CRAZY CRANKY SEXY COOL

Many of your female characters are committed to passivity, attached to powerlessness. There’s even the little five-year-old in “Mermaids” who comforts herself by imagining her five-year-old male friend tying her up. What do you make of this phenomenon?

EISENBERG

Are women attached to powerlessness, either in reality or in my stories? I don’t know. But I do know that women haven’t chosen powerlessness for themselves. Powerlessness has been thrust upon them, by other people. In any case, passivity can be very powerful. It’s an efficient way of shifting responsibility—and blame—onto other people. And instead of having to do anything, you get to be angry all the time.

INTERVIEWER

What’s the pleasure in being angry? It’s the most miserable state.

EISENBERG

I’m a bit of an expert on anger, having suffered from it all through my youth, when I was both brunt and font. It’s certainly the most miserable state to be in but it’s also tremendously gratifying, really—rage feels justified. And it’s an excellent substitute for action. Why would you want to sacrifice rage to go about the long, difficult, dreary business of making something more tolerable?

INTERVIEWER

Why was inaction so important to you?

EISENBERG

I suppose it was partly personal and partly generational. I came to the sixties early—sometime in the fifties I would say, but you could hear the sixties approaching from afar. And I grew up in a milieu that very much valued accomplishment and credentials. The whole thing made me sick, and I didn’t want any part of it, so I cast those values from me. I was fastidious. I wouldn’t think of accomplishing a thing or having even one credential—a principled stance that happened to be incredibly convenient for someone paralyzed by terror and confusion.

Deborah Eisenberg, The Art of Fiction No. 218

J’avais fait avec lui Les Caractères de La Bruyère (1965) pour la télévision scolaire et une petite prestation dans La Carrière de Suzanne. Il m’a dit : «Je vais faire un troisième volet des “Contes moraux” qui va s’appeler La Collectionneuse. Je voudrais savoir comment les gens parlent entre eux aujourd’hui.» Il connaissait le milieu des Cahiers, le milieu de sa famille, mais il prétendait ne pas connaître le monde estudiantin parisien. Il n’était pas sûr des tours de phrase. Qu’est-ce que deux garçons seraient capables de se raconter l’un à l’autre à propos d’une fille? Quels mots emploieraient-ils et jusqu’où iraient-ils? Rohmer s’intéressait à la vie de ses personnages, à leur manière de parler, d’être, de s’habiller, de se présenter. La première chose qu’on a faite était des entretiens autour d’un magnétophone Uher, qui lui permettait de saisir nos tournures et de les mettre dans le texte. Il a fait un enregistrement avec moi, avec Haydée, avec Daniel. J'ai fait venir Daniel Pommereulle qui était un grand copain. Pommereulle, de son côté, avait suggéré l’écrivain surréaliste Alain Jouffroy, qui a une longue séquence dans l’ouverture de La Collectionneuse.

There’s also a “slightly erotic” tinge to the father’s “joy” that can involve thinking he’s Alfred de Musset, George Sand’s lover. Erotic and family love occur together elsewhere in your oeuvre. Did you need both to form this story?

SERRE

I think that in everything I’ve written—starting with my first novel, The Governesses—I’ve associated Eros with joy. And also, despite its gray areas, with family love. My sense, but I may be deluding myself, is that I made a decision one day, when I was very young—I would choose joy. In the same way you might choose to live in this or that country. I imagine that the foundations must have been laid in my early childhood (otherwise I probably wouldn’t have been able to make such a decision), but later, in spite of the bereavements and difficulties I experienced, I adopted it, not as a form of “positive thinking” or as a shield against grief but because I’d noticed that siding with joy enabled me to think more clearly—to focus my thoughts. I see a bit of myself in a sentence by the Italian poet Dolores Prato, in her book Scottature. “I was in thrall to that powerful, indomitable joy that mysteriously took hold of me now and then, sometimes for no reason at all.”

INTERVIEWER

How did “That Summer” begin?

SERRE

“That Summer” began with an opening sentence that popped into my head and made me want to tell a story. When I’m writing, it’s as if I’m making a piece of furniture, a table or a beautiful wooden chair. I’m like a cabinetmaker. I love the work, so I’m always very cheerful when I’m doing it.

INTERVIEWER

Did you do many drafts of this story?

SERRE

No. In general, I write straight through, without a break. Especially stories. Then I read them over and sometimes make little changes. But the rhythm and images, I seldom change. I trust my initial impulse.