{"id":148242,"date":"2020-10-07T15:00:01","date_gmt":"2020-10-07T19:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=148242"},"modified":"2020-10-15T16:18:41","modified_gmt":"2020-10-15T20:18:41","slug":"ice-pick-an-interview-with-katharina-volckmer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/10\/07\/ice-pick-an-interview-with-katharina-volckmer\/","title":{"rendered":"Ice Pick: An Interview with Katharina Volckmer"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Author photo: Jean-Fran\u00e7ois Paga<\/p><\/div>\n

When Katharina Volckmer and I first met over Zoom, her in London and myself in Baltimore, I couldn\u2019t stop talking, not unlike the narrator of Volckmer\u2019s debut novel, <\/em>The Appointment<\/a>. The novel is bracingly frank, acerbic; some might call it transgressive, though I don\u2019t think that\u2019s the right term. The novel\u2019s titration of wit, directness, and erudition made me feel a bit like the narrator: full of nervous, excited, voluble energy. I said that if Volckmer didn\u2019t like any of the questions I\u2019d prepared, she could skip them. She wryly offered to \u201cdo a Klaus Kinski on me,\u201d alluding to the German actor\u2019s notorious hostility in interviews. Our conversation could not have been more unlike a Kinski interview: Volckmer was measured and patient, generous with her time and humor. This is not to say that our conversation was comforting, which makes sense, as Volckmer\u2019s work refuses comfort. Elsewhere, she noted, \u201cWe cannot spend our lives wearing woolly socks and drinking tea and expecting books and art to broadly reconfirm what we think already\u2014I\u2019m much more in favour of thinking of art as some sort of ice pick,\u201d recalling Kafka\u2019s notion that \u201cwe need books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

The Appointment, out this month from Simon & Schuster, is reminiscent of a Bernhardian monologue, one half of the conversation between a German patient living in London and her Jewish doctor. Over the course of her appointment, the speaker \u201ctests the ice,\u201d demarcating the boundaries of the sayable and the unsaid. Superficially, the novel offers a garrulous tide of sentiments that many might find upsetting (we begin with the narrator\u2019s Hitler sex fantasies). But it is also deftly subtle, never binding the narrator to a determined gender identity or to a specific historical or national inheritance. At once sexy, hilarious, and subversive, the book is also acutely sad. Desire, in this novel, takes many forms: the desire to be heard, the desire to be otherwise, the desire for a different past and a different future.<\/em><\/p>\n

It was not lost on me that my meeting with Volckmer staged, at least formally, the conversation in the book: Volckmer was born in Germany; I am Jewish; the structure of an interview begs confession. But there the similarities stopped. We spoke, on this recent September evening, about identity and desire, the inheritance of the Holocaust, the difficulties with which German readers might receive the book, the impossible definition of a \u201ctrans novel,\u201d <\/em>nestbeschmutzers, Tolstoy, and form. \u201cEvery writing worthy of its name wrestles with the Angel and, at best, comes out limping,\u201d French philosopher Jean-Fran\u00e7ois Lyotard wrote in <\/em>Heidegger and \u201cthe jews\u201d; Volckmer\u2019s novel comes out limping in the finest sense, ice pick aloft, frozen sea shattering.<\/em><\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

When people ask you to sum up the book, how do you sum it up? Because the only way I\u2019ve been able to do so is to say something like, It starts with a Hitler sex fantasy and goes on from there. But that part is so peripheral to the novel.<\/p>\n

VOLCKMER<\/p>\n

For me the easiest has been to say it\u2019s about identity. It\u2019s obviously about gender identity. One of the questions I often ask myself is, What is it about your identity you can possibly change? Is there anything you can really change about it? Or is there nothing you can change about it? Obviously you can\u2019t change the fact of the language you\u2019re born into or the geographic location you\u2019re born into. And she\u2019s trying. She doesn\u2019t want to be German necessarily, she doesn\u2019t want to live with that burden and that guilt. But the only thing she can really change is her gender, that\u2019s something she can do. And she decides to do it with a Jewish doctor. The original title for the book was A Jewish Cock<\/em>. That\u2019s the point where she tries to mix these two aspects of her identity, her gender and her national identity. Obviously it\u2019s slightly absurd because she thinks, \u201cIf I get a Jewish cock I won\u2019t be as German anymore.\u201d But for me the book was about exploring what things you can permanently change about yourself and what you can\u2019t, and some of the sadness that comes with that.<\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

Could you speak a bit about Dr. Seligman? He\u2019s very reticent. How do you see that character both in silence and, simultaneously, in dialogue with the narrator?<\/p>\n

VOLCKMER<\/p>\n

To me, he\u2019s always been as important as the narrator. He\u2019s very present and\u2014I\u2019m going to keep saying this until someone does it\u2014I\u2019d love to see it on a stage because it\u2019s quite theatrical. His presence was also important because a lot of the stuff she says I didn\u2019t want to be spoken into a void. It\u2019s always her feeling her way along that fine line of the stuff she can say and the stuff she can\u2019t say. Even though he\u2019s silent, and it\u2019s technically a monologue, it\u2019s got strong elements of a dialogue. I hope it has. Of course, it also makes her at times less secure. If he was talking back it would be no different, but there\u2019s an opacity and she has to work it out by herself.<\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

Do people have different readings of what kind of doctor he is?<\/p>\n

VOLCKMER<\/p>\n

They do, and I find that quite strange. They often think he\u2019s a psychoanalyst. Some people get it, and understand that he\u2019s obviously not. We talk a lot to our doctors, we confess to them. They probably are the people we do this most with nowadays, even though we have to credit the Catholic Church with this brilliant invention.<\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

I\u2019m teaching a queer literature class right now, and I\u2019m imagining teaching this book. I\u2019m imagining how students would respond and the questions they would ask. I think one of the first questions students would ask is, How do I make sense of this person\u2019s identity? At one point she uses the phrase \u201cpeople like me.\u201d And I paused over that and thought, What does she mean by that? I thought, at first, the phrase referred to her gender identity, and the reason she\u2019s visiting Dr. Seligman, her desire for \u201ca Jewish cock.\u201d But I wondered, too, if she\u2019s referring to something about being German, about a certain national inheritance, or financial inheritance, or the secret we learn at the end of the novel\u2014how these things are not separable for her.<\/p>\n

VOLCKMER<\/p>\n

I think that\u2019s people who are different, right? She struggles with the identity she\u2019s born into on many levels. One of them is the gender she\u2019s been assigned at birth. She was raised as a woman, but that\u2019s not who she feels that she is. For me, that\u2019s very important and that\u2019s also why her love story doesn\u2019t work. And obviously Dr. Seligman knows about her gender identity, right? She\u2019s not hiding that from him. But she\u2019s hiding it from the reader in the beginning while hiding her other secret from Dr. Seligman. So there are both of these things going on at the same time and in many ways it\u2019s a confession. It\u2019s the first time she has this space where she\u2019s comfortable enough to talk about her body because he already knows. To him, she doesn\u2019t have to explain that part of herself anymore, and that made it very interesting to me to create this space. But the book has been criticized for that. Some felt that if you talk about the Holocaust, it has to be the center of the book. Because the body is considered something slightly vulgar, or inferior, or not as important. But I think you\u2019re guilty with your body, too. It\u2019s not only your mind. And it\u2019s your body that does the thing, and it\u2019s your hands that pull the trigger. I think if you want to explore identity, you can\u2019t do that without exploring your body.<\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

Speaking about the materiality of the body, I found myself wondering if is this a trans novel. I don\u2019t know what a trans novel even is.<\/p>\n

VOLCKMER<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know that either. I think, at the moment, some things have become unhelpfully binary. I know that we need certain identities and categories for certain things but sometimes I struggle with that as well. I think it\u2019s hard to always expect people to label themselves and to always have this answer ready. I find it interesting sometimes when you talk to people who are bisexual, which is something that a lot of people struggle with. I once heard someone say, It comes in waves, it\u2019s not the same every day. And I quite like that explanation, it comes in waves, because I think a lot of things come in waves and forcing people to be constantly in the same place and same identity, to wake up and feel the same, is unhelpful. I personally don\u2019t really understand gender, I find it hard to always relate to. Something I try to explain to people is that, for me, it\u2019s my perception of people as much as it\u2019s my perception of myself. When I look at people, I can see something feminine, I can see something masculine, I can imagine them in a dress, I can imagine them not in a dress. I find that beautiful. I think there\u2019s so much beauty in not labeling something and just letting it breathe. And the thing I don\u2019t understand about the transphobia debate\u2014there a lot of things I don\u2019t understand about the transphobia debate\u2014is that even if you remove gender in the way we are accustomed to it, you gain something. I think by living rigidly in these structures, people deprive themselves of so much. But people are scared. They\u2019re terrified. It makes them angry, it makes them so angry. And I don\u2019t quite understand why.<\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

The book is going to be published in Germany next summer. Do you have any expectations for how it will be received?<\/p>\n

VOLCKMER<\/p>\n

I think it can go both ways. Some people will definitely be upset. I know this. There\u2019s this term, nestbeschmutzer<\/em>, for someone who kind of dirties their own nest. It famously was used for Thomas Bernhard. I think there\u2019s an element of that. And there\u2019s also this hierarchy of languages because to many Germans, the fact that you gave up good German language in order to write in English, which they consider slightly inferior because it doesn\u2019t have grammar, is problematic. There are lots of popular writers in Germany who come from places like Georgia or Ukraine and they write in German and people love that because \u2026 they\u2019ve seen sense, you know? But to give up German to write in English, that in itself I think people find upsetting. And of course, there\u2019s the text itself.<\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

But to be in the same company as Bernhard!<\/p>\n

VOLCKMER<\/p>\n

I guess it\u2019s the same in other countries as well \u2026 people can\u2019t really laugh about themselves. They immediately get quite defensive. My parents are going through a really interesting process whereby my dad\u2019s reading the book and translating it for my mom. They find it all very funny and have been very supportive, but they\u2019re also like, What\u2019s wrong with our bread, you know? That\u2019s the one thing, they\u2019re like, No, that\u2019s not funny. We know you\u2019re a vegetarian, and German food, yes, okay, but \u2026 not that joke, no, not<\/em> funny. It\u2019s going to be an uncomfortable read for a lot of Germans, I think, and not just because of the joke about bread.<\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

Comparing the monologue form, it seems that one major difference between your work and Bernhard\u2019s is that there\u2019s space in yours. It\u2019s not just one paragraph.<\/p>\n

VOLCKMER<\/p>\n

Yes, and it\u2019s not just once sentence. I don\u2019t like things that are formally overwhelming. I quite like things that are on some level readable. Somehow there\u2019s something soothing about paragraphs, right? I do love Bernhard. I love Bernhard for how strict he was as a writer. I love watching interviews with Thomas Bernhard. There\u2019s one called Monologe auf Mallorca<\/em> in which he says that some writers waste sixty pages until they reach the garden gates, right? So descriptive\u2026 I\u2019ve always admired all the things he doesn\u2019t allow himself to do.<\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

Growing up, and going to a Jewish elementary school, it was always impressed upon us that in Germany they learned that painful histories can be dealt with, and can be dealt with well. Seeing it described in your book as \u201chysterically non-racist\u201d was a compelling description.<\/p>\n

VOLCKMER<\/p>\n

This whole concept that we have of Vergangenheitsbew\u00e4ltigung<\/em>\u2014a German term for coming to terms with the past, particularly World War II\u2014is wrong in a sense. I feel like we\u2019re always looking for the point at which we can be comfortable with our history, where we can say that we\u2019ve dealt with it, and I think that\u2019s the wrong way of looking at it because you\u2019ll never be able to do that. There\u2019s never going to be a point of comfort or of being at peace with it. It\u2019s not like doing your laundry. The mere fact that Germany lost the war meant that they were no longer in charge of their history books \u2026 so obviously they had to face that fact. But I think the way they like to present it and the way it actually was are quite different. For instance, when my father when to school in the fifties and early sixties, they didn\u2019t mention the Holocaust. It wasn\u2019t until the student revolutions, the Eichmann Trial, the Holocaust film, all of these things were mentioned. And I think they still haven\u2019t gone as far as they could have. There\u2019s also what some people refer to as the second guilt, the almost total failure in bringing people to trial who were responsible for these crimes. That is in itself really shocking.<\/p>\n

Vergangenheitsbew\u00e4ltigung<\/em> is a narrative, something they tell themselves and I think the problem is that many people\u2014once again\u2014think in terms of solutions. They want to reach a point that is finite and, if you really think about it, that\u2019s always very sinister. I\u2019m also really interested in the history of the guest workers\u2014how these people were treated. There were twenty-six million forced laborers, prisoners\u2014thirteen million in Germany itself, the rest in occupied territories. That established a hierarchy of thinking about how much people were worth, beginning with French people being the fanciest, and Jewish and Soviet people being the least human. And this hierarchy is still very much in place in many ways, if you think about the ways in which the later generation of guest workers and their descendants have been treated. I keep thinking that there must be stories of people who used to be forced laborers and returned as guest workers. Or if you think about the fact that since 1990, 187 people have been killed in Germany by neo-fascists. I\u2019m really interested in the continuities of these things. There\u2019s this big myth of hour zero. We started from scratch in 1945. You wish! You wish. They were so smart when things started happening in the United States with George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter protests\u2014the first reaction was, Oh, we don\u2019t have this kind of racism here. And I was like, excuse me\u2026 What<\/em>? But again, they found it much easier to point fingers, and to say look at America and how racist they are all and their problems. And I think there is\u2014I\u2019m going back to the Holocaust\u2014I think there\u2019s always been and continues to be an inability to mourn for those victims as our own people. They were othered, even in that process. Of course, all countries in the West have dirty histories, they all do. But it\u2019s not a competition. I think we should stop thinking of getting to that place of comfort.<\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

Thinking again about inheritance, are there writers you return to?<\/p>\n

VOLCKMER<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a new German translation of War and Peace<\/em>, which is brilliant. I love the way Tolstoy structured it, among many other things. It makes it very readable. I find it quite overwhelming, and I\u2019m totally in love with that book. Even the epilogue. People say it\u2019s boring, but no, you need the epilogue. If you don\u2019t read it, you haven\u2019t understood anything.<\/p>\n

I think Russian\u2014I\u2019m really bad, but I started learning Russian, a few years ago, without much success\u2014there\u2019s stuff that you can do in German, that you can do in Russian, that you can\u2019t do in English, because all of the cases and the grammar. Russian is so condensed as a language. I don\u2019t want to wind you up with the Nabokov thing, but didn\u2019t he say that about Tolstoy? That you can read it in English, but you\u2019re not going to read Tolstoy. I always admire Tolstoy\u2019s love, right? He wrote from a point of love and that\u2019s important. I can\u2019t think of another writer who knew the human soul like he did. To me the most important scene is when Bolkonsky sees the sky. And his death, the two scenes. I don\u2019t know how he does it, but I\u2019m quite overwhelmed. My only explanation is it\u2019s because he writes from a position of love. He doesn\u2019t hate his characters. Apart from Napoleon.<\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an interesting question. It\u2019s very clear to me when a writer hates their characters. How do writers love their characters? Is it so important?<\/p>\n

VOLCKMER<\/p>\n

I think it\u2019s important because otherwise you\u2019re going to be arrogant and the characters will not reveal as much. A part of them will always remain closed off if you don\u2019t treat them with devotion. That\u2019s something I don\u2019t like when I read fiction, when writers are being condescending or arrogant toward their characters. I always find that quite jarring. I think you have to be modest in front of them. And that\u2019s what Tolstoy does brilliantly, I think, like no one else.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

RL Goldberg is a Ph.D. candidate in English and humanistic studies at Princeton.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What is a \u201ctrans novel\u201d?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1571,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[907],"tags":[67827],"class_list":["post-148242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-at-work","tag-featured"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nIce Pick: An Interview with Katharina Volckmer by RL Goldberg<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Katharina Volckmer on binaries, coming to terms with the past, and approaching art as a kind of ice pick.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2020\/10\/07\/ice-pick-an-interview-with-katharina-volckmer\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" 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