Our writer, our moviestar, our dreamgirl, our mother. Let's not make it too crazy.

I once had an icecream with my psychologist. Of course we didn't plan to, but we happen to live in the same pittoresk village. I didn't say a word to him.

getting drunk with and being bored by an anasthesist both seem to be a sort of 'mixing business and pleasure'.

Arnon

And what to think of these elderly ladies, seeking the company of their favorite writer, in the hope of being recognised as his muse?
Don't I fit in perfectly? But, Oh you cruel man, still you deny me my moment of fame.

Perhaps she meant this figurative: some man do make there wives rather numb.

That we all should live to see the day to drink ourselves unsconcious in the presence of an anaesthesiologist.

If I had to choose I'd definitely opt for my anaesthetist (if I had a regular one). It's easy to develop tender feelings for people who relieve you from pain.

Juliane

The hangman relieves pain as well, my dearest.
Are you in pain at the moment?

Arnon

A bad anaesthetist could function as a hangman, as well, couldn't he?
I'm not in pain. I have a regular job. At least until October.

Juliane

Some people have a daytime job and they are still in pain. I’m happy to hear that your needs are easily fulfilled: a job = no pain.
I’m honored to offer you a job as well. I would like to see you naked from 9 to 10 in the morning -- only on weekdays.
During the weekend your boyfriend can see you naked 24/7.
Please note that I’m hosting an oil painting workshop in my apartment and in august we are going to study German women.
But if you happen to have Swiss or Austrian friends they are welcome as well to enlighten the oil painting workshop participants.

Arnon

My mom once said I shouldn't have so much time to worry about myself. She was right to a certain extent. My pain is not so grave as to leak into the job kind of reality.

I am more of a photography person. But thanks, all the same, for the offer.

Juliane

"The job kind of reality"?

I need some explanation.

Arnon

Oh it's not that complicated. The "Arbeitswelt" just feels massively different from the little cocoon I have been living in until I got my degree earlier this year. Unfortunately it feels a lot less poetic. Do you know how a building or a street looks a lot less familiar and distant when you feel, let's say, nauseous? It's very much like that to have a job at the moment.

Freud

The danger of dating your anethetist, playing with your live that way, makes you automatically develop more tender feelings then strickly needed for a onenight stand, leaving you with unnumerous erotic tentions later followed by erotic nigtmares. It is highly recommended to release some of that tention by attainning therapy given by my brother in law and me, together and simultaniously.

Juliane

Please tell us a little more about your job.

Oscar

I'm working as an intern at a small publishing house at the moment. Quite a nice one, actually and it's probably the best thing I could get. They publish fiction, I have my own project, everyone's very charming and almost nothing is hidden from me. So even if I had to leave my cocoon starting an internship there was probably the smoothest possible transition.

Juliane

Keep up writing !
If you won a contest, it means your good.

My father is a radiologist who also is very much interested in psychiatry. When I have dinner with him, I always feel very much aware of this. Doctors look at people with other eyes. A befriended dermatologist is for example always secretly checking the moles in my face when he visits my family. And my father cannot refrain from giving diagnoses of people around us; 'cancer', 'schizophrenia', 'thyroid disease'. I don't see anything.

Juliane, maybe Arnon will one day consider a move to your publishing house? You could then ask for a naked man on every twentieth page, preferably a man who looks like him. It's just a suggestion.

Aliefka

Juliane is destined to be a big writer and win the Booker award.

Sounds like I'd like to meet your father. I wonder what his conclusion will be. "He's a normal boy,Lise. And very well mannered. By this I conclude he is raised by lowerclass people. You should stop meeting this boy, Lise."

Aliefka

Could you give me the ISBN number of your new novel, so that I can order it?

Sander

Every time I sent a comment , a window with ' Sorry, something went wrong.' appears.

@Mieke, I really look forward to the day a Dutch author wins the Booker. It means Juliane will have to write in English though.
Thank you for asking after my novel. I found two ISBN numbers, there's a discount coupon for bookstores on my website, if you like.
ISBN10 9045701774
ISBN13 9789045701776
But you can also order it here:
http://www.bol.com/nl/p/nederlandse-boeken/mede-namens-mijn-vrouw/1001004008490287/index.html

Arnon

You look like a modern kind of Heer Halewijn, seducing young women to undress in your appartment.
And in what way the workshop participants in New York need to be enlightened about German women? Do they think German women all look like the Ukrainian Joelia Timosjenko with dirndl?
No seriously, I think your oil painting workshop will be a great succes in case you pose nude yourself.

Mieke

About your connection problem: maybe they installed an obscenity alert. As long as your message is decent, it gets through. If it's not, it doesn't.

Monique

Who's "they"? You mean Sander?
In the library the word 'breast' already setsoff the alarm .

mothersucker

Apparantly no obscenityalert.

Monique

The funny thing is when you draw or paint a nude model you don't think of sex (hardly),you think of curves, volumes, lines, perspectives, colours instead.

Aliefka vs. Arnon

Looks like you write as good as Arnon! (but i only looked at the bol.com samples)

@Milan no, no. I appreciate your interest, but you are wrong. I feel awkward as I now have to suck up to Arnon by saying: achieving his/that level of craftmanship is what I work hard for to hopefully one day achieve.

Aliefka

Terribly sorry i forced you into this. Personally Tirza was a good read but although i try to write now most novels seem too boring to finish when i read, they never surprise me in the last chapters (except houllebecq). but its all a matter of taste i guess, good or bad, its no science. Your sentenses seem interesting, did it take you long, months and months of editing?

Milan, non-consecutively: 3 years. Thank you for the compliment.

Mieke and Milan

Mieke,
Thanks for informing me about nude painting. I don't paint, but I visited rather some musea in Europe. I think I can write quite some painters had a good time with their nude models. Anyway: of course I'm just very, very jealous no painter and no writer ever asked me to be his nude model.

Milan, are you sure your critical comment on, I think, the work of Arnon Grunberg, isn't jealousy too? When it comes to Houellebecq I think your admiration is right about "Les particule élémentaires", but I couldn't finish "Plateforme". As far as I remember, it's so negative and oversexed.
Do you know there is a German film version of the book I mentioned first? With Moritz Bleibtreu (what a hunk!) and Franka Potente. It's a rather good film for such a complex book.

Mieke / Aliefka

@ Mieke
Thanks for your encouragement. It doesn't have to be the Man Booker Prize. I'd be totally content with the Ingeborg-Bachmann-Preis. ;)

@ Aliefka
He would have to be quick then. I probably won't work there anymore by October. But if I ever get the chance to have a say in the publishing of one of Mr. Grunberg's books, I'll do my best to get those photos into it.

Monique

Your remark about platform (oversexed) makes me curious about the new novel of Arnon again;)
Personally i only finished the book of Andrzej Zaniewski (the dutch title is 'rat')

Milan

What novel exactly do you mean?
About your comparison of Grunberg and Bijlsma: it's probably the best to compare "Het aapje dat geluk pakt" from Grunberg with "Mede namens mijn vrouw" van Bijlsma. It seems to me the themes are rather much the same.

@Monique
A new novel is coming out soon, i was one of the pre-readers (kidding now). Its about adultry. Ever experienced that, one way or the other?
The theme....interesting, thanks.

Milan

If you have to think over the theme before you start writing a novel? I am not sure, because I am not a writer, but it seems quite a good idea to me. What is the ISBN-number of your novel? I can't find it on your website, neither via Google.

Aleifka

@Aliefka
3 years, well still you have to be able to improve it....wrote the first manuscript in 6 weeks, but i am not sure if i can, both mentally and intellectually, improve it much further....but maybe, plan to try that after my 2nd manuscript.... Augustus, you made it into an established publisher, well done:) Happy about it?

@Monique
Its not published yet. Probably i will first publish the 2nd novel, cause its for a broader audience. The first, i have to improve it still.... Well, i did have themes to start with....but they can change during writing a bit;)

Milan, you can find my email address on my website. I feel this isn't the right place to discuss my work.

Mieke

"If you won a contest, it means your good. "

I wonder whether you think this is a law of Medes and Persians.

Pjötr

It depends on the competition. At some it might just mean that you were lucky with your text. Quite often it seems to have been a one-shot. Or a misinterpretation.

Pjötr

If the quality is poor the jury should refrain from donating the first prize. That's how a serious contest is organised. (or should be)

on contests

So if you lose it means you're bad? Recently a jury-member (who happens to also be a mean little reviewer) awarded a literary prize to his best-friend. I hate to be cynical but oftentimes winning a prize is more about who you know, than about how good you are.

Aliefka

Do you mean that Arnon didn't win because he's good, but because he knows some people?

Mieke - oh no! I said "oftentimes."