Interview w/ Arnon Grunberg

Last week constituted a hat trick of misanthropy with my completion of Darconville' Cat on Sunday, the blitz through The Jewish Messiah by Thursday and Friday's marvelous reading of J.G. Ballard's Concrete Island. Ballard's work was stellar, though the novel's dynamic was altered with the addition of other characters in the concluding half.

(disclaimer, there is no actual interview w/ Mr. Grunberg, though his blurb indicates he is in NYC)

here's what what I would ask Arnon Grunberg if he was sitting on my porch.

Q: Does excess communicate the inchoate idea of Jewishness in a historical context?

Q:Perhaps Compunction is your thematic, do we then need self-loathing characters involved with self-mutilation, serial humiliation and protracted scenes of torture to perhaps complete the reader's own quotient for debasement? Is that it?

As of this morning, I can't specify my next direction. I have been plugging away with Our Mutual Friend and I did heft Laura Warholic but found it inconvenient for the present, the similarity w/ Darconville's Cat was also off-putting.