An Interview with Fabian

I have again had the opportunity to interview a man who has never stepped inside a Gorean chat room. Nor has he ever had any Gorean on-line interaction at all. His beliefs and his feelings about Gor and what the Gorean lifestyle stand for are completed his and not tainted by the web. Fabian, is 41 years of age, and he works in a small factory making special tools for cars. Fabian is also attending college and soon will finish it with a degree in Law. He has studied to be a history and an English teacher. Having obtained his degree for an English teacher however, leaving before he had the opportunity to finish his degree in history. He served in the Argentinian army for some 16 months in order to do his national service. Fabian is a big fan of science fiction writing. He has enjoyed many great works by authors such as Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, and Ray Bradbury. Of course he also found that he truly enjoyed the Gorean novels, and he has been a fan of them since 1982. Although, it has taken him many years to complete his collection he informed me that he was never so hooked on a set of books then he was with the Gorean novels. Since Fabian does not spend much time Bradbury our interaction came mostly through a series of emails. I hope that you will enjoy reading about Fabian and his views as much as I have enjoyed meeting him.

How has finding the Gorean Lifestyle affected your life?

"Well, before late 1999, when I started to enter in Internet I didn't know that a Gorean life style existed. I feared that I was the only Gorean fan in the world. It makes me feel not so lonely, that there other people who likes these books. But, to my knowledge, I am the only Argentinian fan of Gor."

What does being a Gorean and living the Gorean lifestyle mean to you?

"For me, it means live your life like you really felt, without need to ask permission to all self-nominated guardians of the moral. They could be religious zealots, fanatical political leaders, advocates from the political correction, or like an American whose name I don't remember call them feminazis( I think it would more correct to call the femiconmunist, because her style is more similar to the Central Committee of Communist Party in the ex Soviet Union, they said that only the people who follow their political lines work for the human kind , all the other people was an obstacle in the way). May be all this is too political, but is something I feel I have to say.."

Has your view of the world changed since learning about the lifestyle? If so, how?

"More exactly my view of the world has changed since I started to read John Norman in English. More exactly, he helped to do a change that started before. In the sense that there are a lot of things that you believe because all the people, all the media tells you that you must believe if you want to be a real human being. And one day you discover that they only repeat phrases that somebody tells them in the same way that they tell you. And nobody stops to think what is the meaning of all this mess. In other way to say it, he helps me to be more critical of all the cliches that I hear in the radio or in the T.V."

Out of the Gorean novels which one would you say is your favorite?

"That is something that changes with the years. Now is the Flashman Series by George MacDonald Fraser. The other day I was reading Flashman and the Mountain of Light. He can make a combination of adventure, satire and history that is very rare to find"

What do you think the role of a woman is according to the Gorean philosophy? Are females all meant to wear collars or perhaps is there a chance that there are some true free woman walking the Gorean path?

"This question has several aspects. First, in the books, you can see that Gorean free women walk the Gorean path, at least in some aspects. There are Gorean businesswoman, female slavers, Tatrixs and Ubaras. In fact, that contradicts what Tarl said in Outlaw of Gor, when he enters in Tharna, that suggest that in the rest of Gor women only can be slave girls or housewives who can't leave her home without the permission of a male member of her family. I guess that Tarl didn't know Gor very well in that moment of the story. I remember that in the Rome of the Cedars, women formally had almost the same restrictions of the times of Republican Rome, but in the facts, the situation was very different, most of these restrictions were only formalities. May be something similar happened in Gor, and at the beginning of the series, Tarl was wrong about this point. Second, I prefer that women wear collars in Gor, and that is the right thing for the most of them, but I don't think that is the only way for all of them. Third, Yes I think there are some true free women, but they aren't those women who try to be the imitation of a man."

Have you felt that you have lost anything in learning about the Gorean lifestyle? Meaning, have people looked at you differently since you have discovered the lifestyle

"I don't think I have lost anything, because never find somebody who knows something about the series of Gor here in Argentine. It doesn't mean that the series is completely unknown here. The first five books were published for an Argentinean editorial company at early 80's,( I knew the series with these books)."

Some closing thoughts from Fabian.

"When I started to read the Gorean books, I didn't pay attention to the Gorean philosophy, in part because the Spanish editions were smaller than the English version, and this was the part that they generally cut. Also, idea of a Gorean philosophy or a Gorean lifestyle was something unthinkable for me. I started to understand when I read the books in English, but only the day I entered in Internet that it dawned to me, that there was a Gorean life style. It is a relatively new idea to me. The fact is the idea of being a Gorean is some way heroical to me, something that I learned in the books, and I started to assimilate very recently, by the moment, the change is about me and how I think. If I find obstacles, by the moment, it is in myself, because to be Gorean needs a kind of courage, that sometimes I don't have. In what moment I knew I was different, well, I felt it when I was a kid, but I didn't understand it, Norman has many paragraphs about how somebody tries to adapt himself to a ideology that he didn't share, in order to conform himself to the pressure of the society. I think something like that happened to me, and it takes me many years to understand it. Yes, in general is a secret, and I don't talk about it with other people."

"Well, before I finish I want to make a prophecy. God knows I am not a prophet but I believe that in some moment in the future John Norman will be a classic. It isn't incredible. H.P. Lovecraft is now a classic of horror, and when he died nobody knew him, except the readers of the pulp magazine where he wrote. And he never could write a piece of dialogue in his stories. (That is for those people who always talk about the defects of Norman as writer)."

~Amara~