{"id":158718,"date":"2022-04-22T11:00:19","date_gmt":"2022-04-22T15:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=158718"},"modified":"2022-11-22T15:35:54","modified_gmt":"2022-11-22T20:35:54","slug":"we-need-the-eggs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2022\/04\/22\/we-need-the-eggs\/","title":{"rendered":"We Need the Eggs: On Annie Hall<\/em>, Love, and Delusion"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

TWO<\/a> ILLUSTRATIONS<\/a> BY RICHARD KEARTON, 1896.<\/p><\/div>\n

One night, my stand-up comic brother, David, and I were sitting on my couch, talking about the joke that concludes Woody Allen\u2019s 1977 film,<\/em>\u00a0Annie Hall. We\u2019d watched the movie together dozens of times growing up, and we\u2019d always assumed that we interpreted the ending\u2014about how people get into relationships because we \u201cneed the eggs\u201d\u2014the same way. That night, we discovered we did not, and even after much talking, we found we couldn\u2019t agree on the joke\u2019s meaning. In the weeks that followed, I longed to restage and expand our conversation, and hopefully to answer some of the questions it had raised, so I invited a few other people into the discussion: Zohar Atkins, a rabbi and poet; Nathan Goldman, a literary critic and editor; and Noreen Khawaja, a professor of religion who has written a book on existentialism. Could we, together, get to the bottom of this profound and amazing joke?<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

DAVID HETI<\/p>\n

The joke came up one night when Sheila and I were talking.<\/p>\n

SHEILA HETI<\/p>\n

I think we\u2019d been talking about relationships.<\/p>\n

DAVID HETI<\/p>\n

And I said how I understood the joke and then Sheila had a completely different interpretation. We couldn\u2019t settle on what it meant.<\/p>\n

SHEILA HETI<\/p>\n

Let me read the joke. It\u2019s at the very end of the movie, and Alvy is talking about meeting Annie for coffee, and he says, \u201cAfter that it got pretty late and we both had to go, but it was great seeing Annie again, and I realized what a terrific person she was and how much fun it was just knowing her, and I thought of that old joke\u2014you know, this guy goes to a psychiatrist and says, \u2018Doc, my brother\u2019s crazy! He thinks he\u2019s a chicken!\u2019 And the doctor says, \u2018Well, why don\u2019t you turn him in?\u2019 And the guy says, \u2018I would, but\u2014I need the eggs.\u2019 Well, I guess that\u2019s pretty much now how I feel about relationships. You know, they\u2019re totally irrational and crazy and absurd, and\u2014but uh\u2014<\/span>I guess we keep going through it because most of us \u2026 need the eggs.\u201d\u00a0The funny thing about the joke for me is that there are<\/em> no eggs. Just because the brother thinks he\u2019s a chicken doesn\u2019t mean there are eggs. And David was like\u2014<\/p>\n

DAVID HETI<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not about there being actual eggs! Lovers go into a relationship because they each get something out of it, and whether there\u2019s something objectively there doesn\u2019t matter. Each party gets the messiness and the intimacy and whatever you get\u2014that feeling of something being there. Alvy Singer has all these divorces, but he\u2019s saying that we keep doing it, ultimately, because we\u2019re crazy: one of us thinks he\u2019s a chicken, and the other one\u2019s on the psychiatrist\u2019s couch, thinking he\u2019s getting eggs.<\/p>\n

GOLDMAN<\/p>\n

That\u2019s interesting, because I\u2019ve been wondering why there are two<\/em> deluded people in the joke, and it seems like you\u2019re suggesting it\u2019s because it\u2019s about a kind of delusion that requires multiple participants\u2014even though in the joke, the speaker at first frames it as only his brother\u2019s<\/em> delusion, before he reveals he\u2019s participating in it.<\/p>\n

SHEILA HETI<\/p>\n

I think it\u2019s true that a romantic relationship is a sort of delusion between two people. There\u2019s an agreement to imagine something together, and you create this idea of each other and the relationship and what you mean to each other. And when one person stops imagining all this, basically that\u2019s when the whole thing falls apart.<\/p>\n

KHAWAJA<\/p>\n

I saw the two brothers not as two people in a relationship, but as two versions of Woody Allen\u2014or Alvy. One has the perspective of,\u00a0\u201c<\/span>It\u2019s crazy, I\u2019m living in a fantasy of this other person and myself,\u201d <\/span>and the other one is saying,\u00a0\u201c<\/span>Yet I\u2019m still getting something out of it, so he\u2019s seeing it from both sides.\u201d <\/span>And to Sheila\u2019s point, I think he\u2019s saying that there are <\/em>eggs. The funny thing is, there shouldn\u2019t<\/em> be eggs, but there are eggs.<\/p>\n

DAVID HETI<\/p>\n

I think it\u2019s important that the person speaking knows<\/i> it\u2019s a bit crazy\u2014what he\u2019s proposing. He has to have that self-awareness for it to be so funny.<\/p>\n

SHEILA HETI<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think he knows he\u2019s crazy. I think \u201cI need the eggs\u201d is the straight-man line. It\u2019s like you originally said, David. He believes there really are<\/em> eggs.<\/p>\n

GOLDMAN<\/p>\n

So he\u2019s cognizant that his brother is crazy, but not that he is?<\/p>\n

SHEILA HETI<\/p>\n

I think so. Which is another reason why this joke is so perfect about relationships, because we always think the other person is crazy but we\u2019re<\/em> not. All we talk about when we talk about our relationships is how crazy the other<\/em> person is.<\/p>\n

ATKINS<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t even track how many layers of meta this joke is, but one that just came to me is the idea that maybe the joke doesn\u2019t actually make sense, but we need it to make sense, because we <\/em>need the eggs. Why do we laugh at a joke? Is it because the joke is funny, or because we need the release? So we\u2019re almost complicit in the insanity, because he tells a story that doesn\u2019t really hold together, but we need the closure, the laughter, so we\u2019re brought in. Likewise, he\u2019s both the butt of the joke and<\/em> the one telling it. In the classical form of a parable, there are two parts:\u00a0there\u2019s the allegory, and then there\u2019s the interpretation, and usually the interpretation is given by somebody else.<\/span>\u00a0In a classical parable, it would end with just, \u201cI need the eggs,\u201d and then another person would come and say, \u201cOh, it\u2019s like relationships.\u201d But here, where does the parable end\u2014with the joke, or when he steps out of that role to interpret it? By being the interpreter of his own parable, Woody Allen extends the boundary of the parable to include the interpretation. And in doing that, the\u00a0parable makes the interpreter less superior to the interpreted,\u00a0<\/span>because it shows that you can be a very rational, meta, balcony-view kind of person, and be just as crazy as the people you\u2019re looking down on.<\/p>\n

DAVID HETI<\/p>\n

Why does that make the interpreter inferior? I think that elevates him. First off, this is not Alvy Singer telling the joke\u2014this is Woody Allen, the director, so he is<\/em> outside it. It\u2019s like the opening joke: \u201cI would never want to belong to any club that would have someone like me for a member.\u201d Here you have one guy who thinks he\u2019s a chicken, which is a problem, and another guy who thinks he\u2019s getting eggs, and that\u2019s a problem, too, but you have these two things together and it turns out it works out beautifully!<\/p>\n

SHEILA HETI<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t agree with you necessarily that the person who tells the joke is Woody Allen and not Alvy Singer.<\/p>\n

GOLDMAN<\/p>\n

I agree, I don\u2019t think that\u2019s clear. But I\u2019m also not sure I agree with Sheila that the narrator doesn\u2019t come to understand that he\u2019s crazy. I think this question has stakes because it relates to the question of whether there are kinds of delusions you can participate in despite being self-aware\u2014like free will, maybe. Is there a role for self-awareness in delusion?\u00a0Does humor<\/em> let us live self-awarely in delusion, or does it only diffuse it?<\/p>\n

ATKINS<\/p>\n

I\u2019m now thinking of a Hasidic story about a guy, a prince, who thinks he\u2019s a chicken, and he refuses to sit at the table, and he\u2019s going underneath the table and eating the crumbs and making chicken sounds, and the king hires all these wise people to come visit and cure the son of his pathology, and none of them succeed. And then one person\u00a0<\/span>goes under the table with him and pretends to be a chicken as well. After he imitates him for some time, he\u2019s like, \u201cWouldn\u2019t it be fun to pretend to be human?\u201d Like Alvy\u2019s joke, it\u2019s about being in on someone\u2019s pathology as a way of healing them.<\/p>\n

DAVID HETI<\/p>\n

I think one joke that we\u2019re all forgetting about is Alvy\u2019s comment to Annie Hall on the plane that a relationship is \u201clike a shark\u201d\u2014\u201cit has to keep moving or else it dies.\u201d Part of the magic of a relationship is that you can\u2019t hold it down, you can\u2019t put a finger on it or resolve it. It exists in the tension. Same with the joke. We are trying to resolve it, but we can\u2019t.<\/p>\n

SHEILA HETI<\/p>\n

Right. If the guy accepted that his brother was a chicken, like very calmly\u2014\u201c<\/span>This is great, he\u2019s a chicken, and I get the eggs\u201d\u2014there wouldn\u2019t be the anxious tension which keeps romantic relationships interesting. In some way, his dissatisfaction with the fact that his brother is a chicken is the eros\u2014it\u2019s the excitement that keeps the shark of the relationship moving. The answer is not,\u00a0\u201c<\/span>Be happy that he\u2019s a chicken and don\u2019t see that as crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n

KHAWAJA<\/p>\n

Nor is it to find the perfect person\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n

SHEILA HETI<\/p>\n

\u2014<\/span>who doesn\u2019t think they\u2019re a chicken.<\/div>\n

KHAWAJA<\/p>\n

And who satisfies all the things you think you want.<\/p>\n

SHEILA HETI<\/p>\n

Yeah,\u00a0it wouldn\u2019t be a better brother who didn\u2019t think he was a chicken, but didn\u2019t give eggs.<\/p>\n

ATKINS<\/p>\n

Exactly! He thinks he wants a life without struggle, and he\u2019s looking for the perfect soul mate to ease all that tension, when in fact it\u2019s the tension itself that\u2019s producing the love interest.<\/p>\n

DAVID HETI<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s the tension itself that creates \u2026 well, life.\u00a0 Because eggs represent fertility, life.<\/p>\n

SHEILA HETI<\/p>\n

But I think my original question was, Are there eggs, actually<\/em>, in a relationship? Like, what are we getting? Are we getting eggs, or are we getting the illusion of eggs, or what?<\/p>\n

GOLDMAN<\/p>\n

At the risk of evading that question, it\u2019s interesting to me that in the joke, it\u2019s the narrator, not the brother, who introduces the eggs. When he says, \u201cMy brother thinks he\u2019s a chicken,\u201d that implies <\/em>eggs, but it\u2019s he, the narrator, who actually brings them up. I think that might help us understand what the joke is saying about relationships. Because we only know for sure that the eggs exist for one person\u2014for the one who\u2019s talking to the doctor.<\/p>\n

SHEILA HETI<\/p>\n

Right, we don\u2019t know if eggs exist for the guy who thinks he\u2019s a chicken.<\/p>\n

GOLDMAN<\/p>\n

He could think he\u2019s a barren chicken.<\/p>\n

KHAWAJA<\/p>\n

The classic chicken-and-egg joke is also just sitting there! \u201cWhich came first?\u201d If the joke is refuting the idea that you can have the eggs without having the chicken, then it actually becomes a summary of that other<\/em> joke. So there\u2019s this weird subtle circuit of chicken-and-eggs on chickens-and-eggs.<\/span>\u00a0I think that\u2019s floating somewhere in the funniness. And I feel like the eggs could be … whatever illusion yields. Like, not real eggs or false eggs, but whatever the fruit of illusion is<\/em>.\u00a0The one other egg moment in the film is when Alvy\u2019s on the street doing that survey with the passersby, and he asks an Upper West Side older gentleman, How do you and your wife make it work after all these years? And the guy\u2019s like, \u201cWe use a large vibrating egg.\u201d The guy gives him a very reasonable answer, but Alvy is like, \u201cWell, you ask a psychopath for advice, that’s what happens.\u201d His reaction to the possibility of a vibrator is to be scandalized! He thinks it\u2019s psychotic because it\u2019s artificial. When I saw that, I thought, it\u2019s not that mysterious why he and Annie failed. He tried to stop her from smoking pot before sex, and that was where everything went completely askew. Alvy is like, I want the eggs that come from when you\u2019re relaxed; I don\u2019t want you to use something artificial to get there. He wants her to get there \u201cnaturally.\u201d\u00a0So there seems to be some kind of echo there\u2014like, he wants the fruit\u00a0<\/em>of the illusion, but he can\u2019t accept the intentionality; that techniques may be needed to produce the illusion.<\/p>\n

ATKINS<\/p>\n

Right, you can\u2019t pick and choose the things you want in a person. He says, \u201cI don\u2019t like that my brother\u2019s insane, but I do like the eggs,\u201d and the response to that is, \u201cIf you want the eggs, then you have to embrace his crazy.\u201d If you want to reject his crazy, fine, but you don\u2019t get his eggs. I suppose that\u2019s a way of saying the eggs are sort of real.<\/p>\n

GOLDMAN<\/p>\n

And actually, the thing that you think is a problem sometimes produces exactly the thing you want. There\u2019s that recurring thing where Annie is like, \u201cYou don’t think I’m smart enough.\u201d And it\u2019s true that Alvy does think that, and it annoys him. But he also enjoys his paternalistic, educating role.<\/p>\n

SHEILA HETI<\/p>\n

So what are the eggs? Not in the joke\u2014but in relationships.<\/p>\n

GOLDMAN<\/p>\n

I could answer with respect to what I <\/em>like in relationships, or what the film says about what\u2019s valuable. But do people participate in relationships for the same reasons, fundamentally? I\u2019m not sure. I think it speaks to that uncertainty that within the context of the joke, the eggs are a cipher, a determinate indeterminacy. An egg is nascent, generative\u2014an image of pure emptiness, of negativity, of potentiality. It could be anything.<\/p>\n

SHEILA HETI<\/p>\n

Yeah. I think that\u2019s why the joke works\u2014because when we hear we “need the eggs,\u201d we all know what that means to us. I<\/em> know what the eggs I<\/em> need are. It\u2019s such a nice mood to end the movie on. And the hardest thing to do in a work of art is to conclude it well.<\/p>\n

GOLDMAN<\/p>\n

One of the things that I think it makes a great conclusion is that, for a movie that\u2019s very ironic and modern, it ends with a moral, in a strangely classical sense\u2014relationships are like this<\/em>. But all the things we\u2019ve been discussing\u2014the indeterminacy and irresolution and the fact that it\u2019s a joke<\/em>\u2014undermine that didactic quality. So you get both at once: here\u2019s what relationships are like, and also a question mark.<\/p>\n

SHEILA HETI<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what relationships are like\u2014which is, we don\u2019t know what we\u2019re getting out of them.<\/p>\n

KHAWAJA<\/p>\n

Yes, and the conclusion of the movie\u2014like the brother who thinks he\u2019s a chicken\u2014passes the crazy on. <\/span>The first word I thought of when I heard this joke was contagion<\/em>. It’s like, this guy notices his brother is crazy, but in the midst of trying to understand his crazy or relate to it, he gets<\/em> a little bit of the craziness. And the lack of resolution in the joke means it keeps spreading, the crazy dribbles down to us. There\u2019s something giggle-funny about that\u2014not Aha! <\/em>punch-line funny, but like, ew, icky funny.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n

DAVID HETI<\/p>\n

This whole thing reminds me of that scene in the movie where he\u2019s at the party and is watching the Knicks and his wife comes in and Alvy says, \u201cAll those PhDs are in there, you know, like, discussing modes of alienation and we’ll be in here quietly humping.\u201d We\u2019re not enjoying the joke! No one\u2019s enjoying the joke here!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

SHEILA HETI<\/p>\n

And no one\u2019s really answered my question: What are the eggs?<\/p>\n

KHAWAJA<\/p>\n

I think the eggs for me are the feelings I get from the version of me that my partner creates through their delusion. Whatever that fantasy they have of me, and of themselves in relation to me, yields: that\u2019s the eggs. And maybe I\u2019m suspicious of it, too, because they\u2019re not really right, but it\u2019s still what holds me there.<\/p>\n

SHEILA HETI<\/p>\n

What holds you there is their image of you?<\/p>\n

KHAWAJA<\/p>\n

The thing I can sort of see through about the way they see me. With one eye. I\u2019m like, Oh, I can see that that\u2019s maybe not right. Maybe there\u2019s some fantasy element in that, but it gives me this hope, right? That fantasy or that generativity, the fact that they\u2019re generating possibilities \u2026<\/p>\n

SHEILA HETI<\/p>\n

And the way that they see you is usually a picture that\u2019s better than yourself and<\/em> worse than yourself.<\/p>\n

ATKINS<\/p>\n

I\u2019m just curious to know\u2014in the brother-brother relationship, who\u2019s doing the work? Like, who\u2019s being centered? We get the story from the point of view of the one saying, \u201cI need the eggs,\u201d but we don\u2019t really get the chicken\u2019s side of the story.<\/p>\n

SHEILA HETI<\/p>\n

Instinctively, it seems to me like it\u2019s the chicken that\u2019s doing the work,\u00a0because that\u2019s a lot of work: to be a chicken. And to believe<\/em> yourself a chicken.<\/p>\n

GOLDMAN<\/p>\n

And the physical act of producing eggs is also a lot of work.<\/p>\n

KHAWAJA<\/p>\n

To believe yourself a chicken sufficiently enough to produce some kind of egg that the other person is getting\u2014there\u2019s a lot of work in that belief!<\/p>\n

GOLDMAN<\/p>\n

But isn\u2019t having a delusion no work at all? I wake up in the morning and effortlessly believe all kinds of things about myself that aren\u2019t actually true. (Pause.<\/em>) I am trying to think about, like, does the joke only work if the brother\u2019s not there. Or is there a version of the joke where the brother is <\/em>there that is funny in a different way, and that tells us something different?<\/p>\n

DAVID HETI<\/p>\n

Maybe the other brother is on the couch talking to his <\/em>psychiatrist, saying,\u00a0\u201c<\/span>He wants eggs from me!\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

SHEILA HETI<\/p>\n

And why is it two brothers<\/em> in the joke? If what we\u2019re meant to do is extrapolate this to a romantic relationship between Alvy Singer and his girlfriends and wives, why isn\u2019t the joke,\u00a0\u201c<\/span>My girlfriend thinks she\u2019s crazy?\u201d<\/span> Why is that not as good of a joke?<\/p>\n

GOLDMAN<\/p>\n

Because brothers can\u2019t break up with each other.<\/p>\n

ATKINS<\/p>\n

Alvy can keep breaking up with specific people, but he can\u2019t break up with the concept of a relationship\u2014the brother is the stand-in for that. The family relationship represents the idea of relationship itself, in a way that actually makes the problem of \u201c<\/span>how do you choose a partner?\u201d\u00a0a specifically modern one. It almost seems easier to be assigned\u00a0one\u00a0<\/span>and be told, \u201c<\/span>This is your brother, go and figure it out.\u201d<\/p>\n

SHEILA HETI<\/p>\n

Watching this movie I did kind of feel like, Well, their problems weren\u2019t so bad that they should have broken up. Like, okay, Alvy is a bit of a drag for Annie; she wants to have more fun. But why can\u2019t she have fun apart from him? And they do love each other. So, based on what Zohar is saying, the answer for him is, Stop breaking up. You need the eggs. You need the relationship. Not that the moral of the movie is that they shouldn\u2019t have broken up, but that\u2019s \u2026 some wisdom.<\/p>\n

ATKINS<\/p>\n

I feel like he takes it in an opposite direction, which is, like, I\u2019m going to be a serial dater my whole life, because \u201c<\/span>I need the eggs.\u201d<\/p>\n

DAVID HETI<\/p>\n

But those aren\u2019t the good eggs. Those aren\u2019t the deep eggs\u2014the real craziness you can get to in a long-term relationship.<\/p>\n

ATKINS<\/p>\n

So does he misinterpret his own joke? Or is the joke sufficiently indeterminate that it\u2019s more of a Rorschach test for him and us to figure out how we feel about relationships?<\/p>\n

GOLDMAN<\/p>\n

I think the joke and the film are agnostic about the question of lifelong monogamy. It\u2019s interesting that the joke follows the scene where they meet and he says “how much fun it was just knowing her.\u201d At that point, he isn\u2019t saying, We were really good together, we should get back together. So the movie kind of brackets the question of the best way to produce the eggs, or to get them.<\/p>\n

KHAWAJA<\/p>\n

I agree that it\u2019s agnostic on the monogamy question, and I don\u2019t know that you need endurance for eggs. I think the eggs come at all sorts of points.<\/p>\n

GOLDMAN<\/p>\n

It\u2019s interesting that he says, \u201cThat’s pretty much how I feel about relationships<\/em>\u201d and not \u201cromantic relationships.\u201d I mean, in the context of the film and how we generally use that word, it makes sense to interpret that narrowly\u2014romantic, sexual relationships\u2014but could we also take it as true about relation in general?<\/p>\n

SHEILA HETI<\/p>\n

No, I think the joke is talking specifically about romantic relationships, because you wouldn\u2019t say that friendships are “totally irrational and crazy and absurd.”<\/p>\n

GOLDMAN<\/p>\n

Why not?<\/p>\n

SHEILA HETI<\/p>\n

Because you seem to have a degree of choice over who your friends are, but you don\u2019t choose who you\u2019re sexually attracted to, and you don\u2019t have any agency over who you fall in love with, and I think it\u2019s the wild not-making of a choice that makes romantic relationships crazy and absurd. How did I find myself in relation to this person who I can\u2019t seem to get away from, yet who I actually don\u2019t<\/em> want to get away from?\u201d\u00a0<\/span>Whereas with a friend, it\u2019s a bit more understandable; you have things in common. The reason you spend time together makes more rational sense.<\/p>\n

ATKINS<\/p>\n

This makes me rethink the joke. Before the brother comes along and says, \u201cHey, I have these eggs,\u201d Alvy Singer doesn\u2019t know that he needs them. He\u2019s not walking around saying, \u201cI need eggs, where can I find some?\u201d\u00a0<\/span>It\u2019s only by being offered these eggs that he discovers himself to be someone in need of eggs. He actually discovered something about himself and what he needs through that surprise romantic encounter. And he couldn\u2019t find that part of himself if he was just looking to have things in common with people. So it\u2019s not just that we have a need for the eggs\u2014we also have the need to discover the things we didn\u2019t know we needed.<\/div>\n

DAVID HETI<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a sadness to that, I think. \u201cI need the eggs.\u201d That line could be delivered in many different ways. \u201cWell, I need the eggs.\u201d It\u2019s kind of an admission of his failing. It\u2019s out of his hands.<\/p>\n

SHEILA HETI<\/p>\n

In friendship, there\u2019s actual eggs. In a friendship, you get real eggs.<\/p>\n

(Everyone laughs<\/em>.)<\/p>\n

KHAWAJA<\/p>\n

Well, I think it depends on whether there are erotically charged elements to the friendship. Friendship can be magnetic, too.<\/p>\n

SHEILA HETI<\/p>\n

That\u2019s true. Certain friendships can also feel fated, absurd and irrational. Do you guys think the crazier, more erotic, more combustible relationships have better or bigger or more potent eggs than romantic relationships that are more placid, or do the more placid, amicable relationships have bigger and better eggs? Or is the joke making no comment on the quality of the eggs in relation to the type of relationship?<\/p>\n

KHAWAJA<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think the quality of the eggs is dependent on the tempestuousness of the relationship, because if we\u2019re tying the eggs to fantasy, then we have to acknowledge that the placid relationship is full of fantasy, too. You think of the other as stable, as unchanging, and you\u2019re both playing along with that:\u00a0\u201cWe do things this way, and this is what we like, and it\u2019s not going to change.\u201d <\/span>But you both probably know, somewhere, that it could<\/em> change. You could have a tempestuous relationship that had terrible eggs, or a very placid relationship which was very fictional, actually, but which gave you tons of good eggs.<\/p>\n

ATKINS<\/p>\n

I think I agree with Noreen that we get the lovers we deserve.\u00a0In that relational sense, if you are a placid-seeking person, you get a placid-seeking person in response, and that\u2019s great. <\/span>But I do think that on a more absolute level, just as there\u2019s excellence in any realm of craft, there probably is excellence in the realm of relationships, and some relationships are brave and others are less so, and I think the braver the relationship, the more conflict will be surfaced, and therefore a deeper harmony will be achieved. Therefore, better eggs.<\/p>\n

SHEILA HETI<\/p>\n

What constitutes bravery in a relationship for you?<\/p>\n

ATKINS<\/p>\n

I think a willingness to go to uncomfortable places. I guess I\u2019m a brooding type, and a person who likes to self-examine, so I value that in a partner. But if skiing with your partner is your thing, fine, that\u2019s not worse than talking about your childhood wounds.<\/p>\n

SHEILA HETI<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve just not heard a person so confidently suggest that excellence in a relationship equaled bravery. It’s like you\u2019re saying bravery in a relationship equals beauty in a work of art.<\/p>\n

ATKINS<\/p>\n

Now that I hear it reflected back, I\u2019m not sure that I would stand by it.<\/p>\n

GOLDMAN<\/p>\n

But I think it\u2019s an interesting claim with respect to the film, because while you could make the argument that Annie Hall<\/em> is a brave work, or a very self-assertive one, in some ways the defining characteristic of the movie\u2014and the paradigmatically Jewish American, mostly male aesthetic it embodies\u2014is actually a kind of cowardice. Or maybe that\u2019s not right, but a neurotic, self-deprecating\u2014<\/p>\n

KHAWAJA<\/p>\n

\u2014failure to meet what\u2019s demanded of him. Yeah, he doesn\u2019t manage to get it right. So\u00a0I guess we were saying two different things about what the eggs come out of. One is conflict\u2014from which you get the bravery stuff. And the other thing about the eggs is the element of fantasy. Does it constitute bravery to accept that there\u2019s a delusive aspect to our most meaningful relationships? Because I feel like avoiding<\/em> conflict would be him saying,\u00a0\u201c<\/span>Right, I know the eggs come from the crazy, but I\u2019m not going to try to excavate where my brother\u2019s belief that he\u2019s a chicken is coming from, I\u2019m not going to try to shake him into reason, I\u2019m just going to let him have his thing, because I\u2019m getting these eggs.\u201d\u00a0<\/span>That\u2019s not necessarily a working-through of something.<\/p>\n

GOLDMAN<\/p>\n

Right, the picture you just described feels placid, not generative. And it cuts off the possibility that both participants might have an awareness of the deludedness of the enterprise, yet still be interested in investigating it together.<\/p>\n

KHAWAJA<\/p>\n

I mean, speaking of the difficulty and deludedness of the enterprise, there\u2019s also the “art and the artist” problem. Can you accept or appreciate one and not the other?<\/p>\n

GOLDMAN<\/p>\n

Right, like, if we need the eggs\u2014the artwork, or whatever\u2014do we have to take the chicken, too?<\/p>\n

KHAWAJA<\/p>\n

Yeah, I mean, on the one hand it seems like we are saying yes, or that the joke is saying yes.\u00a0I think what the very idea of art means is that there is a difference between the two. Somewhere. Not a brick wall, but<\/span>… So I think, yes, you\u2019re in a relationship with both the art and the artist, but they don\u2019t have to be the same kind of relationship.<\/p>\n

GOLDMAN<\/p>\n

So where is that line?<\/p>\n

KHAWAJA<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know in the abstract, and even if I did, I doubt the five of us would agree on where it is. I just think that orienting to something as a work of art means that a line between chicken and egg exists, or can be drawn.<\/p>\n

SHEILA HETI<\/p>\n

A line between the chicken and the egg, or between the two relationships, or between the art and the artist?<\/p>\n

KHAWAJA<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s say I\u2019m glad Woody Allen made Annie Hall<\/em>, and glad Woody Allen is not my brother.<\/p>\n

SHEILA HETI<\/p>\n

For the record, my father really wanted to name me Woody Allen. But my mother said she’d run away with the baby.\u00a0(Laughter<\/em>.)<\/p>\n

GOLDMAN<\/p>\n

If this is a joke about the necessary delusions that sustain a relationship, does it also speak to the delusions that sustain\u00a0life in general?\u00a0Like, if modernity and postmodernity are epochs in which\u00a0everything has\u00a0become disenchanted and historicized and revealed to be socially manufactured\u2014even the very\u00a0notion of romantic love\u2014we have two options: just bracket that and live our lives not thinking about it, or say, yes, it’s all constructed, but that doesn’t make it any less real.<\/p>\n

ATKINS<\/p>\n

If we read this as being about modernity and our relationship to inherited myths\u2014if that\u2019s another possibility for the joke, that we\u2019ve been handed all these traditions, and we kind of need them for the eggs, even though we can no longer believe in them sincerely, like people did two thousand years ago\u2014to what extent are we deluded in thinking that we have a choice, if in fact we are operating from a powerful unconscious drive? Like, if you hear from someone who\u2019s complaining about a relationship they\u2019re in, but they\u2019re not breaking it off, and you\u2019re like,\u00a0G<\/span>et out of there!\u00a0A<\/span>nd they\u2019re like, Well, I need the eggs, you\u2019d probably be concerned, right?<\/p>\n

But you might also say, You know what? If that\u2019s their choice\u2014clearly it\u2019s doing something for them. I shouldn\u2019t just be listening to what they\u2019re saying consciously. I should be observing their unconscious, and their unconscious is like, \u201cYeah, I love it.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0Maybe similarly, the rational project is all about debunking religion, or debunking myth, and meanwhile, so much of what we do continues to be mythical or irrational. I think maybe the lesson is that we can\u2019t reason our way out of delusion. Delusion is so much bigger than what we can say about it.<\/p>\n

SHEILA HETI<\/p>\n

What you\u2019re saying is making me think that part of what\u2019s interesting and funny about the joke is that he\u2019s giving a conscious voice to his unconscious understanding of, \u201cWell, I need the eggs.\u201d It\u2019s weird to hear someone be able to speak aloud their unconscious.<\/p>\n

GOLDMAN<\/p>\n

That feels right to me, and it also makes me wonder about the meaning of the form of the joke. Walter Benjamin talks about Kafka in relation to two components of the Talmud\u2014Aggadah, or narrative, and Halacha, or the law. Benjamin says that traditionally, Halacha is subservient to Aggadah, but that Kafka\u2019s genius is that he sacrifices the truth of tradition for the sake of its transmissibility\u2014so his writings are parables that abandon or negate the very truth the form is designed to illustrate. It\u2019s almost like Kafka empties the Jewish parable of its content but maintains the form. We could think about this joke as performing something similar\u2014doing what Zohar\u2019s talking about, negating the mystification while also replicating it. Maybe this is where the absurd texture of modernity\u2014and the joke\u2014comes from. Not from saying,\u00a0\u201cThis is irrational, and therefore we have transcended it,\u201d\u00a0<\/span>but by being able to puncture or negate the irrational and still<\/em> not transcend it.<\/p>\n

ATKINS<\/p>\n

I think what Nathan just said about the emptying out of the content but the preservation of the form is such a great description of what Woody Allen does in general, and of his use of intellectualism as a kind of superficial fashion. Like, the characters will be reading McLuhan or Tolstoy or whatever, and you get this feeling of being so intelligent by participating in it\u2014or at least I did as a teenager\u2014and meanwhile the characters are completely idiotic. But that\u2019s as old as philosophy itself. The philosopher always has to hold herself in suspicion of being a sophist. And maybe that\u2019s the ambivalence\u2014like, does art make us wiser?\u00a0<\/span>Or is art just another prop by which we justify ourselves in our psychopathy? I don\u2019t mean that to sound cynical, because I need the eggs, obviously. That\u2019s why I\u2019m here.<\/p>\n

DAVID HETI<\/p>\n

Yeah. I mean, I do think you can take a joke and break it down into its formal logic. You can say,\u00a0Here is the proposition, and here is where the contradiction lies. But also, for it to be a good joke, it can\u2019t just be a formal mechanism. That\u2019s how the performance of it matters\u2014in its relation to greater social values. I mean, even in terms of what we understand that one gets out of a relationship. Certain relationships could be purely monetary. A relationship in the old world\u2014maybe it just existed only so that both families could survive, and you would bring together a farm and get, whatever, a goat or something. Whereas now relationships are supposed to provide you with your entire world. So, with the eggs\u2014maybe it\u2019s not even a joke, maybe it’s in fact some ancient story, and it’s literally eggs. He needs the eggs!<\/p>\n

KHAWAJA<\/p>\n

Oh, I love that!<\/p>\n

(Laughter<\/em>.)<\/p>\n

SHEILA HETI<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t even a joke originally! Like, two hundred years ago there were no metaphorical eggs in a relationship!<\/p>\n

ATKINS<\/p>\n

Wow! Wait, so maybe the brother really is crazy, but he also does<\/em> offer eggs!<\/p>\n

KHAWAJA<\/p>\n

(Still laughing.) <\/em><\/span>That\u2019s great!<\/p>\n

ATKINS<\/p>\n

Can I just give you two other associations that came to mind about the eggs? One is that in Jewish law, an egg is a Halachic measurement\u2014it\u2019s a stand-in for a threshold amount by which something becomes substantial. There are actually two different measurements\u2014something is the size of an olive, or something is the size of an egg. So c<\/span>ertain things become things at the size of an olive, and others only become a thing, legally speaking, at the size of an egg. There is something iconic about an egg in Jewish law. So if the egg is the minimal amount by which something becomes real, it\u2019s a kind of border, an image of a borderline; yes, it\u2019s a delusion, but it\u2019s a delusion with enough gravitas to become real, to substantiate itself.<\/p>\n

SHEILA HETI<\/p>\n

That makes me think that a romantic relationship doesn\u2019t become real until it becomes completely absurd to participate in it.<\/p>\n

ATKINS<\/p>\n

Oh, amazing. And there\u2019s another association. So in the Zohar, the book after which I\u2019m named, there\u2019s a short passage on one of the biblical laws, which says to \u201cshoo away the mother bird before taking her eggs,\u201d because it\u2019s considered cruel for the mother bird to be present when you\u2019re taking her eggs away. It\u2019s one of the only commandments in the Torah where reward is given for observing that law, <\/span>and the reward is that your days will be lengthened. Anyway, in the Zohar, they interpret it allegorically: the bird is God and the eggs are the manifestations of God, so to shoo away the mother bird and then take her eggs is to say that we cannot know the origin of things, and that we shouldn\u2019t try. But we can<\/em> know the children, or we can know the offspring, in some form, and we\u2019re allowed that. It’s not just that we\u2019re allowed the eggs, but that inasmuch as we\u2019re obliged to shoo away the mother, we\u2019re obliged to take the eggs. The way I read it is that the eggs represent science or the pursuit of knowledge. The mother bird represents mysticism, and this mystical text is saying, Don\u2019t try to be a mystic, because you\u2019ll fail. But if you admit to the humility of your endeavor, then the eggs here are fine to take. And there is<\/em> a connection\u2014between bird and egg, or between metaphysics and the known life of dailiness\u2014but don\u2019t interrogate it too much. So I think, actually, the mystical, acid-trip take, is, Oh, and the brother actually is<\/em> a chicken. But it\u2019s not for us to live on that plane, so don\u2019t go there. Just take the eggs. You\u2019re never going to figure it out.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Zohar Atkins is a rabbi, poet, scholar, and podcaster.<\/em><\/p>\n

Nathan Goldman is the managing editor of <\/em>Jewish Currents.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

David Heti is a stand-up comic of two comedy albums, <\/em>It was ok and <\/em>And you will regret it.<\/p>\n

Sheila Heti is a novelist and the former interviews editor of <\/em>The Believer.<\/p>\n

Noreen Khawaja is the author of <\/em>The Religion of Existence and <\/em>teaches in the Religious Studies department at Yale University.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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