Here and Now: Letters (2008-2011) by Paul Auster, J. M. Coetzee Page B
Authors: Paul Auster, J. M. Coetzee
Ads: Link
ever said to any interviewer over the years. Hundreds of conversations of which not a single syllable remains. And yet, with so-called normal conversations, that is, with Siri, with you, with any of my friends or associates or relatives, I am usually able to recall most of what was said. Is an interview somehow a non-event, an abnormal event, a conversation that is not a conversation? Even during the course of an interview, I tend to forget what I have just said. The words leave my mouth and then vanish forever. Is it the pressure to answer the question now before me that makes me forget the previous one? Does the fear of saying something stupid inhibit my capacity to remember? Is it the tedium of talking about myself?
When you were here last summer, you mentioned that you have stopped giving interviews. But did something similar ever happen to you in the past—or am I the only one afflicted by this peculiar form of amnesia?
In any case, if I told Kevin Rabalais the story about the pencil, I must have been talking about my encounter with Willie Mays when I was eight years old. Did I go on to recount the postscript—something that happened less than three years ago? If not, let me know, and I will share it with you in my next letter, since it is a strange and moving story, one worth telling.
•
On the subject of memory, something happened to us last night that has left us both rather stunned. About twenty-five years ago, Siri and I saw a film on the public television channel, an obscure 1933 Depression comedy-drama starring Claudette Colbert, Three-Cornered Moon . We both thought it was terrifically well done, and for the past quarter century we have referred to it as a lost treasure, one of the best movies of the period. Last week, I discovered that the film has been released on DVD and ordered a copy—which arrived yesterday. We eagerly put it on after dinner, and then, much to our disappointment, our separate and mutual disappointment, discovered that it is not a very good film at all, mediocre at best. How could we have been so mistaken in our judgment? Even more important, we had both misremembered essential aspects of the plot—but in different ways. Siri thought Claudette Colbert had three sisters, when in fact she has three brothers. I thought Claudette Colbert had saved the family from ruin by going out and getting herself a job, when in fact she loses her job after just two weeks.
What to make of this?
It strikes me that memory might be something we could investigate. Or, if that is too vast a subject, the deceptions of memory.
With warmest thoughts,
Paul
November 22, 2009
Dear John,
This, from the sports section of today’s Sunday Times , which might amuse you (on the heels of your last letter), especially the statement: “the future of the game is in the numbers.” The statistics they are talking about here go far beneath—or beyond—the charts I sent you the other day. We are coming closer and closer to a realm of pure theoretical physics.
On the other hand, even if everything they do can be translated into numbers, the players themselves are not robots. Witness the lovely 1946 photo of Ted Williams and Stan Musial—two of the all-time greats.
Thinking of you . . .
All best,
Paul
December 15, 2009
Dear Paul,
You ask whether I have had the experience of giving an interview and then being unable to remember what I had said. Not exactly. But I have often felt oppressive boredom as I listen to myself mouthing off to interviewers. To my way of thinking, real talk only occurs when there is some kind of current running between the interlocutors. And such a current rarely runs during interviews.
I’ll be glad to discuss memory with you at some time in the future, if we can remember to get back to it. At present the aspect of memory that concerns me most is absentmindedness. I watch myself with a hawk’s eye for the first sign, as the end of my seventieth decade on earth approaches, that my
When you were here last summer, you mentioned that you have stopped giving interviews. But did something similar ever happen to you in the past—or am I the only one afflicted by this peculiar form of amnesia?
In any case, if I told Kevin Rabalais the story about the pencil, I must have been talking about my encounter with Willie Mays when I was eight years old. Did I go on to recount the postscript—something that happened less than three years ago? If not, let me know, and I will share it with you in my next letter, since it is a strange and moving story, one worth telling.
•
On the subject of memory, something happened to us last night that has left us both rather stunned. About twenty-five years ago, Siri and I saw a film on the public television channel, an obscure 1933 Depression comedy-drama starring Claudette Colbert, Three-Cornered Moon . We both thought it was terrifically well done, and for the past quarter century we have referred to it as a lost treasure, one of the best movies of the period. Last week, I discovered that the film has been released on DVD and ordered a copy—which arrived yesterday. We eagerly put it on after dinner, and then, much to our disappointment, our separate and mutual disappointment, discovered that it is not a very good film at all, mediocre at best. How could we have been so mistaken in our judgment? Even more important, we had both misremembered essential aspects of the plot—but in different ways. Siri thought Claudette Colbert had three sisters, when in fact she has three brothers. I thought Claudette Colbert had saved the family from ruin by going out and getting herself a job, when in fact she loses her job after just two weeks.
What to make of this?
It strikes me that memory might be something we could investigate. Or, if that is too vast a subject, the deceptions of memory.
With warmest thoughts,
Paul
November 22, 2009
Dear John,
This, from the sports section of today’s Sunday Times , which might amuse you (on the heels of your last letter), especially the statement: “the future of the game is in the numbers.” The statistics they are talking about here go far beneath—or beyond—the charts I sent you the other day. We are coming closer and closer to a realm of pure theoretical physics.
On the other hand, even if everything they do can be translated into numbers, the players themselves are not robots. Witness the lovely 1946 photo of Ted Williams and Stan Musial—two of the all-time greats.
Thinking of you . . .
All best,
Paul
December 15, 2009
Dear Paul,
You ask whether I have had the experience of giving an interview and then being unable to remember what I had said. Not exactly. But I have often felt oppressive boredom as I listen to myself mouthing off to interviewers. To my way of thinking, real talk only occurs when there is some kind of current running between the interlocutors. And such a current rarely runs during interviews.
I’ll be glad to discuss memory with you at some time in the future, if we can remember to get back to it. At present the aspect of memory that concerns me most is absentmindedness. I watch myself with a hawk’s eye for the first sign, as the end of my seventieth decade on earth approaches, that my
Similar Books
