Character Assassination

From: Arnon To: Adam Re: Knuckle Sandwich

Adam,

I had to smile when you were describing the reasons for crafting your own jacket copy.When my novel Silent Extras was published in the US, my agent advised me to hire an outside publicist who sent me to a media trainer to get me prepared for exactly the kind of radio interview you were speaking about. The media trainer was great, as a source of inspiration. I didn't end up doing much radio, alas.

Only a few years later a different publisher for a different book organized for me this thing that fifteen different radio stations would call me within ten days. I'm not eager to describe something as a nightmare. But this experience came close to it. Angry men would shout at me at 6:30 AM (for some reasons these radio stations love to call authors at 6 AM or 6:30 AM): "I called you two minutes ago, you were not there. Now I don't have time for you." Others hung op on me mid-sentence. One interrupted me with the words: "You have to stop, I can no longer torment my listeners with your accent."

I think as an author you should get ready to be humiliated any time of the day. It's a small sacrifice for which authors get many things back.

Your definition of satire is interesting, and broad also. Based on what you wrote I would say that even Madame Bovary could be called a satire. I haven't read Absurdistan nor A Confederacy of Dunces. I'll put them on my list. That's not to say that I would deny that The Jewish Messiah is part of a tradition. I think this tradition goes back to Rabelais, but also to Don Quixote. And of course a novel can be part of a tradition, and "speak" with books the author has not read.

Which brings me to your question about the self-consciousness of characters in a novel. I would argue that too much self-consciousness is bad for the character. The fact that the author knows more and sees more than his characters does not mean that he belittles them. The distance allows you to see more than your characters. As in reality, it’s easier to give advice to a stranger than to yourself. Of course, when I'm listening to a host of a radio show shouting at me, I'm at least partly in on the joke. But as soon as I get a knuckle sandwich or my character gets a knuckle sandwich the joke is over.

Even if you look at Chaplin the violence is often part of the joke, but its impact is never really denied. And for this reason—at least for one person involved—it's the end of the joke, temporarily. It's very well possible to laugh afterwards, but it takes time to recover and certain people never recover completely. Parents often pass their wounds to their children. What children do with these wounds differs from case to case. As you’ve already pointed out. And one more word about the self-consciousness of characters. Blindness is a survival technique. And as most survival techniques, this one can be counterproductive.

The idea that you are a character in a novel is a luxury, it's tempting to think this way but at the end it is a misunderstanding. Sometimes I hear people talk and I think: These people talk as if they are on a television show. Of course this observation is hardly new. But whenever I see real people behaving and talking like bad actors I wonder if this is the result of too much or too little self-consciousness.

The process of translation is utterly dependent on the translator.

Mein Kampf did by the way get translated into Yiddish. You raised the question earlier: How can you show the farce that reality often is?

Yours, Arnon