Rose i just returned from syria, had a conversation with president assad when i was there last week. You see the interesting circumstances with america on one side and iraq not coordinating or working together and you saw in tikrit once we had an air strike they pulled back and iraq seemed to insist on that. But there is worry on the part of the people in iraq that ir will flex isthmusle which is being used there in some permanent relationship. I think thats a great worry. I think where iran clearly is now in iraq is a place that none of us anticipated theyd be so strongly and i think that was also facilitated, obviously, by i. S. I. S. And rose by the threat of i. S. I. S. . By i. S. I. S. Being in iraq. I think thats what generated the force flow of iranians into iraq and effectively iran has become the defense minister, if you will at large for whats going on in that country. And at the core of this becomes this whole issue of, you know, can shia and sunni figure out how to live together, and are there leaders in the world and particularly arab leaders, that can figure this out . And as iran gets stronger in these countries you see saudi arabia, you know, striking in yemen very specifically, and there is this historic tension rose supporting the houthi rebels. In the complexity of whos on whose side i think is representative of how difficult are these issues in that part of the world. Rose what role do we play . I think my own view of this is we have to stay engaged. We have friends in that part of the world. Clearly, the saudis are concerned, for instance, about any deal that we make with iran. And i think we have to work hard to make sure that we can alleviate those concerns. We will, i believe, and i think the president said it again today, were never going to walk away from israel. We will always be there for them in support of them in whatever they need and certainly in terms of their security. Theyre our closest ally in that part of the world but i think we have to stay engaged. And i worry and its not just us. This deal or the framework is a p5 plus 1. There are six countries involved. This isnt just for the United States. Rose and 6 includes russia. Yes. Rose the p5 plus 1 includes russia. Thats true, and china. I think what theyve done, in a way the deal sort of could be a signature effort in terms of how do you address issues in that part of the world . A good friend of mine three or four years ago said if you think the sectarian violence in iraq was bad and it was, stand by for syria, its worse. And, so rose the worse is the the majority have the power. The big question is if they lost the power, what would happen . If you look at what happened in iraq as far as shia going after sunni rose that led to the rise of i. S. I. S. Did it not . Thats right. So is Something Like this the p5 plus 1 or the right leaders at the table on whats going on in syria now a way to get at stopping the killing in that part of the world literally in syria when you have countries that i believe for a long time we couldnt get iran anywhere close to right without putin and russia and they and syria have a long relationship. Is there a way to frame a political outcome through negotiations with leaders from those countries, very difficult relationships, as i understand it to include tooky, iran, hesbollah im not sure. Rose but stopping the killing and negotiate a political outcome and if you do that you have to include all the parties who have a border or a longtime friendship or some other reason to sit at the table. Yes and generate a strategic view of, okay this is how were going to get at it and deploy the diplomacy and if necessary deploy the military, inside a Strategy Rose if necessary deploy what military . I think that becomes a question of how its going. Certainly, i think from the standpoint of lets say the 40,000 arab force which has been talked about very recently, putting that together, certainly i believe, and i think many, many people believe they need to lead on this. But there is support that we can provide that i mean, we have the best the most capable force in the world right now. We have been through a lot. Theres a lot of things i think we could do to help get that to the military outcome inside this strategic framework. Rose so you need a political solution in syria. It seems to me that we have clearly had to make a decision that the removal of assad was not the primary priority. I think thats true. That said, my own view of that long term and i think we need to take a long view, by the way. Long term, i dont think assad is going to last. I couldnt tell you how thats going to happen, but i dont think that should be the principle objective of interaction there now. Rose so for those rebels and those people who demand assads removal before they negotiate, thats a nonstarter because he has the power . Absolutely. And i think that also becomes a part of how do you get to a political outcome everybody agrees to and how do you enforce it . And those are tough and complex issues. I dont know how syria concludes right now. Its just getting worse and worse. I dont know how it comes together in a way that stops the killing, restores the millions of refugees to their homes and starts to generate some kind of stability there without the political, diplomatic and obviously, where its needed, economic and military capability coming together. Not just lets hit them with the military and see how it comes out. Weve done that too many times and i would argue it hasnt come out that well. Rose lets turn to russia and ukraine. Where are we there . I dont think were in a very good place. Ive worried about russia and in particular president putin for a long time. I think rose because . Well, i actually, when i was the Commanding Officer of a United States navy cruiser in the 90s took my ship up there when it was really bad. The ruble was worth less than a penny, going down every single day, nothing on the shelves the people there were disdesperate about the future. What strikes me in retrospect going back to that time frame is, when the cold war ended we gloated. We didnt do what we did after world war ii was focus on germany and japan and restoring it. We gloated. And Many Russians remember that. Rose especially putin. And especially president putin. He comes into power in 2000. Obviously he is resourced heavily because of the energy shift in the world, if you will and the bountiful Energy Resource they had and he saved the country and so, heres a man whos got a terrible demographic problem, hes got a terrible infrastructure problem, his economy is in really bad shape, almost doubled because of the sanctions and the oil and, yet, he is an important player in the world, and i worry that weve got him actually cornered and its not going to get er . Better. Rose how will he respond . I think as weve seen, with strength, with abject, in some cases military power or certainly hes adopted now rose do you think he wanted this or he saw an opportunity to do something he long wanted which was to grab crimea but he doesnt want to be in the place where he is now with the separatist and ukraine and all its brought down on him and hes looking, therefore, for a way out . I think we need to figure out if theres a way out. I also think hes an individual that responds to strength and, so, he needs to know there you cannot do this anymore. I used to take a temperature about how russia was going with my ball tick counterparts baltic counterparts. I cant imagine how nervous they are when you have countries where 25 of the population speaks russian. Rose but in those countries, we are committed, if theyre a member of n. A. T. O. , to their defense. We are, indeed. Rose i talked to a member of the administration who says we will stand by that and i think if we didnt do that it would fundamentally break n. A. T. O. Apart. Rose so if he moves into any n. A. T. O. Country, then we will respond. But you say we need to fight strength with strength. How do we do that that we have not done that . Whats your criticism of what weve done before and how have we not been as tough as we might have to have get his attention . When i was chairman, the russians actually went into georgia and i was taken in conversations and what was written back then by the essence of what georgia and the ukraine are to russia and i think on the western side sometimes the western view is that these are country that want to come into n. A. T. O. , these are countries that want to come toward the west and were at the heart of where russia started and i think we just need to be very careful about opening those doors or being forcible about pushing them in that direction. Rose it was wrong to encourage a n. A. T. O. Expansion into certain parts of the eastern end of europe . I thought we were accelerating that far beyond. Rose and its scared to death of him. Absolutely. This is his homeland. The wonings empire started in kiev the russian empire started in kiev. When you Start Talking about kiev being into n. A. T. O. , its like putting a hot poker in there, in my view. Weve started rotating forces in eastern europe, rotational forces, eastern forces as well as n. A. T. O. I think we need to stick with that. I think we need to be careful about any rhetoric with respect to removal of u. S. Forces from europe. I think n. A. T. O. I worked long and hard, as this president did president bush and others, to get n. A. T. O. Countries to spend more on defense. They dont. I think n. A. T. O. s got to recalibrate itself in terms of how theyre going to provide the security for their own country as well as n. A. T. O. , given the change thats there. I think where we were headed with russian, were in a completely different position. Ive spoken for the last couple of years, one of my worries, i partially negotiated the new start treaty for Nuclear Weapons, that we get this wrong and somehow bring the weapons of mass destruction back into play and president putin in the last few weeks mentioned Nuclear Weapons twice. Rose he was prepared to go on Nuclear Alert about crimea. Thats crazy. It is crazy i agree. Rose but you have to ask yourself is he serious and why is he serious. Correct. And i think he is serious because he is caged and hes caged at an 80 approval level. Rose what did the assassination of nemtsov, what signal did that send . I mean, i wasnt shocked. Rose the political assassination. Shot in the back going across a bridge. I worry a great deal about not knowing the facts but i wasnt surprised it comes out of chechnya in terms of the possibility of originating there. So i think thats part of the control. He has great control of that country right now. And hes somebody that is formidable and that i think we have to figure out how to deal with. Rose at the same time china. Yeah. Rose is developing a better relationship with him. Yeah. Rose hes sending a whole bunch of energy over there. Yeah. Rose whats he getting for it . So back to sort of my early 90s this has been evolutionary. Its not just been whats happened in the last year or two although thats important and topical. But again i think if we get this wrong rose get what wrong . If we are unable to reach out to him and figure out a way forward that is peaceful and recognizes the challenges and the needs on both sides here, but essentially to a point where he stops doing what hes doing i think and back to his being in a corner, i think we almost weld a relationship between him and china, and thats not a relationship thats easy historically its not natural rose in fact, it was kissinger who did the reverse when he drove a wedge between that relationship by recognizing china. And i think theres an opportunity to make sure that doesnt happen. I think the two of them aligned against us the next 50 or 60 years has a bad outcome not just for us but the world. I worry about the totality of the impact of not having a relationship with putin now. Rose heres what you seem to be saying as a military man who spent his life into military, who rose to the highles job you ever had, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, you say were not doing enough diplomacy. Yes. Weve been through a lot, but i dont sign up to this were tired and cant do anything. This goes back to the essence of the course eput together at princeton because we have been using the military too much and have not been able to deploy the other forces of government to generate outcomes as we used to do. Rose that was bob gates idea, too. Well, believe me, im tired of living with the answer, okay, lets pull out the gun and see what happens. The gun may be a part of the solution, but i want it a part of a strategy, not just hope. Rose okay. And i assume, you know, the cry is that we ought to be arming the ukrainians. Yeah. Rose we ought to be sending bigger and better weapons to them. Not troops but bigger and better weapons. Yes. Rose would you be resistant to that . No. Rose because that fuels the flame . Well there eelsries well theres risk associated with it. Theres a question do we arm our friends in syria. Its the question of whos got them and how will they be used. Rose and whose hands will they fall into. Exactly. But i think in some cases you have to take that risk and on the other side of that there are individuals in ukraine or in syria that dont understand why we arent there to help in that regard, given what theyre up against. And some of this and the longer this takes, the more difficult those decisions become. Rose let me get back to syria for a second because a lot of people look back at that point where the moderate forces were begging for equipment like john mccain and at the same time hillary clinton, bob gates, David Petraeus and others at the c. I. A. Said we ought to do this. The president made a decision phot to, basically said it was a fantasy. Was it a fantasy . I dont know. Rose you know a lot more about it than most people. I think what we find ourselves in, now that we have arrived at a position where were providing some weapons is my own view of that is, had we done that earlier, the potential is there to have a bigger impact than it does right now. Rose you could have built up a moderate force in opposition, too. Well i think so, but also i mean even at the time the discussion was going on, this idea of what was the free syrian army, and there were a lot of views of who they were. Rose whats your view . Well, they were more coherent a couple of years ago than now because of whats happened. Rose there are some who argue that assad wanted to see the rise of i. S. I. S. Because he wanted the circumstance in syria to be this its either me or i. S. I. S. , not its either me or moderate reformers. Im not sure id give him that much credit. Rose you wouldnt . Im not sure id give him that much credit, thats all. To me, the analysis rose because most to have the bombing because most of the bombing yeah. Rose some say he used his moderate forces against i. S. I. S. As they were rising the power and thats the reason they rose. Youre not giving him that much credit . No, i think that may analytically viewed in hindsight as to have some kind of value but thats, as i recall going in and being on the front end of this but there was no discussion. Rose but in the near term he has to stay in power . It isnt a matter. I think he will stay in power. Rose what do you think china wants militarily . Well i think china would like to see us leave the area. Rose leave leave that part of the world. I think they would like to become the dominant a force in that part of the world. Rose we have to recognize that they have significant influences in the region. Absolutely, absolutely. Rose and they have to recognize that we have significant friends in the region. Absolutely. Rose like india like japan like south korea. But, believe me, i think that if we picked up and left they would be happy campers. That said, were not going to do that. We have too many friends. Its such a critical part of the world from many perspectives but economically, thats the engine, sort of the india china asia, you know, american, sort of being the century of the pacific, its going to be rose the 21st century. Yes, and it has to be stable. Rose can it be the century of the pacific and an american . I think the question on china is are they going to be construct nigh their revolution and if they develop their military and do it positively, thats a potential outcome. If its the other way around, it becomes destructive. But theyre going to have a very difficult time getting where they immediate to go economically if they have a destructive military force. Destructive to the region. Destructive to stability. Rose because they need a lot of trading partners. They do. Globally, they need them. But certainly in the west as well and certainly as the top two economies in the world between the United States that has to be the case between the United States and rose i want to talk about two things and let you go. Number one is cybersecurity. Yeah. Rose a lot of people i talk to worry more about that than almost anything. I think i try to frame my view of the world in terms of security with respect to existential threats. There are only two existential threats to us as a nation. One are the nooks we nukes we have and we talked about that and our inability to deal with putin that makes sure theyre off the table and the second one is cyber because so few people understand it, it is represented in the scale kinds of issues that youve seen at target and jp morgan and its tens of millions of impacts and rose and there are hackings taking place every day. They are by the hundreds or thousands. And theres certainly a great deal of work going into that but that is a capability that could shut us down. It could shut our Financial System down if were not careful, it could shut our electrical grid down. And if theyre able to sustain that, whoever they are and it could be statesponsored individuals or states themselves, that becomes a way that our life changes. That is existential to our future and its a very tough space to understand technically and i encourage leaders everywhere to understand the Technical Details because theyre the ones that supply the resources, hire the people create the policies to deal with them but were behind. Rose one last question about terrorism and i. S. I. S. And caliphate and what we see happening in yemen and kenya today yeah. Rose and the reports of people being romanticized over social media to slip through the borders and to go to syria and to get training to do whatever they want to do. Are we winning that battle . You know, charlie, ive thought about this in terms of just my own upbringing and i know that you were there for this as well, but when we were going through such difficult times in the 60s and the 70s, and the number of disenchanted, disaffected young people, even in our own country, that went in Different Directions if you will, that certainly was my experience here. So i take that, if you fast forward that and accelerate it with this explosion of communication when you have disaffected, disbelieving young people with no future all over the world, it doesnt surprise me at all the draw is there and that people come from all over the world to address these to be engaged in these things. Rose no it gives them purpose and direction. It does. What we as leaders have to do is figure out a way to create hope. Rose this has to come not just from the United States but from the west and from the middle east and from the muslim community. I think the fundamental issue is in the middle east leaders have to figure out a way to provide hope for their people so that what particularly they all have youth particularly what they have been, what they see as a future, which is very grim, actually changes. Rose a thrill to have you. A pleasure to have you here. Hope you will come back. Ogd to be with you. Rose former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff admiral Michael Mullen. Stay with us. Rose Kazuo Ishiguro is here. His books includes never let me go and the the buried giant is his first novel in the ten years. The New York Times called it the wastered and most ambitious thing h hes published in his celebrated 33year career. Welcome. Nice to be here. Rose congratulations because of all people are saying about. This my question is about this. My question is, is it about appropriate for you to take ten years to complete a novel . Id like to do it more quickly but, you know, im doing the best i can. And theres no problem with the quantity of books out there, you know. Rose youre going for quality . I wasnt necessarily going for quality, but if i put something out there, whether good or bad, i want to slightly change the landscape slightly change the skyline of the pile of books out there. So whether people like it or not, i want to offer something a little bit different. So until that gets into play, i dont think i feel im ready to put the book out there. Rose you know some people believe this is a radical departure for you. Yeah, it comes as a slight surprise that people think its so different because i always comat these things from the inside. I never really im a bit like someones trying to build kind of a flying machine. Before aviation or these guys used to make funny flying machines in their backyard. I feel like im a bit like that. Im just trying to get this thing that will fly and for a long time it doesnt fly and im putting this piece on, too. Finally it kind of flies. Rose yeah. But i dont really know what it looks like. It may look really weird to someone coming to it. Rose but do you know what it is or does it have to be something in your mind . Is it, for example a love story . Its certainly a love story. I knew that its a love forebut story but a love story of a certain kind. We usually mean a courtship story, a story of two people coming together and ends when they declare love to each other. This is a love story. I think there should be more love stories like this one. Its about the decades the years. Its the Long Distance of love and about all the years you struggled to keep the flame alive and this is about a man and a woman who are determined to stand by each other right to the end. Rose they suffer from a kind of amnesia. Yeah well, this is kind of what i had. When i was talking about getting my flying machine together, this is one to have the main problems. I is that right off with a kind of a story that i can almost express in two or three lines in the abstract, and i often cant find the right way to put it off, the right setting. One of the things i started off with is i want a situation where theres a whole community, a nation suffering from some kind of selective memory loss and the nation has to decide, as a nation, you know, do they want to remember everything. Maybe theres been something very traumatic buried in the recent past and maybe there was a very good reason for these things being buried. And rose and do you have a point of view on that . My only point of view is its very difficult. Its very difficult to generalize. I think there are situations lets take france after the second world war. Rose a good example. I dont want to pick on france. Rose no. Im being polite here. Im in the United States. I dont want the talk about any buried giants in american society. Im sure, you know, we can all rose absolutely. As a matter of etiquette, im here as a visitor, so im going to talk about france. Rose right. So the french, after the second world war, what are they going to do with this stuff . You know, they seem to be on the winning side but they spent a lot of their time collaborating with the nazis, sending french jews to the gas chamber without much help from the germans betraying each other to the questionguessgestapo. What do they do with that . How much is the goal to pretend they were all resistant fighters and not visit this question for a few decades. There will be a time when were stronger and can face this but right now if we look at our recent past well tear each other to pieces. At least well go communist. There might be civil war. The society cannot hold. And you look at situations, say like this was i suppose, the starting point when i started to think about this. You think about situations like what happened in the bosnia in the 90s or kosovo or rwanda. Rose or cambodia. Yeah. You have situations where people seem to have lived together, different tribes different communities have managed to coexist at least for a generation and then some kind of societal memory was deliberately reawakened to mobilize hatred and violence. Rose do you start with that idea . That situation and then create characters . Kind of yeah. I start with that situation but the other thing i was very concerned about that same question about, you know, do we want to remember certain things, are we better off just keeping some memories buried, i was wanting to apply it not just to a nation but side by side with that, i wanted to apply it to a marriage, because i think the same questions apply to a marriage, you know any kind of longdistance marriage, as it would, i guess, to any longterm, you know like parentchild relationship, siblings, but that same question arisings because most relationships that go on for a long time, inevitably there are panels you agree to just keep buried. All right, that was unfortunate you know, i was painful, lets just move on. But the couple at the center of my novel, they have this very difficult question would our love survive remembering some of these things . Do we want to remember some of the things that we have buried . But, on the other hand, if we dont look at these things and the sense their time together is limited now because theyre a certain age if we dont look at these darker passages weve put to one side for now, is our love genuine . Is it based on something phony . Theyre very similar to the questions. Rose to individuals have what states have. I think so. Rose in the sense of having to that question of when is it better to remember, when is it better to forget, is a very difficult one that applies to nations and families and marriages. Rose this is the scientific aspect of this and im not knowledgeable about it but i think there are some experimentations going trying to understand the brain so that there are things and drugs that can affect what you remember you know that can tamper with memory. Well that kind of thing might have been very useful for me. Rose exactly. At the stage i came to a stage right this is what happens to me. I dont write novels in a sensible order. I start off with a story without a setting. Now, if you had said that to me at a certain point in my kind of attempt to compose this novel, i might have said oh thats good. You know, maybe thats what i need. Ill go with that as a kind of a scifiish, modern kind of device. That would give me what i want because i need a situation where everyone has to make that decision. Do we want to turn back, you know, the force that allows us to forget or actually, is it terribly useful. Do we depend on forgetfulness to carry on . And, so thats a very good what you just said is very interesting. I didnt, in the end decide to go down that kind of path. I decided to go back into some kind of mythical past where i thought i could rely on very ancient kind of storytelling devices so i could have kind of a supernatural mist. Rose its worth looking up. You will find out a number of things as we explore the brain, as everybody does, and the academy and science and everybody else. Were finding out interesting things and thats one aspect of it of which there are many. But memory has been a theme ofous, has it not . Yes, i worry its become a bit of an obsession. Rose seems to be. My entire obsessive memory. I think its probably changed and evolved over the years because when i started to write fiction as a very young man, i think it was in order to remember. I think thats why there is a very intimate link in my mind and in my heart, you know between writing fiction and remembering, you know, because rose how does writing fiction catalyze or stimulate memory . Its not so much to stimulate memory. I had left japan at age 5 to live in britain and i think, all the way through my growing up, i had these memories of this place that was very precious to me, and it was the place i thought i was going to return to at some point. I had these memories, and it wasnt like a specific series of memory. It was like a memory of a whole world, a whole kind of way of being, a whole life and whole atmosphere and a whole group of people. And as i got older, i realized that that very personal japan that was inside my head was somewhere i couldnt go to in the plain and it faded ive write year i got older. So i started off my whole writing fiction career by actually wanting to preserve these memories. I couldnt preserve them just by writing down facts. I had to actually rebuild the japan of my imagination and memory in a book. So i think right at the foundation of my writing impulse was this notion that creating a world in fiction was an act of memory. Memory preservation. So i could say actually, now, its safe inside that book. Rose i have to call on my memory to inform my book. Am i right about that . Your memory is going to have to influence the setting and Character Development . I didnt even really have to call on my memory. Its almost like ive got this world that ive built in this world naturally, not because im trying to write but naturally as a kid growing up, this world builds up in my head. Its a mixture of imagination, speculation and memory. And then i get to a certain age, what am i going to do with it . Do i let it just disappear as time goes on . If its a very special place and only i have access to it i actually want to get it down in some kind of way and i think that was the original impulse you know. I want to preserve it inside a fictional world. Thats how it started. And then i think as i kind of carried on writing i never lost that fundamental idea that theres something you know writing is something about memory, and i started to look at other people or other characters in some depth, but i always tended to tell my stories through memory. You know, people remembering about themselves, people putting a memory from 30 years back right next to a memory from 5 or 10 minutes ago or two days ago and right assess these memories and are the memories accurate, are they blurred at the edges or are they being distorted by the person, the thing . I mean its a way of construct ago sense of ones self. Rose and what was the impact of that 14th century poem called sir gay wynne and the green mouse. Not many people watching know it. Its a very entertaining story poem. Most of it is not particularly relevant to my novel though i recommend people read it because its a very entertaining poem. I took there was just one little stanza you know the story takes place in two cast castles, but theres a bridge passage where one rides from one castle to the other and you get a glimpse of britain in those days. There are no inns or anything so you had to sleep on rocks in the pouring rain. I dont know why he had to sleep on rocks. He should sleep under the tree but he slept on rocks. Rose you dont know why . What struck me is it says in the next couple of lines, it says Something Like and im paraphrasing it says he was chased by a wild boar by wolves and panting ogres were chasing up hills out of villages. He goes to another castle and it continues in some splendor, but this little glimpse of this weird, imaginary, ancient britain just those few lines sparked a whole world for me. I thought well, that would be a fun place to put down my novel. I could suddenly see this rose when you find that thats a huge benefit. Yeah. And i go location hunting because i told you i go about things backwards. Its a stupid way to write novels, but i get a story, i dont have a location, i dont have a setting, and sometimes you ask why sometimes it takes a long time to find the write setting. Rose yeah. How long did it take you to find the setting in this case . It took a long time. I tid actually think about scifi settings. Rose yeah. But thats when sometimes you come across something and a few lines spark a whole row. I like the banality of the panting ogres. Theres no surprise. It doesnt say, you know what . There were ogres no, its just a nuisance. They made life very inconvenient. Theyre not very friendly bulls you encounter. So i thought, well, ill have that. In my world there will just be ordinary things in the background. Rose it is said that your wife, when she first read the book, hated it. Is that fair . This is what youre getting at when you wanted to know why it took ten years. laughter im giving serious literary responses, you want the simple. laughter no youre right. She didnt hate it. For encouragement, you know, id done a lot of work found the setting, worked everything out, so im quite a way into it. Id written 60 or 70 pages and i thought, you know, even i sometimes, though usually i work alone, i need a little encouragement like everybody else. Like my wife would give it to me. I showed it to her and she said youre going to have to start from scratch laughter rose how was that moment between the two of you . Well, it was a little awkward. Rose youll have to start over from scratch . Yeah. What she was saying is im not saying you have to alter the character or change this. Not a word of this can survive. But she did say you dont have to abandon the idea. The concepts the ideas are very interesting. Rose but you have to start over. Yeah, not a word. The execution is all wrong. Youre going to have to start from scratch. And, so, but i dont mind this too much because rose did you take it seriously . Yeah, i did. I put it to one side. I wrote another book. I wrote a book of short stories for nocturns and these other things. This happened to me a lot. I had to attempt three times. There are two abandoned versions of the book in the 90s. Rose but they build on each other. They build on each other. Rose you didnt throw it in the ocean. No, i never abandon anything actually, because i have this kind of strange maybe naive confidence that if i come back to it, something that was wrong before would have gone away, and there will be a solution that hadnt occurred to me the first time around, second time around, that will present itself, and thats been my experience. Never let me go it was only the third time around that i came upon what you might call the scifi, that this should be a story about young people who had actually been harvested as clones for organ donation. That wasnt there in my first two attempts. I was trying hard to contrive a way in which young people could go through the experience of old people, you know, that they could go through the struggles of the whole thing of becoming middle aged and old and getting sick and dying and asking all the questions that people do over a larger life span. I wanted to find some way in which they could do this in 28, 30 years, and i couldnt do it before. But then, you know, this jigsaw, piece to have the jigsaw presented itself. Rose if you could have been a great musician, would you have preferred that to a great novelist . Thats a great question. Rose because . Because i still love music. Of course, when youre not allowed to do something, you know, because i wanted to be a not really a musician. I wanted to be a great song writer. Rose yes. I love songs. Not a composer. Thats too grand. I like the threeminute, fourminute, twominute song. You know, a beautiful emotion or world contained in a song. The performance, the music, the orq administration. I think a song is a wonderful thing. If i could have been a song writer, i might. It takes ten years to write a novel. Rose why does it have to be either or . Because theyre both so demanding . It doesnt have to be either or in theory, but in practice im not a good song writer. Rose that you know. Youre great writer. You dont know whether youre a good song writer. Im not a bad lyricist. I work with a band leader and saxophonist and he writes all the music. Rose yeah. As i got older, when i was in my mid 20s, when i moved from songs to short fiction to novels, i started to feel that there were certain things i wanted to do that i couldnt do in song, but nevertheless, i think many of the things that mark me has a novelist today my style my priorities they derive directly from my decisions that i made about song song writing. In the back of my head, im still writing a song. This is why i like first person narrative. Novels are like songs its just one not like big band songs, theyre like something a guy with an Acoustic Guitar or a woman with an Acoustic Guitar singing to about 17 people. Rose thats kind of in your mind. That almost con tensional thing somebodys telling the story of their life to a small audience in an intimate setting. Thats why i love the first person actor. Rose can you play Acoustic Guitar . Im not a bad guitarist. I can play many styles jazz, folk i can play bad piano. I wouldnt mind being eric clapton or b. B. King but its not that kind of guitar. To me, a guitar is something that helps pin down a song. Its a good instrument for songs because it holds down rhythm harmony and meldy at the same meld melody at the same time. Rose whats interesting about the conversation about guitar, lyrics song writing and music is i have a friend whos a Brilliant Writer who has a son and his son has been almost a prodigy at a series of things, really good at chess games and things like that. He now is in college and has become obsessed, which happened right before we went to college, with the guitar p. I thought thats a strange thing, to to be obsessed with the guitar, having excelled in so many things. And you helped me understand it. Its the complexity that gives you the great challenge. I dont know what kind of guitar hes interested in, but there is something about a guitar that it just implies all the other stuff. You know it implies a whole orchestra. Rose yes. Its a very good instrument for that. There is something about a piano where its almost a substitute for an orchestra, whereas a guitar has six strings it has simply to imply. Its like a japanese brush stroke, a few lines implies a whole world. So i think that may be your friends son maybe thats what he kinds fascinating, you just arrange a few little chords, a few harmonies in this way and suddenly it implies a whole orq administration. Administration orchestration. Rose the buried giant Kazuo Ishiguro. Thank you for joining us. See you next time. For more shows, visit us online at pbs. Org and charlierose. Com. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications captioned by Media Access Group at wgbh access. Wgbh. Org rose funding for charlie rose has been provided by the coca cola company, supporting this Program Since 2002. Rose additional funding provided by and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and Information Services worldwide. Announcer a kqed television production. Man its like holy mother of comfort food. Woman throw it down. Its noodle crack. Patel you have to be ready for the heart attack on a platter. Crowell okay, im the bacon guy. Man oh, i just did a jig every time i dipped into it. Man 2 it just completely blew my mind. Woman it felt like i had a mouthful of raw vegetables and dry dough. Sbrocco oh, please. I want the Dessert First [ laughs ] i told him he had to wait