Etgar Keret on potheads, politics and levitating in love
Etgar Keret, the acclaimed Israeli short-story author and filmmaker, has tackled topics in his work that range from a dog that can’t die to a pizza delivery boy who threatens his customer at gunpoint. While Keret employs fantasy, his stories and films often relate to the Israeli political situation or provide a commentary on contemporary Israeli society. Keret has just published a new collection of stories in Israel and is one of the country’s most translated authors.
New Voices Editor Ben Sales spoke with Keret about his stories, the peace process and writing in Israeli slang.
NV: In your work you relate to the modern Israeli political situation sardonically. Does your writing reflect the tone of the younger generation of Israelis?
EK: I think that you can’t talk about one point that represents the young generation of Israelis. It’s a very polyphonic and heterogenic society. We have haredim, Arabs, settlers, we have people that are completely involved, people that are blase. In Israel you can’t have one person represent the entire society.
NV: Was it always that way?
EK: Everything [used to be] centered around the Zionist idea. They shared much more than Israelis share now. If you talked about the civics of Israel in the early 70s, most people would have [had] the same vision of Israel, but now if you talk to an ultra-Orthodox or a pothead you wouldn’t see the same country.
It’s not necessarily an unhealthy process. I think that when there is a young society there’s a need to almost impose solidarity. The fact that [today] a young Russian immigrant can say, “I don’t like Israeli culture but I still see myself as Israeli,” there’s something normal about that. When people are certain enough, they feel free to celebrate a unique identity.
The negative side of this is that Israelis used to have a shared vision of a future, which is something that out of a current desperation Israelis lack. In the 40s, 50s, 60s, everyone knew where they were heading. Now there are more extremities and the things that were taken for granted, which was a Zionistic state, are now disputed by many voices in Israel.
NV: Does your writing reflect apathy with Israeli political progress?
EK: I don’t think it’s apathy. There’s something about irony that offers a reflective look at the society. I use humor to check the blind spots. I make jokes out of compassion; I don’t make them out of cynicism. Many people living in Israeli society don’t know that their choices are choices. With humor you can break some sort of stagnation or an automatic routine that Israeli ideology is prone to.
NV: Does your use of magical realism in your writing reflect a desire to see a different world?
EK: I’m interested in the subjective experience. I’m less interested in realism because I’m trying to relate to a personal experience, and a personal experience is always surrealistic. When I talk about someone in love, I don’t mind him levitating a bit. I feel more committed to the way I feel than to the laws of gravity.
NV: Why do you choose to write using slang and colloquial language?
EK: As a kid I always got into reading literature in colloquial speech. My first favorite book was “Huckleberry Finn.” There’s something about colloquial speech. It represents the collective society well. There’s something about slang that tells you about the current situation society is in. it gives you a very accurate picture of the way you live. The higher register always keeps the distance from that current situation. There’s beauty for me in the use of slang because it tells you something about the people you’re writing about.
NV: Does your writing always innovate, or do you feel like you repeat the same themes?
EK: In Israel I published my last collection of stories in 2002. It took me eight years. The main reason I shifted my work to film was because I had this feeling that I had to find something new in my writing. When I published my last collection I was a single guy and now I’m married with a four-year old.
NV: How do you relate to classic Hebrew authors like SY Agnon or Amos Oz?
EK: I see my writing as a continuation of the Jewish Diaspora tradition like [Isaac] Bashevis Singer, Sholem Aleichem or [Franz] Kafka. I feel more in their tradition. My parents were immigrants and something about my mentality is an immigrant mentality. When my parents lived in Poland they looked at those crazy goys around them, and when I’m in Israel I see the crazy Jews around me. My Jewish identity is much stronger than my Israeli one.
NV: Has your writing changed as an international audience has read your work?
EK: There’s a big difference between writing and publishing. Writing is always an intimate process and it doesn’t matter how many readers I have. I still feel the same thing when I sit in a room. When it comes to publishing, you start thinking about all those things: “Oh shit, it’s a great story but I don’t have a good title for it.” But that comes when the writing ends.
Keret’s latest book, which just came out in Israel, is called “Suddenly, a Knock on the Door.”
