Described alternately as a wunderkind and a hack, Jonathan Safran Foer entered the literary world with his first novel, Everything is Illuminated, at the age of 25. The book garnered wild acclaim and equally fervent criticism. Four years and a second novel later, Foer talked to Street about his writing and the passionate responses it generates.
Street: How did you get into writing? Did you always write or did you get into it during college?
Jonathan Safran Foer: I guess in a certain sense I got to it a little late in that certain writers I know always wrote when they were kids. I wasn't even a really big reader until really the end of high school actually. Yeah, so in a sense I guess I took a back door to the profession.
Street: How did Everything is Illuminated come about?
JSF: It came about because of a couple of different things. One is a trip I actually made which resembled the trip in the book. Well, actually, the trip didn't resemble it, but the idea behind the trip. I mean I went on the trip looking for this woman who might or might not have saved my grandfather, but the trip that I had was entirely unlike the trip that the character had in the book. There was no Alex, no Augustine, the woman, none of that. But I wasn't doing research for a book, I was just doing family history research and it ended up becoming a book in part because the experience I had and in part because I think I was at a point where I wanted to write a book and it seemed like really good-material's a terrible word to use-, but it did seem like good material.
Street: Your writing style strikes a lot of people as unique and innovative. Do you set out trying to create something new or was it something that just came naturally?
JSF: Well, writing doesn't really come naturally, but in the sense that, I mean it was never really important for me to do something new or different. I think a book written in a traditional style and maybe a minimal style could be all the things I want a book to be, it's just not really the kind of book I would write. It can be the book I would love to read, but it's not the book I would write. Maybe that has something to do with how I grew up. Maybe it has to do with being a younger person in our culture, it just has something innate to do with me, just the way I see the world. But it doesn't reflect any thoughts I have in general about literature.
Street: Do you ever worry that you might be alienating readers because your style pushes the boundaries so much, and is so different from what people are used to?
JSF: I don't worry about it. Why don't I worry about it? I don't think it's my goal to get a lot of readers. Secondly, you can't really anticipate what people will like. You might think that a more contemporary form would alienate older readers, let's just say, but that hasn't really been the case with me at all. I think it's a mistake to try to guess at what readers will respond to. It's a mistake, because in a sense it's not important, it's not where you should be writing from and it's a mistake because you'll be wrong. Books have proven again and again that we're wrong about what connects us or separates us as people. It's not the case that a 29-year-old Jewish guy is going to be my best reader. Some of my best readers have been black people or Japanese people or 80-year-old people or 15-year-old people.
Street: What about your decision to include blank spaces and images in the text of your novels? Did it come naturally or was it a hard decision?
JSF: It was a hard decision, but only in the way that everything with a book is a hard decision. Choosing words is a hard decision. I ended up using the blank spaces or the images that decision process was very much like the process of putting words on the page. It didn't feel separate at all. It's just I had a sense of what I wanted the book to be. I think there are explanations one could give like 'It's a reflection of Oskar's personality, but in fact they were just how I wanted the book to be. Everything else might be true, but it's not really the point.
Street: How do you think those devices alter the story-telling experience for the readers
JSF: I think it's different for different readers. Some readers might get annoyed and close the book. Some might think, 'Oh cool, pictures.' Neither is really the response I want. I just want readers to get lost in the experience of the book. I just want them to get transported I guess. I want my books to be really aesthetic experiences. That's what the books I read and love are.
Street: What are some of those books or authors you read?
JSF: Oh, there are so many. I mean some of my favorites maybe are Kafka, Bruno Schulz, Shakespeare, a lot of classics actually. It's almost of embarrassing to say, but it's true. Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
Street: Were you influenced by Garcia Marquez's magical realism?
JSF: I think you probably know the answer to that question. Obviously I don't hide my influences very well. I don't even try to hide them.
Street: Some of that has translated into really strong reactions from critics. How does it feel to be called everything from a genius to a hack? Would you prefer temperance?
JSF: Oh no, absolutely this is the best way. As a writer my goal isn't to have people love what I do, although that would be nice. My goal is to have people really strongly engage in what I do. You remember absolute values in math? The distance something is from zero? You want the highest absolute value. And if it's negative, it's not as good as a positive, but you know that saying if I could choose between a slap and a kiss I would choose a kiss, but if I had to choose between a slap and nothing I would choose a slap. You just want- there's nothing more important than a book eliciting a strong reaction.
Street: Did you anticipate that your books would generate so much controversy?
JSF: Well, sort of. Well with something successful, my first book was relatively successful, whenever something's successful people read the second things differently. I knew that would be the case and I knew you can't do things like write about September 11th, you can't put images in books without people disagreeing with you. I didn't do it so people would disagree with me. I don't want anybody to dislike what I do. If I had my way I would want everyone to engage passionately with what I do, but that's just not reality.
Street: What about your writing process, because you have a lot of different narratives and jump around time periods, do you write them separately and then combine them, write them out as it comes to you or just as it goes?
JSF: I don't really have a process. I mean all the ways you talked about and in other ways. It's really like fumbling down a dark hallway to write a book. You don't know where you are or how close to the end you are. And I've really been fumbling around an awful lot trying to find my way. And other times I'll write for a couple months other times I'll alternate between them in the course of a day. Whatever seems like it might work.
Street: Do you think achieving success at such a young age has altered your standards for success?
JSF: Yeah, of course. When I was just publishing, when I wrote my first book I thought, 'I would pay someone to publish my book,' or they wouldn't have to pay me anyway. If they just printed 500 copies I'd be so excited. But now that I've seen a different world and this world is better than that world. Like, it's nice to have readers. Not to satisfy one's ego, but because in a really very real way it's the point of books. Books aren't really books until they're read. I'm not a great believer in the books that are kept in desk drawers. The more people that read a book, the more different interpretations are applied to the book, the more opinions people have, the more ideas people have, the book itself gets better. So, that's something I'm maybe more sensitive to than I was before.
Street: If you didn't write do you know what you would do?
JSF: I was supposed to be a doctor. I always thought that would be a great way to spend one's life, an obstetrician in particular. An obstetrician goes home and knows they did something good that day and a writer doesn't necessarily have that same luxury. There's nothing that self-evident about what's important about writing.
Street: Do you have any advice for college students who are interested in writing? Advice on how to get into the business?
JSF: Just don't. Become doctors.
Jonathan Safran Foer reads from Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close tonight, at 7 p.m. at the Penn Bookstore.
