The Observer - 25.08.2019

The Observer

Books 25.08.19 51

‘Writing stories

is more like an

uncontrollable

refl ex than a

career decision’:

Etgar Keret.

Graeme

Robertson/

the Guardian

Etgar Keret is one of Israel’s
leading writers, known best for
his short stories, graphic novels
and screenplays; in 2016, he also
published an acclaimed memoir,
The Seven Good Years. His new
collection, Fly Already , features
a father who turns into a rabbit
and an array of other surreal and
apocalyptic scenarios. He lives in Tel
Aviv with his wife and son.

Like your other books, Fly Already
is a wild ride. Can you tell me a bit
about what you’re trying to do with
short fi ction?
For the past 33 years, I’ve been
writing short stories, I would say,
almost constantly. It’s really more
like an uncontrollable refl ex, you
know, than a career decision. It’s my
way of coping with reality.
My stories come from a very
unconscious place. I don’t
know what’s going to happen
in them. Something about this
transformation from writing
short stories into a collection is
almost like a therapy process in
which I understand where I am at
that time.

What happened this time?
I think it had to do with an
accident  I had about three years ago.
I was in a car service going from
Connecticut to Boston on a reading
tour in the US, and the driver hit
another car going something like
120km /h [75mph]. For the fi rst
couple of minutes I thought I was
dying, and it was as if I was looking
at myself from a distance, being very
disappointed that my life was not
[fl ashing] in front of my eyes, like
they promised in the brochure.

It wasn’t Technicolo r enough!
I always saw it in American movies
and it always had greater production
value, a nicer musical score... I felt
this overwhelming experience, like
a candle that we know will go out
in a second and everything will go
dark; and at the same time this kind
of understanding that on a global
scale, you know, nothing happened.
Those cars will keep driving by and
the McDonald’s will switch from
breakfast to lunch at 11:30, and this
idea of the title that came up to my
mind was the Hebrew title of the

funny because when I sit next to my

computer and I write emails or surf,

he never comes, but the moment I

start writing a story he comes and

sits next to my feet and doesn’t get

up until I fi nish it.

What’s the last really great book that

you read?

I’m usually honest in my writing and

less honest in interviews, but I can

tell you that for the past year, I didn’t

read any book, which is the fi rst

time since I went to fi rst grade.

Why was that?

My wife and I were working on a

very demanding TV series, a project

that demanded relocation and that

we direct in French, when we don’t

speak French, so all in all it was a

very overwhelming experience. It

took a lot of my inner space.

Whenever I wanted to delve into

a book, I would go and watch a

Netfl ix series instead; I must say for

pure laziness, because I think the

big difference between a TV or fi lm

and reading a book is that reading

a book demands creativity from

you, because you need to imagine

things and you need to create them

in your mind. And I felt so drained

at the end of the day that I wanted

somebody else to think out how the

characters look.

As a child, were you a keen reader?

From the moment I started writing,

I read less. I think reading was a way

of widening the world in which I

lived, and that the moment I started

writing I found a different way

to widen it. So I would alternate

between writing such a reality or

reading such a reality.

I grew up in a family where this

traditional transformation between

being a child and being an adult

was much more blurred. My parents

were both children of war, with my

mum being orphaned from both her

parents at a young age and growing

up in a hostile environment; when

she was in the orphanage, grown ups

were the people who were trying to

steal food, not the people who took

her aside and protected her. Then

the idea was that reality was what

you wanted it to be.

Was there one specifi c writer you

loved?

When I was my son’s age,

13, Douglas Adams’s books

revolutionised the way that I

thought. Not as an artist, because

I was not an artist, but as a human

being. When I was young, being

exposed to Douglas Adams’s books,

or to Monty Python, or Blackadder,

it’s not that they affected my taste

but they affected my attitude to the

interaction of this thing called life.

Fly Already is published by Granta

(£12.99). To order a copy go to

guardianbookshop.com or call

0330 333 6846

The Israeli writer

tells Alex Clark about

the car accident that

inspired his latest

short story collection,

why he isn’t always

honest in interviews,

and how Douglas

Adams blew his mind

Etgar Keret

‘For the past year I didn’t read any books’

collection, which is A Glitch at the

Edge of the Galaxy.

Many of the stories take place in a

recognisable present day, but others

are highly speculative and create a

parallel reality. Why is that?

I think the stories that I write about,

say, cloning, or about AI, when I

read them, I feel for sure that it’s a

fable-like way to talk about racism

and about xenophobia, and about

the human instinct to try to fi nd

entities that have less rights than

you and exploit them.

Politics run through your work. What

do you feel about what’s happening?

The kind of crap that Johnson and

Trump are doing now in the US and

UK, Netanyahu’s been doing for the

past 20 years; I think he understood

a long time ago that you don’t have

to control the country, you have to

control the discourse. If in the past

the role of the leader was of this

kind of selfl ess person who puts

the country in front of him, now

it’s the kind of guy that could win a

Big Brother reality show. Everybody

knows his name, a total asshole, but

never boring; this is what you really

demand from this guy, to be kind of

visible and to be above the noise.

Back to the stories, I notice a lot of

strange, shape-shifting animals...

Well, as I speak to you, my rabbit

also listens.

You really have a rabbit?

Yes, I’ll send you a photo of him!

He’s really into storytelling. It’s

‘The role of the leader is

now the kind of guy that

could win a reality show’

The books

interview