WEBVTT

00:00:00.061 --> 00:00:01.429
(Louisiana channel)

00:00:01.429 --> 00:00:02.628
(Jonathan Safran Foer
novels have a lot to learn from poetry)

00:00:02.628 --> 00:00:06.502
Well, people often talk
about the death of literature.

00:00:06.502 --> 00:00:09.021
I think people have been speaking
about it since shortly

00:00:09.021 --> 00:00:11.880
after the first work of literature
was ever made

00:00:11.880 --> 00:00:14.414
but there's more and more talk about it

00:00:14.414 --> 00:00:19.136
and it's been propelled
by diminishing readership,

00:00:19.136 --> 00:00:23.213
by what feels like an increasing apathy,

00:00:23.213 --> 00:00:31.920
or even anxiety
or even mistrust of literature

00:00:33.273 --> 00:00:36.135
and the movement towards screens,
everything being

00:00:36.135 --> 00:00:39.476
on a screen and
what would that mean for books

00:00:39.476 --> 00:00:41.797
which aren't very well served on a screen.

00:00:41.797 --> 00:00:44.321
It's not that you can't read a book
on a screen perfectly well

00:00:44.321 --> 00:00:45.459
but you can't read a book on a screen

00:00:45.475 --> 00:00:49.801
that also has email
and your calendar and texting.

00:00:49.801 --> 00:00:52.665
Books can't compete
with those kinds of media.

00:00:52.665 --> 00:00:56.384
So we wonder will people read books?

00:00:56.384 --> 00:01:01.774
And I think that there are still things
and there will always be things

00:01:01.774 --> 00:01:06.506
that only literature can do,
only literature can communicate.

00:01:06.506 --> 00:01:09.773
I don't think that literature
is necessarily any better,

00:01:09.773 --> 00:01:12.354
whatever than means,
than film or dance or music.

00:01:13.154 --> 00:01:17.029
In fact, I'm often drawn personally more

00:01:17.029 --> 00:01:19.061
to film and dance than I am to literature

00:01:19.061 --> 00:01:21.056
but I know that
there are moments in my life

00:01:21.056 --> 00:01:25.084
when I feel a need for literature
and only for literature.

00:01:25.084 --> 00:01:28.619
So for example,
the mother of my oldest friend

00:01:28.634 --> 00:01:30.013
passed away about week ago.

00:01:30.013 --> 00:01:32.940
And I went down to visit her
in Washington DC - I live in New York.

00:01:33.355 --> 00:01:38.583
And I was quite worried
about what to say and how to fill

00:01:38.583 --> 00:01:42.145
what I thought might be very awkward,
or even painful silences.

00:01:42.898 --> 00:01:48.079
And I brought poems, about 20 poems.

00:01:48.079 --> 00:01:50.410
And I read them to her
and we talked about them.

00:01:51.025 --> 00:01:54.097
And in that moment when we, together,

00:01:54.097 --> 00:01:58.068
mostly just her, of course,
but together, were confronting

00:01:58.068 --> 00:02:03.954
this, the biggest moment of life
which is death,

00:02:05.507 --> 00:02:07.254
we relied on poetry.

00:02:07.500 --> 00:02:12.489
And I think that poems
and stories and novels are very helpful

00:02:13.473 --> 00:02:18.760
exactly when we most need language
in the most, sort of dire,

00:02:18.760 --> 00:02:22.757
or urgent or existential moments of life.

00:02:24.311 --> 00:02:28.981
Novels are meant to be read
over the course of many hours or many days

00:02:28.981 --> 00:02:34.611
and even a story
takes half an hour to read.

00:02:34.611 --> 00:02:39.174
And I just wasn't sure, in this case,
what her energy level would be,

00:02:39.174 --> 00:02:40.835
so I wanted them to be quite small.

00:02:40.835 --> 00:02:43.904
But even though that's the case,
it's also true

00:02:43.904 --> 00:02:47.213
that poetry is
the most condensed form of literature

00:02:47.213 --> 00:02:48.951
and in certain ways,
it's its most pure form.

00:02:50.690 --> 00:02:55.530
I don't think that novels are
any less good than poetry

00:02:55.530 --> 00:02:59.743
but I think that novels
have a lot to learn from poetry

00:02:59.743 --> 00:03:03.928
in terms of what's possible,
how direct one can be,

00:03:03.928 --> 00:03:06.547
how concentrated language can be,

00:03:06.547 --> 00:03:09.380
and how evocative and resonant.

00:03:09.380 --> 00:03:11.527
You know, sometimes I think
novels make the mistake

00:03:11.527 --> 00:03:15.320
of being too much
like their own description.

00:03:15.643 --> 00:03:18.494
You know, somebody says,
''What is this book about?''

00:03:20.262 --> 00:03:23.089
My dream is to write a novel
where somebody would have to say:

00:03:23.779 --> 00:03:26.281
"I could tell you, I suppose,
but that would really miss the point.

00:03:26.281 --> 00:03:27.319
You just have to read it."

00:03:27.319 --> 00:03:28.741
That, to my mind, is a good novel.

00:03:28.741 --> 00:03:31.815
A novel that is its own synopsis,

00:03:31.815 --> 00:03:34.263
just an expanded version of its synopsis,

00:03:35.063 --> 00:03:37.653
comes awfully close
to television actually.

00:03:39.006 --> 00:03:43.415
I think that novels can still do
something that poetry does

00:03:43.415 --> 00:03:48.902
in terms of being
kind of ineffable or mysterious

00:03:48.902 --> 00:03:52.487
or not quite graspeable,
just on a much larger scale.

00:03:53.290 --> 00:03:57.491
All of my life, I have been more drawn
to the visual arts than to literature.

00:03:57.491 --> 00:04:02.054
And even still, when I'm feeling

00:04:03.536 --> 00:04:05.837
like I can't remember
why I wanted to be a writer,

00:04:06.344 --> 00:04:10.512
I don't go to books, I actually go
to paintings or sculpture.

00:04:10.767 --> 00:04:14.471
To me, the distinctions
have been drawn too sharply,

00:04:14.471 --> 00:04:22.198
you know, the difference between
a musician, a writer, an artist, a dancer.

00:04:22.874 --> 00:04:27.095
We've categorized them, segregated them,

00:04:27.556 --> 00:04:29.758
so that there's very, very little overlap.

00:04:29.758 --> 00:04:32.857
But in fact they're all just people
who want to make things

00:04:32.857 --> 00:04:36.287
that you could say have no use.

00:04:37.017 --> 00:04:39.055
You know, everything in life has a use.

00:04:39.055 --> 00:04:41.668
The person who made the camera
that this is being shot with,

00:04:41.668 --> 00:04:44.878
made it so that it could record
something like this.

00:04:44.878 --> 00:04:48.247
And a television or a computer
that someone's watching it on

00:04:48.247 --> 00:04:50.853
was made with specific functions in mind.

00:04:51.499 --> 00:04:54.506
A bridge is made so that people can get
from one land mass to another.

00:04:54.506 --> 00:04:57.584
But novels and paintings
and songs really...

00:04:58.353 --> 00:04:59.806
They might have effects in the world,

00:04:59.806 --> 00:05:02.180
they might be political,
they might be entertaining,

00:05:03.087 --> 00:05:05.324
they might be objects of commerce,

NOTE Paragraph

00:05:06.617 --> 00:05:07.911
but they're not really,
really made for any of those reasons,

00:05:07.911 --> 00:05:09.580
they're just made for their own sake.

00:05:10.149 --> 00:05:14.253
And I think that anyone
who makes something for its own sake,

00:05:14.683 --> 00:05:16.151
whether you try to have it published

00:05:16.152 --> 00:05:19.407
or whether you're just, you know,
rearranging twigs on the ground

00:05:19.407 --> 00:05:20.522
because it pleases you,

00:05:21.691 --> 00:05:23.067
people who do that are artists.

00:05:23.067 --> 00:05:28.225
And, you know, because we live in a world
in which you have to have a job

00:05:28.225 --> 00:05:32.721
and in which it's expected
that you will grow within your job,

00:05:34.105 --> 00:05:36.609
and because we like
to have an answer to the question

00:05:36.609 --> 00:05:37.893
'What is it that you do?'

00:05:37.893 --> 00:05:39.239
You know, you meet someone
at a party, or...

00:05:39.239 --> 00:05:40.646
they say ''What do you do?''

00:05:41.199 --> 00:05:43.398
It makes us uncomfortable
not to have an answer.

00:05:43.398 --> 00:05:48.123
But the truth is, you know,
the different art forms

00:05:48.123 --> 00:05:51.338
are much, much more similar
than they are different.

00:05:52.310 --> 00:05:53.760
When I'm not working on a book,

00:05:54.221 --> 00:05:57.435
I am somebody who just
kind of moves through the world

00:05:57.435 --> 00:06:00.230
and sees nice things and tries
to remember them, but usually doesn't,

00:06:00.230 --> 00:06:03.478
and hears jokes and tries to remember them
but usually doesn't

00:06:03.478 --> 00:06:08.590
and so on and has ideas that disappear.

00:06:08.590 --> 00:06:12.368
But when I'm writing, I save those things

00:06:12.937 --> 00:06:16.486
so that I can use them,
you know, rearrange them.

00:06:16.486 --> 00:06:18.732
Nothing comes from nothing.

00:06:20.263 --> 00:06:23.618
I think that there's an impression
that books or art,

00:06:24.310 --> 00:06:28.004
making art is a much more romantically
creative act than it is,

00:06:28.004 --> 00:06:33.386
as if inspiration strikes and suddenly
something appears

00:06:33.386 --> 00:06:35.922
but that's not really
-- that hasn't been my experience at all.

00:06:35.922 --> 00:06:38.845
It's much more about being attentive
to what's around

00:06:38.845 --> 00:06:43.443
and starting to get to know
what you like and what you find useful

00:06:44.565 --> 00:06:46.983
and then collecting those things
instead of everything,

00:06:46.983 --> 00:06:49.955
collecting those things
and then figuring out

00:06:49.955 --> 00:06:52.804
what the most pleasing arrangement
of them is for you.

00:06:53.511 --> 00:06:55.026
There's nothing objective about it.

00:06:55.026 --> 00:06:57.862
It's not the case that, you know,
someone else will necessarily like it,

00:06:58.292 --> 00:07:04.487
but it really does feel like
making collage just with, you know,

00:07:04.487 --> 00:07:11.734
the whole world as
your cupboard of things to arrange.

00:07:12.795 --> 00:07:15.702
Certainly in art, I think,
the most important things

00:07:15.702 --> 00:07:17.155
happen on a subconscious level.

00:07:17.570 --> 00:07:20.624
When I approach a writing project,
I don't think about it like that.

00:07:21.562 --> 00:07:25.707
In fact, and I say this not
as a joke or to sort of disparage myself,

00:07:25.707 --> 00:07:27.807
but I really don't think
about much at all.

00:07:27.807 --> 00:07:33.264
It's very -- I'm just very open, you know,
to what do I feel like working on,

00:07:33.264 --> 00:07:36.134
what's interesting to me right now,
what am I curious about?

00:07:37.856 --> 00:07:42.268
But I never think about what
the potential use of something would be.

00:07:42.268 --> 00:07:44.429
Like I was saying before,
there's a quality of art

00:07:44.429 --> 00:07:46.826
that is useless in the very,
very best way.

00:07:46.826 --> 00:07:49.325
I mean, that is like the very highest
compliment I could pay.

00:07:49.325 --> 00:07:53.367
And if I started thinking about
what I would achieve

00:07:53.367 --> 00:07:58.572
for myself psychologically
or in search of meaning or catharsis,

00:07:58.572 --> 00:07:59.963
that's just another kind of use,

00:07:59.963 --> 00:08:02.047
just in almost the same way that

00:08:02.047 --> 00:08:05.046
trying to make something
you could sell for money is a kind of use.

00:08:05.784 --> 00:08:07.791
It's not to say
that those two thing might, you know,

00:08:07.791 --> 00:08:08.937
wouldn't be good in your life,

00:08:08.937 --> 00:08:12.875
but I don't think that
they make a good work of art.

00:08:12.875 --> 00:08:14.174
They're not a good starting point.

00:08:16.266 --> 00:08:17.658
Don DeLillo once said:

00:08:17.658 --> 00:08:20.887
"Nobody writes his first book.
It just happens."

00:08:20.887 --> 00:08:22.986
At a certain point,
you find the printer is, you know,

00:08:22.986 --> 00:08:24.301
all these pages are coming out.

00:08:24.301 --> 00:08:26.769
You think: "Oh my God,
I can't believe I did this!"

00:08:27.796 --> 00:08:28.780
I believe that.

00:08:29.087 --> 00:08:31.550
I mean, maybe it's a little different
if you start late in life,

00:08:32.211 --> 00:08:38.939
and you've been, you know,
sort of incubating an idea for a long time

00:08:38.939 --> 00:08:40.962
but most people when
they write their first book,

00:08:40.962 --> 00:08:44.702
at a certain point, they realize
they have a book on their hands.

00:08:44.702 --> 00:08:47.773
And the second book is different
because then,

00:08:47.773 --> 00:08:49.580
you have something
that you're responding to,

00:08:49.580 --> 00:08:51.218
you have your own expectations.

00:08:51.218 --> 00:08:53.579
If you published your first book,
you have the world' expectations.

00:08:53.579 --> 00:08:57.603
So I found the second book
somewhat more difficult because of that,

00:08:57.603 --> 00:09:01.332
but I'd started the second book
before my first book was published.

00:09:01.332 --> 00:09:05.498
So in a way, I was able
to escape some of those traps.

00:09:05.498 --> 00:09:07.638
But then, after I have written two novels,

00:09:07.638 --> 00:09:10.639
I wrote a work of non-fiction
about eating animals,

00:09:10.639 --> 00:09:12.123
about animal farming.

00:09:12.123 --> 00:09:15.077
And I think it's not a coincidence that
I decided to move in a different direction

00:09:18.031 --> 00:09:20.985
because I was starting to feel
the weight of momentum.

00:09:21.508 --> 00:09:23.847
You know, I didn't want
to do a third thing

00:09:23.847 --> 00:09:26.186
because I've done two previous things.

00:09:26.186 --> 00:09:28.526
I didn't want to make a choice
about tomorrow

00:09:28.526 --> 00:09:30.518
just because of what I did yesterday.

00:09:31.087 --> 00:09:33.533
So maybe even to a fault, I resisted that

00:09:35.655 --> 00:09:38.999
and decided to move off
and try something else.

00:09:39.521 --> 00:09:44.308
I think there are a lot of ways
of talking about choices in art.

00:09:45.938 --> 00:09:47.976
And it's a mistake to think that

00:09:47.976 --> 00:09:51.638
the way we talk about it
retrospectively as critics,

00:09:53.437 --> 00:09:55.198
which is very useful and interesting,

00:09:55.198 --> 00:09:58.195
but it's a mistake that
that's the same language of creation.

00:09:59.748 --> 00:10:01.417
Somebody once said,
I can't remember who

00:10:01.417 --> 00:10:03.393
- maybe it was Oscar Wilde, 
I can't remember -

00:10:03.962 --> 00:10:06.156
said: "There are only two kinds
of objects in the world:

00:10:06.156 --> 00:10:08.117
those that charm us
and those that don't charm us."

00:10:08.840 --> 00:10:14.883
And, you know, something can be charming
in the most completely simple way

00:10:14.883 --> 00:10:17.064
and for whatever reason, it speaks to us.

00:10:17.064 --> 00:10:19.295
We like it. It is for us.

00:10:20.202 --> 00:10:22.636
If something isn't charming, 
it's mundane and it's not that we hate it,

00:10:22.636 --> 00:10:24.731
it's just that it has
no great effect on us.

00:10:25.423 --> 00:10:29.661
And each person, of course, has his own
or her own sense of what is charming.

00:10:30.568 --> 00:10:32.717
And, you know, in a way,

00:10:32.717 --> 00:10:36.714
writing just boils down to asking
that question again and again,

00:10:36.714 --> 00:10:38.275
like, this is charming or not.

00:10:38.951 --> 00:10:41.494
Something charming can mean
that it's very painful.

00:10:41.494 --> 00:10:44.037
It doesn't mean
that it's happy and beautiful.

00:10:44.037 --> 00:10:49.669
It can mean it's very ugly,
it can mean that it is funny,

00:10:49.669 --> 00:10:52.534
it can mean that it is serious,
it can be tragic, it can be comic.

00:10:53.257 --> 00:10:56.258
I think charming really just means,
in a certain way,

00:10:56.258 --> 00:11:00.943
that it's authentic
and exceptional to you.

00:11:00.943 --> 00:11:03.729
I mean, people often ask me
why do I write about family so often.

00:11:03.729 --> 00:11:06.068
I find that such a weird question.

00:11:06.068 --> 00:11:07.198
I don't even know how to answer

00:11:07.198 --> 00:11:09.082
because the answer feels so obvious to me.

00:11:09.882 --> 00:11:13.974
You know, nobody asks J.K. Rowling
why she writes about wizards so much.

00:11:14.466 --> 00:11:15.658
That, to me, is weird.

00:11:15.658 --> 00:11:19.733
That's a weird choice she made
that requires some explanation

00:11:19.733 --> 00:11:22.582
because nobody knows wizards,
nobody interacts with wizards,

00:11:22.582 --> 00:11:25.855
nobody can't fall asleep at night
because of their relationship to wizards,

00:11:25.855 --> 00:11:27.616
but everyone has a family.

00:11:27.616 --> 00:11:29.423
Even people whose families are absent.

00:11:30.130 --> 00:11:32.408
Maybe even, especially people
whose families are absent.

00:11:33.131 --> 00:11:34.892
You know, these are
the main themes of life

00:11:34.892 --> 00:11:38.589
and they've been the main themes
of literature since Genesis.

00:11:41.188 --> 00:11:43.629
So I assume I'll always write
about family.

00:11:44.121 --> 00:11:46.344
Families is also
especially important to me

00:11:48.020 --> 00:11:51.846
but you know, whether it will take
the form of fathers and sons-in-laws,

00:11:51.846 --> 00:11:54.989
or whether it will take the form
of a married couple in a comedy,

00:11:55.604 --> 00:11:56.656
that I don't know.

00:11:57.041 --> 00:11:59.572
(Louisiana Channel)

00:12:00.156 --> 00:12:04.198
(Supported by Nordea Fonden)

00:12:04.198 --> 00:12:07.298
(louisiana.dk/channel)