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An Interview with J. M. Coetzee

Author(s): J. M. Coetzee and World Literature Today
Reviewed work(s):
Source: World Literature Today, Vol. 70, No. 1, South African Literature in Transition
(Winter, 1996), pp. 107-110
Published by: Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40151863 .
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An Interview with J. M. Coetzee

[Thesubjectof the interviewis GivingOffense: Essayson to be favoringa stance of liberaltolerance,but then

Censorship, to be published in early1996bytheUniversity say that, "dependingon how you look at it," this
of ChicagoPress.] tolerance is "eitherdeeply civilized or complacent,
hypocritical,and patronizing."Which is it? Is liberal
World Literature Today: Your new book has tolerancedeeply civilizedor is it in fact the expres-
chapters on a wide range of writers- D. H. sion of a rathermyopic point of view, in certainof
Lawrence,Desiderius Erasmus, Osip Mandelstam, its facets misogynistand imperialistic?
AleksandrSolzhenitsyn,Zbigniew Herbert, Andre
Brink, Breyten Breytenbach - as well as on people JMC: You raise a number of questions, not all of
- which I can deal with satisfactorilyhere- not all of
who aren't usually thought of as writers the which I can deal with to your satisfactionor to my
apartheidtheorist GeoffreyCronje- and on a vari- own- but which I hope are at least approachedin
ety of topics in the field of censorship:the feminist the book itself. Let me simplysay that I am not en-
critique of pornography,the history of so-called amoredof the Either-Or.I hope that I don't simply
publicationscontrol in South Africa,your personal evade the Either-OrwheneverI am confrontedwith
experienceof workingunder censorship.Obviously it. I that I at least try to workout what "under-
there is a certain South African bias to the book, lies"hope it in each case (if I can use that foundationalist
and secondarilyperhapsa bias toward the Russian
or East Europeanexperience;but beyond express- the metaphor);and that this responseof working-outon
Either-Orisn't read simplyas evasion. (If it is, I
ing your general opposition to censorship (which have been wastingmy time.)
won't be news to anyone, I am sure), I wonder
whetheryou can say what the generalthesis of the GivingOffenseis not a polemic. Polemic is not its
genre and, I would hope, not its spirit. I have seen
book is. too many writers and intellectuals shift into the
J. M. Coetzee: This is not a book with a general mode of polemic when they confront censorship,
thesis. Its substancelies in the chapterson individ- and in my opinionthe resultsdo not do them credit.
ual writers,ratherthan in the chaptersthat deal- In fact, one of the things I try to point out is that a
unavoidably - with generalities.In fact, I am even
regime of censorship creates among the intelli-
dubious about accepting your comment that the gentsia an atmosphere of antagonism and anger
book expressesa generaloppositionto censorship.I which may be as bad for the spirituallife of the
don't disputeyour statementthat a distastefor cen- communityas any of the more obviouslyrepressive
sorship- even a strong distaste- emerges from the acts that the censorcarriesout.
book. What I am reluctantto endorse is the state- Am I a liberal?Am I "merely"a liberal?Does
ment that the book is writtento expressan opposi- GivingOffenseespouse a liberalposition?Do I think
tion to censorship.I would rathersay that the book a liberal position on censorshipis civilized or pa-
explores, in theory and in practice, opposition to tronizing?I hope I am not "merely"a liberal. But
censorship- explores that opposition not only in then, no liberaltoday is merely a liberal:all liberals
studies of severalwritersworkingunder censorship, have careful qualificationsof themselves that set
but also in my own case: what does it mean for a them apart,howeverslightly,from "mere"(or "clas-
person of my kind, a ratherdisaffiliatedintellectual sic") liberalism.We have to do here with the phe-
whose heritageis largelyEuropean,or European-in- nomenon, the act, of naming, characterizing,and
Africa,to be in opposition? correspondingly with the experience of being-
WLT: A certain ambivalence toward your own named. I am not espousinga position, or not setting
position certainlydoes emergein the first chapter.I out to espouse a position; but that does not mean
think, for example, of a passage in which you seem that a position does not get espoused. I do not fly a
banner, but that does not mean that a banner will
not get attached to the book. That is how time
J. M. Coetzee (b. 1940) is Professorof GeneralLiteratureat the how opinionworks.
Universityof CapeTown and the authorof sevennovels,includ- works,
ing Dusklands (1974), Waiting for the Barbarians (1980), Life and If this responseto your questionsseems vague, I
Timesof Michael K (1983), Age of Iron (1990), and The Master of can only say that in my chapteron DesideriusEras-
Petersburg(1994). Among his several nonfiction publications are mus I try to talk about the Either-Orand about
White Writing: On the Culture of Letters in South Africa (1988),
vagueness or slipperinessor other stances (or non-
Doubling the Point (1992), and the forthcoming Giving Offense.
His work has been honored with England's Booker Prize, stances) towardthe Either-Orin a more philosophi-
France'sPrixFeminaEtranger,and the JerusalemPrize. cal way. A more philosophical way which (in a
108 WORLDLITERATURETODAY
chapteron ThePraiseof Folly) must also be an ap-
propriatelyfoolishway.
WLT: Is Erasmusthen a hero of yours?
JMC: A hero insofaras a fool and a cowardcan be
a hero. It must be clear to you that a range of atti-
tudes get expressedin the various essays constitut-
ing the book. For instance,I don't have an immedi-
ate, intuitive sympathy toward someone like
Solzhenitsyn,who is too much of a polemicist for
my taste. At the same time, he is a world-historical
figure. He has also, I think, undertakensome terri-
fying self-searchingsin his books, self-searchings
that have been a little obscuredby his largerpoliti-
cal, or politico-religious,project. In the case of
Breyten Breytenbach,too, I think a complex atti-
tude emergesin the book. There is something sav-
age in Breytenbach,savagelyself-rending,that I re-
treat from. At the same time his confrontationsof
himself are exemplary, particularly for South
Africans of his generation and his background - pornographyreallybad (for us, for our children)?If
amongwhom I numbermyself.
But it must also be clear to you that the most
sympatheticallytreatedfiguresin the book are Eras-
mus and Zbigniew Herbert. Erasmus in a sense
maps out the groundI have to traversein the face of
the Either-Or.Luce Irigaray,who is otherwisenot a
central figure in the book, plays a similar guiding
role when I take up the feministcritiqueof the law.
As for Herbert,thereis a kind of moralsteadinessto
him that standsas a light to me.
WLT: But Herbert has not suffered particularly
undercensorship.Some of the writersyou deal with
have been at the center of the struggleagainstcen-
sorship in our times. Either they have chosen of
theirown accordto be at the center- like Solzhenit-
syn- or they have simplylanded up at the center of
censorshiprows- I think of D. H. Lawrence and
Lady Chatterley.But in the lives of other writers-
like Herbert- censorshiphas been a ratherperiph-
eralmatter.
JMC: Maybe. But that is because they have made
it peripheral.They have put the censors in their
place, whichis a peripheralplace.
WLT: I was going on to say: the censor has been
ratherperipheralin Herbert'slife, and he (or she?)
has been rather peripheralin your own life too.
Wereany of yourbooks bannedin South Africa?
JMC: No. Nor do I want to say that I suffered
under the South Africancensorship.I do not want
to minimize the impact of censorship on those
South Africanwritersto whom it was appliedin its
full rigor,particularlythose black writerswho stood
absolutelyno chance of publishinga word in their
native country. At the same time, the metaphorics
of suffering (the suffering writer), like the meta-
phoricsof battle (the writerbattlingagainstthe cen-
sor), seem to me to belong to structuresof opposi-
tion, of Either-Or,which I take it as my task to
evade.
I did not "suffer"in this sense. On the other
hand, I would contend that we all suffered,togeth-
er. We lived an impoverishedintellectuallife, just as
we lived an impoverishedculturallife and an impov-
erishedspirituallife. If there is any generalthesis in
the book, it is that the unintended or not-fully-in-
tended consequencesof censorshiptend to be more
significantthan the intended consequences. From
that point of view, the spectacleof what is going on
in South Africa right now, as new censorshiplaws
are formulatedto replacethe old ones, is profoundly
depressing.The past is being relived as though it
had never occurred. "Pornographyis bad (for us,
for our children), thereforeit must be banned"-
that is the form that one side of the debate takes.
And on the other side the form it takes is: "Is
it is indeed bad, is it bad enough to be banned?"
What does not enter the debate is the question:
"What does it entail, to ban?" In the old South
Africa we had bans; in the new South Africa it
seems we are going to have bans again. What is
banned is, to my mind, a secondary question.
Regimesof banningare all alike.
WLT: You devote a lot of space in your book to
South Africa,but not to the present, not to the is-
sues you have just been talkingabout.
JMC: No, I don't. But in the light of what I have
to say, not only about PublicationsControl in the
1970s and 1980s but about bans on pornographyin
general, I think you can predict what I would say
about the present agitationfor controls on pornog-
raphy,on insult, and so forth.
WLT: Whatwould you say?
JMC: What would I say as a citizen, or what
would I say in a book to be publishedby a universi-
ty press?
WLT: Both.
JMC: As a citizen I would vote against controls.
That is the natureof the vote: Yes or No, Either-Or.
In a book I don't think I would add anything to
what I alreadysay. There is nothing novel in the
present South Africansituation.That, in a sense, is
what is disappointingabout it.
WLT: What you have said thus far centers very
much on pornography.Yet one could argue that
censorship on moral grounds is very much a side
issue, that what ought to concern us, in the case of
South Africa as much as in the case of the Soviet
Union, is politicalcensorship.
JMC: The theoreticalcase for distinguishingpolit-
ical from moral censorship, and for elevating the

first over the second.,at least in our times, is mas-
sive. However, the fact, the peculiar fact, is that
regimesof censorshipusuallyframetheir legislation
to coverboth fields and entrustthe role of watchdog
over both fields to the same set of officials(though,
I grant,thereis sometimesa higher-echelonpolitical
censorshipset over the bread-and-buttercensors).
This may be a mere accident- totalitarianregimes
are usually conservativein morals as well- but the
fact remains that the consequences for people in
generalare much the same:a kind of bleakening,if I
may inventa word, of the landscape.
A book that is very much about political censor-
ship in South Africa- A Culture of Secrecy by
J. M. COETZEE,1994
ChristopherMerrett- has recently come out. It is
not the kind of book I would have any interest in
writing. A chronicle of instances with a strong
polemicalbias. But then, Merretthas no interestin
literaturethat I can detect.
WLT: How does your long chapter on Geoffrey
Cronjefit into what you have been saying?I haven't
read any more of Cronjethan what you quote here,
but on the basis of that evidenceI wouldn'twant to.
JMC: Cronje wasn't a writer, a "literary"writer,
He was an academic sociologist in one part of his
life, and a propagandistof apartheidin the other.
COETZEE 109
Nevertheless,I would hope that contemporaryliter-
ary theory, if it has achieved nothing else, has
opened up ways for us to talk about peripheraldis-
courses- academic,political- in usefulways.
The chapter on Cronje sits ratheruneasily with
the rest of the book, I agree. Nevertheless, ap-
proaching Cronje with questions about censorship
at the back of our minds allowsus to see interesting
things about him. To begin with, Cronje delivers
strong hints that the censorshipexerted by public
opinion in the immediatepost-World War II years
makes it impossible for him to say just what he
means: the reader is invited to fill in the blank
spaces, so to speak.Nevertheless,Cronjedoes go on
"85
G
to express deep racial antipathies in a way that
would certainlynot be possible in public discourse
today. To such an extent that his successorsin the
National Partyintellectualestablishmentfound him
an embarrassment.
And then, finally,thereis the silenceof contempo-
raryscholarshipabout the deeper currentsthat flow
in the writingof Cronjeand his fellows (who include
influentialpoliticalfigureslike Nico Diedrichs,Piet
Meyer, H. F. Verwoerd).The historiansand politi-
cal scientiststo whom we assignthe task of compre-
hending apartheid - of comprehendingour immedi-
ate past in South Africa- have nothingto say about
110 WORLDLITERATURETODAY

it that interestsme. It is as a responseto theirsilence WLT: Is that the essence of your opposition to
thatmy chapteron Cronjeemerges. CatharineMacKinnon- that she is an unacknowl-
WLT: I'd like to turnbackto pornography,and to edged conservative?
your critique of the feminist critique of pornogra- JMC: I would hesitate to say so. I am by no
phy. There is a passage where you distinguishbe- means the firstpersonto point out that MacKinnon
tween erotic art and pornography.If that is a dis- has landed herselfwith some uncomfortablebedfel-
tinction you accept, then why don't you accept the lows fromthe moralrightwing in the United States.
position that, while erotic art- films, books, et But in fact I would hesitateto say that I am opposed
cetera- may be valid, a line needs to be drawn to MacKinnon. Or to put it slightly differently,I
when it comes to the deliberatedenigrationand hu- don't believe the point of my chapteron MacKin-
miliation of people, to the portrayal of violence non is to expressoppositionto her. It is ratherto ex-
againstwomen and perhapseven the sexualization plore the foundationsof her outrage.In the process
of violence againstwomen, to the encouragementof I find that there are concepts that illuminate her
the sexual abuse of children?That seems to me the outragemore satisfactorily,to me, than the moral-
kernelof feministoppositionto pornography. politicalvocabularyshe herselfuses: the concepts of
JMC: But that isn't just a feminist position that honor and shame,for instance.
you havebeen expressing.It's much older. WLT: You mention outrage. I would like to re-
WLT: No, it isn't. But it is expressedmost clearly turn, finally,to what you have to say about offense
and outrage,and particularlyaboutyour own inabil-
todayby feminists.
ity to take seriouslythe outrageof other people- of
JMC: A complicated question. First, you ask religious groups, for instance, or perhaps ethnic
whetherI accepta distinctionbetweenthe eroticand groups, though you don't actually mention them.
the pornographic.But it isn't a matterof whetherI Let me formulate my question in the strongest
accept the distinction:it is a fact of life that people terms, which would be something like this: Don't
makethat distinction,and act in terms of it. That is you thinkthat a scholarwho, in today'sworld, can't
to say, writers,filmmakers,whatever,advancetheir take outrageat ethnic or religiousinsults seriouslyis
productionsunder the banner of the erotic or the not competentto write a book with a title like Giv-
pornographicas they choose, veryoften with specific ing Offense,which presents itself as a discussion of
commercial ends, specific markets, in view. The such phenomena- psychologicalphenomena, per-
questionis thereforewhatI makeof the distinction. haps, but profoundlyimportantsocial and political
By claimingto be workingin an eroticratherthan phenomena too- as giving offense and taking of-
a pornographicmode, on the grounds that sexual fense?
materialsare being handledwith imagination,intel-
If I didn't take offense seriously,I wouldn't
ligence, taste, et cetera, the producer,in the range JMC:
of cases I am interested in, intends to invoke the be spendingyearsof my life writingabout it. Let me
try to respond as clearlyand preciselyas possible. I
protectionof the law. What I point out is that it is
not in the erotic mode but in the pornographic take offense itself seriously.It is a fact of life. The
mode (for instance, by people like Sade) that real question is whether I respect the motion of taking
assaultshave taken place, not only on moral norms offense. To be more precise, the question is not
and indeed on norms of human conduct, but on the whetherI, in person, respectthis motion: the ques-
-
limits of representationitself, or at least on the idea tion -is, what does it mean to respect really re-
that representationmust have limits. spect the taking-offense of others when you do not
Whether you are happy to have assaults take share the religious convictionsor ethnic sensitivities
place on these targets,whetheryou thinkassaultson from which this taking-offenseemerges?This seems
them ought to be allowed, is another question, a to me a properlyphilosophicalquestion, and I hope
question with a dimension. For the that in the book I give it a philosophicalanswer,to
strong political the best of my abilities.Therefore,to answeryour
moment, let me simplystressthat if you stand for a
ban on such assaults,then you are standingfor the question finally, if I am incompetent to write the
protectionof, among other standards of book I have written, it can only mean that I am
things, repre-
sentation.To this extent oppositionto pornography philosophicallyincompetent.
is and must be conservative. Cape Town, 6 July 1995