My Life and Thoughts

Dear readers!  I am just back from Tel Aviv, where I went to interview some important world literary-historical cats.  They are literally sitting on some invaluable manuscripts!  Neither they nor their caretakers (the daughters of Max Brod’s late secretary) have been especially forthcoming to the press.  But that didn’t stop me and my colleague Avi Steinberg from creepily lurking around their front yard for like an hour.

Because I am a professional and think of everything, I had an artificial mouse in my pocket, with which I was able to attract the attention of one of the archival interns:

Although this “opening gambit” of the mouse enjoyed a certain self-contained success, it failed to spark the lively debate I had been anticipating about the legal and cultural battle surrounding Kafka’s legacy. Rather, the intern seemed somehow unable to move beyond what one might call the pourparlers, so that really all I learned from our encounter was his position on artificial mice.  (pro)

The next day, as I was pondering how to marshal the tale of these cats and their papers, I had the amazing good fortune to meet Israeli A-list writer Etgar Keret, who observed that the most intuitive way to tell the story would be in the first person, from the perspective of a cat.   The natural denouement, Keret helpfully suggested, would involve the protagonist-narrator “shitting on a priceless manuscript.”

Another fine journalistic angle was proposed by the abovementioned Steinberg: while press to date has emphasized the dangers posed by the cats to the Brod papers, Steinberg pointed out, an equally or perhaps even more poignant story remains to be told, regarding the threat to the cats’ livelihood posed by those piles of decaying manuscripts, which are known for their “high sulphuric acid content.”

Hygienic readers!  The time is rapidly approaching for me to leave you and go do about 19 loads of laundry.  But first, a quick word about some upcoming events.  This Sunday, in New Orleans, I’m doing a book signing between 3:30 and 5:30 at Faulkner House Books (624 Pirate’s Alley + free booze = be there!!).  On June 10 I will be participating in the incredibly auspicious-sounding Death: A Literary Celebration of the Bitter End, with Joseph O’Neill and Diane Williams, at Manhattan’s Housing Works Bookstore.  And, on June 21, I’m reading at the University Bookstore in Seattle.

I’m also really hoping to line up a joint event on or around June 8, somewhere in NYC, to celebrate the launch of Android Karenina by Leo Tolstoy and Ben Winters, but we don’t have a venue yet… if you would like to host us, we promise not to damage any of your priceless manuscripts!

Tags: animals, bureaucracy, cats, comparative literature, death, Israel, libraries, money, THE POSSESSED, Tolstoy

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