0:00

Anyone who claims to care about

0:03

the environment has to acknowledge also hypocrisy.

0:05

But that doesn't have to stop

0:08

our efforts in their tracks.

0:14

Hi everyone, today, I'm with Jonathan

0:17

Saffron four, who is one

0:19

of the most accomplished authors and thinkers

0:21

of his generation. I first

0:23

met Jonathan Oh quite a few years

0:25

ago when he published an amazing

0:28

book, Eating Animals.

0:30

That was not your first book, though, was it, Jonathan.

0:32

No, and it's not the first time we met, Oh, you

0:34

tell me we met even

0:37

before then. When I published

0:39

Everything Is Illuminated. I came out to your farm.

0:41

Unless I dreamt this, which is also

0:43

possible.

0:44

But there's a.

0:45

Detail from that afternoon that I remember really vividly,

0:47

which was that whatever the

0:49

piece was before me that you were doing

0:52

involved smoothies, and you had a bunch of smoothies

0:54

on the table. And after we had done

0:56

our segment, I said, could I

0:58

drink one of those smoothies? And you said you want to drink one

1:00

of those smoothies? I said, yeah, they look delicious, and they're just sitting

1:02

there, and for whatever reason, you thought it was the funniest

1:05

thing you'd ever heard.

1:06

How was the smoothie who can remember.

1:08

I don't know all smoothies are the

1:10

same ultimately, but I always

1:12

liked you because I always liked your books. And

1:15

it's just incredible the career you've

1:17

had as one of the literary world's

1:19

most accomplished writers. You

1:21

gained the literary world's attention with your

1:23

best selling fiction book Starting

1:26

Books, starting with Everything Is Illuminated,

1:28

and you've also written best selling

1:31

nonfiction books that explore factory farming,

1:33

which really attracted me and really appealed

1:35

to me and my daughter a vegetarian, but

1:38

also global warming. You have focused on

1:40

that, and the latest book is

1:43

We Are the Weather. We have so much

1:45

to talk about and it's so nice to see you again.

1:47

It just happened a couple weeks ago. I

1:50

was doing a commercial and it

1:52

was in a beautiful, beautiful

1:54

on a late late nineteenth

1:56

century house in is a Kensington

1:59

section of It's some.

2:01

People call it Ditmus Parks, some people call it Prospect

2:03

Park South.

2:04

Yeah, right in your Prospect Park, which

2:07

is one of my favorite parks, by the way. And I love the Brooklyn

2:09

Botanic Garden and I love the Brooklyn Museum.

2:11

But I was in this house and my dressing

2:14

room was upstairs, these very

2:16

steep, beautiful staircase, and

2:19

it was in a bedroom, and I'm looking

2:21

around. Every wall was covered

2:24

with shelving and which was full

2:26

of books. And I'm looking and looking and looking

2:28

in the hallway too. In the hallway there are books

2:30

in Hebrew and German and French and

2:33

Italian, but there's multiples of each book.

2:35

I'm saying, what would so many books in the

2:37

same book and all these languages. And then I saw

2:39

the author and it was you. So you had

2:41

copies of all the different translations

2:44

of all your different books. And

2:46

then I realized it was you. I looked you up in my phone

2:49

and I called Jonathan and we chatted for

2:51

a little while. I think he was horrified that I

2:53

was in his bedroom. Were you horrified I was in your bedroom?

2:55

I had been dreaming about it for twenty years.

2:58

Well, welcome to my podcast. Thank you, and

3:00

you look great. I told him as I walked in the door

3:02

today that he looks like a man now,

3:04

because the last time I saw you, you looked

3:06

more like an older boy.

3:09

I suspect that's coded language, And what

3:11

you're saying is no, it's not.

3:12

It's not coded at all. You do look more immature.

3:15

Now, you don't look at any of those things.

3:18

I came here from NYU where I teach, and

3:21

I take a nap every single day. That's the secret

3:23

to my relative youthful looks.

3:25

Oh good. And how long a nap?

3:28

Twenty minutes? Oh?

3:29

Sometimes I take two naps? Are good? I am

3:31

an apper? Also, you take it every day?

3:33

Well, I'm in the car, so I sometimes nap

3:35

in the car on my way to someplace.

3:38

And I think it is rejuvenating and good

3:40

for you because I don't sleep at night. Do you sleep at night?

3:42

I have problems at night. Need you don't

3:44

sleep? A choice? Or you don't sleep? I just don't

3:46

sleep.

3:47

You want to sleep and you can't sleep? Yeah, And is

3:49

your mind spinning with things?

3:50

No?

3:50

I read or I watch a movie or

3:53

you know, I'm addicted to my iPad?

3:55

Right, that's of course terrible to do when you

3:57

can't sleep. Yes, any kind of screen as.

3:59

You go down the rabbit hole with a

4:01

whole series, I can watch an entire I

4:04

can binge anything at night all night

4:06

long.

4:06

Too.

4:07

So anyway, well back

4:09

to more serious matters. Jonathan is very

4:11

active person, father of three,

4:14

and you have a new baby.

4:15

Yep, fifteen months old.

4:16

Sixteen months old, and good, fine,

4:18

great, She's a girl, which is a

4:21

new experience for me and utterly

4:23

different, I mean, exactly the same and

4:25

utterly different.

4:26

But I've been enjoying it a lot.

4:28

Well, you recently visited the Vatican,

4:31

which interested me tremendously because I

4:34

was raised a Catholic and we were revered

4:36

the various popes. I did meet

4:38

Pope John once when I was visiting

4:40

Cuba. He was there to meet

4:42

with Castro and I

4:44

was sent down by CBS to cover

4:47

the visit. And it was that same

4:50

visit when Monica Lewinsky's bomb

4:52

dropped, so everybody left Cuban

4:54

and I was left there with Pope John, and

4:58

it was a very unusual situation. But

5:00

I got to know Cuba pretty well. But

5:02

Pope John, what a delightful man he was.

5:04

How is Pope Francis.

5:06

Well, he is everything

5:08

I was hoping for.

5:09

I'm not a Catholic, as you know, and

5:11

I don't know that much about Catholicism.

5:14

I don't know that much about the Pope.

5:16

But I got an email on like

5:18

a Wednesday that said the Pope is going

5:20

to be delivering a paper lau

5:22

datte deem. It was the kind of sequel

5:24

to a paper he'd released a couple of years before about

5:27

climate change and about the

5:30

church's responsibility, Catholics responsibility

5:33

and as he put it, the responsibility

5:35

of people of goodwill.

5:37

And they said, who sent you the who sent you the letter?

5:40

Some his like right hand,

5:42

oh guy, whatever that title

5:44

would be. And they said, do you want

5:47

to come next week to give

5:49

a little talk about it?

5:50

How wonderful, how wonderful.

5:52

But I thought, this is my little brother or

5:54

you know who sent me this this email?

5:56

I thought it was a joke.

5:57

I did. I did think it was really Yeah.

5:59

Did you come on fancy he's papal stationary.

6:01

Well it was an email, an email, yeah, but

6:03

it did have a fancy little stamp at the bottom, and

6:06

English was like sort of like questionable

6:09

enough to feel authentic. I

6:11

know somebody in Rome's brother works for it.

6:13

I hope you saved that. Did you say that? Even course of course

6:16

yes.

6:17

Anyway, a couple days later I found myself in the Vatican

6:19

and I got to to meet him

6:22

for a little bit.

6:22

I brought my daughter, which was really special.

6:24

He In advance of meeting him, I asked

6:26

his people, you know, what's the what's

6:28

the protocol? I've never met a pope

6:31

before. Am I supposed to look him in the eyes? Do I kiss

6:33

a ring? Do I bow?

6:35

Do I do I not touch him? What? What do I do?

6:38

And they sent me back a two

6:40

sentence text. They said, be

6:42

normal. He's normal, That's all they

6:44

said.

6:46

Isn't that nice?

6:47

And he's one of these people and you don't meet

6:49

that many of them in the course of a life. Who

6:51

walks in a room and you just know he's special. He

6:53

doesn't even have to say anything, he just obviously.

6:56

Isn't it great when you meet that? Amazing?

6:58

And he was just drawn to my daughter.

7:01

You know, there was a in that room. There was a Nobel

7:03

Prize winner for physics. There was an incredible

7:06

young woman.

7:07

This is the baby daughter you took.

7:08

Yeah, oh great, Yeah?

7:10

Did he bless her?

7:11

Did he bless her? Probably? Who

7:14

knows? He gave her a rosary, you know he did?

7:16

Yeah, Oh that's so nice. Yeah,

7:19

he tickled her, which was blessing

7:21

enough. And then we had this

7:23

like press conference where he had these different speakers and

7:27

the way that he runs his

7:30

organization I found just

7:33

incredibly impressive and inspiring.

7:35

I said, what should I talk about?

7:36

I said, whatever you want to talk about, whatever his

7:39

paper moves you to say. For about how

7:41

long should I speak? Ten

7:43

minutes, fifteen minutes, but whatever your move to say.

7:46

Should I send you my remarks before

7:48

I give them? They said no, there's no need for that. And

7:51

there were four or five people. Carlo Petrini,

7:53

you know him, this slow food, he was one of the speakers, and

7:56

we just got up and we said whatever we wanted to say.

7:59

You know, in America.

8:01

You would have been produced to death, right produce death.

8:03

I would have been vetted to death, produced to death.

8:06

And this was distributed to the public.

8:08

How so it was the

8:10

official release of this paper, of

8:12

his pamphlet. It's maybe like forty

8:15

pages. You can find it online

8:17

in anywhere, and it's really worth reading. It's an incredibly

8:19

impressive document. It's more progressive

8:23

than any elected world leader would say. So they

8:25

had added a two hundred three hundred journalists

8:28

there and we gave our

8:30

talks and then it was disseminated through there.

8:34

And magazine tu Well.

8:36

Global warming certainly is abstract,

8:38

it's overwhelming, it's frightening to all

8:40

of us. And to me it's kind

8:43

of especially depressing and at

8:45

the same time kind of enlightening. I'm

8:47

a gardener, so it has affected me

8:50

a lot. My hobby's gardening. And I

8:52

just found out that Bedford, New York,

8:55

which has been traditionally zone five

8:58

on the climate chart, have you

9:00

know it's for gardeners

9:02

and growers and farmers, is now

9:04

a seven. It has warmed.

9:07

The climate has warmed two whole

9:10

not degrees, but two whole classes

9:12

up to seven. So it's almost

9:14

I can almost grow anything

9:17

now in a seven. We still we'll

9:19

get frosts, and citrus would die

9:21

if I if I put them outside. But it's

9:24

horrifying, horrifying where I can grow

9:26

now.

9:26

Yeah, gardeners see what the rest

9:28

of us have a harder time seeing.

9:30

Yes, we don't have a day to day experience with it.

9:32

These horrible floods in California.

9:35

And they're talking about atmospheric

9:38

rivers now, which means

9:40

there's a river in the sky dumping eight

9:43

inches on Los Angeles and Brentwood

9:45

had eight inches of rain in one and a half

9:47

days. That is an extraordinary amount

9:50

of water, and plants

9:52

can't take it, the houses can't take it.

9:54

The hillsides in California certainly can't

9:56

take it, and they're so worried that another storm

9:58

is coming and then the MUDs lives will start.

10:01

But all of this has prompted you to

10:03

write a really interesting book,

10:05

We are the Weather. Can you tell us about

10:07

that book?

10:08

So I should say I never thought I

10:10

would write nonfiction. I never really

10:12

wanted to when I was Younger writers,

10:16

I know, seemed to break into two categories.

10:18

Those who grew up and always

10:21

knew they wanted to write were always reading like kids

10:23

who had books under the covers of the flashlight when they

10:25

were little.

10:25

That's me. See, that was not me, it was

10:27

it. No, I came to reading later.

10:29

I'm still not.

10:30

I read a lot of books in your room. Who's

10:32

reading all those books?

10:33

First of all, as you said, they're all No.

10:35

No, they weren't because I was looking

10:37

at the titles of all the books I

10:40

like to read.

10:40

But I bet you read more books than I do, or I.

10:42

Used to read more. As time

10:44

disappears, I have read fewer

10:46

and fewer books a year. But I

10:49

did read so so much under the

10:51

covers with a flashlight. Yeah, so I came

10:53

to a kind of late and not because I.

10:54

Loved literature, but I loved

10:57

just a certain kind of expressiveness and freedom.

11:00

A way of like, and you had an imagination.

11:03

Exercising my imagination, Yes, And

11:05

so that got me into fiction and then nonfiction.

11:09

It was really born out of this concern that I had

11:11

and I've had since I was a little kid, which I think

11:13

a lot of kids have, which is why

11:15

do.

11:15

We eat meat?

11:16

Anxiety?

11:17

Yeah, and anxiety about it, and not even anxiety,

11:19

but an acknowledgment that our relationship

11:22

to animals. Every story I received

11:24

about what animals are and how to treat them

11:27

was sort of like made a kind of sense to me, except

11:30

for food. So you

11:32

have a family dog, you treat it well.

11:35

You certainly don't abuse it, you know, you try

11:37

to give it pleasure, and you act as if

11:39

it is has some sort of experience of

11:41

its existence. I had stuffed animals

11:43

that I was like tucked in with my parents, read

11:45

me stories, and I was a kid that had animals for heroes.

11:48

And then there's this other thing we do where.

11:49

We keep them in cages and

11:52

dismember them and eat them. So that doesn't

11:54

mean it's wrong. There are a lot of things that kids

11:56

find weird that aren't wrong.

11:58

You're just not mature enough to understand the way that they

12:02

are a part of life. If you showed a kid,

12:04

you know, an image of people having sex,

12:06

the kid would freak out and think, this is the most horrible

12:08

thing I've ever seen.

12:10

So I was an on and off vegetarian for a lot

12:12

of my life.

12:12

At times I was really on, and

12:15

I was kind of like annoyingly

12:17

inflexible about it and probably

12:19

a little self righteous. And at times I was

12:22

really off and I would eat anything that was in front

12:24

of me.

12:25

But it wasn't.

12:25

Until my first child was

12:27

born that I thought, you know, I really

12:30

need to figure out what's going on here, both

12:32

in the sense of how this industry

12:34

works and also how I actually feel and like

12:36

what my own limits for change

12:39

are. There are a lot of things that I think would be great

12:41

that I don't do because they're impossible.

12:43

Well, in your book about climate change, you make

12:46

very bold statements. If we skipped

12:48

animal products before dinner,

12:51

we could make a huge impact.

12:54

What does that mean?

12:55

So you know, I don't actually think of that

12:57

as a as a bold statement or not

12:59

anymore then it's bold to

13:01

say if you jump from a building, You're going

13:03

to fall toward the ground like it's the it's

13:06

the science, and the science at

13:08

this point is really unambigious.

13:10

I mean, don't eat any meat all day long, but you can

13:12

have it for dinner.

13:13

What is behind the statement is that meat

13:16

is one of the biggest problems

13:18

we're facing when it comes to climate change, and

13:20

we cannot meet the goals of the Paris

13:23

Climate Accords without eating a lot less

13:25

meat.

13:25

There are a lot of ways to do it.

13:26

It's not certainly not a binary, like everybody doesn't

13:29

have to become a vegan or vegetarian.

13:31

You know. Mark Zuckerberg's solution

13:34

he kills if he eats meat, he

13:36

has killed it.

13:37

Yeah, personally, I find

13:40

that dumb. I have to be honest.

13:42

You know what does killing it yourself prove?

13:45

First of all, most people obviously can't do

13:47

that. It's an enormous

13:49

luxury that he's able.

13:50

To do it.

13:50

And I would like shudder to think about

13:53

the carbon footprint of his hunting habits.

13:55

Taking the jet to some place where there's a cow.

13:58

Yeah you can shoot, yeah doing

14:01

it.

14:01

You know, I don't need to murder somebody to know

14:03

that murder's wrong. I don't need to commit

14:06

any number of other ethical offenses

14:08

to know it's wrong.

14:09

I raise my own food. Eight of my beautiful

14:11

turkeys. They were a year old, and

14:13

they're eating a tremendous amount of food. They are

14:15

giving me turkey manure, which

14:18

I put into the compost and feed it back to the earth

14:20

and the forest will grow better, et cetera, et

14:22

cetera. If you're going to ever serve a turkey, you

14:24

might as well raise it yourself, if you can.

14:27

I bought a pair of them at the Poultry

14:29

Congress.

14:29

Last year was the Poultry Congress.

14:31

Oh, this wonderful, wonderful congress where people

14:34

who grow their own backyard poultry

14:36

for eggs primarily, and also

14:38

for beautiful birds and keeping species

14:40

alive. People come from all over

14:42

with prize birds of every

14:45

kind of species of chicken, for example.

14:47

I mean amazing. I go every year

14:49

because I want to see all the different geese

14:52

and all the different She said, Oh, don't expect

14:54

any babies this year, but next

14:56

year you'll get a whole big crop from these two.

14:59

And I got thirteen

15:01

babies the first year out of their

15:03

eggs, very fertile, very very

15:05

well cos seeds, yes, and

15:08

so I have my own turkeys.

15:10

But I do that with chickens, and I do it with guinea

15:12

fowl, and I do it with a pheasant.

15:15

I do. I have all kinds of birds. But I don't

15:17

feel guilty. I feel good if

15:19

I have to eat meat that I have. I

15:21

know what they've eaten and how they've lived,

15:24

and they're not tortured, and they're not raised.

15:27

I mean, I don't

15:29

raise anything big, no cows.

15:31

So I don't write about and I don't talk

15:33

about and honestly I don't think that much

15:35

about cases like that.

15:38

I don't have a problem with them at

15:40

all.

15:40

The problem is the dominant industry, which

15:43

is responsible for nine factory

15:46

percent of the animals that we eat. You know, you're

15:48

talking about your turkeys. You put

15:50

them together. They made other turkeys.

15:54

There's not a supermarket in the United States

15:56

where you can buy a turkey that

15:59

was not the product of artificial insemination. I

16:01

agree now, because their their bodies have

16:03

been bred to grow so big that they're literally incapable

16:06

of having sex anymore. So,

16:08

the notion of that as like our symbol

16:11

of harvest, our symbol of gratitude,

16:14

is truly insane.

16:14

Yeah, you know, it has changed tremendously and I

16:17

and I totally understand that, and it

16:19

has not yet driven me to vegetarianism.

16:21

But I cannot go to a

16:23

supermarket and buy a steak. I just

16:25

can't. I have to go to a local farmer

16:28

and buy something that he raised in his in

16:30

his pasture that looks

16:32

good, tastes good.

16:34

Well, we can, I think we can move toward more

16:37

system like that. Yes, it's just about to do so

16:39

I have.

16:39

To eat a lot less.

16:40

Oh yes, both will be more expensive

16:42

than they explain about the gases

16:45

that arise from just the manure

16:47

of all these animals and feed lots. I mean that's

16:49

more. Isn't that the most most the

16:51

biggest cause of pollution in the United States.

16:54

Of methane, Yes, yeah, And

16:58

it's not only the

17:00

burping and farting of cows.

17:02

It's also an incredibly energy intensive

17:05

industry. So you have to

17:07

put in about between seven

17:10

and twenty calories into an animal to get one calorie

17:12

out of the animal. So living

17:15

on a planet with finite resources

17:18

and ever increasing human population

17:20

and needs for food, it's just unsustainable.

17:23

And it's not like a provocative opinion

17:26

When I was writing We Are the Weather, I spoke

17:28

to a lot of climate scientists, and

17:31

I met some who were vegetarian.

17:32

I met some who eat meat once a day.

17:35

But I didn't meet one who disputed

17:38

the fact that this is an

17:40

enormous piece of the puzzle.

17:41

And yet they have not stopped eating me.

17:44

Yeah, but who would I be to judge

17:46

that I have not stopped flying, I have not stopped

17:48

driving cars?

17:49

Yeah. I was going to ask you, do you drive a car? I

17:51

do, yeah, yeah, gas car.

17:53

I had an electric car and then I

17:56

found myself getting in trouble all the time, you know,

17:58

running out of charge with my kids

18:00

and whatnot. So now I have a guest car.

18:02

I'm lucky in Brooklyn not to really have to drive hardly

18:06

at all. But I

18:08

mean, we are all massive. Anyone

18:10

who claims to care about

18:13

the environment has to acknowledge also hypocrisy.

18:15

But that doesn't have to like stop

18:18

our efforts in their tracks.

18:19

You know.

18:20

I think when we feel vulnerable,

18:22

and climate change makes a lot of us feel vulnerable,

18:25

there's a temptation to race towards these binaries.

18:27

These all are nothing like.

18:29

If you acknowledge that meat is problematic,

18:32

then it makes one feel like a

18:34

hypocrite not to go all the way, you know, and

18:36

become a vegan or a vegetarian. If

18:38

one acknowledges that climate change is a catastrophe,

18:41

you can feel like a hypocrite

18:43

if you still drive.

18:45

Or fly or take an airplane. Right, But there's no.

18:47

Progress in that because the reality is

18:50

we're human beings.

18:51

We're not ethical or

18:53

logical robots.

18:55

And unjul we are. We're going

18:57

to keep flying and we couldn't keep driving.

18:59

Yeah, And the good news

19:01

is, like meeting the goals of the Paris

19:03

Climate Cords doesn't require us to give

19:06

that all up, to give it all up. It just requires us

19:08

to live with a kind of moderation we're not used to. And

19:10

that probably scares

19:13

us more as a prospect than it would actually

19:15

be uncomfortable as reality.

19:17

But I remember growing up, you had

19:19

one car. I mean, this family

19:21

of eight, we had one car. We turned the lights

19:24

off when we left a room, We ate

19:26

moderate, moderate amounts of store bought

19:28

food, and we traveled not

19:31

too much, but we did travel. This

19:33

was, you know, fifty sixty years ago,

19:36

and now it's just snowballed so

19:38

drastically that we have

19:40

to, we have to take some steps. I

19:43

travel a lot, and I see I see

19:45

every I just went to Mumbai for the first

19:47

time in India. I was horrified

19:49

at the way people live there, the crowded

19:52

nature of the city. The filth is

19:55

such a difficult place to exist

19:57

and polluted beyond believe,

20:00

and nothing's being.

20:01

Done about it.

20:02

So it's heartbreaking, worriesome,

20:05

really worrisome.

20:07

The trick is, the

20:09

stuff is heartbreaking when you have occasion

20:12

to think about it or when you're forced to look at.

20:14

It, and it's incredibly easy

20:16

to forget when you don't.

20:17

Yeah, so you were in Mumbai.

20:19

You saw it with your own eyes. You were moved.

20:22

If you are like me, and you probably are in this

20:24

way, in a week, you'll think about it

20:26

less.

20:27

In two weeks you'll think about it less.

20:28

No, I have a pretty good memory, and I

20:31

don't and vivid, a vivid memory for things

20:33

that are not pleasant.

20:35

And so what do you do with it? If you

20:37

see something like that.

20:38

And well, I talk about it, I

20:41

ask about it, and I learned about it. And

20:43

what else can we do really except read your

20:45

books and give you give a book to

20:48

everybody about this and hope that

20:50

more and more and more people will take it seriously.

21:02

How long does it take you to write a book like We Are the Weather?

21:04

That's a tricky question. Two

21:06

years.

21:07

But you know, there's a great old story

21:10

someone told me once when I first started writing

21:12

about Picasso, that a

21:14

friend of his went to his studio as

21:16

Pacaussa was preparing a show, and

21:19

they were there's a show of drawings, and

21:21

there were drawings on all the walls, and they were sort of like

21:23

naive looking, primitive looking, and

21:26

his friend said, just

21:29

between us, like how much are you going

21:31

to sell that for? And Pacassa said, I

21:33

don't know the equivalent today of a

21:35

million dollars five million notes. He

21:37

said, because how long did it take you

21:40

to draw that? The implication being

21:42

it looks like it took thirty seconds to draw, And

21:44

Pakassa said that one took me about seventy

21:46

six years, which is how old he was at the time.

21:48

So you know, there's different kinds of ways

21:51

of work, like everything that

21:53

one does leads to where you are. But

21:55

then there's also the time when you're like sitting down

21:58

and trying to put words on a page.

21:59

So but you're prolific. I

22:02

used to be you used to be more powerful. Do

22:05

you think you were more Your first book came out

22:07

in what year?

22:08

That was in two thousand and

22:10

two, which is easy to remember because it

22:12

was right after two thousand and one.

22:13

Okay, and that is everything is

22:16

illuminated. Yeah, tell us what's

22:18

the storyline? And everything is illuminated

22:20

if you have not read this beautiful book.

22:22

So I should say I have not read

22:24

that beautiful book since since I wrote.

22:27

It, So I hope I

22:29

get this right.

22:30

It is about a young American

22:33

who shares my name, Jonathan Saffron for who

22:35

goes to the Ukraine

22:38

searching for a woman who

22:40

supposedly saved his grandfather during the war.

22:42

That's half the book. The other half we're just.

22:44

Woven through, is a kind of imagined history

22:47

of this village that he goes

22:49

to.

22:50

And has that village been destroyed?

22:53

That village, that village has been

22:55

staying many times. The last time

22:57

it was destroyed was during World War

22:59

Two. It wasn't rebuilt. Oh

23:01

yeah, but you ask a good question.

23:04

I don't know what that area is like

23:06

undergoing right now?

23:07

Yeah, horrifying. Yeah,

23:10

your maternal grandmother inspired that book.

23:12

She did.

23:13

She was born in Poland

23:16

and lost her family. She escaped

23:20

east. She was a member

23:22

in some socialist youth groups and assumed

23:24

that because of that she would

23:27

be a bigger target.

23:29

So she with a friend walked east,

23:32

the equivalent of walking across the United

23:34

States.

23:34

I don't know one and a half or two times, ended

23:37

up coming back meeting my grandfather.

23:40

My mother was born in a DP camp, and then they

23:42

came to the States a couple of years later.

23:45

Amazing stories, It's just amazing stories

23:48

that people went through. You studied

23:50

philosophy in school, So did you

23:52

know you were going to be a writer or did you were

23:54

you thinking when you went to college?

23:56

I wish I could do it again. My

23:59

oldest son is going to college next year. Oh

24:01

it's given me an opportunity to think about

24:04

how wasted the experience was on me.

24:06

You know, I didn't know what I was doing.

24:08

Where did you go to college?

24:09

To Princeton. And it's

24:11

not even like I had so much fun. I just I

24:14

didn't know how to enter the stream.

24:16

You know.

24:16

I felt like I was on the banks looking at the stream

24:19

passed by me. So, you

24:21

know, I studied and there were things that I liked philosophy.

24:24

I ended up choosing at the last minute because I had to have a

24:26

major. I didn't get seriously into

24:28

writing until probably my junior

24:30

year, and I had Joyce Caro lots.

24:32

As a professor.

24:33

I love her.

24:35

Yeah, she's Have you ever had a conversation with her?

24:37

No, I have not, but I love

24:40

her.

24:40

I think you would enjoy her company.

24:41

And no, I've read every single one of her books

24:44

that I don't know about the most recent recent ones,

24:46

but I read everything.

24:48

She was incredible. Yeah, she's a

24:50

good teacher. I remember when I was saying that.

24:52

The Pope is one of those people who walks into a room and you say,

24:54

this is a special person.

24:56

Joyce is very much like that as well.

24:57

So she was my teacher, and she was the first person ever to say

24:59

to hey, you should take this seriously.

25:02

You know, there's what would

25:04

happen if you really tried. She

25:07

did.

25:07

Yeah, and she I mean, I'm not that's encouraging.

25:10

It is encouraging. It's very encouraging. I'm

25:12

not unique in that way. She's started

25:14

a lot of careers, a lot of writing careers.

25:17

She would write letters to me at my

25:19

parents' house during vacations,

25:21

saying you might think about reading this book.

25:24

I was thinking about your last story. It got kind

25:26

of thin at the end. Here's how you might.

25:28

And she is.

25:29

She has as much success as anybody would ever need.

25:31

She has no need to become involved.

25:33

She does. She's a teacher. She's a teacher, and

25:35

that's why she does that, because she actually

25:38

cares. And that's such a

25:40

fantastic, fantastic thing.

25:43

I literally owe my

25:45

life to it.

25:46

Oh nice, Yeah nice. I'm

25:48

the daughter of two teachers, and they cared.

25:51

They cared that we learned and that we were

25:53

encouraged. And that's that's the

25:55

that's the goal of a teacher. Don't have

25:57

fabulous? That is Jrace Carrol Oates. Yeah,

26:00

lucky man. So you've written

26:02

not only fiction but also nonfiction.

26:05

Similar processes for you? Or which

26:08

is hard? Which is harder?

26:10

Fiction is much harder it is Nonfiction

26:13

is more laborious.

26:15

You know, you know what you have to do, and

26:18

you do it. With fiction.

26:20

What's so tricky is not knowing what you have to

26:22

do, not knowing what the destination is.

26:24

Do you do an outline?

26:26

No?

26:27

I don't you just go? I just go? Which

26:29

is I used to think was really inefficient.

26:32

I don't know.

26:33

I have a friend who's a writer who

26:35

once said writing a novel is like.

26:37

Pulling teeth out of your penis.

26:40

Uh, you're just very,

26:44

very uncomfortable, and

26:47

I find it's gotten harder, not easier over time.

26:49

Yeah, you know, now

26:51

you're teaching. I teach. I teach it.

26:53

But I've been teaching for a while. I've been teaching what's

26:56

your what's your course? At n y U, I teach

26:58

two different classes. They're both workshops.

27:01

One is fiction, one is nonfiction. My classes

27:04

are almost always twelve students, and each week

27:06

three of them will turn something in and we just talk about

27:08

it. There's no like reading that they do other

27:10

than each other's work. There's no lecture that I

27:12

give. It's very conversational. There

27:14

tends to be a lot of camaraderie.

27:17

Have you found another Jonathan Saffron

27:20

four in that group?

27:21

I've found much better than

27:23

that. Oh yeah, I've had amazing,

27:25

amazing excuse.

27:26

You know.

27:26

One of the great lessons of teaching is

27:29

really talented people

27:32

and really smart people are not that rare.

27:35

They're not as rare as you would think. You know, every

27:37

semester I've ever taught. I've had at least

27:39

one student that I've been jealous of who's

27:41

talent I've been jealous of.

27:42

So great when you're jealous, isn't it?

27:44

It's the best?

27:45

I mean, it's the worst to love. No, I love

27:47

finding somebody I'm jealous of it,

27:51

and it makes me better in

27:53

a funny way. And I'm sure it does that to you

27:55

too, it does.

27:56

I guess I've been fortunate.

27:58

The people that I have been jealous of, I've all so

28:00

liked, which makes quite a bit of

28:03

difference and respected, and you

28:05

know, their success feels

28:07

like my success because I respect them.

28:10

But yeah, I've had I've had some

28:12

some truly amazing students.

28:14

As a reader, who are your favorite

28:16

authors?

28:18

I tend to read

28:20

more nonfiction than fiction.

28:22

I tend to read probably even more poetry

28:24

than non Yeah, it's

28:27

a tricky thing reading when you're a

28:29

writer. The old joke

28:31

about the gynecologist who comes

28:33

home Friday night and

28:35

his wife is in lingerie on the

28:37

bed and she taps the bed next to her,

28:40

has a little romantic music playing, there's

28:42

whatever roses in the vase.

28:45

You know where this is? Guy?

28:46

Maybe I can guess.

28:47

Okay, well,

28:49

he says, if I have to look at another one of those things, I'm

28:51

going to kill myself. I have sort of that

28:53

relationship to books. I find

28:56

it I cannot read on the way that I used to read

28:58

before I was a writer, because now I.

29:02

Never marry a gynecologist.

29:04

Ladies, Yes, never marry a gynocologist.

29:07

But writers are safe.

29:09

So three of your books have been adapted to

29:11

films. Everything is Illuminated,

29:14

Extremely Loud, and incredibly close.

29:16

Who was in Everything Is Illuminated?

29:19

Well?

29:19

Leev Shreiber wrote and directed

29:21

it and is one

29:24

of my oldest and best friends. I met

29:26

him right at the beginning of my career before

29:28

my first book came out. It was excerpted in The New

29:30

Yorker and he bought the rights to it, and

29:33

we just became friends.

29:34

And never stopped.

29:35

In fact, when you were in my house, when

29:38

you displaced me, I

29:40

was staying at his house. You were, yes, just

29:43

to bring it all together, Elijah Wood, wasn't

29:45

that much?

29:46

Okay?

29:46

What about extremely loud and incredibly

29:48

close?

29:49

How was that adapted? Stephen Daldry

29:51

was the director, Eric Roth was

29:54

the writer, and

29:57

Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock were in it,

29:59

and in both cases, I didn't really have anything to

30:01

do with you.

30:03

You just sold the books for

30:05

the movies. Yeah, and what

30:07

about eating animals? Did you have a lot to do with

30:09

that?

30:09

A little bit more? Because documentaries

30:12

are kind of labors of love. Natalie

30:14

Portman produced it. Christopher

30:17

Quinn with the name of the director, and

30:19

I think he did a great job. It's such an important

30:22

conversation to have, but it's a really tricky one because

30:24

it just makes people feel so increable

30:27

and defensive. It makes me feel scared and defensive.

30:29

So finding a way to both speak

30:32

honestly about it but also accessibly

30:36

and to create room

30:39

just for inconsistency and to create room

30:41

for things

30:43

like cravings and

30:46

family culture and religion and

30:49

celebration gathering.

30:51

It's hard. It's really hard balanced to strike What.

30:54

Are the most surprising aspects of

30:56

seeing your works translated to the screen?

30:58

And do you watch your movies more than

31:00

once?

31:02

No? I don't do. I don't watch them more than once.

31:05

You never tempted to go back and see

31:08

that first movie again?

31:10

No, but not not not for any

31:12

It's like, you know it, if

31:14

I were to play for

31:17

you a message you left on

31:19

my cell phone you

31:21

probably have like an uncomfortable relationship

31:23

with your own voice. Right, So now imagine

31:26

that it was somebody who was adapting you,

31:28

like impersonating you left a message on my cell phone.

31:31

You might say, oh, that's that's funny

31:33

or.

31:33

That's interesting, or hey, that person did a great job. But you would

31:35

have a discomfort. So I have a discomfort,

31:38

as I said, I haven't. I don't read my books either after

31:40

I write them.

31:42

I always think I don't want to sit in an edit room. That's

31:44

one thing I hate to do is sit in the edit room

31:46

because I know what I did, I know what I

31:48

see, I know what I can see, what I

31:50

see what I did in my head. I don't have to see

31:52

it on the TV. And yet it is surprising,

31:55

sometimes surprisingly bad, and sometimes

31:57

surprisingly you could I do finally

31:59

see thing.

32:00

Yeah, I was glad they did it

32:02

because the scale.

32:04

It's good for all of us that they did it, because

32:06

you know, the visual now,

32:09

the screen is where

32:11

we get most of our information, and

32:13

I think people are more more anxious

32:16

to see things adapted for the screen

32:18

then even read them. Sorry to say, well.

32:21

It's not even close.

32:22

Yeah, the scale of viewership

32:25

is way bigger than readership.

32:27

Right. Oh god.

32:28

You know a film that is considered an absolute

32:31

bomb. You know that Dies The Quietest

32:33

Death is seen by more people than is.

32:35

Read by most bestsellers.

32:36

Yeah, boy, yeah, so

32:39

that's the world we live on.

32:40

What are you going to do?

32:41

I know, well, I had a magazine that has already

32:43

gone by the by the wayside, and that was

32:45

forty years old after thousands

32:48

of issues and now and

32:50

now, you know, just people miss it. I know they

32:52

miss it because I get letters from them. But it's

32:54

the same kind of thing. What's

33:06

it like to have a family in Raisive

33:08

in Brooklyn? Is that where you grew You

33:10

didn't grow up in Brooklyn, do No?

33:11

I grew up in DC, in d C,

33:14

d C. Whenever I tell someone I'm from DC, they always

33:16

say, are you from d C? Are you from Potomac

33:18

or Silver Spring? I grew up in d

33:21

C and lived there in my life until

33:23

I went to school, And then immediately after school

33:25

I moved to New York.

33:26

I moved to Jackson Heights. Queen's where I was

33:28

for Have you ever been to Jackson Kights?

33:30

Yes?

33:30

Yeah, Jackson Kights is the best. That was My

33:32

original sin was leaving Jackson Heights, OH.

33:34

I went to doctor Roschieton there.

33:37

He was a chiropractor type

33:40

in Jackson Heights. Crazy place.

33:42

One of my recent nighttime hobbies

33:44

to sort of sand down the corners at the end

33:46

of the day and just like relax myself. I'll

33:48

watch videos of things and I find that I get drawn to

33:52

really unusual subjects for no obvious reason.

33:54

And a recent one that I've been taking a lot of pleasure

33:56

in is chiropractic

33:58

adjustments of dogs and it

34:00

works.

34:01

It works incredibly well.

34:02

And horses. You should see, I have horses. I

34:04

have a chiropractor who does my horses.

34:06

I've seen that too, and it helps them so much.

34:09

I'm gonna do it. I'll do it.

34:11

Okay. What's it like to raise your kids in Brooklyn?

34:14

I think about that a lot.

34:16

I think about it a lot, especially now that I

34:18

have a very young child again.

34:20

And can you know.

34:21

Now I have the benefit of knowing

34:23

then what I know now Brooklyn

34:26

is if I were to live in New York City, if

34:29

I were to live in a city in the United

34:31

States, I can't imagine living

34:33

anywhere other than Brooklyn. In

34:36

fact, I can't imagine living anywhere other than my neighborhood.

34:38

I like it so very much.

34:39

You have a beautiful neighborhood. It is beautifulghe

34:42

it's so unusual. It's usually beautiful.

34:44

And those houses on your street and the

34:46

streets around you, these are giant

34:49

mansions. How many square feet is your house?

34:51

I don't know.

34:52

It's huge, those three stories high. I

34:54

didn't look all around it.

34:55

I'm sure you did.

34:56

No, I didn't know. I know I did

34:58

not. I did not. I only went to to the

35:00

second floor, to your bedroom, to the hallway.

35:02

I went into your library, into your kitchen.

35:05

I have a list of everything that was there by the way,

35:08

double check. And I couldn't

35:10

find my de ownerant this morning.

35:11

Oh, I do not take that. And you're and

35:14

that beautiful living room. It's giant, giant

35:16

living room. It's like three living rooms running into

35:18

each other and big beautiful windows,

35:21

has architectural very fine architectural detail.

35:24

And who built that house?

35:25

You know, I don't know.

35:26

You haven't done research on that? Now when I when I

35:29

uh, that is that's a novel, you know when

35:31

I'm that neighborhood is a novel.

35:33

I'm sure there you know Sophie's

35:35

choice the film.

35:37

Was filmed there, film there. Yet when I

35:39

moved into.

35:39

That house, no one had lived in it for like

35:41

four years.

35:42

There were like weeds growing inside.

35:45

Yeah, it was a pretty disgusting place. So

35:48

it took some.

35:49

Any of your children going to be writers,

35:51

I.

35:51

Have no idea. I don't think so.

35:53

But maybe my my younger son is

35:56

really into filmmaking

35:59

and fifteen just turned fifteen actually

36:01

two days ago, and he's

36:04

truly great at it. And I know that,

36:07

like a dad is not the most trustworthy. You

36:09

know, in a way, it's harder to make

36:11

predictions like that now than it's ever been before,

36:14

because who knows what the hell the world's.

36:15

Going to look like?

36:16

Like you saw this new Apple thing.

36:19

I've put those goggles on. Have you done that

36:21

yet?

36:21

No?

36:22

Oh, it's horrifying. Yeah, there's all sense

36:24

of reality right away, and

36:26

you get you get all disoriented

36:28

because there's so much going on right

36:31

in front of you, so close and colorful

36:33

and brilliant. You should

36:35

rewrite your first book from God with goggles

36:37

on. Well, I'm on

36:40

that. The title. The title is perfect, it's

36:42

true.

36:42

Maybe they'll be my corporate sponsor. It could work

36:44

out, it could be.

36:45

I'm actually on the hook to write a non fiction book about

36:48

technology. Oh good, Yeah, because

36:50

it's something I think about a lot

36:52

and it bothers me a lot. But I don't know what to do

36:54

with my feelings.

36:55

About it, because well, it's the same thing.

36:58

It's the same thing as edy animals. We are trying

37:00

in technology. It is not

37:02

going to go away. Did you watch the hearings

37:04

this week? There were these there were these

37:07

congressional hearings this week on TikTok

37:09

and on Instagram making

37:11

us feel so so bad

37:13

that these platforms exist. And

37:16

I use both platforms, and if

37:18

you use them responsibly and playfully,

37:21

they're okay. But boy, when

37:24

you lose them inappropriately,

37:26

they arouse a tremendous amount of iron and

37:28

there's no and there's nobody monitoring

37:31

them really, and then they complain

37:33

about it, and then they want to fire everybody, and they want the stocks

37:35

to go down. They want these companies to go away. They're not going

37:37

to go away. So that is a very

37:39

good book subject for you, if you

37:41

could get it, If you can look at it the way you looked at

37:43

eating animals, that would be it

37:46

would make so many enemies for you. You would

37:48

love it.

37:49

I would love it. You know.

37:50

The other day when I came, if you just think about

37:53

why we're having this conversation right now. You

37:56

were in my house and

37:58

you sort of had a very analog experience

38:01

of moving around the objects in my house,

38:03

and you even said, like there

38:05

were nice architectural details. I noticed

38:07

these books. These books were in these languages. They

38:10

were on bookshelves. Some of the bookshelves have those

38:12

their barrister bookshelves with the glass door. Some of

38:14

them were open. Everything has like

38:16

a character. And in response to that, you

38:18

wrote, hand wrote a letter. Yeah, you

38:20

could have written a text, you could have written an email.

38:22

Now I wrote you a little note.

38:23

You hand wrote a letter, and you put it on my bedside

38:26

table, which is.

38:27

You know you read it. Of course, good read

38:30

it. And that's where you

38:32

know. And then it led to us.

38:34

Sitting in these chairs having this conversation like it

38:36

scares me to think that scares

38:38

me.

38:39

It's a tragedy that that might not happen in

38:41

the future, that might not happen, and it's on

38:43

its way.

38:43

Yeah, And that's when I think about

38:46

the things I enjoy most in life and

38:48

that make me feel most alive and grateful to

38:50

be alive.

38:51

Like the human interaction.

38:52

Yeah, those analog things that you touch

38:54

and taste and see and engage with your senses and that

38:57

are interpersonal.

38:58

And you must keep that up with your kids.

39:00

I only have one daughter, but her kids I want

39:03

her kids to experience all that that I

39:05

grew up with. I think you're so right about

39:07

that. It is the human

39:09

interaction that we have to maintain.

39:12

I was walking here from NYU,

39:15

maybe twenty minute walk, and I found myself looking

39:17

at my phone as I walked.

39:18

It's a beautiful day out, and then you're going to get run

39:20

over.

39:21

I'm going to get run over or I'm going to miss

39:24

everything that's going on.

39:25

And yes, and your children will not have a father. Don't

39:27

do that. Do not be running your phone when

39:29

you're walking or listening.

39:31

I don't put earphone, I don't put

39:33

earplugs in my ears. I just won't do that because

39:36

I don't want to miss what's around me. Yeah,

39:38

So if we could only learn how to do that,

39:40

it would be better.

39:41

You know you talked about you mentioned that the magazine

39:44

is now non existent. Like

39:46

my impression of that magazine was

39:50

it was almost entirely

39:52

about how to make things nicer with

39:55

your hands. That's right, Like, here's

39:57

how you can make a table look a little nicer,

39:59

and believe it or not, a table

40:01

that looks a little nicer inspires a slightly different

40:03

kind of conversation, slightly different kind of.

40:05

Appreciation does That's what we were crafters,

40:09

inspirers, and how

40:11

to do it yourselfers And

40:13

if you didn't want to do it yourself, at least you knew how it

40:16

had to be done.

40:17

I think that I've given

40:19

a lot of thoughts to this reason. I read a book called

40:22

The Architecture of Happiness not that long ago, and

40:25

the point that the author

40:27

was making it's going to sound like he's

40:29

saying nothing at all, But when you start to like sit

40:32

with it and really think about it, it can make an

40:34

impression. Which is, the spaces

40:36

that we are in influence the kinds

40:38

of thoughts and feelings and experiences we have. So

40:41

if you walk into Notre Dame, it's

40:43

almost hard not to have a deep thought,

40:45

you know, a deep feeling.

40:46

No more Notre Dame for a while, no more Noture

40:49

Dam.

40:49

So let's say Saint Patrick's.

40:51

If you walk into McDonald's, it's

40:53

almost hard not to have a

40:55

cheap, styrofoam thought or feeling. And

40:58

you know that extends not only be on our physical

41:00

spaces, but the kinds of people we spend time with and

41:03

putting aside forty five minutes or an hour to have a conversation

41:06

with someone you haven't seen in a long time.

41:07

It's like a kind of space.

41:09

Well, I'm very glad that we got together, and

41:11

I'm very glad to hear about your

41:13

work, about your progress as

41:15

a very very fine and acclaimed

41:18

author in the American genre

41:21

of literature, and I wish you well in all

41:23

your future endeavors. So I'm

41:25

not going to ask you about your new book, but

41:27

I hope when it is out that you will come

41:29

back and speak to me on our podcast.

41:31

I would love that, and I hope it won't be as long

41:33

as it was since our last conversation, I hope.

41:35

So thank you very much, Jonathan Saffron

41:37

for and be sure to pick

41:40

up We Are the Weather

41:42

to learn more about climate change.

42:00

Eight