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Daniel Mendelsohn 2019 in Edinburgh
Photo:
Simone Padovani / Awakening / Getty Images
The book fair is a place of discourse.
This year we have to let it take place virtually.
Instead of a conversation at the trade fair stand, intellectuals and writers have agreed to provide information in a SPIEGEL questionnaire.
The first was the author Annie Ernaux, then the political scientist Herfried Münkler, Philippe Lançon, survivor of the terrorist attack on "Charlie Hebdo" and the writer Jagoda Marinić answered.
Now follows the American critic and essayist Daniel Mendelsohn.
To person
Whether he takes us on a cruise through the Mediterranean in the footsteps of Odysseus or searches for the traces of his family murdered during the Shoah in "The Lost" - the author, born in 1960, combines classic literacy and haunting storytelling.
Daniel Mendelsohn
writes for numerous publications, including the "New Yorker" and the "New York Review of Books", teaches literature at Bard College and lives in New York.
What is your current state of mind?
Terribly scared - this is an upgrade of my condition compared to the first few years of the Trump presidency, when I was depressed scared.
Aside from the years leading up to the US Civil War, we have rarely been in such a dangerous situation as we are today.
It seems to me that regardless of the outcome of the upcoming elections - which are themselves a source of excruciating fear - we will continue to be caught up in a kind of civil war that may not end without devastating changes in the structure of our community.
And of course the global situation between climate change, Covid-19, the rise of neo-fascism and the destabilization of the world order found after World War II is also very worrying.
So at the moment there is really little reason to be optimistic, I would say.
I spend a lot of time reading Saint-Simon.
Corona, climate change, social inequality, digitization - where do you see the greatest threat to a humane society?
I don't like to rank such phenomena in a ranking, especially if I am not very familiar with them - this is too similar to the reviews on Amazon.
I would say that one of my greatest worries right now is the failure of universities to protect the free exchange of ideas.
Although I am extremely liberal in my political views, I see with concern how universities give in to student sensitivities and serve students rather than educate them.
The twenties of the last century were sometimes called the golden, then the roaring twenties. What adjective can you think of for our decade?
"Failed."
Every book fair has a theme, what do you think will be the central theme this autumn?
Oh, how about "literature"?
Lately the literary intelligentsia has been taken over by politics - for good reason of course.
But I am concerned about the extent to which political considerations dominate the discussion about literature: a work that is recognized and recognized is increasingly overtly political.
I recently looked at the longlist of a major literary award, and virtually every non-fiction book was about politics or political history.
Really?
I was so happy that Louise Glück won the Nobel Prize: someone whose work reminds us that a large part of the work literature does is to grapple with the deepest feelings of Homo sapiens, beyond or outside the political context .
Liberté, égalité, fraternité - which of the three terms of the French Revolution needs a revival?
Can I add "civilité"?
What problem are you thinking about right now?
In general?
How do I start my new book.
Specific?
How do I translate the word
polytropos
, which is the first adjective in "Odyssey", into English.
(I'm doing a new English translation).
What was the last book that occupied you?
Since the summer I've been reading Thomas Mann again - completely.
At the moment I'm halfway through with "Doctor Faustus", but the book that occupied me is actually "The Magic Mountain".
I read it when I was in my early twenties and I didn't particularly like it;
then I read it again in July.
I can't get over how immensely great it is;
I think about it every day.
I am now starting to delve into the secondary and scientific literature about it just to please myself.
I have a feeling this is going to be a very long and happy relationship.
Is the pandemic conveying any message?
The pandemic (like the climate crisis) conveys the message of practically all Greek tragedies (I'm a classical philologist specializing in Euripides, so I'm biased): that is, there are no actions without consequences.
You can try to pretend your actions (or your blindness or cruelty or stupidity) have no consequences, you can try to brush the consequences under the rug, but they will come back to you again and again in the end, too to destroy.
I like that very much.
Is there a belief that you have remained true to since your youth?
Always bond with the old, from whom you can learn so much, and always maintain relationships with the young: that way you will never be lonely.
Series replace novels, podcasts replace newspapers - would you agree?
As someone who watches television a lot (and writes on television), I suspect such a fear.
On the one hand, I don't see it as a zero-sum game; on the other hand, even a superficial knowledge of the story of the novel would lead to the relationship between the novel and television being seen as an identification rather than an opposition.
The 19th century novel often appeared in sequels - the novel invented the series.
So I see the abundance of brilliant television series lately as a continuation of the novel rather than an enemy.
What should the media report more about?
About books by middle-aged gay philologists.
How has Corona affected your everyday life?
Well, I'm a writer, so I live and work pretty lonely anyway;
but obviously the compulsory self-isolation of the past seven months has a different quality.
I found it really interesting that, for once, more or less everyone I know suddenly lives like me: work from home, have to learn to discipline themselves and so on.
It's not an easy year. Was there a particularly beautiful, private moment and would you describe it?
I live in a very rural area;
my house is about 100 meters from the Hudson River.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, I've taken long walks with two of my neighbors every night, down to the river, then along the river, and then in a circle back to our homes.
The river is different every day: gray, silver, golden, red-brown;
restless, smooth, as if feathered, with a white cap.
He is a source of infinite beauty and comfort for me and my friends.
Do you know a favorite line or a spell that will help you get through these times?
"Il faut cultiver notre jardin."
- We have to cultivate our garden, the last sentence in Voltaire's "Candide"
What gives you courage
I have just published a book which, among other things, is about writers in exile and how exile or the fact that someone lives as a stranger in a foreign country affects their artistic work: Erich Auerbach, François Fénelon, WG Sebald, but also whole hordes of scholars and writers who had to flee to save their lives and start over in a strange new world - think of the Byzantine scholars who fled to Europe after the fall of Constantinople and the Greek Bringing literature back to Western Europe for the first time in a millennium.
The thought of these writers facing challenges and even horrors far greater than any I will ever experience gives me a sense of courage.
Compared to them, I really have nothing to complain about.
From the American by Nils Minkmar
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