just been translated into Danish
A novel is never perfect
det er nødvendigt at famle
It is necessary to to fumble
Nils Thorsen, interview med Nicole Kraus
I: Politiken. - 2005-10-21. - Sektion 2, s. 1 : ill.
Emne: Krauss, Nicole ; amerikansk litteratur
I anledning af romanen
"Kærlighedens fortælling"
Bold Type: Conversation with Nicole Krauss: ": I read like an animal. I read under the covers, I read lying in the grass, I read at the dinner table. While other people were talking to me I read. When I was twelve my mother�who has also read an impressive amount�gave me Portnoy's Complaint. To this day I have no idea what she was thinking. The scene with the Italian whore boggled my mind. I loved it. I finished it and then I started it again. Who wouldn't? Especially if you're twelve. "
"I'm a relatively disciplined (or perhaps relatively stubborn) person, and once I got it in my head that I wanted to write a novel, I sat down at my kitchen table and decided not to get up until I thought of an idea. Probably not the best way to go about things, but it happened to work on this occasion. "
What is literature, really? Boiled down to a single sentence, I'd say it's this: a endless conversation about what it means to be human. And to read literature is to engage in that conversation. There seems to be a growing tendency among people to disengage: with the ideas, with the world around them, with other people, with their own feelings. To say whatever, because it's easier than actually caring. I find this attitude, and its mass appeal, very unsettling. Fear—something we've experienced a lot of in the last year—only heightens that urge to turn off and withdraw, to choose not to extend oneself. But great books force people to engage in the human conversation. They teach empathy and they teach compassion. They remind us of all the words there are beyond whatever.
