Focus Spring 1995.tif 112 Focus on Literatur auch bei uns gibe Vod ich denke. da muB man ansetzen, ein BewuBt­ sein zu schaffen, das das Unrecht. das darin liegt, erkennt. u nd zugleich aber auch Widerstandsformen zu schaffen. Dafur ist das Erzah len wieder wichtig, daB 1mm sich austauscht, und dah ir ist es wicill ig, daB man Machtige 3uch entlarven kann. Das Erzahlen muB wie Sand im Getriehe sein. Und insofern interessieren mich auch gerade diese kleinen Sachen. Diese Frau, die in Die Entdeckung deT ClIrryWIITSl vorkommt. ist tatsachlich meine GroBmuner. Die ganzen anderen Onkels haben fleiBig ibren Militardienst gemacht. Sic waren Offiziere in RuBland und haben mitgeholfen. daB Auschwitz weiter vertriehen werden konnte. das muB man so sagen. (Man sagte in Deutschland gern, die Offiziere, die haben nie mit dem H olocaust etwas zu tun ge­ habt. Hatten sie aber doeh de facto.) Ausgerechnet eine Frau, diese GroBmutter, eine sehr resolu te F rau, hau e in H amburg 1943 eioem SS·Mano den Knuppel weggenommen, :lIs der einen KZ·ler sehlug, der die T riimmer aufraumen mu(he. Und der Frau ist nieh ts passiert­ also diesen Mut mochte ieh bese hreiben, im Alltag gegen Un mensch· lichkeiten anzugehen. Es ist ein bescheidenes Programm, ich weiG, aber ich den ke mal, dafi vielleicht daraus ein neues basisdemokratisches Selbstverstandnis entsrehen konnte. Man hat im Augenblick kein Modell, von dem man sagen konnte, "so muBte es sein." Aber was man machen kann-so verstehe ich m eine Arbeit-ist wie ein Ethnologe durchs Land zu ge heo , u nd diese Gesellschah anzuseheo und die Verhaltensfo rmen dieser Menscheo uod auch die Formen, die sehr unmen schl ich sind, moglichst genau zu beschreibe n. Cincimlali, den 20. April 1994 Gather at the River INTER VIEW WITH P ATRICK R OTH Patrick Roth, hom in 1953 in Freibllrg, Germa'IY, has lived in Los Angeles since 1975. He origi'lally came La Los A Ilgeles to attend film school, and film contimteS to playan importam role ill his artislicvision. Roth recently retllmed from a trip to Germany, during which hedire.ted his stage play Kelly 10 much acclaim and full houses. He also re:u1from hisfirstlwo nrwe/s, Riverside {Sllhrkamp 1991} and Johnny Shines oder Die Wiedcrerweckung dcr Toten (Sllhrbmp 199]). Simply pIll, these novels deal wiw we "ocher side, ~ be it the olher side of an expe· rience or the ower side of Olme/ves. John Kill€lnpers (University of Califomia, Los Angeles) spoke with R orh ah(JlI! these novels arid more. Klu entpers: Your wo rks are writt en in German and published by one of Germany's largest publishing houses; why then do you live in Los Angeles as opposed to Germany? Rot h : I need botb . I need L.A. to withdraw in order to do my writ­ ing. When I'm in Germany I'm usually 00 a reading tour or directing plays. Kl uempers: And you were just in Germany last August ... Roth: I did a reading tour with R iverside and Johnny Shines. Then in October J started rehearsal on a theater piece of mi ne called Kelly. It's one of the three plays from the trilogy Die Wachsamen. It's a "love story," the account o f a man who is condemned to die in t he San Q uentin gas cham ber. Kluempers: Do you plan to remai n in L.A. indefinitely? Roth : Probably for the next few years. I do n't really see myself going back to Germany for good. I may want to live in Italy one day, or go back to France. There seems to be something about being in to uch with another language, about being ex iled in it, t hat somehow helps shape my spin on the German language. F~s on Literatllr Vol. 2, No. I (1995) 114 Focus on Literalltr KJuempers: Are there tOO many distractions in Germany? Roth: Over there-I nalice it every time-you're swept up in this swi rling poison cauldron of liter.l.ture critics and authors, with "the pub lic" or "public opinion" thrown in as spice. Everyone feeds on everyone else in this cau ldron of politics. I'm sure there are a good number of people that thrive on it. To me it's totally unchallenging. It does n Ot help me with where I want to go as a writer. Yet lhe moment f return to L.A., all these German voices fait silent. No one around me speaks this language. The process of writing has begun and I have to almost drum it out of the ground. this language. regenerate it for myselLlt's as if I had to invent the language all over. And, with it, its own logic. The logic of language as it speaks. I'm told it's not what you would consider "'logical" in terms of "contemporary German prose," it doesn't "fit." I don't know what that means. The fact is I am apart from them, which is good and bad, but that's certainly the way It IS. Kluempers: Do you think other modern writers approach language the same as you do? Roth: I can't really tell you. I greatly admire what Arno Schmidt did with the German language. Especially in his translations . There are some German Poe translations by Schmidt that come close-and some· times surpass-the original. KJuem pers: Why did you choose the tide Riverside for your first novel? Rot h : Every German somehow knows what "Riverside" means, seems to be able to "translate" it somehow. "River" is "FluB" and "side" is "Seire." That is exactly what the other side is, that's how it always manages to attract you. The other side of a river, the river you cross in telling a story-or in listening to one, for that matter. The other side is discovered by seeing and projecting something familiar-the "translation" you somehow arrive at-omo the other side. You say: "Oh, I know what it means." Just as if you said: "Oh, I know what it' ll look like over there." If that were not possible, the other side would remain either invisible or totally foreign to you. Or it might Interview with Patrick Roth 115 inject enough fear in you to keep you from ever crossing. But you see, we seem to find something of ourselves ove r there-the Germans find it in knowing or almost knowing what this "foreign- word, what "Riverside" means-and that's what attracts us to the "other side." T his is the process described in the novel. I won't go into the plot now-you know it's a Story that takes place in 37 A.D., a few miles east of Jemsalem in a cave in the Judaean Desert-hut Andreas and T abeas, rhe young men who have come to "interview" the leper in his cave, have arrived with a number of expectations. They reach the "other side" toward the end of that night, on ly to find that all their expecta­ ti ons were fa lse. Totall y fa lse, but necessary. T he expectations were what attracted them. it's what made them "c ross over." T heir talk with the old man becomes the river, it sweeps them up and takes them to the other side. And changes their world entirely. KJ uempers: Jesus and Judas are t he twO most impol1an t characters in your biblical tales. Why do you focus on them? R ot h : Judas, as I see him, is the aOlhropomorphization of the other side, that is, o f the "other." The major voyage that has to be under· taken-in both novels-is one of literally incorporating Judas and making him part of us again. They say, find a way to embrace the enemy, to approach him, to recognize him as a p:1n of yourself­ embrace this shadow figure. Th is is the big embrace in Riversule. Once t he embrace has taken place, once it's been tOld, t he characters have taken the decisive step. And so has the reader. The thing you dreaded most is now a part of you. You realize it always was. That's a major realization. You're weakened by it at first, you're still reeling-but that's where I want you. This moment exisLS also in Johnrty Shiues when the legend of Jesus and Judas is told. When Jesus and Judas meet, one of them beco mes conscious of what it wdl mean , the other milS away, not knowi ng what it meant. That's why their encounter will have to be repeated. The "other" is Judas. Our Judas. If we push him away, then we're ru nni ng away with him, so to speak. Then we have not understood what he is all about. Kluem pers: In Johnny Shines you keep referring to a movie, an old western ... 116 Focus on LiteratuT Roth: Yes, John Ford's last black and white western, The Man \i/1:Jo Shot Liberty Valance. There is a parallel. John Wayne acts oul some of James Stewart's shadow qualities. John Wayne uses the gun, Wayne is the one who shoots Valance, whereas Stewart suppresses all this. The movies are a great part of my life. I went to film school in L.A., wrote screenplays, and made some films. I have to be able to see what I write. My stories are told through "scenes," and the storyteller's eye often moves through the scene's landscape the way a moving camera would. I get a kick out of rethinking space in my mind. The descrip­ tion of someone pressing past a person who is standing in a doorway ... imagine! You move across the threshold, you touch his side ... . I describe this in a one-act play I wrote recently ("Magdalenen-Re­ volver"). Mary Magdalene moves past this unknown man who stands in the doorway to Christ's tomb. Describing it the way a "stationary camera" would won't do the job. You have to walk with her, move with her. Which is precisely the point. You move past this God, the God you don't recognize. You err. You make him turn around. Klu empers: What was the reasoning behind the t itle of your most recent book, Johnny Shines? Roth : When you hear his last name, "Shines," you see a shining, a brightness. But if you investigate the etymology of "shine," you dis­ cover that it contains the opposite. The "shi" in "shines" comes from "ski ," as in the Greek word "skias." "Skias" means shadow. Here's the darkness hidden inside the brightness. The "other" is hidden in the familiar, the "everybody" I refer to as "Johnny." Klu empers: What's johnny's character about? Roth: Johnny Shines fee ls a great rage . A rage that comes out in his desire to break open coffins, to place his hands on the dead in front of the gathered mourners and command the dead to come to life . Most people say he's crazy or call him psychotic, but I sympathize with his rage, which may be nothing more than the great intensity with which he pursues his search for truth. In taking literally Jesus' command­ reported in Matthew lO:8-to "raise the dead," he has to rage, for there is nothing in this world that seems to allow the dead to rise. Johnny has to rage because he wants another world. The only world he can Interview with Patrick Roth 117 remember where such things were possible, within rhe realm of possi­ bility, is the world he imagined when he was a child. \Xfhen a world could be imagined, a possible world, where tmth was so attainable, so graspable that it pract ically materialized before his eyes. This world is still al ive in Johnny.lt's dying alive . And j ohnny's wish to resurrect others turns out to be a longing to resurrect himself. Kluempers: Now you are working on the third book in the "Riverside­ Johnny Shines" series. Did you always intend to write a trilogy? Roth: As I was finishing Riverside, other images came to the fore and I knew I'd be working on them. When Johnny Shines lOok shape, I was sure t here would be a third one. They're all looking at the same problem from different perspective..:: . O ne critic remarked that they're exclusively dealing with Matthew 10:8 . That's not all wrong. Kluempers: Are you a churchgoer? Roth: No, 1 do not believe in organized religion.] don't want to be seen as proselytizing either, not for anyone particular rel igion any­ way. It's the process of discovery I'm interested in, of individuation, of self-discovery, you might say. But that "self" is not identical with the "ego." The metaphors 1 choose to describe this process are images from "my tree." My tree happens to be the Judea-Christian tree, the culture I was born into . Kl uempers: Is that why miracles seem to be so sign ificant to your stories? Roth: "Miracle" seems like such a big word. I think Niet:tsche once used the metaphor of the "slow arrow." These miracles-the ones I'm interested in~are such slow arrows . They don't really stop when they pierce you. They may in itially wound you, may make you aware you've been hit, but in their slowness they make you forget t hey're inside, make you forget they're moving. They are patien t in theil" run, they are sure of their goal. They will transfix and transform you by the time they're "through." All you see in my novels is that "moment of initial impact ." You lose balance maybe, you never thought you could, but you're pulled in and become part o f the target, find Out 118 Focus on Literality you've always been its very center. This moment of impact when everything changes, when the arrow has reached you, when the pro­ cess begins, is what I'm interested in. A qU:llitative jump occurs here. h's rhe moment when the river is crossed, the other side has been reached. To give you an example, there are these pictures by Giovanni Battista Piranesi, a series he calls "Carceri" or "Prisons,- In them you observe a world of archways and levels, you see archways beyond arch ways, vaults beyond vaults, level upon level, an almost Escher­ like world, a labyrinth of prisons con nected by stairs. And your eye follows these levels, scans them fo r awhi le, and then, suddenl y I you see it-it stuns you because you realized it so late- you see t hat one of these stairs swerves off, comes straight at you, vaults right into you, practically pushing paSt the frame-line (Q pull you into the frame. That 's the moment of qualitative change. Everything has changed. That is the moment my novels try to build up to. This moment, if it 's done right, has U-:lnsformative power. h has an echo that lasts, some­ thing that seems to curve back on itself, something that spins you right back into the world you thought you just left. But now you reenter it differently, something has changed. The important thing is that until the very last moment you considered yourself outside, a mere observer. Now you're inside, you are the one who's observed. That can be at once wonderful and disturbing. A "miracle" is the be­ coming aware of the other, not as the one who sees, but as the one who is seen. You are the other. You're inside. You were asleep and now you're awake. This has to work on a language level, too. I resur­ rect new meaning from a word, from words that have been used and re-used, that have been stripped of meaning. r like for the reader to become aware o f other meanings, forgotten ones, a meaning level that was dormant and comes alive with the last page. If one went back to the first page, one would find the same words again, but they would ring with a different meaning. Something that was forgotten and dead has come alive. Kluempers: As a German, what do you think of Americans? Roth: I've been living in l.A. almost half my life. What am I then? German? American? I don't think I'd be writing these books had t not lived here. America and Americans have shaped my themes, my views. All this of course had to merge with what I brought along Interview with Patrick Roth 119 when I came here almost twenty years ago. My foundation, my lan­ guage memory, my view of the spirit is "German. n My car is "'A meri­ can." So is my view of the body, of things material. My view of the world. Of course you have to put these things in quotation marks. You'd have to imagine these German/ American worlds of "spirit" and "matter" criss-crossed by bridges [hat are neither. Or maybe I'd better say they are bOlh, both matter and spirit. These bridges are spanning the conflict, holding together the op posites. I live on these bridges, I thrive on them, and-to come back to your question-think very well o f my neighbors on both sides. Kluempers: Would you like to see your works translated into En­ glish? Roth : Yes, but I wouldn't take the job. I'd be afraid to render a toO literal translation from the German. These books need a translator who will give them his or ber own language·spin in order to make them come "alive" in English. They're good stories. On thal level alone they should work in any language. Los A ngeles, January 10, 1995