Arnon Grunberg

On spitting

The advantages of stiffness

On the eve of Jewish New Year (one of my Jewish friends wrote me: “Anyway I am not sure if it is appropriate or not but I did want to wish you a very happy and healthy New Year.” That’s what you get when you are not religious, people hesitate to wish you a happy New Year) I went to the offices of Penguin to discuss the publication of “The Jewish Messiah” in the USA.
(There are small differences between let’s say my publisher based in Switzerland and the publisher in the US. The biggest difference is that in New York you have to show your picture ID to get permission to enter the premises.)
My agent was present, the publisher, the associate publisher and the publicist.
I would describe the atmosphere as friendly but stiff. Stiffness has its advantages. It’s not going to happen that I have to tour in 2008 with a goat through the city of New York in order to promote my book as I did in the Netherlands in 2003. (For a different novel.)

Before the end of the meeting I managed to summarize Mr. Coetzee’s last novel (he’s published by Penguin but the book has not come out yet in the US) badly. Socrates had strong arguments for spoken language, but the advantage of the written language is not to be overlooked. You have time to think about what you are going to say. And of course, as mentioned in one of my earlier books, you will never accidentally spit on somebody when you use written language.
My career would have gone in a different direction when I had managed on strategic moments to not spit on certain people.