It's funny: when I set out to create the world of 'California,' I didn't give the type of apocalypse much thought... I simply set my two characters, Cal and Frida, in a depleted world and moved through it intuitively.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
If one wants to talk about the end of the world, the apocalypse, you're talking about the world itself. It's not Southern California breaking into the sea. The story is global, and it requires that kind of approach.
I resist and resent the idea of California as a metaphor. It's something thrust upon us, usually by people in the East.
When I first saw California, it was extraordinary. Because I came from old, black, dark England, still recovering from World War II. I grew up with bomb sites everywhere.
As one went to Europe to see the living past, so one must visit Southern California to observe the future.
People began to understand that with the acquisition of California the nation had obtained practically half a continent, of which the future possibilities were almost unlimited, so far as the development of natural resources and the genera production of wealth were concerned.
Well, my thoughts about California are kind of mythological. To me, as well as being a real place, it's a place where people go to find something - to find happiness or to realize their dreams. So it has that kind of quality of heroism and heartache, and Australia has that, as well.
I have a vivid, apocalyptic imagination.
Californians invented the concept of life-style. This alone warrants their doom.
I've begun to look at the world through apocalypse eyes. Our society, which seems so sturdily built out of concrete and custom, is just a temporary resting place, a hotel our civilization checked into a couple hundred years ago and must one day check out of.
I'm one of those apocalyptics. From the start of my immigrant days, I've been fascinated by end-of-the-world stories, by outbreak narratives, and always wanted to set a world-ender on Hispaniola.