For a kid, moving can be hard — even if it's just from one town to another. But when Michael W. Clune was a young boy, his family made a much more drastic move: from Ireland to the U.S.
It was rough. Clune had a hard time fitting in because of his Irish accent and Irish clothes. At school, there were cliques and bullies.
"Learning to deal with other people was a real challenge," Clune tells NPR's Arun Rath, "one that left me feeling isolated quite a bit."
Home was a refuge, for a while — until his parents started fighting. They divorced when he was 12.
"The safety net of my childhood, the aspect of my childhood that was really a warm and safe environment, shattered at that moment," he says.
But he had a new Commodore 64 — an 8-bit home computer — and when he was alone, he played role-playing games on it: A Bard's Tale, Ultima 3, computer games set in huge fantasy worlds with orcs and dragons, elves and witches.
As an adult, and already the author of a memoir about his addiction to heroin, Clune set out to write about his childhood. He couldn't figure out how to tell the story until he remembered all those hours on the computer.
In his new book, Gamelife, Clune describes how these simple text adventures and role-playing games primed him for life. And, as he explains to Rath, video games also helped enrich his life after addiction.
To hear their full conversation, click the audio link above.
Interview Highlights
On writing about solitary experiences
My mother told me early when I was young that what's most meaningful in life are the relations you have with other people. In this book, what I really wanted to explore was the part of life we have — the part of life we live — when we're not with other people. The part when we're alone.
There's the cliche that we're born and we die alone, and I take that quite seriously, and I believe that our most powerful and profound experiences in many ways are solitary experiences, and I believe that computer games, like literature and like some other devices in my life, were a means of training me for that kind of solitude.
On his addiction to heroin, the subject of his first book, White Out: The Secret Life of Heroin
I believe that heroin addiction for me and drug addiction was the absolute opposite of the experience I had when playing games. Addiction removes you from any world. It completely — it isolates you, but ... your isolation has none of the richness of the solitude that I experienced in games.
With addiction I was continually like a rat in a maze trying to capture the very first time I ever had that first hit. With games, the first time I played them was very difficult and awkward. Only gradually, when I mastered their commands, was I able to inhabit that world.
And so, if with addiction I was trying to continually recapture a first time I never could, with games I was exploring a world, and exploring myself, in a way that I found meaningful, whereas I felt addiction stripped my life of all meaning.
On playing video games as an adult
... When I got clean from heroin, which was 14 years ago, I did not play any games for three years. I believe that there very well might be a connection between games and addiction, so I stayed away from them, and then I accidentally more or less started playing a game about three years after I had been clean and it was the best decision I ever made. ...
The game was called Call of Duty. It was ... one of these World War II games, and I started playing it and I was completely enraptured and I felt this sort of feeling of joy and connection. But it wasn't like with addiction: I didn't find myself compulsive. I've never played games for more than an hour or two a day. They've never interfered with my work or my relationship with my significant other or anything like that. They've just been really enriching. So I continue to play games an hour or two a day at this moment.
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Transcript
ARUN RATH, HOST:
As a little kid, moving from one town to another can be difficult. But moving from Ireland to Chicago, that's like relocating to another planet.
MICHAEL W. CLUNE: I had a very difficult time fitting in when I started elementary school. I had an Irish accent. I wore Irish clothes, Irish fashions. And so learning to deal with other people was a real challenge, one that left me feeling isolated quite a bit.
RATH: That's Michael W. Clune. For him, school was cliques and bullies. Home was a refuge for a while until his parents started fighting.
CLUNE: When I was 12, my parents divorced, and so the safety net of my childhood, the aspect of my childhood that really was a warm and safe environment shattered at that moment.
So that's the basic arc, and it's one, I think, that's shared by, you know, many people who grew up when I did. It's a story that if you just reduce it to bare outlines, you know, it sounds quite stereotypical.
RATH: And like many kids who grew up in the '80s, Clune sought refuge in video games. But here's where the stereotype breaks down. He wasn't obsessed with "Pac-Man" or "Mario Bros." Clune found his joy in role-playing games like "Bard's Tale" and "Ultima III"; fantasy worlds with orcs and dragons, spaceships and robots, where hand-eye coordination takes a backseat to thinking and character development.
CLUNE: When I sat down to write this book, I really wanted to tell the story of my childhood. But because so much of the stories we tell about our lives involve our relations with other people and because my relations with other people were so complex, I was really - didn't know how to tell that story. And I finally got the idea while I was playing a lot of these games - let me try to explain my childhood or just explore childhood through the lens of these different games. And so in a strange way, my interactions with the games provided a template for my interactions with my childhood friends, family and so forth.
RATH: The story of your socialization in this book, it's pretty sad. You're a pretty lonely kid. I mean, do you think that the life that you lived in video games was to the detriment of your social life as a middle schooler?
CLUNE: My mother told me early when I was young that what's most meaningful in life are the relations you have with other people. In this book, what I really wanted to explore was the part of life we have - the part of life we live when we're not with other people, the part when we're alone. There's the cliche that we're born and we die alone, and I take that quite seriously. And I believe that our most powerful and profound experiences in many ways are solitary experiences. And I believe the computer games, like literature and like some other devices in my life, were a means of training me for that kind of solitude.
RATH: You have another memoir that's been very highly praised, and that was about your battle with heroin addiction.
CLUNE: That's right.
RATH: This is going to seem awfully glib. Forgive me for asking this, but it's natural to ask if there's some - something in common between addiction and this kind of relationship with videogames you describe in this book.
CLUNE: I believe that heroin addiction, for me, and drug addiction was the absolute opposite of the experience I had when playing games. Addiction removes you from any worlds. It present - it completely - it isolates you, but not - it doesn't give you - your isolation has none of the richness of the solitude that I experienced in games. With addiction, I was continually like a rat in a maze trying to capture the very first time I ever had that first hit. With games, the first time I played them was very difficult and awkward. Only gradually, when I mastered their commands, was I able to inhabit that world. And so if with addiction I was trying to continually recapture a first time I never, with games I was exploring a world and exploring myself in a way that I found meaningful, whereas I felt addiction strips my life of all meaning.
RATH: There's a reference in the book to you playing games as an adult and also getting kind of absorbed in them. Do you still play, are they still - you still get a kick out of them?
CLUNE: I absolutely do. And I'll tell you a story. When I got clean from heroin, which was 14 years ago, I did not play any games for three years. I believe that there may well be a connection between games and addictions, so I stayed away from them. And then I accidentally, more or less, started playing a game about three years after I'd been clean. And it was the best decision I ever made.
RATH: What was the game?
CLUNE: The game was called "Call Of Duty." It was a sort of World War II or one of these World War II games. And I started playing it, and I was just completely enraptured. And I felt this, you know, sort of feeling of joy and connection, but it wasn't like with addiction. I didn't find myself compulsive. I've never played games for more than an hour or two a day. They've never interfered with my work or my relationship with my significant other or anything like that. They've just been really enriching. So I continue to play games an hour or two a day at this moment.
RATH: Michael W. Clune's new book is called "Game Life." It is out this Tuesday. Michael, it's been a real pleasure speaking with you. Thank you.
CLUNE: Thank you so much. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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