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Nothing Personal
Bill Bradley: Achingly funny and profound
Dish-lovin' gal stumped by stilted Stepford candidate. Plus: More proof there is no God: Survey shows the Donald nearly in a dead heat with Mini-Bush.
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Nothing Personal
Jar Jar Binks to battle clap in D.C.
Rep. Coburn enlists "Phantom Menace" mob in STD wars; the queen's bowser was a boozer; 1,000-year-old king may be pushin' up pavement. Plus: New! Viagra for geraniums!
By Amy Reiter
[07/22/99]

Rogues' Gallery
The Kevlar dictator
Bullets can't touch him. He's impervious to poison. And bombs -- Ha! He laughs at your bombs!
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[07/22/99]

Nothing Personal
End of civilization imminent
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By Amy Reiter
[07/21/99]

Exit the Sandman
Fond recollections of Morphine's lead singer, the cat with the so-cool countenance.
By Larry Smith
[07/21/99]

Complete archives for People

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"It's not as stimulating out here, is it?" he asks.

"Now I didn't say that."

"It is beautiful," he concedes.

"And the people are creative and kind." We're having my favorite ridiculous discussion -- which coast is better? -- and it seems a guilty indulgence for Auster, too.

"Oh, absolutely, there is a lot going on," he says. "But I guess you get used to some kind of a dense, frantic pace to things. And it doesn't feel that way here."

"But then I worry that the reason we feel the tug east is that maybe people don't think they deserve this kind of peace."

"Yes, yes, I understand."

Auster's chuckle is more California than New York, I note. And his formal "yes, I understand" -- somehow European. We continue, at my insistence, to talk geography. It's discovered that we once lived a couple blocks from each other in Brooklyn.

"When I was there, I found myself looking for those other, mythical Brooklyns," I said.

"You know, looking for the cigar store Brooklyn from 'Smoke,' the 'French Connection' Brooklyn. But I was living in a stroller and croissant Brooklyn."

"Well, it's true -- there are a lot of babies in Brooklyn now," he says, unperturbed. "Because there are a lot of families living there, which I think is a healthy sign. One thing I like about Brooklyn is that there are so many old people around, too. When you have old people and babies in the same neighborhood, in America today, I think it's healthy."

"It's a very integrated neighborhood," he goes on. "On the street where I live, there are mostly houses, but there is one apartment building also. And that apartment building holds people from all over the world -- Indians, Cubans and black people and white people. And the individual houses are owned by white families, Asian families and black families -- just in one little block. I thought about trying to do an investigation of that block. You know, interview every single person who lives on it, just to get some kind of demographic profile."

Auster and I move on to books -- what he calls those "strange things" he does with his time.

"I just finished one of your strange things, 'Timbuktu,'" I say. "And it's so nice how the characters are likable. Or rather, their likability is not even an issue. And I felt that way in the books of the 'New York Trilogy,' in 'Mr. Vertigo.' You don't ask whether you like this person or not ..."

"You just accept them." He nods.

"And they're earnest and straightforward and direct. Is that something you work on, or does it just sort of happen?"

"I can't write about a person unless I feel a great affection for him or her -- even if the person isn't strictly an admirable person," he says. "There has to be that love. I think what happens in a lot of writing today is a very edgy, cynical feeling about the world and about people. And I'm not interested in that at all."

Auster goes on to explain that cynicism dangerously distorts reality.

"Just as a hundred years ago, you know, Victorian sentimentality is something we all sneer at now and find very funny," he adds. "But I think people will look back at us and sneer at the way we've looked at the world, too. Because cynicism and sentimentality are just two sides of the same distortion."

We talk about getting America out of this cycle of cynicism, what the country needs to undo the damage. Auster brings up a trip to Israel he made with his wife and daughter two and a half years ago.

"I waited all my life for the right moment to go, and this seemed to be it. And what I found there was a society that utterly lacks cynicism, in every way. You know, they're living under such pressure, the different groups within the culture are so at war with each other. And they live with such danger for so long that people don't have time to be either bored or cynical," he says.

"They're always asking essential questions about the world," he continues. "And it's an exhausting way to live, because you're on the edge of a nervous breakdown all the time. But it's also very stimulating and exciting."

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