what we say we are
TRANSCRIPT
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What We Say We Are
Jonathan Safran Foer
Petr Ginz’s parents met at an Esperanto conference. That detail jumped out
at me from the introduction to Petr’s diary, written by his sister, Chava
Pressburer. ! failed lanuae " a bad idea born out of a ood instinct "
Esperanto held the promise of universal communication. Everyone would
understand everyone all the time# a new Eden would row out of the rubble
of $abel. Petr was, %uite literally the product of that dream.
&ow much su'erin is due to not havin the riht word( )orein words
are un*nown, familiar words are misunderstood or misinterpreted. +ords are
perverted by our histories personal and lobal-, by contet and tone of
voice. +ords are bad approimations. There is evil in the world. Evil too*
youn Petr from his parents and shu/ed him into the as chambers of
!uschwitz. $ut evil is not the only thin to fear or strule aainst.
0 read Petr’s diary as the randson of survivors, as 1rst2eneration
!merican, as a 3ew, and as a writer. 4nepectedly, it was this last identity
that most informed my eperience. +hile the diary in your hands is a
resoundinly ood boo* " by just about every imainable de1nition " what
it stands in opposition to isn’t evil, but speechlessness.
5ls6
Givin a word to a thin is to ive it life. 78et there be liht,9 God said,
7and there was liht.9 :o maic. :o raised hands and thunder. The
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articulation made it possible. 0t is the most powerful of all 3ewish ideas# words
are enerative. 3ews are people of the boo*# their parents are words.
0t’s the same with marriae. ;ou say 70 do9 and you do. +hat is it,
really, to be married( To be married is to say you are married. To say it not
only in front of your spouse, but in front of your community, and in front of
God. 0 believe in prayer. ?@As, he wrote, there wasn’t a word for
frustrated. !nd so until the mid2seventies, no &ebrew spea*er eperienced
frustration. =hould his wife turn to him in the car and as* why he’d fallen so
%uiet, he would search his incomplete dictionary of emotions and say, 70’m
upset.9
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To name the unnamed. To brin the unnamed into eistence. There are
writers who hold mirrors to the world. 7This is what it’s really li*e,9 they say.
7Eactly what it’s li*e. Down to the most eactin detail.9 That’s 1ne. =uch
boo*s are often nice to read, and at their best can ive us clear and focused
pictures of ourselves. $ut there’s somethin more to which writin can
aspire.
0’m not a reliious person, but writin for me is reliious in this sense#
to write is to participate in the creation that bean with that 1rst namin,
and will continue until someone or somethin 1nds an ade%uate word for
7end.9 To write is to brin into bein thins whose eistences depend on
their articulation.
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paper. Given his unprecedented situation, his words were unprecedented. &e
was creatin new lanuae. &e was creatin life.
0t can be danerous to treat a diary li*e this as literature " to 1nd
beauty in it, and symbolism, and structure. $ut how can one not( &ere is the
beinnin of the passae in which Petr recounts learnin that he would soon
be parted from his family#
5ep6 Don’t thin* that cleanin a typewriter is easy. There is cleanin
and there is 7cleanin.9 0f you want the typewriter to shine on the
inside and on the outside, you have to remove the carriae and wipe
the most invisible corners with a small brush. Then you have to use a
blowpipe to clear it out. The most diBcult part are the spaces between
the typebars.
+hen !dorno speculated about the possibility of literature after the
&olocaust, he wasn’t as*in somethin about art as is commonly
misunderstood-, but about lanuae itself. +hat meanin can words have in
the liht of such destruction( Can 7loss9 have any use( Can 7war(9 Can
7love,9 for that matter( +ill we ever aain be able to 1nd the riht word(
The answer is yes " it was built into the %uestion " but lanuae
must be reconstructed with an enery reater than that of its destruction.
This is what we " as readers, writers, and spea*ers " do. +e participate in
ti**um olam, the repairin of the world, which bean only moments after the
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world’s creation. !dam, the 1rst man, was iven the tas* of atherin the
divine liht " the oodness " that escaped the vessels bro*en by creation.
;oun Petr, another 1rst man, had a preternatural *nowlede of this. +hy
else, in the shadow of his death, would he have crafted these words as he
did( &ow else could such an e'ort have been possible( $y repairin the
dictionary, he was repairin the world.
The diary in your hands did not save Petr. $ut it did save us.
Safran Foer, Jonathan. “What We Say We Are.” The Diary of Petr Ginz 1941–1942. New
York: Atlantic onthly !re"", #$$%.