Michael March: Why New York?

Arnon Grunberg: New York is not Amsterdam. New York gives me a feeling of freedom, of being unnoticed. You know what I mean? When you don’t feel observed. When you don’t feel observed in an unpleasant way. When you don’t feel social obligations, social pressures. When you feel outside, but accepted.

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MM: New York was called New Amsterdam, then there’s Amsterdam Avenue. So you’re not completely homesick.

AG: I never felt that much attached to the Netherlands because my parents were both born in Germany and had very mixed feelings about the Netherlands. Back in Germany, back in Berlin, culture was so much more civilized. But of course, there were the Nazis, and they didn’t return.

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MM: You were quite rebellious.

AG: Well, when I was fifteen, yeah, I started without wanting to be rebellious. I went to high school, and everybody expected me to go to university, to become a lawyer or a dentist or maybe a surgeon or to find a respectable job, a respectable family, to live a respectable Jewish life. And I found that I wanted to be an actor. And I thought, well, I have to make it clear to the outside world that I am very serious about being an actor. I wanted to be an actor. So the best thing to do is to become a drop out, because otherwise people were not going to take my ambitions seriously. So that’s what I did.

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MM: But you’re not an actor.

AG: Huh?

MM: But you’re not an actor.

AG: I didn’t become an actor, but I tried to. I did my best. I went to several theater schools, and I wasn’t accepted. Then I tried to become an actor without theater school, and I had some small jobs, made small money. The disadvantage of being an actor is that you’re always with other people, always dependent on other people, and I discovered that I liked being alone. Many people don’t like being alone, but I enjoy it. Of course, I’m also a social being from time to time—I need other people. But I don’t mind coming home alone, and there’s no one. Sometimes, it can be a relief.

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MM: But you’re never alone as a writer.

AG: That’s the advantage of being an author—you can work alone. I like observing. There’s a spy in all authors.

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MM: A spy is never alone. He is part of the pretense.

AG: I didn’t say an author equals a spy. It’s a metaphor. But sometimes you have the feeling that you are a spy—that you work as a spy.

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MM: If it were only true! We have the privilege of failing. The spy cannot fail.

AG: If you feel that you can’t fail without any consequences, you are gambling without putting your money on the table.

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MM: On the table?

AG: To entertain.

MM: Entertain us with New York.

AG: New York hasn’t changed. America would have gone to war in Iraq without 9/11.

MM: Joseph Roth talked about neutrality as a form of divinity.

AG: Neutrality is an illusion. But being so divided the European Union is mainly neutral!

MM: In dog and cat terms, is the European Union “neuter” or “neutralized”?

AG: We should not underestimate the economic power of the European Union.

MM: Europeans seem unnerved by America. They feel disenchanted by America.

AG: The so-called progressives and intellectuals in Europe have a great tradition of being against America.

MM: They hated the Indians.

AG: I have little patience for anti-Americanism.

MM: You don’t see America collapsing like a soufflé?

AG: No.

MM: Ezra Pound said that war is the destruction of good restaurants.

AG: That’s beautiful because we’re in a great restaurant.

MM: But bad restaurants survive. More fit? More contaminated?

AG: Nuclear war might be a business opportunity. Business people eat well. They want to cut their deals in nice restaurants, even in Thai restaurants inside Kabul.

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MM: What brought you to Afghanistan?

AG: To see war from the inside, or at least closer than I’d seen it before. I sent a letter to the Minister of Defense that I wanted to be embedded. And to my surprise, they took me and I went there for ten days.

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MM: What did you experience?

AG: I was prejudiced against the people serving in the Dutch army. But I met more decent people there than I expected—more sympathetic people than at theaverage literary festival. And I was happier than I’d expected. Of course, I discovered—I was at Kandahar air field for most of the time—that the Taliban was getting stronger and stronger. They performed these rocket attacks every other night. Fear and tension can be addictive. So when I left Afghanistan, I felt that I missed something—felt I had been on a drug for a while.

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MM: It wasn’t the Thai food?

AG: The Thai food was only the last night. I felt like I was in a concentration camp. When I say felt—I felt as if I were there. It looked like a movie set for a concentration camp.

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MM: It’s catastrophic for a writer to be an idealist.

AG: I’ve never been an idealist. All attempts to make the world better have had the opposite effect.

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MM: Who has influenced you?

AG: The Russian author Isaac Babel—his short stories, his time with the army.

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MM: Is that why you went to Afghanistan?

AG: Yes, of course.

MM: You should have gone to Odessa.

AG: I went to Odessa first, then to Afghanistan.

MM: By horse?

AG: By train. My grandfather was born in Lviv, so I took the night train from Lviv to Odessa. And it was a very funny experience. I could imagine living in Odessa.

MM: Everyone needs enemies.

AG: Absolutely. I really need enemies. Without enemies—there’s no identity.

 

New York, August 2006