The drawing makes me think of Middle Earth by Tolkien.
( http://www.eldar.org/artgallery/tolkien/ )

Agnostic

Why do you call yourself agnostic?

Arnon

Do you consider love letters also as fan mail?

Wulfy

I don’t have strong opinions about fan mail, that’s why I used the word agnostic. To give another example: when it comes to Al Gore I’m agnostic too.

Coen

It depends. Why?

Jan T

Yes, maybe this couple wanted to tell me something through the drawing.

Must've been Luxembourg that touched you.

I'm agnostic when it comes to blogs. But I've just read Tirza and I'm in shock. It's the first Grunberg- book I've read and it won't be my last. And because I feel like sharing that with you (however strange this might seem) I tried to mail you but I couldn't find a 'mail me' button, only this stupid add-button on your blog. And now I'm writing an English fanmail-like note even though I'm not a fan (or wasn't) and I don't speak English. Strange, what a book can do to you.

Jan

It could also be a Taoist picture.
You know, the ones you're not supposed to hang on the wall but look at from a flat perspective.

Margot

One of my better deeds while working for television was an interview I did with Elfriede Jelinek. That was in German indeed.

Arnon

Well, if you do, they also make you agnostic. But what interests me, is if there's a difference. I think there's a blurry line between love someones work and love the person who wrote it. The two mix up, whether you want it or not. (I wonder what made me ask this question. I don't know.)
I'm agnostic when it comes to God.

By the way, I've never been to Luxembourg, but if the drawing is a Luxembourg landscape, it's worth the journey.

Coen

Well, a love letter from a person you have never met is slightly suspicious isn’t it?
In general, most people who write fan mail and/or love letters want something. What is it they want?
Back in 1994 I wrote articles for de Volkskrant, for a very brief period of time, then I switched to NRC Handelsblad. For one of the articles for de Volkskrant I traveled to Luxembourg. I have never been to Luxembourg, the capitol. It should be a perfect place for a tryst.

Arnon

And there was that guy who wrote Tristan da Cunha and you were going on and on about sehnsucht.
Honey, you know I want the best for you. So just believe me when I tell ya it was way too German.

fan mail or love letters

What is it people want by writing them?
-A confirmation of their existence
-A reassurance of their feelings
-A new refrigarator

Fan mail or love letters

can be also sent out of love and appreciation, without any heavy acompanying tones for the wish to be recognised by the addressee. Sometimes a 'thank you' is as spontaneous as a baby's laughter in response for some stupid jolly thing you did for her. Doesn't it automatically come out of you to say 'thank you' to anyone who showed you things you otherwise could never see, without you expecting anything in return for your thanks (apart from maybe knowing that your thanks arrived safely to where you meant them to get)?

Neria

In my experience most fan mail is written in the hope to get something back.
There are exceptions of course. And love itself is by no means an altruistic affair.

Arnon

It depends. I think most people want appreciation of something. Maybe of their existence. What do you want when you write, for example, your letters for Humo? (Although those letters cannot always be considered as fan/love letters.)

A tryst. Good idea. I'll keep that in mind.

Coen

When I write a letter I want an answer but I know that silence can be considered an answer as well.

Arnon, i'd like to think that one day i will know better what my true needs are and then if after fulfilling them i will still be left with plenty of resources, that it will be a very natural thing for me to give them away to others. It won't be altruistic because i will enjoy that others enjoy too, as much as i enjoy feeding my friends and family, or maintaing my emotional ties with them. But somehow when you write that love is not altruism it makes me feel as if i need to feel shame in fulfilling mine and other needs. As if altruism is better.
Do you remember 'Breaking the Waves' by Lars von Trier? Back then i thought that sacrificing yourself is ok because you might derive huge satisfaction knowing you're saving others, and sometimes it is even true. Is this love?
I think life is not a lab and sometimes the only love you can give is far from being optimal, sometimes it's a randomal choice between only other very bad options.
i think that the knowledge that love is not altruism should not stop us from loving. If i have to choose between feeding a starved living and not feeding it/him because i will derive a satisfaction of the act of feeding, i prefer feeding.
i can understand the hosltilty which it might raise in anyone around me who might feel neglected, and might deserve to be first in the line to win my resources.

Neria

All I can say is that the love of certain people comes close to an assassination attempt.

@Margot
Yes, I thought about Chinese drawings too, I love those landscapes very much.

Love

Yesterday it felt as if I would had no objection in being devoured by my sweetheart. Sometimes an assassination attempt can be tempting. Even Coetzee in The Heart of the Country wrote about something similar, the feeling you want to be under somebody’s skin forever together. Who will kill and who will be devoured is of a lesser importance. Of course the main character in his book is called insane. (See also the movie, Empire Of The Senses by Nagisa Oshima). But somehow it sounds to me as a kind of (Christian) sacrifice. Disturbing stuff.

Jan Thys

You might enjoy this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQeunzHwdIk

Jan,

That kind of love sounds dangerous. I think real love requires distance.
I can love someone, as long as I don't have to smell them.

@Davisd Martino
Yes, if the feeling is not reciprocal it certainly looks like this nice clip.

@Margot
Dangerous indeed. I dare to say that eros and thananthos are sometimes very close. It felt like the desire to merge totally with the loved one. Sounds familiar to the unification with God, experienced by various mystics. It was a strange and intense feeling for me too, although it did not last long.

@ Jan, David

You guys should check out Durwood Douché, the album Big Banned and Blue.

@Sander
Durwood Douché. Never heard of it, but you made me curious about it. Thanks.

Jan T

Devouring is preferable to being devoured, in my book at least.

Arnon

Let me offer you again this definition for love: fulfilling true needs. If someone is slowly dying in pains, helping him have the coup de grace can be an act of love. Hofmeester on the other hand did not love his daughter, first of all because he didn't love himself (never knew what his needs were and how to fulfill them), secondly because he didn't perceive Tirza as seperate entity from himself. Since he was so practiced in killing himself, killing Tirza eventually was not a surprising end (as Tirza was merely his own extention).
But of course, everyone has his own idea of what love is.

Neria

According to you every dentist, every surgeon; every soup kitchen basically even my hairdresser is offering true love. (And every prostitute of course.)

Arnon

Yes, and you offer them your love by paying for their services in return.
It's a little bit more complicated than that; i'm not sure that a consumption based culture has a lot to with fulfilling real needs. i don't think Imelda Marcus real needs were purchasing all these shoes, i don't think Mao real needs were to murder 70 million people, and i don't think that when i overeat or smoke i fulfill my real needs.

Arnon

Food is a real need, sometimes dentists too (with surgeons i have strongs doubts if the surgery is not 100% emergency), but can you describe the needs a prostitute is fulfilling?

Consumatism is in most cases the make-up of our true needs. We all desperately want to be loved. We buy perfume so the other wouldn't smell our stink, we go to the dentist so our smile would be pleasing, we buy expensive shoes or handbags as a statussymbol to show we are succesfull, We go to a prostitute to get a physical contact, wich is as fundamental as the yearning for mental love.

Neria

Certain questions you should really try to answer yourself, I know it is hard but you can do it. Just think slowly.

Arnon

Don't be so defensive, i asked it not because i was accusing you or judging you. i don't think moralistically. i truly want to know what does a sex client need. i am very well capable of thinking, you may stop urging me to think each time you are mistakingly being offended. i wonder what it is one is obtaining from this interaction with a prostitute, i guess there's a whole universum of answers for this. i'm interested in yours.

Neria

I think a sex client just needs sex, or the illusion of being wanted.
Not much different from a relationship really.

Margot

In a relationship i very much feel wanted (at least to a degree that keeps me staying there), whereas i wonder if one can really fool himself to believe that he is wanted for anything but his money. Personally i would make a very bad prostitute because i cannot lie, and i would be extremely disgusted to let anyone i'm not attracted to to touch me, not to mention to penetrate me. So there must be something else. What do you imagine you'll feel towards a gigolo (or a prostitute)? Do you imagine yourself paying for someone to touch you or to penetrate you?

What do you think you feel when you pay someone to touch you?
You feel power.
It is power these men crave, not intimacy.
I do believe that most relationships are marketplaces and that everything is give and take.

Margot

To my idea, to pay someone to touch you is to be in opposite position of having power. But what do i know, i never sedired paying anyone for touching me.

Neria

You confuse love with parasitism. It’s time you get paid for something.

Arnon

What?!
Am i a parasite when i feed and pet my cat?!

@Margot, Neria
Arnon Grunberg wrote something remarkable in his early writings, I try to quote: ‘You find a lot of lost souls in churches, brothels and in my mothers house.’
I think his observation is very close to the truth.
Of course you have all kinds of lost souls, brutal ones craving for power and kind ones searching for an illusion of intimacy or salvation and all in between.

Neria & Jan

Just for the record: I never paid someone to touch me. Usually I pay people not to touch me.
Jan: thanks for the quote, it's a nice christmas thought.

Arnon

When I write letters I accept silence even less as an answer as to a spoken question.

Coen

So what do you when people don't respond to your letters? Do you become violent?

Arnon

i never got any clarification: how am i confusing love with parasitism? (and i turn very violent when i'm not being answered... ;)))

Neria

About what you wrote:
to pay someone to touch you, I think, is not to be in opposite position of having power, because once a prostitute is paid, she doesn't have the power to reject. In every day reality, a woman has the power to reject. So there's a difference in equality to begin with.
PS. Do you remember what life was like without a computer?

Dear Margot,

Being paid makes a prostitute "unable" to reject only to the outer world, but within her she's suppose to be free to loath the same client she's faking love for. Maybe it's cheaper to visit a prostitue than to go to the theater.

As to computers, i personally love it. i love communicating with people without having the threat of becoming their perpetual mother, as often happens to me
in real life. It is also very powerful, it opens the whole wold for you, it's endless. There are also side effects which remind me how after having my first puncture in Holland i had to learn myself how to walk (instead of cycling) and i suddenly realised i missed lots of details because i daily passed too quickly near them.
i have no conclusions, virtual life and real life are simply two different experiences. i like the good stuff from both. i don't know why suddenly i thought in terms of 'or or'. i really use the internet extensively, and it gives me a lot of power, i much less need the assistance of others thanks to this tool.

Arnon

No, I'm not a violent person, at least, not any more. When I was young I fought a lot. One day, I think I was thirteen, I punched some one who was bullying me. He went knock out. Since that day i haven't fought anymore.
Taking silence as an answer, accept silence as an answer, is a response of some one who doens't want to fight anymore, or some one who can't fight (anymore). I guess I have to do that ass well. I can't push some one, can I?

@ Margot

" These men crave power" The same phenomenon can be observed in restaurants, where people serving sometimes are despised by some clients who look at them as inferior. Those clients fully use their power to proof their superiority. So this behaviour is not only restricted to the relationship prostitute- male client, even woman can behave like it. To me it is more related to lack of respect for the other, even if he is in a lesser position than you are. The irony however is that in prostitution those man ,though they despise the prostitute, they pay them to be intimate.

Mieke

"These men crave power" is a trial to make a generalization, however, i think it takes us nowhere. Clients also pay to be lashed, cut and humiliated.
Almost every human action can be an acting out, an abreaction. i pain free human being will have no need to pay for sex because s/he will not stand the idea of objectivising a living thing. No shortcuts here: you need to get to the bottom of the soul of every individual who objectivise another (whether at work, at school, in the bus etc) to understand the mechanism. Like always, i suggest, these are all repetitions of infancy and hildhood experiences.