Here and Now: Letters (2008-2011) Read online

  ALSO BY PAUL AUSTER

  The Invention of Solitude

  The New York Trilogy

  In the Country of Last Things

  Moon Palace

  The Music of Chance

  Leviathan

  Mr. Vertigo

  Smoke & Blue in the Face

  Hand to Mouth

  Lulu on the Bridge

  Timbuktu

  The Book of Illusions

  Collected Poems

  The Red Notebook

  Oracle Night

  Collected Prose

  The Brooklyn Follies

  Travels in the Scriptorium

  The Inner Life of Martin Frost

  Man in the Dark

  Invisible

  Sunset Park

  Winter Journal

  ALSO BY J. M. COETZEE

  Dusklands

  In the Heart of the Country

  Waiting for the Barbarians

  Life & Times of Michael K

  Foe

  White Writing

  Age of Iron

  Doubling the Point: Essays and Interviews

  The Master of Petersburg

  Giving Offense

  Boyhood: Scenes from Provincial Life

  The Lives of Animals

  Disgrace

  Stranger Shores: Essays 1986–1999

  Youth

  Elizabeth Costello

  Slow Man

  Inner Workings

  Diary of a Bad Year

  Summertime

  VIKING

  Published by the Penguin Group

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  First published in 2013 by Viking Penguin,

  a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  Copyright © Paul Auster, 2013.

  Copyright © J. M. Coetzee, 2013.

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  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Auster, Paul, 1947–

  Here and now : letters (2008-2011) / Paul Auster and J. M. Coetzee.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 978-1-101-60627-8

  1. Auster, Paul, 1947—Correspondence. 2. Authors, American—20th century—Correspondence. 3. Coetzee, J. M., 1940—Correspondence. 4. Authors, South African—20th century—Correspondence. I. Coetzee, J. M., 1940– II. Title.

  PS3551.U77Z48 2013

  816'.54—dc23

  2012039755

  Contents

  Also by Paul Auster

  Also by J. M. Coetzee

  Title Page

  Copyright

  July 14–15, 2008

  Brooklyn, July 29, 2008

  September 12, 2008

  Brooklyn, September 22, 2008

  October 28, 2008

  December 6, 2008

  December 9, 2008

  December 14, 2008

  December 30, 2008

  December 30, 2008

  January 1, 2009

  January 5, 2009

  Hôtel d’Aubusson, Paris, January 10, 2009

  January 26, 2009

  Brooklyn, February 2, 2009

  March 15, 2009

  Brooklyn, March 16, 2009

  April 6, 2009

  April 8, 2009

  April 24, 2009

  April 25, 2009

  May 11, 2009

  May 11, 2009

  May 27, 2009

  July 6, 2009

  August 24, 2009

  August 29, 2009

  September 13, 2009

  September 26, 2009

  Brooklyn, September 29, 2009

  October 1, 2009

  October 9, 2009

  October 10, 2009

  October 14, 2009

  October 23, 2009

  November 2, 2009

  November 13, 2009

  November 22, 2009

  December 15, 2009

  December 18, 2009

  January 7, 2010

  January 12, 2010

  February 19, 2010

  February 23, 2010

  March 29, 2010

  April 7, 2010

  April 17, 2010

  April 20, 2010

  May 11, 2010

  July 4, 2010

  July 5, 2010

  July 19, 2010

  July 21, 2010

  July 29, 2010

  July 29, 2010

  August 18, 2010

  Nantucket, August 21, 2010

  September 4, 2010

  September 6, 2010

  October 21, 2010

  October 22, 2010

  November 11, 2010

  November 12, 2010

  November 29, 2010

  December 3, 2010

  January 19, 2011

  January 28, 2011

  March 3, 2011

  March 7, 2011

  March 8, 2011

  March 14, 2011

  March 28, 2011

  April 7, 2011

  April 22, 2011

  May 24, 2011

  May 5, 2011

  May 31, 2011

  June 14, 2011

  August 29, 2011

  Contents

  Also by Paul Auster

  Also by J. M. Coetzee

  Title Page

  Copyright

  July 14–15, 2008

  Brooklyn, July 29, 2008

  September 12, 2008

  Brooklyn, September 22, 2008

  October 28, 2008

  December 6, 2008

  December 9, 2008

  December 14, 2008

  December 30, 2008

  December 30, 2008

  January 1, 2009

  January 5, 2009

  Hôtel d’Aubusson, Paris, January 10, 2009

  January 26, 2009

  Brooklyn, February 2, 2009

  March 15, 2009

  Brooklyn, March 16, 2009

  April 6, 2009

  April 8, 2009

  April 24, 2009

  April 25, 2009

  May 11, 2009

  May 11, 2009

  May 27, 2009

  July 6, 2009

  August 24, 2009

  August 29, 2009

  September 13, 2009

  September 26, 2009

  Brooklyn, September 29, 2009

  October 1, 2009

  October 9, 2009

  October 10, 2009

  October 14, 2009

  October 23, 2009

  November 2, 2009

  November 13, 2009

  November 22, 2009

  December 15, 2009

  December 18, 2009

  January 7, 2010

  January 12, 2010

  February 19, 2010

  February 23, 2010

  March 29, 2010

  April 7, 2010

  April 17, 2010

  April 20, 2010

  May 11, 2010

  July 4, 2010

  July 5, 2010

&nbs
p; July 19, 2010

  July 21, 2010

  July 29, 2010

  July 29, 2010

  August 18, 2010

  Nantucket, August 21, 2010

  September 4, 2010

  September 6, 2010

  October 21, 2010

  October 22, 2010

  November 11, 2010

  November 12, 2010

  November 29, 2010

  December 3, 2010

  January 19, 2011

  January 28, 2011

  March 3, 2011

  March 7, 2011

  March 8, 2011

  March 14, 2011

  March 28, 2011

  April 7, 2011

  April 22, 2011

  May 24, 2011

  May 5, 2011

  May 31, 2011

  June 14, 2011

  August 29, 2011

  HERE AND NOW

  July 14–15, 2008

  Dear Paul,

  I have been thinking about friendships, how they arise, why they last—some of them—so long, longer than the passional attachments of which they are sometimes (wrongly) considered to be pale imitations. I was about to write a letter to you about all of this, starting with the observation that, considering how important friendships are in social life, and how much they mean to us, particularly during childhood, it is surprising how little has been written on the subject.

  But then I asked myself whether this was really true. So before I sat down to write I went off to the library to do a quick check. And, lo and behold, I could not have been more wrong. The library catalog listed whole books on the subject, scores of books, many of them quite recent. But when I took a step further and actually had a look at these books, I recovered my self-respect somewhat. I had been right, or half-right, after all: what the books had to say about friendship was of little interest, most of it. Friendship, it would seem, remains a bit of a riddle: we know it is important, but as to why people become friends and remain friends we can only guess.

  (What do I mean when I say that what is written is of little interest? Compare friendship with love. There are hundreds of interesting things to say about love. For instance: Men fall in love with women who remind them of their mothers, or rather, who both remind them and don’t remind them of their mothers, who are and are not their mothers at the same time. True? Maybe, maybe not. Interesting? Definitely. Now turn to friendship. Whom do men choose as friends? Other men of roughly the same age, with similar interests, say the books. True? Maybe. Interesting? Definitely not.)

  Let me list the few observations on friendship, culled from my visits to the library, that I found of actual interest.

  Item. One cannot be friends with an inanimate object, says Aristotle (Ethics, chapter 8). Of course not! Who ever said one could? But interesting nevertheless: all of a sudden one sees where modern linguistic philosophy got its inspiration. Two thousand four hundred years ago Aristotle was demonstrating that what looked like philosophical postulates could be no more than rules of grammar. In the sentence “I am friends with X,” he says, X has to be an animate noun.

  Item. One can have friends without wanting to see them, says Charles Lamb. True; and interesting too—another way in which amical feelings are unlike erotic attachments.

  Item. Friends, or at least male friends in the West, don’t talk about how they feel toward each other. Compare the garrulity of lovers. Thus far, not very interesting. Yet when the friend dies, what outpourings of grief: “Alas, too late!” (Montaigne on La Boétie, Milton on Edward King). (Question: Is love garrulous because desire is by nature ambivalent—Shakespeare, Sonnets—while friendship is taciturn because it is straightforward, without ambivalence?)

  Finally, a remark by Christopher Tietjens in Ford Madox Ford’s Parade’s End: that one goes to bed with a woman in order to be able to talk to her. Implication: that turning a woman into a mistress is only a first step; the second step, turning her into a friend, is the one that matters; but being friends with a woman you haven’t slept with is in practice impossible because there is too much unspoken in the air.

  If it is indeed so hard to say anything of interest about friendship, then a further insight becomes possible: that, unlike love or politics, which are never what they seem to be, friendship is what it seems to be. Friendship is transparent.

  The most interesting reflections on friendship come from the ancient world. Why so? Because in ancient times people did not regard the philosophical stance as an inherently skeptical one, therefore did not take it as given that friendship must be other than it seems to be, or conversely conclude that if friendship is what it seems to be, then it cannot be a fit subject for philosophy.

  All good wishes,

  John

  Brooklyn

  July 29, 2008

  Dear John,

  This is a question I have given much thought to over the years. I can’t say I have developed any coherent position about friendship, but in response to your letter (which unleashed a whirlwind of thoughts and memories in me), perhaps this is the moment to try.

  To begin with, I will confine myself to male friendship, friendship between men, friendship between boys.

  1) Yes, there are friendships that are transparent and unambivalent (to use your terms), but in my experience not many of them. This might have something to do with another one of the terms you use: taciturn. You are correct to say that male friends (at least in the West) tend not to “talk about how they feel toward each other.” I would take this one step further and add: men tend not to talk about how they feel, period. And if you don’t know how your friend feels, or what he feels, or why he feels, can you honestly say that you know your friend? And yet friendships endure, often for many decades, in this ambiguous zone of not-knowing.

  At least three of my novels deal directly with male friendship, are in a sense stories about male friendship—The Locked Room, Leviathan, and Oracle Night—and in each case, this no-man’s land of not-knowing that stands between friends becomes the stage on which the dramas are played out.

  An example from life. For the past twenty-five years, one of my closest friends—perhaps the closest male friend of my adulthood—is one of the least garrulous people I have ever known. He is older than I am (by eleven years), but there is much we have in common: both writers, both idiotically obsessed with sports, both with long marriages to remarkable women, and, most important and most difficult to define, a certain unarticulated but shared feeling about how one is supposed to live—an ethics of manhood. And yet, much as I care for this person, willing as I would be to rip the shirt off my back for him in time of trouble, our conversations are almost without exception bland and insipid, utterly banal. We communicate by emitting short grunts, reverting to a kind of shorthand language that would be incomprehensible to a stranger. As for our work (the driving force of both our lives), we rarely even mention it.

  To demonstrate how closely this man plays his cards to his vest, one small anecdote. A number of years ago, a new novel of his was about to appear in galleys. I told him how much I was looking forward to reading it (sometimes we send each other finished manuscripts, sometimes we wait for the galleys), and he said that I should be receiving a copy quite soon. The galleys arrived in the mail the following week, I opened the package, flipped through the book, and discovered that it was dedicated to me. I was touched, of course, deeply moved in fact—but the point is that my friend never said a word about it. Not the smallest hint, not the tiniest anticipatory wink, nothing.

  What am I trying to say? That I know this man and don’t know him. That he is my friend, my dearest friend, in spite of this not-knowing. If he went out and robbed a bank tomorrow, I would be shocked. On the other hand, if I learned that he was cheating on his wife, that he had a young mistress stashed away in an apartment somewhere, I would be disappointed, but I wouldn’t be shocked. Anything is possible, and men do keep secrets, even from their c
losest friends. In the event of my friend’s marital infidelity, I would feel disappointed (because he had let down his wife, someone I am very fond of), but I would also feel hurt (because he hadn’t confided in me, which would mean our friendship wasn’t as close as I thought it was).

  (A sudden brain wave. The best and most lasting friendships are based on admiration. This is the bedrock feeling that connects two people over the long term. You admire someone for what he does, for what he is, for how he negotiates his path through the world. Your admiration enhances him in your eyes, ennobles him, elevates him to a status you believe is above your own. And if that person admires you as well—and therefore enhances you, ennobles you, elevates you to a status he believes is above his own—then you are in a position of absolute equality. You are both giving more than you receive, both receiving more than you give, and in the reciprocity of this exchange, friendship blooms. From Joubert’s Notebooks (1809): “He must not only cultivate his friends, but cultivate his friendships within himself. They must be kept, cared for, watered.” And again Joubert: “We always lose the friendship of those who lose our esteem.”)

  2) Boys. Childhood is the most intense period of our lives because most of what we do then we are doing for the first time. I have little to offer here but a memory, but that memory seems to underscore the infinite value we place on friendship when we are young, even very young. I was five years old. Billy, my first friend, entered my life in ways that elude me now. I remember him as an odd and jovial character with strong opinions and a highly developed talent for mischief (something I lacked to an appalling degree). He had a severe speech impediment, and when he talked his words were so garbled, so clogged with the saliva buildup in his mouth, that no one could understand what he said—except little Paul, who acted as his interpreter. Much of our time together was spent roaming around our New Jersey suburban neighborhood looking for small dead animals—mostly birds, but an occasional frog or chipmunk—and burying the corpses in the flower bed along the side of my house. Solemn rituals, handmade wooden crosses, no laughing allowed. Billy detested girls, refusing to fill in the pages of our coloring books that showed representations of female figures, and because his favorite color was green, he was convinced that the blood running through his teddy bear’s veins was green. Ecce Billy. Then, when we were six and a half or seven, he and his family moved to another town. Heartbreak, followed by weeks if not months of longing for my absent friend. At last, my mother relented and gave me permission to make the expensive telephone call to Billy’s new house. The content of our conversation has been blotted from my mind, but I remember my feelings as vividly as I remember what I had for breakfast this morning. I felt what I would later feel as an adolescent when talking on the phone to the girl I had fallen in love with.