WEBVTT - Read This: Rachel Kushner Is Not Auditioning for Her Own Dream 0:00:00.240 --> 0:00:03.000 Hey there, it's Ruby Jones and I'm back to introduce 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:07.160 another episode of Read This, Schwartz Media's books podcast. It's 0:00:07.200 --> 0:00:10.240 hosted by the editor of The Monthly, Michael Williams, and 0:00:10.280 --> 0:00:12.800 it features conversations with some of the best and most 0:00:12.840 --> 0:00:17.000 beloved writers from Australia and around the world. In this episode, 0:00:17.040 --> 0:00:20.120 we're going to hear from Rachel Kushner. Her latest novel, 0:00:20.200 --> 0:00:23.840 Creation Lake, was shortlisted for this year's Booker Price. Before 0:00:23.840 --> 0:00:25.759 we do, Michael is here to share a bit about 0:00:25.800 --> 0:00:26.400 their conversation. 0:00:28.760 --> 0:00:30.160 Hi Michael, Hi Ruby. 0:00:30.680 --> 0:00:32.040 So Michael, I know that. 0:00:32.000 --> 0:00:35.080 You are a big fan of Rachel Kushner's work, and 0:00:35.479 --> 0:00:38.760 I'm just wondering how excited you were about her book 0:00:38.800 --> 0:00:39.559 before you dove in. 0:00:39.760 --> 0:00:42.760 Look, I was excited, but I don't know. You might 0:00:42.840 --> 0:00:45.440 be like me. There's a thing with a particular kind 0:00:45.440 --> 0:00:47.960 of author where if you really love their work, a 0:00:48.000 --> 0:00:51.440 new book is a cause for trepidation as much as excitement. 0:00:51.520 --> 0:00:54.400 What if it disappoints? What if the streak of wonderful 0:00:54.400 --> 0:00:56.880 books I've done before is broken by this new one? 0:00:57.000 --> 0:01:00.320 And it's a turkey And Kushner is a writer via 0:01:00.520 --> 0:01:03.480 enough that the announcement of a new one did have 0:01:03.640 --> 0:01:06.960 me somewhat nervous. Her first book was a book called 0:01:07.040 --> 0:01:10.480 Telex from Cuba, and then her second book, The Flamethrowers, 0:01:10.520 --> 0:01:12.720 is one of my favorite books of recent years, is 0:01:12.760 --> 0:01:16.000 absolutely brilliant. She followed that with The Mars Room, which 0:01:16.200 --> 0:01:19.280 was also shortlisted for the Book of Prize, a terrific 0:01:19.280 --> 0:01:23.160 book about women in the correctional system in California. She 0:01:23.319 --> 0:01:26.120 just again and again writes these kind of amazing books 0:01:26.200 --> 0:01:30.959 about outsiders, about rebellion, about the nature of the individual 0:01:31.000 --> 0:01:33.480 against the institution, and I love her. So I was 0:01:33.480 --> 0:01:36.720 a bit nervous, but CREATIONLA like pretty damn good. 0:01:37.360 --> 0:01:42.160 It's been described as a cerebral spy thriller, which does 0:01:42.200 --> 0:01:44.440 feel like a bit of a departure compared to her 0:01:44.440 --> 0:01:46.480 previous work. So tell me a bit about it. 0:01:46.840 --> 0:01:49.520 Yeah. Look, the book that sprang to mind immediately when 0:01:49.560 --> 0:01:52.080 starting it was another book that we've discussed on and 0:01:52.160 --> 0:01:56.120 read this episode, Eleanor Catton's burnham Wood. It's an ego thriller. 0:01:56.240 --> 0:02:00.560 It follows a group of activists and kind of outsider 0:02:00.600 --> 0:02:02.680 trying to understand what they're doing and trying to kind 0:02:02.680 --> 0:02:04.680 of work their way into it. But in this one. 0:02:04.720 --> 0:02:07.720 The outsider in question is a mercenary. Her name Sadie Smith. 0:02:07.840 --> 0:02:12.000 She's a former spy who's lost her formal credentials in 0:02:12.280 --> 0:02:15.919 pretty murky ways, and she's this kind of sardonic observer. 0:02:16.080 --> 0:02:18.440 When she goes in, she wants to see what this 0:02:18.480 --> 0:02:21.160 community is like her in the south of France, and 0:02:21.480 --> 0:02:23.720 to understand what they're going to do. They're led by 0:02:23.720 --> 0:02:27.000 this guy called Bruno Lacombe, and he's this guy who 0:02:27.040 --> 0:02:30.920 lives in a Neanderthal cave. He's rejected civilization. He believes 0:02:30.919 --> 0:02:33.320 that primitivism is where the future lies. And he's this 0:02:33.560 --> 0:02:37.360 charismatic cult leader. And as she tries to get to him, 0:02:37.440 --> 0:02:42.680 tries to understand his philosophy, the drama unfolds, and it's terrific. 0:02:46.080 --> 0:02:48.880 Coming up in just a moment. Rachel Kushner is not 0:02:49.000 --> 0:02:54.440 auditioning for her own dream. 0:02:56.919 --> 0:02:59.360 All the elements that have made Rachel Kushner such a 0:02:59.400 --> 0:03:03.360 respected and beloved author are here in her fourth book, 0:03:03.760 --> 0:03:07.040 But perhaps what's more remarkable is the obvious ways in 0:03:07.080 --> 0:03:10.080 which he's developed and grown as a writer. There are 0:03:10.120 --> 0:03:13.280 thematic echoes, to be sure, but it's apparent that this 0:03:13.360 --> 0:03:15.840 is not an author inclined to repeat herself. 0:03:17.400 --> 0:03:19.720 I don't know if I try to do something different 0:03:19.800 --> 0:03:23.640 with every book, but each book does feel to me 0:03:24.000 --> 0:03:28.480 like a singular universe that I'm not building really in 0:03:28.600 --> 0:03:34.640 conscious conversation with other novels, because it's as if each 0:03:34.760 --> 0:03:38.520 novel it feels like the only chance I get to 0:03:38.680 --> 0:03:44.720 finally figure out how to resolve and unify form with content, 0:03:45.320 --> 0:03:47.720 because each book has a different form and a different 0:03:47.720 --> 0:03:49.960 set of themes, and so it's like I have to 0:03:50.080 --> 0:03:53.360 invent the wheel all over again, and I'm never thinking, oh, 0:03:53.360 --> 0:03:56.000 I did it this way last time, so this time 0:03:56.040 --> 0:03:59.320 I'll do it in this other manner. There's a curious 0:03:59.360 --> 0:04:02.640 pattern where, which is when I'm finishing a novel, I 0:04:02.800 --> 0:04:07.640 make a decision rather impetuously, my next novel is going 0:04:07.720 --> 0:04:13.600 to be about X, and if there are struggles along 0:04:13.640 --> 0:04:18.679 the way to building the novel about X, I always 0:04:19.200 --> 0:04:22.960 feel that the problems are with me and not with X. 0:04:23.640 --> 0:04:26.599 If that makes sense, it could be that it is 0:04:26.640 --> 0:04:32.760 a way of resolving the quotion of the arbitrary. Like 0:04:32.839 --> 0:04:36.320 as a viewer of art, whether it's cinema or visual 0:04:36.440 --> 0:04:41.240 art or literature, I never want to feel that decisions 0:04:41.240 --> 0:04:43.440 could have been made one way, but just happened to 0:04:43.440 --> 0:04:46.080 have been made another. I don't want to get a 0:04:46.120 --> 0:04:50.359 whiff that there's something arbitrary about the plans that were 0:04:50.440 --> 0:04:52.960 laid in how they were executed. So when I make 0:04:53.080 --> 0:04:57.279 this decision, it's very concrete and there's no turning back 0:04:57.320 --> 0:04:58.719 from it at all. 0:05:00.320 --> 0:05:03.159 Are you certain about many things in your life? 0:05:03.960 --> 0:05:08.040 No? I'm a really indecisive person. And in fact I 0:05:08.080 --> 0:05:10.760 still call my mother all the time if I can't 0:05:10.760 --> 0:05:15.440 decide something, and she's used to it, and she'll say, Rachel, 0:05:15.520 --> 0:05:17.760 I really can't decide for you. I can't help you 0:05:17.800 --> 0:05:20.880 with that. I could be bungling this, but for my 0:05:21.080 --> 0:05:24.000 uses it has served me. There's a line in a 0:05:24.040 --> 0:05:28.480 William Gaddis novel I really love the Recognitions, where he says, 0:05:29.480 --> 0:05:35.880 decision is indecision crystallized. So there are times when I 0:05:35.960 --> 0:05:39.279 wait so long to decide something, and I invest so 0:05:39.440 --> 0:05:44.120 much energy in trying to discern which is the right decision, 0:05:45.120 --> 0:05:49.640 that in fact I have more or less decided through 0:05:49.720 --> 0:05:55.039 my refusal to act. There's this Nino Simone song that 0:05:55.160 --> 0:05:58.719 I really love. Either way I lose. It's on the 0:05:58.720 --> 0:06:01.320 same record that has Lilac. Yeah, just a song that 0:06:01.400 --> 0:06:04.599 Jeff Buckley made famous by covering it. But either way 0:06:04.640 --> 0:06:08.360 I lose. Is like it cuts to the heart of 0:06:08.400 --> 0:06:11.640 what is challenging about choice, which is that if I 0:06:11.720 --> 0:06:14.159 choose A, I lose B, and if I choose B, 0:06:14.520 --> 0:06:20.240 I lose A. But when it comes to artistic direction, 0:06:20.880 --> 0:06:23.760 I am not indecisive, and I'm not sure why. It's 0:06:23.800 --> 0:06:28.040 always just like the new world that you plunge into, 0:06:28.520 --> 0:06:31.400 and each one does feel really different to me. This 0:06:31.520 --> 0:06:36.200 experience was completely different than writing any of my other novels. 0:06:36.520 --> 0:06:39.760 And what I understand about this experience is the wood 0:06:39.800 --> 0:06:42.600 that you've applied to it a number of times is 0:06:43.480 --> 0:06:47.960 fun That this was one of the most purely fun 0:06:48.000 --> 0:06:51.680 writing experiences or fun experience is full stop that you've 0:06:51.680 --> 0:06:52.360 ever enjoyed. 0:06:52.640 --> 0:06:55.600 Yeah, it was. I mean it gave me great pleasure 0:06:55.640 --> 0:06:59.600 to write the novel. I had the idea for this 0:06:59.640 --> 0:07:03.120 book for quite a long time. Sometimes I just know 0:07:03.279 --> 0:07:06.960 right away when I sort of pick up an image, 0:07:07.279 --> 0:07:11.440 a notion, a scene, it just goes sort of inside 0:07:11.680 --> 0:07:16.000 the mind and gets stashed someplace. And I had known 0:07:16.160 --> 0:07:21.360 since probably late two thousand and eight that someday I 0:07:21.360 --> 0:07:23.920 would want to write a novel like this one in 0:07:23.960 --> 0:07:27.040 the sense of it being a novel that takes place 0:07:27.080 --> 0:07:32.280 in France and deals with young people who want to 0:07:32.360 --> 0:07:37.240 figure out a way to live that is protected from 0:07:37.640 --> 0:07:41.240 the predations of capitalism and are set on a collision 0:07:41.280 --> 0:07:44.040 course with the French state. And then when I finished 0:07:44.520 --> 0:07:48.520 The Mars Room, my previous novel, I started working on 0:07:48.560 --> 0:07:51.000 this book, and I couldn't figure out how to do it. 0:07:51.640 --> 0:07:53.840 And it was three and a half years of trying 0:07:53.880 --> 0:07:58.520 things out, and then I let go of everything I 0:07:58.560 --> 0:08:01.640 had done, and when I started over, I wrote what 0:08:01.840 --> 0:08:04.080 became the first two sentences of the book. Those are 0:08:04.120 --> 0:08:06.600 the first two things I wrote. And I knew right 0:08:06.640 --> 0:08:10.440 away that I was transposing the language of somebody, this 0:08:10.600 --> 0:08:14.000 character Bruno, who's a kind of mentor who thinks that 0:08:14.040 --> 0:08:17.960 we need to look carefully at the deep past in 0:08:18.080 --> 0:08:22.000 order to assess the direction for the whole human project. 0:08:22.680 --> 0:08:26.480 And I knew that his words were being transposed by 0:08:26.520 --> 0:08:30.360 somebody else. And I was really interested in the formal 0:08:30.480 --> 0:08:35.360 challenge of two storytellers inside of one, that this woman 0:08:36.080 --> 0:08:40.439 has a monopoly on the telling, but that somebody else 0:08:40.679 --> 0:08:44.599 has kind of invaded her telling to a degree invaded, 0:08:45.120 --> 0:08:51.319 and it would sort of be he is an unreliable 0:08:51.400 --> 0:08:55.559 narrator to some degree. She's just a moral person. Is 0:08:55.640 --> 0:08:58.800 like adopting the tone or the voice of a kind 0:08:58.800 --> 0:09:03.400 of devil still force. She doesn't have malice. Her intention 0:09:03.559 --> 0:09:05.080 is not to hurt other people for the sake of 0:09:05.120 --> 0:09:10.360 hurting them. But she has no sympathy for other people. 0:09:10.800 --> 0:09:13.960 And that's not the way that I am at all. 0:09:14.120 --> 0:09:17.120 And so I sort of had to develop the contours 0:09:17.440 --> 0:09:22.040 of an alien sensibility at the same time that I 0:09:22.120 --> 0:09:26.240 was seeing her, to look at the writings of somebody 0:09:26.840 --> 0:09:30.959 who felt much closer to a person I could understand 0:09:31.000 --> 0:09:35.400 and know, and had depth and dimension and a more 0:09:35.440 --> 0:09:40.080 classical and to me literary biography. He has a passed. 0:09:40.400 --> 0:09:42.679 He's a man of the twentieth century. He lost his 0:09:42.679 --> 0:09:46.240 family in World War Two. He was swept up in 0:09:46.559 --> 0:09:51.440 what for many people was significant historical passage through May 0:09:51.480 --> 0:09:55.640 of nineteen sixty eight, and then decides eventually that no 0:09:55.800 --> 0:10:02.640 revolution is coming, And in recognizing the devastation of that 0:10:03.240 --> 0:10:06.000 which isn't for him a kind of nihilism but an 0:10:06.080 --> 0:10:12.680 acknowledgment of reality, he decides, we can revolutionize consciousness instead. 0:10:12.800 --> 0:10:19.840 There's a way of renovating being rather than waiting like 0:10:20.000 --> 0:10:23.920 people sort of desperately waiting for a messianic change that 0:10:24.120 --> 0:10:27.280 is not coming. The more I worked on it, the 0:10:27.400 --> 0:10:32.240 longer I spent each day writing, the more hours I 0:10:32.400 --> 0:10:36.160 was there, the more vivid the world I was creating 0:10:36.240 --> 0:10:39.360 became to the point where I could really see it 0:10:39.440 --> 0:10:41.960 and feel it, and I was eager to get there 0:10:42.160 --> 0:10:44.880 every day. And it was like I was building this 0:10:44.960 --> 0:10:50.200 parallel universe that really glowed for me. And I love 0:10:50.320 --> 0:10:54.520 my life. I love this world. But during the kind 0:10:54.559 --> 0:10:57.320 of intense fourteen months I was writing the book, I 0:10:57.360 --> 0:11:01.400 started to prefer it the world of the book for 0:11:01.440 --> 0:11:02.840 the duration that I was there. 0:11:03.160 --> 0:11:05.320 There's so much I want to unpack from your answer, 0:11:05.320 --> 0:11:09.680 but I just before I get to Bruno and Sadie 0:11:09.720 --> 0:11:16.439 in particular, why French youth as a group of idealistic 0:11:17.000 --> 0:11:20.280 young people. Was it the nineteen sixty eight shadows that 0:11:20.400 --> 0:11:24.000 made it being in the French countries side particularly important? 0:11:24.000 --> 0:11:26.880 What is it about that place that makes that youthful 0:11:26.920 --> 0:11:29.160 idealism and radicalism different. 0:11:29.480 --> 0:11:35.960 Yeah, it's a great question, and my answer is it's 0:11:36.040 --> 0:11:41.280 not that I was looking to describe a group of 0:11:41.320 --> 0:11:47.160 young people with ideals and then assigned them the nationality French. Rather, 0:11:47.480 --> 0:11:50.719 it's constructed differently from me, which is that I was 0:11:50.800 --> 0:11:54.280 looking at the French milieu. That's where I started. So 0:11:54.320 --> 0:11:59.200 it can't be generalized to say the United States, or 0:11:59.760 --> 0:12:03.560 it'll both countries I'm familiar with than have written about. 0:12:04.240 --> 0:12:08.640 I am familiar with French politics. I'm interested in French 0:12:08.679 --> 0:12:14.480 culture partly through exposure because I'm married to somebody who 0:12:14.559 --> 0:12:20.079 has written pretty extensively about Guidebor, particularly as films. My husband, Jason, 0:12:20.520 --> 0:12:25.160 is also a translator and translated to books by the 0:12:25.200 --> 0:12:29.600 Invisible Committee, who had a commune in the northern Correz 0:12:30.080 --> 0:12:32.560 in the village of Tarnak, and they were rated by 0:12:32.559 --> 0:12:35.959 the French police in two thousand and eight, and you know, 0:12:36.000 --> 0:12:40.560 we watched that happen and the police used against them 0:12:40.679 --> 0:12:44.160 as evidence a book, and that book, The Coming Insurrection, 0:12:44.880 --> 0:12:48.720 was translated by a group of people anonymously, but you know, 0:12:48.880 --> 0:12:52.439 I know some of the principal people who were involved 0:12:52.720 --> 0:12:57.880 in establishing the tone of the writing, and I'm really 0:12:57.880 --> 0:13:00.160 interested in that writing. I think The Coming Insurrection is 0:13:00.200 --> 0:13:04.120 a kind of brilliant book. I couldn't reproduce a fictional 0:13:04.200 --> 0:13:07.000 version of that book I think it would be flat 0:13:07.040 --> 0:13:09.400 if I did a version of it. But in my 0:13:09.559 --> 0:13:13.599 novel there's reference Le Moulin the commune, you know, it 0:13:13.720 --> 0:13:17.360 just means the mill, very simple. The Muleinards have a 0:13:17.360 --> 0:13:20.840 book called Zones of Incivility, and it's kind of my 0:13:21.160 --> 0:13:25.360 version of the Coming Insurrection. I did a few lines, 0:13:26.200 --> 0:13:31.000 but I was interested in that world and the way that, 0:13:31.559 --> 0:13:33.920 as you say, you know, you site May sixty eight, 0:13:34.679 --> 0:13:39.320 a lot of culture fans out from there, and like, 0:13:39.400 --> 0:13:42.480 I'm really interested in French cinema. I'm interested in French literature. 0:13:42.880 --> 0:13:46.400 I don't know, it's like it's a colorful milieu to me, 0:13:46.679 --> 0:13:53.480 and it's enriches my love of the literature to understand 0:13:53.600 --> 0:13:57.480 the political and social and cultural references that you would 0:13:57.480 --> 0:14:01.560 find in books by people like Marguerite Duross. And I 0:14:01.600 --> 0:14:04.200 know young people in France and I'm interested in the 0:14:04.200 --> 0:14:08.520 way that when they move to the countryside to learn 0:14:08.559 --> 0:14:14.160 how to farm, people from Paris, they're following upon or 0:14:14.760 --> 0:14:21.080 looking to learn from a version of knowledge and wisdom 0:14:21.720 --> 0:14:24.840 that is part of a kind of romantic conception of 0:14:24.880 --> 0:14:28.360 what people call LaFrance profond, you know, like the deep 0:14:28.520 --> 0:14:32.840 France is the peasant class and peasants have been the 0:14:33.040 --> 0:14:38.440 site of political resistance and revolt over hundreds of years, 0:14:38.880 --> 0:14:41.600 and the French resistance during World War Two, you know, 0:14:41.880 --> 0:14:45.560 was like famously organized in fierce in certain parts of 0:14:45.640 --> 0:14:49.040 southwestern France, where I set my novel. It's also the 0:14:49.080 --> 0:14:54.640 case that we go to southwestern France every summer, and 0:14:54.680 --> 0:14:57.880 so I'm familiar with the landscape and I love it 0:14:59.560 --> 0:15:04.400 in a way that frees me to describe it with 0:15:04.600 --> 0:15:11.080 that labor or research because my love of it and 0:15:11.160 --> 0:15:14.680 my understanding of the people there, my conversations with people, farmers, 0:15:15.240 --> 0:15:18.760 young people who've moved, maybe let's say, from Bordeaux to 0:15:18.840 --> 0:15:24.640 a village and gotten a business going processing walnuts, and 0:15:24.680 --> 0:15:26.840 I meet them, and I'm taken on a tour of 0:15:26.880 --> 0:15:29.640 the walnut processing facility, and they're like, these are these 0:15:29.880 --> 0:15:31.840 turn of the century machines. We've figured out how to 0:15:31.880 --> 0:15:36.000 repair them. Those are all things that are just casual 0:15:36.160 --> 0:15:39.440 happenstance in my personal life, and they start to accrue 0:15:39.520 --> 0:15:43.080 in a way that allows me to write with a 0:15:43.200 --> 0:15:47.520 measure of I wouldn't say authority, but maybe but with 0:15:47.600 --> 0:15:51.600 a free hand. I'm not looking at notes. I'm just 0:15:51.720 --> 0:15:55.920 putting into an assemblage things that I care about and 0:15:55.960 --> 0:15:59.840 that stay vivid for me because I've witnessed them firsthand. 0:16:04.120 --> 0:16:07.800 When we return, Rachel explains why all the characters in 0:16:07.880 --> 0:16:11.600 Creation Lake are in fact her. That's coming up in 0:16:11.720 --> 0:16:28.400 just a minute. I can't help but wonder how much 0:16:28.720 --> 0:16:34.120 your pleasure and fun that you had occupying this world, 0:16:34.200 --> 0:16:36.920 your desire to return to it, how much of it's 0:16:36.920 --> 0:16:39.280 about the milieu, and how much of it's about the voices? 0:16:39.400 --> 0:16:43.280 As you say, there's an amorality to Sadie. She's something 0:16:43.280 --> 0:16:47.240 of a devil that must be a fun voice to inhabit. 0:16:47.760 --> 0:16:50.200 It was for me, I mean, you know, And I 0:16:50.240 --> 0:16:53.120 think whether somebody likes the book might come down to 0:16:53.160 --> 0:16:58.880 whether they can tolerate her or not. She's not for everybody, 0:16:59.200 --> 0:17:03.440 but no novel is. And if you set out to 0:17:03.520 --> 0:17:07.560 please everyone, you know, God forbid. I think of these 0:17:07.640 --> 0:17:10.800 artists Comar and Melamed, who came up with this project 0:17:10.880 --> 0:17:14.520 for making like world's most popular painting, And they went 0:17:14.560 --> 0:17:17.720 around asking people, like what components do you like in 0:17:17.760 --> 0:17:19.760 a painting? And oh, well, I like if there's a 0:17:19.800 --> 0:17:21.919 cabin and it should be near a body of water, 0:17:22.480 --> 0:17:24.679 and I like some trees in the painting, and so 0:17:24.760 --> 0:17:28.560 then they come up with this pastiche painting that's not 0:17:28.640 --> 0:17:31.040 a pestition in terms of form, but a pestiche in 0:17:31.119 --> 0:17:34.639 terms of a set of the desires of the multitude 0:17:34.640 --> 0:17:37.639 over what a painting should be. I mean, that's maybe 0:17:37.680 --> 0:17:42.320 like a wordy way for me to say a novel 0:17:42.680 --> 0:17:50.000 has to sustain the dream of the writer and cannot 0:17:50.080 --> 0:17:56.280 really stop to pause to insecurely ask, but what will 0:17:56.320 --> 0:18:00.119 other people think of my dream? You cannot audition for 0:18:00.160 --> 0:18:03.960 your own dream. Instead, you have to be present for it. 0:18:04.680 --> 0:18:09.760 I knew that a character like Sadie who has arrived 0:18:10.320 --> 0:18:13.439 with the intention of doing whatever she needs to to 0:18:13.520 --> 0:18:16.920 produce evidence that these people are saboteurs and she doesn't 0:18:16.960 --> 0:18:19.600 care if they really are or not, and she has 0:18:19.840 --> 0:18:24.639 experience as an agent provocateur and has arrived with the 0:18:24.640 --> 0:18:28.800 intention of being an agent of destruction. So I knew 0:18:28.840 --> 0:18:31.919 that there was the possibility for a woman like that 0:18:32.200 --> 0:18:36.360 based on some incidences in real life that had happened, 0:18:36.520 --> 0:18:40.520 namely one in the United States when a female FBI 0:18:40.680 --> 0:18:48.640 agent had infiltrated a group of green anarchists in California, 0:18:48.800 --> 0:18:51.159 and she was getting a lot of pressure from her 0:18:51.200 --> 0:18:54.240 supervisor to produce evidence that they were planning sabotage, and 0:18:54.280 --> 0:18:57.080 they weren't. And there was one member of the group 0:18:57.080 --> 0:19:00.919 who was quite sweet on her, and she sorted, I 0:19:00.960 --> 0:19:03.119 will give him hope that there's going to be a 0:19:03.160 --> 0:19:06.639 courtship between us, and you know, as part of the 0:19:06.680 --> 0:19:10.159 process of our courtship, he'll just have to acknowledge that 0:19:10.200 --> 0:19:12.760 I want him very badly to build a bomb or 0:19:12.800 --> 0:19:15.440 to plan to build a bomb with me. And that's 0:19:15.440 --> 0:19:18.439 what happened, and he got twenty one years in federal prison, 0:19:18.680 --> 0:19:20.879 served nine of those years, and then his lawyer was 0:19:20.920 --> 0:19:24.320 able to prove that this woman had entrapped him. And 0:19:24.400 --> 0:19:26.840 I knew people who knew this poor guy. And my 0:19:27.000 --> 0:19:31.640 question was what kind of person would do that? Which 0:19:31.680 --> 0:19:35.320 isn't to pose it rhetorically where you know the answer, 0:19:35.440 --> 0:19:39.680 you know, a bad person, and rather to ask with curiosity, 0:19:40.200 --> 0:19:44.520 what is the mindset and what's it like to only 0:19:44.600 --> 0:19:48.720 have aliases, to go from job to job to job, 0:19:48.840 --> 0:19:53.520 and to be fundamentally alone. And then there was a 0:19:54.480 --> 0:19:58.159 British agent who was caught infiltrating a whole bunch of 0:19:58.160 --> 0:20:01.679 different groups and then was having affairs with women in 0:20:01.760 --> 0:20:05.359 these groups. In France, Germany and the UK, and a 0:20:05.400 --> 0:20:08.520 bunch of them sued the UK police, and I was 0:20:08.720 --> 0:20:12.080 following the story partly because he had infiltrated these French 0:20:12.119 --> 0:20:15.879 people and I knew about it through them. So Sadie 0:20:15.960 --> 0:20:18.040 refers to him as a kind of object lesson. In 0:20:18.040 --> 0:20:21.159 real life, his name is Mark Kennedy. So in the 0:20:21.200 --> 0:20:23.679 books she says, well, well, this guy makes mistakes and 0:20:23.840 --> 0:20:28.000 I don't make mistakes. But then after a while, you know, 0:20:28.160 --> 0:20:31.280 she decides to have an affair with the kind of 0:20:31.280 --> 0:20:34.960 resident hawk guy and the commune. So maybe part of 0:20:35.000 --> 0:20:42.360 the fun was not just riding through the highs of 0:20:42.440 --> 0:20:49.400 her overconfidence and more managing it and allowing and establishing 0:20:49.440 --> 0:20:55.440 and maintaining a secret link between the author and the reader, 0:20:55.640 --> 0:20:57.760 even if that reader is me and not a group 0:20:57.800 --> 0:21:01.000 of people I'm imagining, but to let that reader know 0:21:01.720 --> 0:21:07.639 that maybe Sadie has miscalculated in terms of who's on 0:21:07.800 --> 0:21:12.800 to her and who isn't. And she was always counterbalanced 0:21:12.960 --> 0:21:17.720 for me by the voice of Bruno, so they were 0:21:17.720 --> 0:21:20.800 different pleasures. But she know she was the one who 0:21:20.880 --> 0:21:25.600 had the more caustic and juvenile sense of humor, which 0:21:25.800 --> 0:21:30.880 probably comes from me. Ultimately, but all the characters come 0:21:30.920 --> 0:21:33.879 from me. That's the weird thing about novels. One is 0:21:33.920 --> 0:21:37.000 not more the author than the other, even as sometimes 0:21:37.040 --> 0:21:38.879 you read a review of a novel and it's like 0:21:39.440 --> 0:21:41.879 the reviewer has decided that one is a proxy for 0:21:41.920 --> 0:21:44.760 the novelist, and it's never the case, because they all are. 0:21:45.320 --> 0:21:48.199 And not just they Oleah. But the conflict between them all, 0:21:48.240 --> 0:21:52.680 the tension between the different worldviews, that's actually the sweet 0:21:52.680 --> 0:21:55.240 spot where the author lives. Like it's reasonable to assume 0:21:55.359 --> 0:22:00.800 that the divide between idealism and pragmatism that plays out 0:22:00.840 --> 0:22:03.800 the different relationship to an idea of how we are 0:22:03.880 --> 0:22:08.400 in the world. Those questions I'm assuming best embody where 0:22:08.440 --> 0:22:11.919 your brain's at, rather than either side of the divide. 0:22:12.119 --> 0:22:14.879 Yeah, maybe, I mean, I see what you're saying. I 0:22:14.920 --> 0:22:21.560 think it's complicated to testify to the psychic structure of 0:22:22.119 --> 0:22:27.359 the imaginative mind in terms of where their selfhood or 0:22:27.400 --> 0:22:31.479 their ego formation or their social identity lies in the 0:22:31.640 --> 0:22:35.800 synthesis of the thing that they've created. I will say 0:22:35.880 --> 0:22:39.479 that one thing I've realized in the wake of writing 0:22:39.520 --> 0:22:45.679 this book is there's something about Bruno's lament and his 0:22:45.880 --> 0:22:49.080 question I'm sorry to quote myself, but early on he says, 0:22:49.160 --> 0:22:54.239 at least in Sadie's transposition, about the human project and 0:22:54.320 --> 0:22:58.520 its future, and I feel that my own character, if 0:22:58.520 --> 0:23:02.840 I may say so, takes the human project really seriously 0:23:03.280 --> 0:23:07.080 and believes in such a thing as grace, and believes 0:23:07.119 --> 0:23:12.200 in the idea that there is incredible meaning for us, 0:23:12.640 --> 0:23:16.080 and that maybe if we have squandered some of that 0:23:16.200 --> 0:23:20.040 meaning or taken a wrong turn somewhere, that the human 0:23:20.080 --> 0:23:24.280 project itself is worth saving. So I mean, who would 0:23:24.280 --> 0:23:29.040 disagree with that? Perhaps? But still, nonetheless there's something about 0:23:29.080 --> 0:23:32.840 having a character feel it and commit himself to it 0:23:33.240 --> 0:23:36.679 as his life project. So when he says early on 0:23:36.760 --> 0:23:40.359 in the book, currently we are careening off of the 0:23:40.440 --> 0:23:44.400 cliff in a driverless car, and the question is how 0:23:44.440 --> 0:23:49.080 do we exit this car? I think Bruno asks a 0:23:49.080 --> 0:23:54.680 fair question. And the sort of myths or half myths 0:23:54.840 --> 0:23:58.439 that he produces about the past as a manner of 0:23:58.480 --> 0:24:01.159 speculating about the future, like where did we take our 0:24:01.240 --> 0:24:07.240 wrong turn? What are we comprised of? Did prior cultures 0:24:07.280 --> 0:24:10.480 of people in prehistoric times live in a different or 0:24:10.520 --> 0:24:13.479 better way? Are there any messages hidden for us that 0:24:13.520 --> 0:24:18.320 we don't know? How to uncover, etc. I think that 0:24:18.440 --> 0:24:21.960 I've found the process of creating a character who would 0:24:21.960 --> 0:24:27.600 ask these questions and speculate into responses, if not answers. 0:24:28.080 --> 0:24:32.960 I think I found that quite healing. So I think 0:24:33.000 --> 0:24:37.320 that Bruno's questions and his lament could be mine as well. 0:24:37.359 --> 0:24:40.960 I was going to say they are stealthily compelling, even 0:24:41.440 --> 0:24:46.159 through Sadie's lens and her kind of initial skepticism and 0:24:46.200 --> 0:24:49.520 growing obsession. It's hard not to be swept up in it. 0:24:50.680 --> 0:24:53.959 What draws you to radical politics in your novels? I mean, 0:24:53.960 --> 0:24:58.680 it's funny how different the underlying energy of it in 0:24:59.200 --> 0:25:02.960 Creation like and the French context is to the Italian 0:25:03.000 --> 0:25:07.800 context in Flame Throws is to the experience in you know, 0:25:07.880 --> 0:25:11.919 a correctional facility in California, in the mass room. And 0:25:12.000 --> 0:25:16.360 yet each of these are about communities built around ideas 0:25:16.400 --> 0:25:20.199 about how the system is Accounently. This might be inadequate 0:25:20.280 --> 0:25:21.199 for our purposes. 0:25:21.760 --> 0:25:25.480 Yeah, maybe, because it feels that way to me. But 0:25:26.200 --> 0:25:29.359 you know, novels are not for me what I would 0:25:29.400 --> 0:25:32.880 think of as a political project. You know, to make 0:25:33.040 --> 0:25:40.080 art is it is different than making an analysis. Making 0:25:40.119 --> 0:25:43.919 something analytical. I mean, I think Sadie borrows this from me. 0:25:44.000 --> 0:25:47.760 In the book, she says that or Bruneo says that 0:25:47.920 --> 0:25:52.520 to make art is to render the unseen scene, to 0:25:52.640 --> 0:25:57.600 take something that exists in this world but has not 0:25:58.080 --> 0:26:02.920 attained a form that we can apprehend. And to me, 0:26:03.400 --> 0:26:05.720 that's the best I can do in terms of the 0:26:05.760 --> 0:26:10.160 definition of art. The novel feels like a real calling 0:26:10.240 --> 0:26:13.919 and which to do that. So I respond to the 0:26:13.960 --> 0:26:18.840 reality around me and build a parallel universe that seems 0:26:18.880 --> 0:26:22.879 to put into a synthetic whole. Things that go into 0:26:22.920 --> 0:26:27.119 me and stay there because they seem important, whether to 0:26:27.160 --> 0:26:30.200 the world or to me. It almost doesn't matter which, 0:26:30.760 --> 0:26:33.000 but they have something to do with life as I 0:26:33.160 --> 0:26:36.720