• English Site
• >World
• >

  SPIEGEL Interview with Author Philip Roth: 'Bush Is Too Horrendous to Be Forgotten'

SPIEGEL Interview with Author Philip Roth 'Bush Is Too Horrendous to Be Forgotten'

Part 3: 'You Do Not Need a TV'

AP

Roth says he has been re-reading Hemingway.

Roth: Yes, that?s a fact, you?re sacrificing something if you live like that. But, you know, about three years ago I came out of the house to walk over to my studio which is about 50 yards away. And I looked over, and in the snow there was a little animal standing there, an awful looking little creature, a possum. They?re very ugly, with rat-like tails. So I walked over, and he scurried into a hole in the snow. So I got down on my knees, I looked in the hole, and in the hole I saw there were about six or seven sticks. I thought, so that?s how you do it. That?s all you really need. I realized that I could take a lesson from it. I had too many things -- you do not need a TV, a fridge, knives and forks.

SPIEGEL: Are you telling us a parable?

Roth: Certainly. I guess it told me something about the way I was living out there. When I came out in the evening, there the possum was again eating snow, and I said to him: ?How?s the writing going?? I thought, this is a joke. One of my friends put this animal up here to show me what I look like, just a little disgusting figure with seven sticks, and so I decided I?m not going to live this way. So I came down to New York, and now I found a place to stay on the Upper West Side, and now I only go back when the weather gets good.

SPIEGEL: And has the city changed your writing? Do you get distracted?

Roth: No, I left my books in Connecticut, but I keep my rhythm, I even have exactly the same utensils, that is, the same desk, same chair, same stand, I work at a stand-up desk. I have the same setup exactly, I bought a second set. And it?s a quiet apartment. I can turn the phone off and get the messages at the end of the day. There still are more distractions, but I?m a bit in the mood for them. Here I see movies, I see people. Every other night I see somebody. I walk the streets. There are actually people on the streets!

SPIEGEL: With cell phones.

Roth: With cell phones. I have one myself.

SPIEGEL: You do?

Roth: Yes.

SPIEGEL: But no one has the number.

Roth: No one?s to know about the cell phone, either. I want to keep my myth alive, the Rip Van Winkle myth.

SPIEGEL: Does all that tell us that, coming to a certain age, you allow yourself more freedom?

Roth: It?s a little looser. I work most of the day. I exercise at one point in the day, I go to a swimming pool at the New York Athletic Club. Four days a week. It?s wonderful.

SPIEGEL: Does that maybe mean that the actual writing gets easier after so many novels?

Roth: It?s more or less exactly the same. It isn?t easier, that?s for sure -- it?s never any easier. But I also don?t know that it?s any harder. It?s always been a task, and it continues to be a task. I am always fearful when I finish a book that I won?t be able to write another one. It?s been like that from the beginning, and it continues the same way. What the hell do I write? What is there to write about? And I still have that feeling. I have a book coming out next October?

SPIEGEL:? already finished?

Roth: Yes, it?s finished. Not about age, but about students during the time of the Korean War, the title will be ?Indignation?. And so now I have to start another one. It?s unending. There?s only one way out of this, you know?

SPIEGEL: But some things have to be different. You could feel the pressure to write one last book that brings you the long-deserved Nogel Prize. Or you could gain more and more confidence.

Roth: Well, I don?t think that?s true. I was confident in the beginning of my career, but each time you start a project -- I?m speaking just of myself -- you start as an amateur because you?re not the professional who?s written 25 and 26 or 27 books. You?re somebody who?s never written this book you?re about to write. So you?re absolutely an amateur about that book. And you feel all the uncertainty of an amateur, and the first draft, these first six or eight months, are painfully hard. It can sometimes be hard later on too, but the beginning is bound to be hard.

SPIEGEL: No book writes itself?

Roth: It?s really unusual -- every once in a while you get a gift with a book, it's inexplicable. Maybe I?ve had two or three in my life.

SPIEGEL: Which ones were they?

Roth: Well, the one I?ve just finished has been a bit of a gift. I had an idea, I began to write, and it began to roll out. ?Sabbath?s Theater? was like that, too. But that rarely happens. Usually, it?s messier, bloodier, nastier.

SPIEGEL: Can you actually enjoy writing?

Roth: Yes, I can enjoy it near the end -- once it?s clear to me what I?m doing, once I have a first or second draft, then there is real pleasure. Then you have floor under your feet and you know what you?re doing, then your skill is felt. You feel your skill, as any writer does doing the third or fourth draft. Then you can do what you can do. But the first draft is the worst, you?re as bad as your worst critic thinks.

SPIEGEL: Do you set yourself a goal of a certain number of pages per day?

Roth: I like to have at least one page per day, you feel awful if you don?t have a page. You can produce eight, ten pages, and some days you can barely get a paragraph. But it?s nice to feel you?ve got one because you know one page makes 365 pages in a year.

SPIEGEL: And in the end, is there a sense of fulfillment, of pride even?

Roth: It all changes during the process. During the writing, there are just little moments when something seems OK or promising. I think the mood you have is very volatile when you?re writing. You go from the bottom to the top to the bottom to the top because this is hopeful and that is awful and this stinks and so on. But, of course, there?s pleasure. I couldn?t stick with it if there wasn?t. The pleasure lies in the completing, because when you get to the third and fourth draft, then, just as in the beginning there?s nothing you can do that?s right, then there?s nothing that you can do that?s wrong. And it?s wonderful, you feel very powerful and you feel strong, you lose your doubt.

SPIEGEL: Do you still use a typewriter?

Roth: I use a computer now. I?m a complete fake. In fact, I?m the most high-tech guy you know.

SPIEGEL: You are the only living American writer with an edition of your work in the Library of America. Are you fond of that?

Roth: Yes, I?m very fond of it.

SPIEGEL: What is left to expect?

Roth: Health, maybe. Happiness?

SPIEGEL: The Nobel Prize?

Roth: (smiles) Oh, the Nobel Prize, I don?t think about that.

SPIEGEL: During all these years with your hero Nathan Zuckerman, you seemed to enjoy talking with yourself, playing around with an alter ego, with dreams and reality, books inside books. Then you arrived at the subject of age?

Roth:? yes, and I did not know anything about it, because you don?t till you get there, and until your friends get there. You begin to see the ravages of time and the losses and suffering. So that has become a subject, a subject in this book, a subject in "The Dying Animal,? a subject in ?Everyman.?

SPIEGEL: Will you miss Nathan Zuckerman?

Roth: I don?t think so. But you never know. I may be desperate. But now he is in Zuckerman Heaven which actually does sound like a book. Or ?Zuckerman in Hell??

SPIEGEL: He is not really a nice man -- he is egocentric, narcissistic even. Do you actually like him?

Roth: You won?t like to hear that, but there is no friendship between me and the figures in my books.

SPIEGEL: Readers may love or hate him, but for you it is all cold and technical?

Roth: It?s a functional relationship. It is only about: Can I make this character interesting enough to carry the book on his shoulders? Can he deliver in the book?

SPIEGEL: Mister Roth, thank you very much for this conversation.

Interview conducted by Klaus Brinkbäumer and Volker Hage.

For reasons of data protection and privacy, your IP address will only be stored if you are a registered user of Facebook and you are currently logged in to the service. For more detailed information, please click on the "i" symbol.

Post to other social networks:

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
•