I’ve come up with a fun game. I call it “Intervyou.” Here’s what you do: pick a person in your field of profession whom you respect, find an interview he or she has taken part in, and, without reading his/her responses, answer the questions yourself. It’s quite fun, and lends a lot to finding out how your worldview measures up to that of someone you respect yet probably will never meet.
I picked up an interview Norman Mailer gave to his friend Lyle Stuart at The Independent titled ‘Sixty-Nine Questions.’ I’ve deleted most of the questions that were clearly geared towards Mailer (things about The Deer Park which, had I read it, I would have tried to answer), so it’s probably somewhere closer to 62 questions.
This was fascinating to reread after going through the Mailer interview. Turns out that, whereas I'm correct 100% of the time, Mailer hovers somewhere around 74%.
Here are my responses. If it seems as if, at times, I’m taking myself too seriously, it’s because I am:
Q. What is the literary situation in America now?
A. My generation is unique in that it is the first to be characterized by constant stimulation. We have short attention spans, so the ability to sit back, silent and pensive, and approach something like a book is a rarity in my age group. With that in mind, the literary situation is worse than it was, say, 20 years ago. But the novel will never die. In the coming years people who read novels will just be viewed a notch above that bizarre ilk that still reads poetry.
Q. Why?
A. Indeed.
Q. If you were giving advice to a young writer on the brink of fame, what would you say?
A: Out of my way.
Q. Why do you write?
A. To put some order to the chaos around me.
Q. Do you believe anyone listens to writers?
A. Those who are sincerely looking for answers do. But they’ll give anyone five minutes.
Q. Philip Rodman once remarked that if a writer were very successful, he might reach six people who really understand what he is trying to say. Are you reaching your six?
A. At this point I’d be lucky to reach six people who could read.
Q. How do you feel about book reviewers in general? (Would you classify them as eunuchs or whores?)
A. I'm too green to have ever dealt with one of these. I'll say eunuchs, though. Good word, that.
Q. Why didn’t Rinehart publish 'The Deer Park?'
A: They were afraid.
Q. How do you feel about sex?
A. I’m a very rational guy, and I’ve always hated how irrational an attractive woman can make me. I once spent almost a year trying to phase sex out of my life in my pursuit to be as logical a person I could be. I’ve since given up.
Q. What is the function of a censor?
A. To protect an established power.
Q. Do you think the current censorship will make us a nation of mental eunuchs?
A. The internet age has made censorship all but impossible. What’s more pressing than censorship these days is unbridled misinformation knowingly being injected into the forum of ideas.
Q. If you could be any other living writer but (Kempa), whom would you choose to be?
A. Whoever wrote this question does not understand what it is to be a writer. What do you want me to say: Dave fucking Eggers?
Q. Do you write to eat or eat to write?
A. Neither.
Q. Do you write better before or after sexual activity, or during the periods you deny yourself such activity?
A. I write best during times of pressing stress, and about two whiskeys into the night. So, before.
Q. If you were forced to do something other than writing to earn your living, what would you choose?
A. I’d probably live the bohemian lifestyle somewhere on society’s fringe, working some unimpressive, unrestricting job that would allow me to enjoy things like coffee and tree-climbing in my free time.
Q. Whom do you hate?
A. People who do not realize the importance of understanding the human condition. People who will wait hours in line to buy the new iPhone. People who are not proactively empathetic.
Q. Do you believe socialism or nationalism will ever come to America?
A. We took to socialism in the worst form when our government took the banks’ private debt and made it public. I’ve always thought that the capitalist/entrepreneurial nature of the States removed socialism from any prominent position in our political dialogue. But you never know -- corporations and conglomerates have all but removed any hope for the entrepreneur. H.S.T. would say that things are getting ‘Weird’ in these modern times, and anything could happen. As far as nationalism goes, I don’t think I understand the term in this context. In terms of unquestioning love for your country, I don’t think ‘nationalism,’ in this sense, was ever not in existence at alarming levels in the U.S.
Q. If you could send a ten-word message to every man and woman in America, what would you say?
A. ‘Please don’t understand anybody too quickly.’ - Norman Mailer (quoting Gide)
Q. What is your opinion of the current crop of artistic aspirants in Greenwich Village?
A. Is there a current crop there these days? I’m out of the loop. Well, whether this group is extant or not, whenever artistic minds congregate and partake in an orgy of ideas, no one comes out the worse.
Q. Do you believe that there are good writers unable to find publication in America today?
A. Every trade in the States today is a bottom-line industry. For a good writer to be published, he or she must be, above all else, ‘marketable,’ and this is rarely the case.
Q. Will television put an end to novel reading?
A. Imagine Holden Caulfield in the time of the internet.
Q. Is there a future for the hard-bound novel?
A. As a novelty.
Q. Do you have political ambitions?
A. Only as part of the evil, liberal media.
Q. What does religion mean to you?
A. Religion is dangerous. Faith is just silly.
Q. What social problem seems most important to you?
A. In the world: equality via quality universal education.
In the U.S.: gay rights. I was at a wedding reception a while back when my gay friend came and sat down by me. We talked and joked for a while until the conversation turned to that particular wedding we were attending. He said something to me about what he’d do differently at his wedding, but cut his sentence off at ‘… at my wedd-’ We both sat there, silent for a moment, reflecting on the fact that it is, literally, illegal for him to marry. This was one of the most poignant moments of my life, and has become a shaping experience for how I view the implications of laws banning gay marriage.
Q. Do you believe in life after death?
A. I know that there is matter, and that there is energy. And that neither can be created nor destroyed.
Q. If Jesus Christ were alive today, do you think they would permit him to enter the church?
A. If he took off his hat.
Q. Who is your favorite writer?
A. Kevin Dymes
Q. Are you a Freudian?
A. Absolutely not.
Q. Are blacklists necessary?
A. For whom?
Q. Why?
A. What?
Q. Have you ever been blacklisted?
A. Credit ratings and police records are the new blacklists. And I sure as hell have been judged as a result of both.
Q. Are people afraid of you because they can’t understand you or because they do understand you?
A. I think ‘to understand someone’ is a nebulous, overarching concept that borders on cliché and undermines the fact that we are all, essentially, alone.
Q. Do you think communism will ever again become an American fad?
A. Most Americans couldn’t even define communism if you asked them. So, no. It’s funny, but over 50 years after the Red Scare, we’re still feeling the aftershocks of McCarthyism. It won’t come to be a fad again because we are unable to view it as a political concept rather than a synonym for ‘evil.’
Q. What quality do you most prefer in a woman?
A. A knockout set of brains.
Q. G. Legman once remarked that a man is either a sheep or a goat. Which are you?
A. I am the Chupacabra.
Q. Is rebellion healthy?
A. It’s an addiction like any other.
Q. Do you find the greatest pleasure in desire or in fulfillment?
A. I’m 24 years old, so the latter.
Q. Ben Hecht and a number of other onetime literary lights have seen the candle of conformity and swallowed it. Do you feel that age will mold you into a high-priced please-the-public author?
A. The audience I am trying to reach will not appreciate pandering to the lowest common denominator.
Q. Do you have any advice for your enemies?
A. Hide your daughters.
Q. How do you feel about money?
A. I am not one to pursue it too actively, but I’ll concede that you need a fair amount to see the world.
Q. About clothes?
A. I see you're wearing Crocs.
Q. How do you feel about Ernest Hemingway?
A. He once drank eight daiquiris at his favorite Havana bar, La Floridita.
Q. What is happening to the union movement?
A. It’s mostly run by thugs who do not understand the importance it held at its inception.
Q. Do you think Hitler still lives?
A. In many horrifying forms.
Q. Can man ever conquer loneliness?
A. No. That’s not to say, however, that he should stop trying.
Q. What can a man believe in?
A. A man can believe in anything. That’s the problem.
Q. What is your major ambition?
A. To prove you wrong about my generation.
Q. Do you think psychiatry will solve the problems that beset us?
A. God, no.
Q. Who will analyze the psychiatrists?
A. Who cares?
Q. Do you believe man will survive the H-bomb?
A. I think it comes down to if man is a species of community or of competition. If he is the former, then man has a chance. If the latter, then no.
Q. What papers do you read? What magazines?
A. Arizona Republic, NY Times, CNN.com, politico.com, BBC online, Aljazeera.net, Viceland.com, PBS.org
Q. If you were to be exiled to a desert island and could only take five books with you, what would they be?
A. No.
Q. If you could leave a message to a young man who will be your age one hundred years from today, what would you say?
A. Wrap it up.
Q. Are you happy?
A. I doubt I ever will be, in the most encompassing sense of the word. In the meantime, I can only hope to surround myself with fascinating minds, good whiskey, and attractive women.
Q. How do you feel about Marilyn Monroe?
A. Classy broad.
Q. Are you at work on a new novel?
A. You’d think so, but you’d be wrong.
Q. What is the role of the artist in our society?
A. He has no role in our society. That is why he has chosen to be an artist.
