By Harold
If you’ve ever heard a critic or professor draw a conclusion that seemed like a real stretch, you would have liked what Jonathan Safran Foer had to say at Duke on Monday night. He recounted the story of a book critic at the 92nd Street Y who said that Foer was a genius for the way that his first novel, Everything is Illuminated, subtly referenced the Merchant of Venice. Except that Foer never read Merchant of Venice.
“People tell me things are in my book that I didn’t put in the book,” Foer said. But he said that was an invigorating part of being an author, and whenever someone asks him to settle a debate from their book club, Foer won’t do it, since the debate is the best part.
Foer also said “the rhyme is smarter than the poet,” meaning that some of his best ideas happened by accident. At the end of the second book (and I’m being purposely vague so I don’t give away the ending), the 9-year-old main character reverses the order of a certain event. This is because when Foer printed out the original manuscript, the printer printed the last page first, then the second-to-last page, etc., which gave him the idea.
Foer had a lot of other interesting things to say — the 9-year-old started out on the peripheral character until Foer decided to make him the focus (in fact, the “about the author” book flap in Everything is Illuminated states that Foer is “at work on his second book, which takes place in a museum.” By the time Foer was done, that had changed completely). He also reiterated what Lewis Black had said about writing, which is it’s incredibly lonely to have no water-cooler banter, no boss offering guidance, and no one to blame if things don’t work out.
Foer finished by describing his first non-fiction book, Eating Animals. He noted that smart, sophisticated people can all agree that animals are mistreated on factory farms, and that eating animals is horrible for the environment — and yet people still eat meat every day. Also it’s easy to visit the vineyards or bakeries to see where your food comes from, except it’s impossible to visit a factory farm. Ironically I was eating a chicken taco from Armadillo Grill at the time, and unfortunately for Foer I’m not ready to change my eating habits yet. But as a consolation prize, for coming to Duke and answering questions for 90 minutes, I will give Foer a coveted plug on The Daily Triangle.
Laura
Harold
