If we were not all so interested in ourselves, life would be so uninteresting that none of us would be able to endure it.
—Schopenhauer
What does it mean to construct a self?
How do you write about yourself without becoming self-indulgent?
I.e., without spending too much time talking about trivial aspects of your life?
To what degree does your artistic project founder on the shoals of self?
To what degree are “humanity” and “self-reflexivity” synonymous?
To what extent, then, are we all also wrapped in the hoodie of selfhood?
Why do you come back over and over to the phrase “self-reflection in a convex mirror”?
Ashbery, right?
No?
Why do you come back over and over to the phrase “mirror turn lamp”?
Yeats, right?
Yes?
What’s the point you’re trying to get to?
Is yours a failed life?
A misdirected career?
Harold Brodkey, minus the hype?
The culture is now exceedingly weary and wary of its own astonishing narcissism and solipsism, and writers are self-critical about memoir in a way they hadn’t been before—cause or result?
And you got caught badly in the backwash, wouldn’t you say?
Because—is there even such thing anymore as a “self”?
It still exists?
Your former teacher John Hawkes spoke of “the terrifying similarity between the unconscious desires of the solitary man and the disruptive needs of the world.” To what extent are you exhibit A?
In what sense are terrorists the new anti-novelists?
Are you a terrorist?
Are you sympathetic to terrorists?
How so?
Are you a self-terrorist?
Will you ever stop pummeling yourself?
Still not sure I get it. How, exactly, are you any more or less wounded, blind, flawed, wrong, doomed than anyone else?
Okay, but then how does the seemingly ceaseless prose-colonoscopy cast larger light?
Are you sure you’re not looking through the wrong end of the instrument?
What’s your favorite TV show ever?
Why don’t you own a TV?
Oh, I see—you’ve “cut the cord”?
I’m very interested in this passage of Obama’s because, in some way, it’s through his reading that he begins to ask and answer the question “Who am I?” You’ve also done a lot of reading, so I suppose I’d like to ask you, who are you?
According to Georges Gusdorf, “Autobiography is the contest of a being in dialogue with itself.” I wonder if you think such a formulation remains relevant, and if so, how?
Have you ever written anything that couldn’t be interpreted as crypto-autobiography?
Why not, going forward, as an act of bona fides, publish your work anonymously?
Or only online?
Does not the perceiver, by her very presence, alter what’s perceived?
Let’s say you’re writing a biography of Nathanael West, and while you’re writing this book, a global pandemic occurs; would you keep your exclusive focus on West?
Or do the two tracks—“life and art”—somehow overlap and collide?
Is that possible?
Advisable?
Does your art constitute your entire life? If I were you, that would be my concern.
Is that the way you see your own writing?
As memoir?
As autofiction?
As book-length essay?
As self-demolition project?
As wannabe suicide note?
That is to say, when, pre-pandemic, you would be watching a movie in a theater (and perhaps even deeply enjoying the movie), you would continually be asking yourself if this behavior constitutes a valid human activity? That is so fucking weird.
How do you—or do you—ever break out of this wash-rinse-repeat cycle?
Are you truly as despondent as you claim to be?
Are you currently capable of taking any delight whatsoever in, say, Homer, Rembrandt, Mozart?
What, to you, is the definition of “genius”?
Is such a notion even relevant in post-postmodern society?
Have you read much attachment theory?
Ever really latched on to anything?
What matters to you?
Anything at all?
What is your go-to succor?
Your salvation?
Your damnation?
What do you want to get out of this interview?
You’re asking what I want to get out of the interview?
Who’s being interviewed here?
Who am I to say what belongs—is that what you’re asking?
In or out?
David, can we please just try to be co-pilots here? That would be very helpful, from my perspective.