Interview: Nathan Englander
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The characters in Brooklynwriter Nathan Englander’s gripping new story collection, What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank, like to talk. They like to argue, they like to proclaim, they commiserate, they make promises, they explain, they kibitz, they complain, and they love to call one another on their bullshit. No wonder then that Englander, also the author of For the Relief of Unbearable Urges, which won the PEN/Malamud, himself is a voracious talker. A few days before he left on extensive book tour he took a few moments to pontificate on matters aural and oral: what it’s like to hear someone else read your work, the difference between readings in theU.S. andEurope, and whether or not literature is in competition with Justin Bieber. (Spoiler: it’s not.)
You narrated part of the audiobook along with many other readers. You chose to read “The Reader,” a story about an author on a book tour. Can you walk me through how involved you were in the process?
It was [the producer's] idea to bring me into read one of the stories, and I thought it was a lovely notion. It was just a choice of which story to read. She actually wanted me to read another story in the book, “Everything I Know About My Family on My Mother’s Side.”
“Everything I Know About My Family on My Mother’s Side” is actually the perfect pick for me to read, but I was resistant. It’s a very close story [to my life]. It sort of weaves in between fiction and reality…but I thought if I read it, it would literally shift the balance of the story. To hear me read it would make certain parts of it you’re supposed to be exploring as undeniably, oh this is reality.
So anyway, I wanted to read “The Reader.” It just felt close to me. And I’m honored to be asked to read, but a story like, say, “Sister Hills,” I’m happy to turn it over to the professionals.
I was going to say – it’s a little bit easier to read when you don’t have to do too many voices.
Yeah, it could be the voices, and even just to recognize I write to rhythm. Maybe this is the most important thing to say when you’re talking about audio. I mean, if somebody were to shove me into a room and say rewrite one of these stories again, I couldn’t. There’s no way in the world I could ever write one of those stories again. It’s just of a time and a place.
When I’m finished, the stories are so built to a rhythm in my head. I often get accused – people say this nicely, but it’s often embarrassingly true – I read as if I’m chanting half the time. It sounds like [I'm a] bar mitzvah boy. I go through the rhythms in my head. And that’s why you need an actor [to narrate]. It amazes me, just hearing someone interpret it and making it their own.
And so when you actually are in the process of writing a book, do you read it out loud to yourself?
If you want to hear a word out of place or a sentence that is wrong, there is nothing like reading out loud, absolutely.
I thought it was really interesting that you ending up narrating “The Reader,” which tells the story of an author giving readings to empty bookstores, save for one audience member who follows him from city to city. Are you at all disappointed in the state of readership in the U.S.? I suspect when you give readings they aren’t actually as empty as they are in the story.
I feel fortunate for the people that come out to support me. Electric Literature had asked me to do this story and they are this wonderful literary journal – but it’s mostly meant for iPads, computers or digital. It’s the first time I wrote a story for something like that. I guess I really started thinking about the changing times. And just looking at the fears of the writer, of coming out of hiding and doing your work.
But in terms of readers, I feel like I’m actually not threatened by that…I believe in books. For me, it’s just the ideal art form…I love the spine of it, the look of that book, I love the prose within it. I feel like a photograph does not make up for a painting, people still paint. Movies do not make the photograph obsolete. Do you know what I’m saying?
But if performance is going to die, let it die. Books, whatever form they will take, there are readers for it.
It’s a strange cultural popularity contest…people want to ask, “Have books been replaced by reality TV?” Books are not in competition with reality TV. If we want to have that competition, pornography and video games win every day. If we’re doing cultural popularity, I’d say it’s videogames and porn.
I just think that it’s weird to have apples and oranges comparisons between books and whatever else is taking over. Has Justin Bieber killed the book? Justin Bieber is not in competition with literature.
You’ve been published a lot internationally and I was wondering what the difference was between reading in the U.S. and giving readings somewhere else in the world, say in Europe or Israel.
I really believe in the universality of a story. If the story is functioning that’s the whole point. Literature translates.
Sometimes people want to bring in [that my work] is Jewish writing in some way, like you need a password or a conversion to read books where the characters are Jewish. It’s such a strange concept to me. I don’t have trouble reading James Baldwin. I’m not like, well I’m white and heterosexual, I can [still] understand what’s happening here.
I have to say, I take great comfort when I’m inOsloorItalyor wherever I’m doing a reading, and at the event, I’ll think, “Are these people here for the story?” And there is nary a Jew in the room…theOsloexperience is very different than the Jewish Long Island childhood that I had. That universality is really exciting to me.
I can remember sitting on stage inGermany– God bless German people, by the way. Here [in theU.S.], at a reading they’re like, “Come to our event. Please don’t read.” And that’s fine if people just want a discussion or whatever. But German audiences will be mad if it’s not 11 hours. Like if you stop after three hours, they’re like, “We can sit another hour.” Anyway, they’ll have an actor read for me sometimes in a place likeGermany, and that’s been really moving. A big lesson for me just about how story works. I can be sitting there on stage and listening to the guy tell my story and I can literally just know from the rhythm, the pauses, and the way he’s moving where I am in the story. That idea that I can hear this actor reading and the rhythm will be changing, and I’ll think to myself: I think a joke comes right about now. And then he’ll hit the sentence and the audience will laugh, and that’s amazing to me – that across languages I can feel the perfect pacing of the story, that I can literally feel what’s happening. You can hit a joke across all cultures, time, and space.
