THINQon : The Zipper

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This topic is a continuation of:

Etgar Keret - A conversation with Etgar Keret

Assaf Peretz

The Zipper

Latest Post: January 12, 2011 at 11:43 AM

8 followers

This is the second question I posed to Etgar in A conversation with Etgar Keret.
You mention Etgar that you were stitched in the head. Do you think that has something to do with why many characters in your stories often have zippers, or holes as part of them, that they enter and exit? All of these things that come from the inside.

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Assaf Peretz

in "Etgar Keret / A conversation with Etgar Keret / A conversation with Etgar Keret"

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Etgar Keret

January 12, 2011 at 11:41 AM

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I have a strong feeling that because I have such a loud dialogue between some sort of an inner self and an outer self I kind of presume that this is the case with other people, I'm not sure it is, but I really feel I'm very much interested with this kind of question. For example, adding the word ‘really’ to sentences. Who we really are, what do we really want, are we really happy. This kind of questioning brings me many times to this idea of characters discovering they are not what they thought they were.

My latest collection of stories is called “Suddenly a knock on the door.” For me ‘Suddenly a knock on the door’ is some sort of a wakeup call, the idea that nobody is supposed to be knocking on the door, you open it and it could be the people coming to take you away, it could be these men telling you that you are actually a brain washed 2nd world war Nazi scientist who doesn’t know he is one; it could be somebody or something that transforms your life. It’s the idea that you live inside a life which isn’t necessarily ontologically your true life.

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Assaf Peretz

In response to Etgar Keret

January 12, 2011 at 11:43 AM

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It's very physical the way you feel how things could go out, like the story of the zipper (how you zip certain things), and the tong.

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Etgar Keret

In response to Assaf Peretz

January 12, 2011 at 11:43 AM

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When you think of the story the zipper. In the story it’s someone who discovers that her partner has a zipper and later that she herself has a zipper, but it’s all about relationships. I'm married, I love my wife and we've been together many years, so it doesn’t mean that I don't believe in relationship, but there is something in this sensation that you have some sort of presupposition that you know the person that you're with, that you know what she feels or thinks to some extent, and that you know what you feel and think, and I'm not sure of any of these presuppositions. So many times I feel that there is something about a relationship that is almost some sort of role playing game. Like one day, after you played for 10 years dungeons&dragons and then this guy comes and says to you listen, I got something to tell you, I'm not really a hobbit thief, I'm a college student. I can imagine my wife telling me that to me at one stage or another.