Jonathan Safran Foer: Novels can learn from poetry

Interview with American writer Jonathan Safran Foer, in which he reflects on the power of literature in general and poetry in particular. Foer also argues that art always has a personal point of departure, where the artist confronts the world and rearranges it.

In this interview Jonathan Safran Foer (born 1977) reflects on various media and cultural activities. Personally, he is fascinated by film, but at all the critical moments of life Foer has been drawn to the unique power of literature, and especially poetry. However, all true art and culture has a common ground, Foer says. Unlike most other activities in society, art and culture are produced without a direct function and solely for their own sake. Foer argues that every work of art -- whether it is a painting, a book, a film or a piece of music -- is highly subjective at heart. Foer further explains why his novels often revolve around the theme of the family. "How can you not write about it," he asks, "since everybody is confronted with the subject, even those who have lost their family or grew up without it?" It would be much more relevant, he claims, to ask J.K. Rowling why she writes about wizards.

Jonathan Safran Foer was interviewed by Synne Rifbjerg.

Camera: Troels Kahl and Martin Kogi

Produced by: Kamilla Bruus and Synne Rifbjerg, 2012

Copyright: Louisiana Channel, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art.

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Supported by Nordea-fonden.

(Louisiana channel)

(Jonathan Safran Foer
novels have a lot to learn from poetry)

Well, people often talk
about the death of literature.

I think people have been speaking
about it since shortly

after the first work of literature
was ever made

but there's more and more talk about it

and it's been propelled
by diminishing readership,

by what feels like an increasing apathy,

or even anxiety
or even mistrust of literature

and the movement towards screens,
everything being

on a screen and
what would that mean for books

which aren't very well served on a screen.

It's not that you can't read a book
on a screen perfectly well

but you can't read a book on a screen

that also has email
and your calendar and texting.

Books can't compete
with those kinds of media.

So we wonder will people read books?

And I think that there are still things
and there will always be things

that only literature can do,
only literature can communicate.

I don't think that literature
is necessarily any better,

whatever than means,
than film or dance or music.

In fact, I'm often drawn personally more

to film and dance than I am to literature

but I know that
there are moments in my life

when I feel a need for literature
and only for literature.

So for example,
the mother of my oldest friend

passed away about week ago.

And I went down to visit her
in Washington DC - I live in New York.

And I was quite worried
about what to say and how to fill

what I thought might be very awkward,
or even painful silences.

And I brought poems, about 20 poems.

And I read them to her
and we talked about them.

And in that moment when we, together,

mostly just her, of course,
but together, were confronting

this, the biggest moment of life
which is death,

we relied on poetry.

And I think that poems
and stories and novels are very helpful

exactly when we most need language
in the most, sort of dire,

or urgent or existential moments of life.

Novels are meant to be read
over the course of many hours or many days

and even a story
takes half an hour to read.

And I just wasn't sure, in this case,
what her energy level would be,

so I wanted them to be quite small.

But even though that's the case,
it's also true

that poetry is
the most condensed form of literature

and in certain ways,
it's its most pure form.

I don't think that novels are
any less good than poetry

but I think that novels
have a lot to learn from poetry

in terms of what's possible,
how direct one can be,

how concentrated language can be,

and how evocative and resonant.

You know, sometimes I think
novels make the mistake

of being too much
like their own description.

You know, somebody says,
''What is this book about?''

My dream is to write a novel
where somebody would have to say:

"I could tell you, I suppose,
but that would really miss the point.

You just have to read it."

That, to my mind, is a good novel.

A novel that is its own synopsis,

just an expanded version of its synopsis,

comes awfully close
to television actually.

I think that novels can still do
something that poetry does

in terms of being
kind of ineffable or mysterious

or not quite graspeable,
just on a much larger scale.

All of my life, I have been more drawn
to the visual arts than to literature.

And even still, when I'm feeling

like I can't remember
why I wanted to be a writer,

I don't go to books, I actually go
to paintings or sculpture.

To me, the distinctions
have been drawn too sharply,

you know, the difference between
a musician, a writer, an artist, a dancer.

We've categorized them, segregated them,

so that there's very, very little overlap.

But in fact they're all just people
who want to make things

that you could say have no use.

You know, everything in life has a use.

The person who made the camera
that this is being shot with,

made it so that it could record
something like this.

And a television or a computer
that someone's watching it on

was made with specific functions in mind.

A bridge is made so that people can get
from one land mass to another.

But novels and paintings
and songs really...

They might have effects in the world,

they might be political,
they might be entertaining,

they might be objects of commerce,

but they're not really,
really made for any of those reasons,

they're just made for their own sake.

And I think that anyone
who makes something for its own sake,

whether you try to have it published

or whether you're just, you know,
rearranging twigs on the ground

because it pleases you,

people who do that are artists.

And, you know, because we live in a world
in which you have to have a job

and in which it's expected
that you will grow within your job,

and because we like
to have an answer to the question

'What is it that you do?'

You know, you meet someone
at a party, or...

they say ''What do you do?''

It makes us uncomfortable
not to have an answer.

But the truth is, you know,
the different art forms

are much, much more similar
than they are different.

When I'm not working on a book,

I am somebody who just
kind of moves through the world

and sees nice things and tries
to remember them, but usually doesn't,

and hears jokes and tries to remember them
but usually doesn't

and so on and has ideas that disappear.

But when I'm writing, I save those things

so that I can use them,
you know, rearrange them.

Nothing comes from nothing.

I think that there's an impression
that books or art,

making art is a much more romantically
creative act than it is,

as if inspiration strikes and suddenly
something appears

but that's not really
-- that hasn't been my experience at all.

It's much more about being attentive
to what's around

and starting to get to know
what you like and what you find useful

and then collecting those things
instead of everything,

collecting those things
and then figuring out

what the most pleasing arrangement
of them is for you.

There's nothing objective about it.

It's not the case that, you know,
someone else will necessarily like it,

but it really does feel like
making collage just with, you know,

the whole world as
your cupboard of things to arrange.

Certainly in art, I think,
the most important things

happen on a subconscious level.

When I approach a writing project,
I don't think about it like that.

In fact, and I say this not
as a joke or to sort of disparage myself,

but I really don't think
about much at all.

It's very -- I'm just very open, you know,
to what do I feel like working on,

what's interesting to me right now,
what am I curious about?

But I never think about what
the potential use of something would be.

Like I was saying before,
there's a quality of art

that is useless in the very,
very best way.

I mean, that is like the very highest
compliment I could pay.

And if I started thinking about
what I would achieve

for myself psychologically
or in search of meaning or catharsis,

that's just another kind of use,

just in almost the same way that

trying to make something
you could sell for money is a kind of use.

It's not to say
that those two thing might, you know,

wouldn't be good in your life,

but I don't think that
they make a good work of art.

They're not a good starting point.

Don DeLillo once said:

"Nobody writes his first book.
It just happens."

At a certain point,
you find the printer is, you know,

all these pages are coming out.

You think: "Oh my God,
I can't believe I did this!"

I believe that.

I mean, maybe it's a little different
if you start late in life,

and you've been, you know,
sort of incubating an idea for a long time

but most people when
they write their first book,

at a certain point, they realize
they have a book on their hands.

And the second book is different
because then,

you have something
that you're responding to,

you have your own expectations.

If you published your first book,
you have the world' expectations.

So I found the second book
somewhat more difficult because of that,

but I'd started the second book
before my first book was published.

So in a way, I was able
to escape some of those traps.

But then, after I have written two novels,

I wrote a work of non-fiction
about eating animals,

about animal farming.

And I think it's not a coincidence that
I decided to move in a different direction

because I was starting to feel
the weight of momentum.

You know, I didn't want
to do a third thing

because I've done two previous things.

I didn't want to make a choice
about tomorrow

just because of what I did yesterday.

So maybe even to a fault, I resisted that

and decided to move off
and try something else.

I think there are a lot of ways
of talking about choices in art.

And it's a mistake to think that

the way we talk about it
retrospectively as critics,

which is very useful and interesting,

but it's a mistake that
that's the same language of creation.

Somebody once said,
I can't remember who

- maybe it was Oscar Wilde,
I can't remember -

said: "There are only two kinds
of objects in the world:

those that charm us
and those that don't charm us."

And, you know, something can be charming
in the most completely simple way

and for whatever reason, it speaks to us.

We like it. It is for us.

If something isn't charming,
it's mundane and it's not that we hate it,

it's just that it has
no great effect on us.

And each person, of course, has his own
or her own sense of what is charming.

And, you know, in a way,

writing just boils down to asking
that question again and again,

like, this is charming or not.

Something charming can mean
that it's very painful.

It doesn't mean
that it's happy and beautiful.

It can mean it's very ugly,
it can mean that it is funny,

it can mean that it is serious,
it can be tragic, it can be comic.

I think charming really just means,
in a certain way,

that it's authentic
and exceptional to you.

I mean, people often ask me
why do I write about family so often.

I find that such a weird question.

I don't even know how to answer

because the answer feels so obvious to me.

You know, nobody asks J.K. Rowling
why she writes about wizards so much.

That, to me, is weird.

That's a weird choice she made
that requires some explanation

because nobody knows wizards,
nobody interacts with wizards,

nobody can't fall asleep at night
because of their relationship to wizards,

but everyone has a family.

Even people whose families are absent.

Maybe even, especially people
whose families are absent.

You know, these are
the main themes of life

and they've been the main themes
of literature since Genesis.

So I assume I'll always write
about family.

Families is also
especially important to me

but you know, whether it will take
the form of fathers and sons-in-laws,

or whether it will take the form
of a married couple in a comedy,

that I don't know.

(Louisiana Channel)

(Supported by Nordea Fonden)

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