I am still sore with Santa. He never cared answering my prayers.

What was the liquor for? Celebration or disappointment?

Dens

Sometimes liquor is just for the sake of liquor.

Oh, I thought because of the proximity of insightfull and after, this was a little sarcastic and maybe the liqour. Oh well. Drink up!

Santa Claus is and will remain my favorite saint.

Did your godson turn 5 in july?

victimhood

Dear Arnon,

I’m sorry to disturb this cucumber-time posts about visiting Santa Claus’ HQ in August. But. I read a lot of your articles in NRC/Handelsblad (a Dutch newspaper), and I noticed that you’ve got a deep interest in victimhood.
Today the Georgian PM Saakasjvili said about the conflict between Russia and Georgia ‘we’re the victims here’. At the same time Putin blamed the Georgian army for commiting genocide against the South-Ossetians.
What do you think about their struggle for victimhood? Can we make a difference? Or are we all victims suffering from ourselves or by others, and is any hierarchy just arbitrary? I have the feeling that, at least in your NRC-columns, you doubt the binary opposition between victims and culprits. Is it a writer's duty to stay ‘neutral’ in this case? Or is there no option for any of us? Sorry to bother you at your vacation with all these questions. I’m just looking for temporary answers (which some call truth). Just as you, I guess.
I’m looking forward to your next novel by the way. Is it about a young bisexual female soldier who secretly converts to Islam while fighting in Iraq? Or is it about Santa Claus trying to get a red nose in August? Perhaps they could fall in love…

Greetz,

Albert Verbeek.

On a different note @ Oscar or was it David?

Arnon, forgive me for using this space, I had hoped you may write something about music sometime so I could place this comment.
Oscar or David - one of you recommended David Axelrod, and I wanted to say - it took me a while to appreciate but I am now loving it and hooked. Especially the song 'Pula Yetia'.

Did you know Santa Claus is the great great grandfather of our celebrated author Hugo Claus? It's true!

Noa

I'm glad to hear that you like the music. The song "Pula Yetia" was produced but not written by David Axelrod.

HQ Eupen

I liked this comment.
http://cortdoordebocht.wordpress.com/2008/07/29boekpresentatie-arnon-grunberg-is-politieke-daad/

Albert

I’m not sure if I would agree with the statement that I have a deep interest in victims, a rather broad category.
In a piece on Rezzori’s “Memoires of Anti-Semite”, published last Friday in the Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad I quoted Rezzori on the necessity to identify with the victims.
I’m not at all convinced that this identification is always healthy, it depends on how we define “identification with victims.”
To be perceived by others as weak seems to be sometimes a virtue, of course it can be a position of strength but that is not the same as a virtue.

Noa

I am more the kind of person who would recommend you David Hasselhoff, for example `Du´ or `Jump in My Car´.

@David

You're an unreliable narrator, so to speak. As you well know: self-irony and narcissism go together like a horse and carriage.

Noa

You seem to know a lot about narcissism.

@David, naturally. If only because I have been disliking my own cynicism and wondering what the root of that was in order to cut it short. It's like when you're pregnant, suddenly you see all these pregnant women all over the place.
But what I said about self-irony was quite the no brainer really. It's easily counter-argued. It's like saying 'behind every anger lies a certain degree of fear'. There are always exceptions.