Context
Things
Anne Burke
Our first night in Vienna, soaked from the
cold, dreary rain, we are at Servus. Most remarkable about this dinner
is that Publisher said almost nothing, lost somewhere in thought.
Always an enjoyable experience when he gets preoccupied . . . When
Publisher and Editor did speak, it was as though I wasn’t there . . .
Much of Vienna reminds me of the Northwest Side of Chicago. The
Viennese seem to love fluorescent lighting . . . Publisher and Editor
appeared surprised, bewildered, when faced with the fact that the
Viennese speak, as they say, “in a foreign language.” They turn to me
and say, “What was that supposed to mean?” They blame the
“foreign language problem” on yet another failure of the Bush
Administration . . . Publisher again refuses to visit museums:
“Depressing. All about the dead.” And concerts? “Depressing.” And
Editor says, “I agree.” They tell me to “go on my way,” which most
likely means it’s time for them “to do business” (business?) with other
publishers, and for this they prefer that I be absent. They have never
forgotten a small “incident” that occurred a year or more ago when we
met with a publisher in Russia . . . Late one night, walking on the
edge of the Botanical Gardens, we heard an Elvis impersonator. I wanted
to enter the park to hear the concert. Publisher: “No.” . . . On Monday
evening, dinner at El Mare. The waiter didn’t speak English but nodded
politely. Publisher couldn’t read the menu but pretended to. He
inadvertently ordered tongue. When it arrived I told him what it was.
He said he wasn’t hungry and ordered another bottle of wine . . . On
Tuesday, the train to Graz through the mountains. Publisher: “Where in
the fuck are we?” Publisher hates mountains: “Fucking dumb mountains,
they’re like death. Why didn’t they tell us that we had to go through
the mountains?” . . . Publisher on Thomas Bernhard: “Spend twenty-four
hours in Vienna and you know why he wrote the way he did. What choice
did he have? So much for the idea that a writer selects his materials .
. .” In Graz, the publisher Max Knoch met us at the train.
Literaturverlag Droschl has wonderful offices, high ceilings and large
windows looking out onto a garden of roses . . . I was told to keep
quiet at the meeting. “One can always count on other publishers,”
Publisher likes to say, “just as long as they are European . . .”
Tuesday night I was on my own. Publisher and Editor went to another
publishing party where I might have embarrassed them. For such times,
they had provided me with a guidebook entitled Hallo, Vienna! (published in 1973) . . . On Wednesday, Publisher and Editor had lunch
with Gerhard Auinger of the Federal Chancellery, discussing
translations and federal funding. Publisher never stops talking about
funding . . . Afterwards, we meet for coffee. Publisher stares at a
movie poster of James Dean, walking in Times Square, circa 1952. He
says to no one in particular, “Buildings are no longer there, and soon
we will be no longer.” It will be another one of those days . . . On
Friday, we meet with Gert Jonke, Austria’s most important novelist, or
so claims Publisher . . . A quiet, unassuming man. Publisher has
already decided that we will be doing more Jonke novels . . . Jonke
complains that he can’t come to America because of “the smoking
problem”: “Americans won’t let me smoke . . .” Publisher told Jonke
that Geometric Regional Novel was one of the funniest books he
had ever read . . . Jonke smiled and said, “I was a very serious young
man at the time and had wanted to write a very serious novel . . . But
then I started laughing at what I was writing. I did not write the
novel I had wanted to write!” Publisher says, “Writers are so strange .
. .” All in all, Publisher and Editor agree that they’ve probably found
twelve books on this trip to have translated by Dalkey Archive, and as
usual my opinion isn’t sought, except as to the best time for us to
leave for the airport on Saturday, and whether I could carry home
several books in my luggage . . . Thinking in Fiction A
simple question: why do so few characters in fiction ever read books?
Let’s assume that these characters do have the ability to read, and to
read something more than love letters or legal documents or diaries.
Why do their authors so rarely have them reading fiction or philosophy? We
know that many of the characters have gone to college, even such
universities as Harvard and Yale. And yet they never read? Or, if they
do, they never talk about their reading with others? And here
we live, God help us, in the ongoing age of realism. Granted, such
writers as Raymond Carver and Frederick Barthelme preferred to make
their characters sit in front of TVs. But might they not also pick up
the occasional book? And might they not—just once—mention their reading
to another character? Wife? Husband? Girlfriend? Apparently
not. Even professors in fiction do not read, though this could in fact
be an accurate reflection of real professors. (Why is it that
professors, and especially English professors, read so little? Ah,
because they are always so busy! Almost as busy as librarians, who also have no time for reading.) But
onward! Even if we want to accept the problematic limitations placed
upon characters of fiction as regards reading, how can we accept that
they rarely even think? It’s not uncommon (or is it?) to have
someone at the breakfast table say, “Last night I was thinking about .
. .” (I will once again exclude the following groups from having such
conversations that are dependent on the ability to think: speech
pathologists, English professors, librarians, college administrators,
and lawyers. I exclude them in the name of REALISM.) Why
aren’t characters allowed to engage in conversations that might
resemble the sort that human beings really do have rather often? (I
know, one might say here that the cause is that they never read!) Why
can’t a novel consist largely of dialogue about ideas, or the exchange
of ideas, regardless of their merit, and certainly aside from the any
motive of the author’s to use his characters as a vehicle for
articulating them? I mean simply this: thinking and the articulation of
thoughts would seem to be rich materials for novelists, and yet they do
not employ these materials. I am therefore calling for an end
to such devices as exposition, omniscient narrators, character
development, and even setting for the sake of releasing fictional
characters to both read and think. Let the fiction of the future
consist of Platonic dialogues. Let us determine a course of action
whereby we will no longer tolerate characters who do not think,
regardless of the quality of that thought (e.g., what a college provost
might be inclined to think, if one can even imagine this possibility).
Let’s give praise now to the characters of the future, who will wrestle
thoughts from their authors, and even use these thoughts to reflect
upon their authors in turn.
