137

 

Interview with Seth Goldschlager for Newsweek (1972)*

Could one accurately describe the structure of Transparent Things as a Moebius strip of time and form?

One could, metaphorically—if one first defined “form”: is it matter? is it space?

Could one view the book as the definitive dissection of the tea-moistened madeleine? (Or does this question crumble?)1

The question falls apart, limply and soggily, like a tea-soaked petit-beurre biscuit.

Transparent Things illuminates in suspension the moment of death, the form of that instant of crossover of time zones; can readers of your future work expect another examination of that moment?

I wonder how long it will take critics to see the main point of Transparent Things. I will not divulge it. It was completely missed, for example, by Michael Wood (The N.Y. Review, Nov. 16), otherwise a subtle reviewer.

Do you think the media of film and television provide the raw materials for creating artistic works?

The only material for creating artistic works, on canvas or paper, is provided by self-enchantment, which is another term for individual imagination.

Is it possible to reproduce the artistry of a novel in the form of cinema or would that necessarily require the transformation implicit in an attempt to transfer a work of literature onto canvas?

A completely faithful cinema reproduction of a novel would mean filming one after another all its printed pages turned by an invisible hand at the rate of a three-minute pause each soundlessly and without any vignettes for the benefit of those too lazy to open a tangible book.

Is there a valid definition of obscenity or is that term a meaningless one that should vanish?

I call a novel obscene if it fulfills the following three conditions: 1. it is indecent, 2. it is talentless, and 3. it is boring. I consider, therefore, that the term “obscenity” is a useful one, separating as it does lewd, dull mediocrity from, say, entertaining erotic art.

When and if you reread your past published work are you tempted to rewrite or to re-edit? Would you yield to such a feeling?

No English novels of mine need any revamping. Of the nine Russian novels…2

B. F. Skinner has recently drawn from behaviorism the message that man’s freedom and dignity are self-destructive myths that call for some form of new authority over “freedom of will.” Would you care to comment on this Skinner message?

I am utterly ignorant of B. F. Skinner’s writings and cannot perceive any logical link between objective liberty and subjective dignity.

It appears as if the current leaders of the United States and those of the USSR are finding rapprochement on a comfortable and increasingly mutually profitable position. Does this surprise you? Is it a trend which can continue?

Economic convenience comes and goes. What does not and will never change is the blessed abyss between our free country (our free thought, our free oddities) and the Bolshevist Police State. An American tourist, gaping at some corny old church in Russia, may not be conscious of the abyss; but the Bolshevist visitor to the U.S.A. is glumly aware of it every moment.

* Intended for Newsweek but not published. Emended typescript with VN’s manuscript corrections, VNA Berg. VN wrote out his replies on Nov. 4, 1972, and had them typed up on Nov. 6. Planned for the publication of Transparent Things, which first appeared in Esquire in Dec. 1972 and then in book form (McGraw-Hill) the same month.