Office Hours with George Saunders

Now, are you filming now?

(thoughtful piano music)

Donald Barthelme has this great essay called On Not Knowing,

and says a writer's that person who, embarking on her task,

has no idea what to do.

So, that's the fun thing, is to say

there is some kind of energy that I'm manifesting

as I'm writing line to line.

And it has a larger form,

but to know in advance what that form is

would reduce it.

I came to Syracuse in 85, I think, to be a grad student.

And in the romantic Syracuse ambience,

met my wife and we got engaged in three weeks.

And then also, Carver was living here when we first came.

Tobias Wolf was here.

I just kind of loved walking around here

'cause every square foot of this campus

has memories like that.

I'm George Saunders, it's nice to meet you,

what's the issue, what can I do for you, what do you need?

No, I teach here at Syracuse University,

I write short stories, and that's pretty much it.

(keyboard clicks)

I'm not really a very acute thinker.

I'm kind of poorly, and lumpily, read

because of my engineering background.

So, if I start to try to prove something,

I'm not very good at it.

But I can intuit things pretty well.

I have strong feelings.

The thing I get really excited about is dramatization.

When you take a human situation and make it

come to a boil.

You know, I'm not a violent person,

it makes me uncomfortable, actually.

Sometimes I'll do a reading,

and you meet so many nice people

and then you get in front of them and you're like,

I'd like to read them something nice.

And I don't have much of that.

When I was, I think in seventh grade,

my dad was on a business trip and he took us

to see Dirty Harry.

He kind of hadn't realized how violent it was,

but I remember in seventh grade watching that movie,

and kind of being terrified,

but also really exhilarated by it, like,

oh wow, that violence has power.

That's been one of the things I've had

to accept about myself is that,

as much as I wanna be that other,

gentler, wise, loving writer,

whatever gentleness or wisdom or love I have,

it only comes out in, sort of, extraordinary

or cruel kind of scenarios.

When you're writing a character, for example,

your first draft is often, in my case,

I'm often using the person to make jokes.

It's I'm, sort of, looking down on the person

and getting jokes out of his or her obvious flaws.

Then what happens, is you have to somehow,

in this revision process, bring them up

so they're not so far below you.

And, ideally, so they're right even with you.

So we could understand that as a process of

re-imagining them.

How do you feel, what's your problem?

Why are you so grouchy, why, you know.

And then they become more three-dimensional

and easier to love.

And so I think the that act of re-imagining them is love.

And I find in real life, it's the same thing.

If somebody cuts you off in traffic,

and first you just hate 'em.

And then, with a little distance,

or maybe with a little discipline,

you can say, well, wait a minute,

I've done that, I've cut people off.

In that moment I wasn't a monster, I just was inattentive.

So then, suddenly, instead of a hateful monster

who's got an opposing political sticker on their bumper,

they become you, that time you were inattentive.

And then suddenly a lot of that goes out.

I think it's a cycle.

I found you start a story, it's stupid.

You don't have any ideas.

You're washed up, you're finished.

Then you get a sliver of an idea,

but it's kind of dumb.

And then you start working it,

becomes, oh, maybe, alright.

Oh yeah, I'm gonna finish this for you.

I did finish it.

It's funny, it's not terrible.

You don't have any ideas, you're back to the beginning.

Is that what life is, is just a series

of enacting that cycle.

And, lately, it's become kind of wonderful

to say, yeah, so now I'm at the point where

I don't have any ideas.

Is it a crisis?

No, it's not a crisis, you've been here before.

And maybe even you could enjoy that moment

when you are bereft of ideas.

Maybe you can enjoy the moment,

which happens for me a lot,

where I'm stuck at page 12, and I've been stuck

there for a long time and it's embarrassing.

Maybe you could actually enjoy it.

And the goal would be just keep enacting that.

Live to 190, put the period on the best story ever,

and then (mumbles).

But actually, the deeper goal is just to

be more loving, more courageous,

more accepting, more patient,

but also less full of shit.

So, in other words, to be able to

really step up to the beauties of life

and the horrors of it without any kind of flinching.

And really, for once, open your eyes and see it.

And then if some of that could get into your work,

that would be a plus.