Tom Stoppard on Coast of Utopia - Q&A transcript

[jennite]

Posted: 4/15/07 at 2:30pm

Voila: http://www.lct.org/calendar/platform_detail.cfm?id_event=68639707

This is from the Feb 14th Platform Series event with Sir Tom. He answers everyone's burning question about the Ginger Cat (amongst other interesting topics):

"Q: Could you speak about the mysterious Ginger Cat from Voyage? (Laughter).

TS: In the play, Herzen invokes a six-foot cat he saw at a fancy dress ball, and he invokes this cat in a speech in which he’s trying to make a point. And the point he’s making is a counter-argument to a world view which everybody in Europe was in love with at that moment. It’s a view made famous by the German philosopher Hegel. Essentially the idea was that we are all bound up in a narrative, which is being determined by forces outside us and much larger than us. That the history of nations is, as it were, the narrative of history, and that history is the author of this narrative. So, in other words, it’s about pre-determinism, large scale pre-determinism. And, Herzen reaches for this Ginger Cat in order to say that as collectives of people we may be subject to some such universal law of history. But actually, that’s not terribly relevant to us as individuals. Because as individuals, while this great rolling wheel of Hegelian narrative is slowly taking us towards an unknown destination, a yellow cab can come around the corner and just knock us over, or some other random event...

AC: And “What happens next is not up to the Cat, it’s up to you.” A line from Voyage. (Laughter).

TS: Herzen feels that there is lying in wait for all of us a nemesis which is completely arbitrary in so far as it has no motive or purpose. It’s just terrifyingly, casually arbitrary. It will just come and get you at any moment. It could be anything. It could lay you low, or move you to another country. And, he’s simply saying ... you just quoted it accurately, haven’t you?

AC: I have indeed. (Laughter).

TS: It’s like being subject to a cat’s paw belonging to an enormous Ginger Cat. (Laughter)."