Jake Camp is a writer and community college philosophy professor who lives in Colorado with his sons. He talked with Heidi Schmidt about his new work of fiction that highlights philosophy, life, and big questions of living.
This is a work of fiction, but it deals with some central philosophical ideas. How did you set that up as a narrative?
Banshee and the Sperm Whale is about a character named “Martin” who seeks psychological and spiritual wholeness. Martin suffers from hypersexuality and poor impulse control. He’s married to a lovely woman named “Ana.” He makes some mistakes. Their marriage is threatened. He and Ana visit an experimental philosophical counselor.
As the novel proceeds, Martin’s unconscious experience is revealed via symbolic representations of his brain. In short, neurons become personified, and a whole new world develops with its own plotlines and landscapes. There are Diver Neurons who inhabit the Sea and Angel Neurons who live in the Sky. A youthful Angel Neuron embarks on a journey to merge the two worlds. Readers are given a wide-open portal into Martin’s interior life.
How have readers responded?
With arched eyebrows, mouths agape, heads shaking, sideways grins, etc. But seriously, the unconscious world is a wild, wooly and morally ambiguous place, isn’t it? Consider dreams and all the crazy, raw, weird, questionable stuff that goes on there, which may or may not have meaning, depending on your theory.
With that said, although the response from readers has been very positive—most readers seem to understand the writerly intentions of Banshee—there have been some people who were put off by the somewhat extreme depiction of the unconscious. There’s been a little offense there, you know.
To be clear, I don’t believe there is any gratuitous violence or unwarranted language in the novel, and I tried to be very careful about that. In this way, I tried to listen closely to what the book was telling me about how to symbolically depict carnality in characters, language, images and ideas. I also tried to stay true to Martin’s hypersexual and heterosexual nature, as well as to the various quirks and deficiencies of the more minor characters.
On top of that, consider the constitution of Diver Neurons. Being programed for sexual gratification, they’re naturally going to be limited in ways, right. Limited by their genetic encoding, their wants and desires, their ability to frame their choices humanistically and morally. Diver Neurons are not going to be enlightened by the current state of identity politics, for example. They aren’t going to be steeped in Victorian era manners. They’re raw, unrefined, kinda dumb.
Same goes for Angel Neurons but in an entirely different way. Though Angel Neurons have a moral framework and like to sit in their Plexiglas home and reason, I don’t think we should expect any sophisticated Christian apologetics in their world. I don’t think Angel Neurons are going to know the ins and outs of the cosmological argument, or arguments vegetarianism, or our moral commitments to the poor, etc.
At any rate, I hope readers will understand a lot of this when they encounter various seafaring characters who may or may not be compelled by religious tradition and/or who haven’t necessarily received any recent sensitivity training.
What topics do you discuss in the work, and why do you discuss them?
Well, as you might have gathered, the nature of the unconscious brain is a big one, certainly. How to understand it. How to see its effects in our lives. How to frame it. How to tame it. Which raises questions about how upbringing forms the architecture of our unconscious brains (or minds, if you prefer). In exploring this topic, I hope to drive home the power of unconscious experience in new, imaginative ways.
Another topic in Banshee is free will. Are we free in a metaphysical sense? Are we free in a more psychological/everyday sense, specifically in relation to our upbringing? You know, when you wake up at 6:00 AM to shovel a foot of snow, did you learn this from your hardworking, duty-driven father? Or, when you are knocking back that fifth cup of coffee after a restless night’s sleep, does this habit relate to experiences in childhood, or to genetic propensities inherited at birth, etc.? To what degree, if any, do we break free from the past?
Apart from the unconscious and free will, which, in the context of the novel, are probed in humorous, less academic ways, Banshee also raises questions in moral epistemology and the philosophy of religion, questions that one might find in an intro to philosophy class. For example, if we are in some sense part of a greater mind (in the manner of neurons, say), are we ever in a position to explain why evil exists or whether or not our lives are meaningful? Can we ever grasp what is truly good and bad in the grand schema?
What effect do you hope your work will have?
I hope Banshee blows readers’ minds! Or, you know, gives readers some new metaphors for understanding the world and for expanding their thinking and imagination about the possibilities. So, take the unconscious. People talk a lot about its power. But what does that really mean, apart from what’s revealed on an fMRI scan and/or speculations about that which we are unaware? How can we picture (in emotionally and psychologically relevant ways) how the unconscious might influence our everyday lives, so that we can appreciate its force?
If we were able to achieve a better mental picture of unconscious happenings—that is, if we were able to have a greater feel for the non-cognitive internal landscapes within ourselves and others—maybe this has a practical effect. Like, maybe we have more empathy for people who might not seem to warrant it. Or, perhaps we gain a deeper appreciation of what restricts us as individuals. Or, maybe we realize that we are all in the same boat in certain respects and are all paddling on the same Sea.
The other effect I’d like Banshee to have on readers is to place them in a fictional, symbolic, visceral—though hopefully modern and relatable—framework of not knowing. Perhaps this is the philosophy professor in me talking more so than the novelist, but I still favor the Socratic ideal of being aware of our assumptions, and of noting that it’s good to grasp our own ignorance, and that society would be in a better place if its citizens were more cognizant of their own limitations.
In connecting this up with our current world, well, I feel like there’s a lot of judgment. People are so confident in their answers. Lots of strong opinions. Condemnation flows from the tongue like a spigot turned on high. As such, perhaps any writing that embraces a more skeptical spirit is not a bad thing. Perhaps it’s even helpful for certain people to experience this in philosophical fiction rather than in a newspaper editorial, say, or in a lecture on Hume.
At any rate, I hope Banshee evokes mystery in its readers. I hope it suggests a lack of definite answers about a variety of philosophical and psychological issues. I hope readers can experience beauty and humor in relation to our predicament.
What writing practices, methods, or routines do you use, and which have been the most helpful?
Well, for Banshee, I tried to make a point of writing when I had a little internal intensity brewing, when it was a little uncomfortable for me to put pen to paper, where I had to push myself, accept a little flux, discomfort, which unfortunately, was all too easy during that stage of my life. My son had a serious illness (he’s better now). I was going through divorce. My stepfather died. I was struggling to stay afloat.
So, writing this novel was not a Zen experience. It was more like writing on a razor’s edge. I wasn’t guided by standard writing advice. You know, write for two hours a day, keep a set schedule and such. Actually, I was probably guided by the opposite. Embracing chaos, writing when I felt passion, jotting down ideas when it was inconvenient. In this way, while I did work from an outline, perhaps the most important characteristic of the experience was a willingness to abandon the outline at a moment’s notice.
What advice do you have for others writing fiction with philosophical themes?
Give it serious thought! Not sure it’s such a good idea. Ha. But seriously, if a person takes on a fictional project that is challenging or outside the norm, be honest, be brave, be wary of being too academic. Embrace a literary spirit. Get ready for naysayers.
To be clear, I struggle to live by the prior comments, and I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t insecure about my work. It’s scary releasing something creative and personal to the world, particularly when you take chances and don’t play it safe with your art or philosophy. But, when I get insecure in this way, I try to remind myself of the people who I admire, the philosophers, writers, artists and musicians of past and present: Nietzsche, Socrates, Hume, Kant, Singer, Edward Abbey, Orwell, Vonnegut, Keasey, Dylan, Cave, Cash, Coltrane, Muddy Waters, Jack White, Kendrick Lamar, Courtney Barnett, Kandinsky, Still, Basquiat. And so on.
At the end of the day, if I had to sum up my advice on writing a book like this, I’d say, march to the beat of your own drum. Don’t get caught up in cultural trends, mob mentality and such. Think bigger, wider, deeper. Study philosophy, psychology, literature and music. Embrace pain. Distinguish between politics and art. Go back to your childhood. Try to grasp who you really are, what makes you distinctly you. Then own it 100%. Send your work out to the world with confidence. Hope that it is received in a good way.
Jake Camp
Jake Camp is a writer and community college philosophy professor who lives in Colorado with his sons. In his free time, he likes to snowboard, hike and fly-fish.
H. L. Schmidt
H. L. Schmidt currently holds the Becker Fellowship. She has worked as an editor or writer at multiple publications, including Qu, City Magazine, and The Verve. Schmidt is SOPHIA’s Chapter Development Officer and is a doctoral student in the University of Kentucky’s Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation Ph.D. program in Philosophical and Cultural Inquiry, where she focuses on how we develop, communicate, and sustain a personal moral code. She founded the Roanoke chapter of SOPHIA, has presented at a number of conferences, including Philosophy of the City’s 2019 Conference where she presented her research on the role of the public library in a just city. She is part of the leadership of the Philosophers for Sustainability group, where she co-leads the Social Media & Outreach team. At the APA Blog, she edits the Research beat, conducts interviews for the Recent Book Spotlight, and oversees the Diversity & Inclusion beat, which features the Women in Philosophy and Black Issues series. She hosted the Civic Connections podcast featuring conversations with local public policy officials about justice and public affairs. She holds a Master’s in the Humanities from Hollins University where she studied ethics and public policy under Lawrence C. Becker and a Masters of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing from Queens University of Charlotte. Her interests include practical ethics, public policy, existentialism, and utilitarianism. You can follow her on Twitter @theheidifeed.
