Writing in the Dark (3 page)
Read Writing in the Dark Online
Authors: David Grossman
The book takes place in 1960s Jerusalem.
Aron Kleinfeld lives in what is essentially a society of refugees, filled with people who have recently escaped a catastrophe and are trying with their last remaining strength to create a new life, a new language.
With sometimes grotesque fervor, they grasp onto objects, food, anything with tangible volume.
They create a solid, corporeal, unequivocal world, and it is naturally a world that is extremely belligerent and arbitrary, recklessly invading the privacy of its individuals.
Aron Kleinfeld lives in what is essentially a society of refugees, filled with people who have recently escaped a catastrophe and are trying with their last remaining strength to create a new life, a new language.
With sometimes grotesque fervor, they grasp onto objects, food, anything with tangible volume.
They create a solid, corporeal, unequivocal world, and it is naturally a world that is extremely belligerent and arbitrary, recklessly invading the privacy of its individuals.
To me, it is a book about the birth of an artist from within those “fortressed walls of tedium.” Aron, who is twelve when the story begins, a bright and imaginative child with abundant happiness, feels this invasion increasingly stifling him.
It is all around him, shoving rude fingers into his mind and body.
Even the physiological
process of maturation that he faces seems to be a part of it.
(Incidentally, the Hebrew words for “muscle”—
shrir
—and “arbitrariness”—
shrirut
—come from the same root.)
It is all around him, shoving rude fingers into his mind and body.
Even the physiological
process of maturation that he faces seems to be a part of it.
(Incidentally, the Hebrew words for “muscle”—
shrir
—and “arbitrariness”—
shrirut
—come from the same root.)
Alienation and, ultimately, hostility emerge between Aron and his own flesh and body—between himself and the part of his being that has an external, objective, yet extremely internal existence.
Aron sees his friends begin to mature and change, as if collectively obeying an invisible order, and he is incapable of joining them.
There is something in the unity of the process, in its inevitability, that deters him because he finds it lacking in freedom, almost humiliating.
Aron sees his friends begin to mature and change, as if collectively obeying an invisible order, and he is incapable of joining them.
There is something in the unity of the process, in its inevitability, that deters him because he finds it lacking in freedom, almost humiliating.
Aron’s case is of course an extreme one, but I imagine we all remember the feelings of our adolescence, when we entered a tunnel that would stretch out for a number of years without knowing what fate had in store for us, how we would emerge at the other end, woven into which body, woven into which soul.
As the years go by, we come to know the thing that Aron feared most, unknowingly of course, and which probably made him refuse to accept this constitution of the flesh: the knowledge of how easy it is for the mind to surrender to the corporeal dimension and gradually become a mechanism much like that of the body—with clogged arteries, cramped muscles, rigid joints, and automatic reflexes.
As the years go by, we come to know the thing that Aron feared most, unknowingly of course, and which probably made him refuse to accept this constitution of the flesh: the knowledge of how easy it is for the mind to surrender to the corporeal dimension and gradually become a mechanism much like that of the body—with clogged arteries, cramped muscles, rigid joints, and automatic reflexes.
Faced with the bureaucracy of the body imposed on him, Aron feels that the primary means through which he can express his freedom, his uniqueness, and even his
sexuality is language.
And since language is also a kind of body, with a dual existence, both inside and out, Aron is tormented every time there is a grating contact between that “inside” and that “outside”: when people around him use language like old saws, when they belittle something that in Aron’s soul has a different, purer, more loyal existence.
From that particular moment he realizes instinctively that he can no longer use words as others do—indiscriminately, indifferently, inarticulately.
sexuality is language.
And since language is also a kind of body, with a dual existence, both inside and out, Aron is tormented every time there is a grating contact between that “inside” and that “outside”: when people around him use language like old saws, when they belittle something that in Aron’s soul has a different, purer, more loyal existence.
From that particular moment he realizes instinctively that he can no longer use words as others do—indiscriminately, indifferently, inarticulately.
It is also relevant to note that the story occurs shortly before the Six-Day War, when everyone Aron meets talks in the same blunt, military style, born of fear and arrogance.
They all prophesize in the same tone, and this depresses Aron to no end, both because of the crudeness that characterizes the uniform, slogan-ridden discourse and because of his sense that they all belong to a secret, hermetic system of symbols from which he himself is removed, and that he will never have the requisite crudeness or obtuseness to become a part of it.
They all prophesize in the same tone, and this depresses Aron to no end, both because of the crudeness that characterizes the uniform, slogan-ridden discourse and because of his sense that they all belong to a secret, hermetic system of symbols from which he himself is removed, and that he will never have the requisite crudeness or obtuseness to become a part of it.
Deep within himself, beneath his heart, Aron establishes a hospital for sick words, where he employs complex rituals to heal and purify the words he gathers from the day-to-day.
Only when the purification process is complete does he feel entitled to use the words.
They have passed through his body and soul.
They are his.
Of course this process condemns Aron to utter solitude, trapped in his inner world, in his own private language,
creating his beloved and his best friend inside himself, unable to maintain normal relationships with them in what is termed “reality.” The book ends when Aron shuts himself up inside an old refrigerator and hopes that with the help of the childlike, artistic spark he used to have, he will be able to pull off his most difficult Houdini trick and break out of the refrigerator into the world.
But will he in fact be able to?
Only when the purification process is complete does he feel entitled to use the words.
They have passed through his body and soul.
They are his.
Of course this process condemns Aron to utter solitude, trapped in his inner world, in his own private language,
creating his beloved and his best friend inside himself, unable to maintain normal relationships with them in what is termed “reality.” The book ends when Aron shuts himself up inside an old refrigerator and hopes that with the help of the childlike, artistic spark he used to have, he will be able to pull off his most difficult Houdini trick and break out of the refrigerator into the world.
But will he in fact be able to?
I have my own answer to this question, but before I reach it I would like to shift from the private, personal language to the more general kind, which served as a sort of “inspiration in reverse” for three of my books: the novel
The Smile of the Lamb
and two works of nonfiction,
The Yellow Wind
and
Sleeping on a Wire
.
Each of these books, in its own way, tries to describe contemporary political reality in a language that is not the public, general, nationalized idiom.
The Smile of the Lamb
and two works of nonfiction,
The Yellow Wind
and
Sleeping on a Wire
.
Each of these books, in its own way, tries to describe contemporary political reality in a language that is not the public, general, nationalized idiom.
To our great misfortune, we in Israel have been living for almost a century in a state of violent conflict, which has an enormous influence on all realms of life, including, of course, on language.
When a country or a society finds itself—no matter for what reasons—in a prolonged state of incongruity between its founding values and its political circumstances, a rift can emerge between the society and its identity, between the society and its “inner voice.” The more complex and contradictory the situation becomes and the more the society has to compromise in
order to contain all its disparities, the more it creates a different system for itself, an ad hoc system of norms, of “emergency values,” keeping double books of its identity.
When a country or a society finds itself—no matter for what reasons—in a prolonged state of incongruity between its founding values and its political circumstances, a rift can emerge between the society and its identity, between the society and its “inner voice.” The more complex and contradictory the situation becomes and the more the society has to compromise in
order to contain all its disparities, the more it creates a different system for itself, an ad hoc system of norms, of “emergency values,” keeping double books of its identity.
I am not saying anything new here.
Those who live in such a reality, as we do in Israel, will find it easy to understand how fears consolidate ideals around themselves, how needs become values, and how a subjective world-view and a self-image that is wholly unsuited to reality can materialize.
A special kind of language then begins to emerge, one that is usually a manipulation on the part of those who wish to prolong the distorted situation.
It is a language of words intended not to describe reality but to obfuscate it, to allay it.
It depicts a reality that does not exist, an imaginary state constructed by wishful thinking, while large and complex elements of the actual reality remain wordless, in the hope that they will somehow fade away and vanish.
In such conditions one of our most dubious talents arises: the talent for passivity, for self-erasure, for reducing the inner surface of our soul lest it get hurt.
In other words, the talent for being a victim.
Those who live in such a reality, as we do in Israel, will find it easy to understand how fears consolidate ideals around themselves, how needs become values, and how a subjective world-view and a self-image that is wholly unsuited to reality can materialize.
A special kind of language then begins to emerge, one that is usually a manipulation on the part of those who wish to prolong the distorted situation.
It is a language of words intended not to describe reality but to obfuscate it, to allay it.
It depicts a reality that does not exist, an imaginary state constructed by wishful thinking, while large and complex elements of the actual reality remain wordless, in the hope that they will somehow fade away and vanish.
In such conditions one of our most dubious talents arises: the talent for passivity, for self-erasure, for reducing the inner surface of our soul lest it get hurt.
In other words, the talent for being a victim.
Let us go back eleven years, to the spring of 1987.
For two decades, as a result of the Six-Day War, Israel has controlled more than two million Palestinians.
By all opinions this is a grave state of affairs, yet it turns out that most Israelis, as well as most Palestinians, have taught themselves how to live in these warped circumstances and that many of them believe the situation will never change.
As time goes by, there is an increasing perception
of a “status quo,” along with more and more arguments that justify and even sanctify this very status quo.
The press provides scarcely any news of what is going on in the Territories, only brief reports of violent incidents phrased in fixed formulas that are little more than slogans and do not catch one’s eye for very long.
By all opinions this is a grave state of affairs, yet it turns out that most Israelis, as well as most Palestinians, have taught themselves how to live in these warped circumstances and that many of them believe the situation will never change.
As time goes by, there is an increasing perception
of a “status quo,” along with more and more arguments that justify and even sanctify this very status quo.
The press provides scarcely any news of what is going on in the Territories, only brief reports of violent incidents phrased in fixed formulas that are little more than slogans and do not catch one’s eye for very long.
At this time I was working as a newscaster on the Kol Israel radio news.
I was given dozens, if not hundreds, of items to read that sounded something like this: “A local youth was killed during disturbances in the Territories.” Notice the shrewdness of the sentence: “disturbances”—as if there were some order or normative state in the Territories that was briefly disturbed; “in the Territories”—we would never expressly say “the Occupied Territories”; “youth”—this youth might have been a three-year-old boy, and of course he never had a name; “local”—so as not to say “Palestinian,” which would imply someone with a clear national identity; and above all, note the verb “was killed”—no one killed him.
It would have been almost intolerable to admit that our hands spilled this blood, and so he “was killed.” (Sometimes the passive voice is the last refuge of the patriot.)
I was given dozens, if not hundreds, of items to read that sounded something like this: “A local youth was killed during disturbances in the Territories.” Notice the shrewdness of the sentence: “disturbances”—as if there were some order or normative state in the Territories that was briefly disturbed; “in the Territories”—we would never expressly say “the Occupied Territories”; “youth”—this youth might have been a three-year-old boy, and of course he never had a name; “local”—so as not to say “Palestinian,” which would imply someone with a clear national identity; and above all, note the verb “was killed”—no one killed him.
It would have been almost intolerable to admit that our hands spilled this blood, and so he “was killed.” (Sometimes the passive voice is the last refuge of the patriot.)
Because we lost the capacity to use the right words to describe reality, we woke up one day, in December 1987, to a reality that is difficult to describe.
Israel had deceived itself so efficiently that the Israel Defense Forces did not even have contingency plans to deal with the mass protests.
At the beginning of the intifada the security apparatus dispatched urgent envoys to the world’s
most dubious markets to purchase rubber bullets, gravel-spraying vehicles, and other necessities.
Yet any country that occupies and oppresses another people must be prepared for such large-scale demonstrations.
Israel was not prepared, because it did not know it was an occupier, it did not think it was an oppressor, and it did not tell itself that there was a people out there.
Israel had deceived itself so efficiently that the Israel Defense Forces did not even have contingency plans to deal with the mass protests.
At the beginning of the intifada the security apparatus dispatched urgent envoys to the world’s
most dubious markets to purchase rubber bullets, gravel-spraying vehicles, and other necessities.
Yet any country that occupies and oppresses another people must be prepared for such large-scale demonstrations.
Israel was not prepared, because it did not know it was an occupier, it did not think it was an oppressor, and it did not tell itself that there was a people out there.
Nine months before the intifada broke out, I wrote
The Yellow Wind
.
The book presented nothing new in the way of facts, which had been exposed ad nauseam.
But in order to truly understand what I was seeing and feeling, I had to articulate the facts with new words.
And from the moment I started writing, from the day I went to the Dheisheh refugee camp and encountered a reality that until that time I had lacked the words to describe, I felt something I had not felt for years, certainly not in the political context: that consciousness, in any situation, is always free to choose to face reality in a different, new way.
That writing about reality is the simplest way to not be a victim.
The Yellow Wind
.
The book presented nothing new in the way of facts, which had been exposed ad nauseam.
But in order to truly understand what I was seeing and feeling, I had to articulate the facts with new words.
And from the moment I started writing, from the day I went to the Dheisheh refugee camp and encountered a reality that until that time I had lacked the words to describe, I felt something I had not felt for years, certainly not in the political context: that consciousness, in any situation, is always free to choose to face reality in a different, new way.
That writing about reality is the simplest way to not be a victim.
In this sense, writing the nonfiction books made me feel that I was reclaiming parts of myself that the prolonged conflict had expropriated or turned into “closed military zones.” Furthermore, I came to grasp the high price we were paying for willingly giving up on parts of our soul—a price no less painful than giving up land.
I knew that we were not killing only the Palestinians, and I
asked why we were continuing to accept not just the murder, but the suicide too.
I knew that we were not killing only the Palestinians, and I
asked why we were continuing to accept not just the murder, but the suicide too.
The name of the novel
Be My Knife
is a paraphrase of a line Franz Kafka wrote to Milena: “Love is to me that you are the knife which I turn within myself.”
The Book of Intimate Grammar
could not have been written without
See Under: Love
, which preceded it;
Be My Knife
could not have been written without
The Book of Intimate Grammar
; and
Be My Knife
, in turn, was probably the basis for the book that followed it.
It is clear to me now that this is a very long path, which must be followed slowly, and that I must recognize that an entire lifetime will not suffice to map out even the first bend in the path.
Be My Knife
is a paraphrase of a line Franz Kafka wrote to Milena: “Love is to me that you are the knife which I turn within myself.”
The Book of Intimate Grammar
could not have been written without
See Under: Love
, which preceded it;
Be My Knife
could not have been written without
The Book of Intimate Grammar
; and
Be My Knife
, in turn, was probably the basis for the book that followed it.
It is clear to me now that this is a very long path, which must be followed slowly, and that I must recognize that an entire lifetime will not suffice to map out even the first bend in the path.
In
The Book of Intimate Grammar
, I articulated several complicated ideas that I needed to understand, in sentences that today cover the pages in front of me like a verdict.
But they are precisely what enabled me to find the strength to step out of Aron Kleinfeld’s loneliness, to escape from the refrigerator at the end of that book and start walking—this time in a different literary situation, with a different, more mature literary character—toward a different person.
This would no longer be the imaginary creation of my protagonist, but a man who lives in reality and a woman of flesh and blood.
I had to believe that it is possible for a different person to occur within myself, to believe without fear that a person can dwell
inside the body and soul and language of another.
And to discover that one can find a partner to share the deepest and most silent anxieties, and keys to unlock the most despicable self-laid traps.
The Book of Intimate Grammar
, I articulated several complicated ideas that I needed to understand, in sentences that today cover the pages in front of me like a verdict.
But they are precisely what enabled me to find the strength to step out of Aron Kleinfeld’s loneliness, to escape from the refrigerator at the end of that book and start walking—this time in a different literary situation, with a different, more mature literary character—toward a different person.
This would no longer be the imaginary creation of my protagonist, but a man who lives in reality and a woman of flesh and blood.
I had to believe that it is possible for a different person to occur within myself, to believe without fear that a person can dwell
inside the body and soul and language of another.
And to discover that one can find a partner to share the deepest and most silent anxieties, and keys to unlock the most despicable self-laid traps.
Be My Knife
is also the story of a journey to find the right language.
A journey in which the woman is a tour guide of sorts who leads the man to his real language, which she carves out of him in a difficult battle until, near the end of the book, they create their own language.
The book tries to be the only place where there can be a meaning for this private language—the language of their love.
is also the story of a journey to find the right language.
A journey in which the woman is a tour guide of sorts who leads the man to his real language, which she carves out of him in a difficult battle until, near the end of the book, they create their own language.
The book tries to be the only place where there can be a meaning for this private language—the language of their love.
This essay was written in 1998, and was first published in 2002.
If asked to describe the qualities that motivate someone to become an author, the first I’d name would be a strong urge to invent stories: to organize reality, which is frequently chaotic and unintelligible, within a structure of storytelling; to find the visible and hidden contexts that load every event with its particular meaning; to accentuate the shades of “plot” within each such event and coax out its “heroes.”
To me, the urge to tell a story, whether invented or rendered from reality, is almost an instinct: the storytelling instinct.
In some people—a number of whom eventually become writers—it is as powerful and primal as any other instinct.
Fortunately, it always encounters its counterpart: the instinct to listen to stories.
In some people—a number of whom eventually become writers—it is as powerful and primal as any other instinct.
Fortunately, it always encounters its counterpart: the instinct to listen to stories.
There is something moving about people’s need to listen to a story.
Sometimes I sit on a stage and read to an audience.
These readings usually take place in the evening, when the members of the audience, most of whom are not very young, have come from a full day of
work, and their lives are not always easy.
But when I look up from the page from time to time, I see before me a wonderful sight: within a matter of moments, it is as if these people’s faces have shed the tiredness, the difficulties, the sadness, and sometimes the bitterness, grumbling, and anxieties, and something soft and forgotten comes over their faces.
For a moment one can feel—even see—how they used to be as children.
Sometimes I sit on a stage and read to an audience.
These readings usually take place in the evening, when the members of the audience, most of whom are not very young, have come from a full day of
work, and their lives are not always easy.
But when I look up from the page from time to time, I see before me a wonderful sight: within a matter of moments, it is as if these people’s faces have shed the tiredness, the difficulties, the sadness, and sometimes the bitterness, grumbling, and anxieties, and something soft and forgotten comes over their faces.
For a moment one can feel—even see—how they used to be as children.
(Perhaps this is the thing: there is something childlike—not childish, but childlike, primal—in the storytelling urge, and no less so in the urge to
hear
a story.)
hear
a story.)
Other qualities that might make one become a writer include a desire to explain, through story, the world and the human beings who inhabit it, with all their differences, their travails, and their reversals.
One could also add the writer’s desire to know himself, to express all the currents that flow inside him.
A person who does not have these desires and primal urges is unlikely to be able—if he is even willing—to invest the vast emotional efforts that writing demands.
One could also add the writer’s desire to know himself, to express all the currents that flow inside him.
A person who does not have these desires and primal urges is unlikely to be able—if he is even willing—to invest the vast emotional efforts that writing demands.
But today I would like to talk of a different motive for writing, one that is undoubtedly related in some way to those I have just mentioned.
It grows stronger within me as I age—both in life years and in writing years—and as I experience an increasing need for the act of creation and writing as a way of life, as a way of finding my place in the world.
It grows stronger within me as I age—both in life years and in writing years—and as I experience an increasing need for the act of creation and writing as a way of life, as a way of finding my place in the world.
The motive I am referring to is the wish to strip away
what protects me from the Other.
To remove the usually invisible barrier that separates me from any other person.
The desire to expose myself completely, without any defenses, to the individuality and life of another person, to his most elemental inner workings, in their unprocessed, primordial form.
what protects me from the Other.
To remove the usually invisible barrier that separates me from any other person.
The desire to expose myself completely, without any defenses, to the individuality and life of another person, to his most elemental inner workings, in their unprocessed, primordial form.
But these wishes are immediately faced with a great obstacle, because the more I examine myself and observe human beings in general, near and far, the more I reach a conclusion that at first surprises and disappoints me, and so I quickly dismiss it as a baseless generalization.
Yet it sneaks back again and again, in countless examples and variations, and so I will say it, and you may utterly discount it and determine that it holds not a shred of truth.
Yet it sneaks back again and again, in countless examples and variations, and so I will say it, and you may utterly discount it and determine that it holds not a shred of truth.
My conclusion is that in many ways, we humans—social creatures known for our warmth and empathy toward our families, friends, and communities—are not only efficiently protected and fortressed against our enemies, but in some ways also protected—meaning, we protect ourselves—
from any Other
.
From the projection of the Other’s internality onto ourselves; from the way this internality is demandingly and constantly thrown at us; from something that I will call “the chaos within the Other.”
from any Other
.
From the projection of the Other’s internality onto ourselves; from the way this internality is demandingly and constantly thrown at us; from something that I will call “the chaos within the Other.”
“Hell is other people,” said Sartre, and perhaps our fear of the hell that exists in others is the reason that the paper-thin layer of skin that envelops us and separates us from others is sometimes as impervious as any fortified wall or border.
If we observe those around us, we will find that even between couples who have lived together for decades—who have lived more or less happily, and who love each other and function well as parents and as a family—there can often be, almost instinctively and unwittingly, a complex unspoken agreement (whose application, incidentally, requires a most sophisticated and nuanced form of collaboration!), the main tenet of which is that it is best not to know one’s partner through and through.
Not to be exposed to all that happens within him.
And not to recognize these “occurrences” or name them explicitly, because they have no place within the framework of the couple’s relationship, and they might even tear the relationship apart from the inside and bring it crashing down, something neither partner desires.
Not to be exposed to all that happens within him.
And not to recognize these “occurrences” or name them explicitly, because they have no place within the framework of the couple’s relationship, and they might even tear the relationship apart from the inside and bring it crashing down, something neither partner desires.
(“It is only now so clear to me,” writes one man, in one book—
Be My Knife
, a novel with which I had a complicated couplehood—“that my life with my wife, our love, is so stable and defined that it is impossible to add a new element that is too large, like myself, for instance.”)
Be My Knife
, a novel with which I had a complicated couplehood—“that my life with my wife, our love, is so stable and defined that it is impossible to add a new element that is too large, like myself, for instance.”)
Sometimes I look at a couple that has been together for a long time—there are quite a few whom I know; you may have come across some too—and I perform a little exercise of thought and imagination: I try to see what they were like at the moment they were created as a couple.
I try to remove all the layers of time and age and weariness and routine, and then I can see them young and fresh, and so innocent.
Sometimes I can also observe how, at the moment of their “pollination” as a couple,
they seemed to conduct a silent dialogue, like one subconscious talking to another, in which they promptly agreed on the angles in which they would view each other for the rest of their lives, thus instantly entering a complicated life pact, wondrous in its complexity and subtle mechanisms.
They may also have determined that their love would always win, at any cost.
Because there is always a price to pay for not seeing the person closest to us from all possible angles, not seeing all his sides and all his shadows.
There is a price to pay when we animate in our partner—and when our partner animates in himself—only certain “areas of the soul,” which are defined and agreed upon, and therefore restricted.
I try to remove all the layers of time and age and weariness and routine, and then I can see them young and fresh, and so innocent.
Sometimes I can also observe how, at the moment of their “pollination” as a couple,
they seemed to conduct a silent dialogue, like one subconscious talking to another, in which they promptly agreed on the angles in which they would view each other for the rest of their lives, thus instantly entering a complicated life pact, wondrous in its complexity and subtle mechanisms.
They may also have determined that their love would always win, at any cost.
Because there is always a price to pay for not seeing the person closest to us from all possible angles, not seeing all his sides and all his shadows.
There is a price to pay when we animate in our partner—and when our partner animates in himself—only certain “areas of the soul,” which are defined and agreed upon, and therefore restricted.
A similar process occurs, of course, between parents and children.
Sometimes, especially when we are very young, it is not easy for us to see our parents from a broad angle.
It may also be uncomfortable for us to accept that our parents are “entitled” to their own internal chaos.
That Mom and Dad too have not only souls but also—horror of horrors!—a right to their own “psychology.” And that they too had mothers and fathers, and that those parents, in their day, did things that left wounds and scars and aberrations in our parents.
Sometimes, especially when we are very young, it is not easy for us to see our parents from a broad angle.
It may also be uncomfortable for us to accept that our parents are “entitled” to their own internal chaos.
That Mom and Dad too have not only souls but also—horror of horrors!—a right to their own “psychology.” And that they too had mothers and fathers, and that those parents, in their day, did things that left wounds and scars and aberrations in our parents.
Perhaps the most difficult thing is to expose ourselves to the darkness we often sense in our children, particularly when they are young and tender.
It is difficult to admit to ourselves that even in those delicate, innocent souls there may be a dark chasm, whence threatening desires and urges and foreignness and madness may
erupt.
As a parent, I can attest that even the thought of this is intolerable, perhaps chiefly because of the guilt it arouses.
It is difficult to admit to ourselves that even in those delicate, innocent souls there may be a dark chasm, whence threatening desires and urges and foreignness and madness may
erupt.
As a parent, I can attest that even the thought of this is intolerable, perhaps chiefly because of the guilt it arouses.
We can also find this sort of demarcation between friends, even “best friends” or true soul mates.
Even in the deepest, longest, and most loyal friendships, a thin barrier is sometimes detectable—a refusal to know everything, a form of protection, transparent but solid, from that unseen darkness within our best friend.
Even in the deepest, longest, and most loyal friendships, a thin barrier is sometimes detectable—a refusal to know everything, a form of protection, transparent but solid, from that unseen darkness within our best friend.
I recall the tragicomic dialogue between Vladimir and Estragon in
Waiting for Godot
.
“I had a dream,” says Estragon.
“Don’t tell me!” Vladimir immediately retorts.
“Who am I to tell my private nightmares to if I can’t tell them to you?” Estragon asks.
“Let them remain private,” replies Vladimir.
Waiting for Godot
.
“I had a dream,” says Estragon.
“Don’t tell me!” Vladimir immediately retorts.
“Who am I to tell my private nightmares to if I can’t tell them to you?” Estragon asks.
“Let them remain private,” replies Vladimir.
On second thought, perhaps the unwillingness—the fear?—to be exposed to the complexities of people close to us should not be so surprising, for experience teaches us that people are rarely eager to be truly exposed even to what exists
within themselves
.
Perhaps our attempt to avoid being fully exposed to the Other is not so different from the efforts we make—almost inadvertently—to resist being tempted by all the varied “others” within each of us.
To keep from crumbling into all the options of existence and the internal temptations, all the forking paths within us.
Who can measure the vast efforts we make to maintain these rigid internal frameworks, to preserve the bands that grasp—and sometimes shackle—our many-faceted, oft-deceptive souls?
within themselves
.
Perhaps our attempt to avoid being fully exposed to the Other is not so different from the efforts we make—almost inadvertently—to resist being tempted by all the varied “others” within each of us.
To keep from crumbling into all the options of existence and the internal temptations, all the forking paths within us.
Who can measure the vast efforts we make to maintain these rigid internal frameworks, to preserve the bands that grasp—and sometimes shackle—our many-faceted, oft-deceptive souls?
I will add that I often feel that writing has shown me the enormous effort I continually make, often unconsciously, to resist falling apart into all the possibilities, all the many characters and entities, all the qualities and urges and instincts that act within me, well suppressed yet still pulling me constantly in all directions.
We human beings are uneasy about what truly occurs deep inside the Other, even if that Other is someone we love.
And perhaps it is more than unease; perhaps it is an actual fear of the mysterious, nonverbal, unprocessed core, that which cannot be subjected to any social taming, to any refinement, politeness, or tact; that which is instinctive, wild, and chaotic, not at all politically correct.
It is dreamlike and nightmarish, radical and exposed, sexual and unbridled, at least according to the social-order definitions that prevail among “civilized” people (whatever that term may mean).
It is mad and sometimes cruel, often animalistic, for good or for bad.
It is, if you will, the magma, the primordial, blazing material that bubbles inside every person simply because he is human, simply because he is an intersection of so many forces, instincts, longings, and urges.
It is a magma that usually, among sane people—even the most tempestuous—hardens and cools when it comes into contact with air, when it encounters other human beings, or the confines of reality, and then it becomes part of “normative” social fiber.
And perhaps it is more than unease; perhaps it is an actual fear of the mysterious, nonverbal, unprocessed core, that which cannot be subjected to any social taming, to any refinement, politeness, or tact; that which is instinctive, wild, and chaotic, not at all politically correct.
It is dreamlike and nightmarish, radical and exposed, sexual and unbridled, at least according to the social-order definitions that prevail among “civilized” people (whatever that term may mean).
It is mad and sometimes cruel, often animalistic, for good or for bad.
It is, if you will, the magma, the primordial, blazing material that bubbles inside every person simply because he is human, simply because he is an intersection of so many forces, instincts, longings, and urges.
It is a magma that usually, among sane people—even the most tempestuous—hardens and cools when it comes into contact with air, when it encounters other human beings, or the confines of reality, and then it becomes part of “normative” social fiber.
To me, writing, the writing of literature, is partly an
act of protest and defiance, and even
rebellion
, against this fear—against the temptation to entrench myself, to set up an almost imperceptible barrier, one that is friendly and courteous but very effective, between myself and others, and ultimately between me and myself.
act of protest and defiance, and even
rebellion
, against this fear—against the temptation to entrench myself, to set up an almost imperceptible barrier, one that is friendly and courteous but very effective, between myself and others, and ultimately between me and myself.
I wish to clarify again that the primary urge that motivates and engenders writing, in my view, is the writer’s desire to invent and tell a story, and to know
himself
.
But the more I write, the more I feel the force of the other urge, which collaborates with and completes the first one: the desire
to know the Other from within him
.
To feel what it means to be another person.
To be able to touch, if only for a moment, the blaze that burns within another human being.
himself
.
But the more I write, the more I feel the force of the other urge, which collaborates with and completes the first one: the desire
to know the Other from within him
.
To feel what it means to be another person.
To be able to touch, if only for a moment, the blaze that burns within another human being.
This may be something we cannot achieve by any other means.
We tend to think that when we merge completely with another person, in moments of love and sexual contact, we know that person in an incomparable way.
In biblical Hebrew the sexual act is even connoted with the verb “to know”: “And the man knew Eve his wife,” says Genesis.
But at the highest moments of love, if we are not completely focused, on ourselves or on a pointed projection of our heart’s desires onto our partner, we are usually directed mainly toward what is good, beautiful, attractive, and sweet in him.
Not to all his complexities, all his different tones and shades—in short, not to everything that makes him “an Other” in the deepest and fullest sense of the word.
But when we
write
about the Other, about any Other, we aspire to reach the
knowledge that encompasses the unloved parts in him as well, the parts that deter and threaten.
The places where his soul is shattered and his consciousness crumbles.
The bubbling cauldron of extremism and sexuality and animalism that I mentioned previously.
The fount of magma, before it has hardened, and long before it has turned into words.
We tend to think that when we merge completely with another person, in moments of love and sexual contact, we know that person in an incomparable way.
In biblical Hebrew the sexual act is even connoted with the verb “to know”: “And the man knew Eve his wife,” says Genesis.
But at the highest moments of love, if we are not completely focused, on ourselves or on a pointed projection of our heart’s desires onto our partner, we are usually directed mainly toward what is good, beautiful, attractive, and sweet in him.
Not to all his complexities, all his different tones and shades—in short, not to everything that makes him “an Other” in the deepest and fullest sense of the word.
But when we
write
about the Other, about any Other, we aspire to reach the
knowledge that encompasses the unloved parts in him as well, the parts that deter and threaten.
The places where his soul is shattered and his consciousness crumbles.
The bubbling cauldron of extremism and sexuality and animalism that I mentioned previously.
The fount of magma, before it has hardened, and long before it has turned into words.
Even if, almost inevitably, we “project” our soul onto the Other we are writing about, and even if we often “use” the Other to tell stories about ourselves and to understand ourselves, still the
wish
that I am speaking of, in its purest essence, aspires precisely in the opposite direction: to boldly cast off the shackles of my “I” and reach the core of the Other, as an Other, and to then experience the Other
as one who exists to himself and for himself
, as a whole world with its own validity and internal logic.
It is then that we are able to catch a glimpse of—and even linger in—the place that is usually so difficult and rare to know in another.
The place where we are exposed to the Other’s “core,” where dreams and nightmares, hallucinations, terrors, and yearnings are created—all the things that make us human.
wish
that I am speaking of, in its purest essence, aspires precisely in the opposite direction: to boldly cast off the shackles of my “I” and reach the core of the Other, as an Other, and to then experience the Other
as one who exists to himself and for himself
, as a whole world with its own validity and internal logic.
It is then that we are able to catch a glimpse of—and even linger in—the place that is usually so difficult and rare to know in another.
The place where we are exposed to the Other’s “core,” where dreams and nightmares, hallucinations, terrors, and yearnings are created—all the things that make us human.
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