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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781480445482 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Open Road Integrated Media, Inc. |
| Publication date: | 11/26/2013 |
| Edition description: | Reissue |
| Pages: | 220 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.60(d) |
About the Author
Hometown:
New York, New YorkDate of Birth:
April 1, 1947Place of Birth:
Brooklyn, New YorkEducation:
B.A., Radcliffe College, 1968Read an Excerpt
Guided Tours of Hell
On the bus to the death camp, Landau searches for an image, some brilliant incisive metaphor for the fields of stunted brown sunflowers, their fat dwarfish heads drooping stupidly on their crackling stalks. These are not Van Gogh sunflowers, these are ... Anselm Kiefer, their dead round faces fatally kissed by a parching breeze from Chernobyl. These flowers that survived the gassing of the Jews are finally succumbing to the asphyxiation of the planet. Or: These flowers committed suicide to protest the death camp's reincarnation -- landscaped, refurbished, a tourist attraction. Honey, look! The delousing chamber!
But the truth is: What the nodding sunflower heads really remind Landau of are human heads, specifically, the heads of last night's audience, dropping off to sleep, one by one, all through Landau's reading.
This has been Landau's problem ever since he got to Prague. Tiny nips of transcendence nibble at his line, but given even the gentlest tug, they slip back into the water, the oily shoals of boredom, ego and resentment, and, let's be honest, fury at Jiri Krakauer, that terrible poet and memoirist whose only claim to fame is that he survived two years in the camp, where he somehow conducted a love affair with Kafka's sister, Ottla.
In the four days -- the endless four days -- that the First International Kafka Congress has been in session here in Prague, Landau has heard Jiri tell a dozen versions of how he fell for Ottla Kafka, a spitfire and a saint, Jiri sculpts the air with his paws, Oof, the curves of a saint, how he was overcome by passion as he watched her breeze through the camp with blankets, water,cups of tea, words of comfort and reassurance. When Jiri tells the elderly rabbi from Tel Aviv or the critic from Toronto, Ottla was kissing the shiny bald heads of the tiny ailing grandpas. But when he tells the feminist novelist from Croatia, the professor of Slavic languages from Vassar -- the women hear how Jiri never saw Ottla without a baby in her arms and how he last saw her defiantly heading the children's transport to Auschwitz.
And what did Ottla see in Jiri? No one has to ask. That gangsterish mane of snowy hair, Mr. Larger-than-Life. Eventually everyone wants to know: What did Ottla say about Kafka? And Jiri has no problem repeating himself: Ottla always said how kind and gentle her brother was, how he cared about the workers whose disability claims he processed at the insurance firm, and how the Kafka family worried about his digestion and how boring it was to sit and watch him Fletcherize his food. Jiri imitates Kafka chewing every bite thirty times, and the professors show their slick pink gums and laugh their knowing laughs at this detail so irreverent they know it has to be true.
Well, better chew it a million times, the shit these people eat, no wonder Kafka was constipated, the man never saw a green vegetable. The fat stringy pork, the dimpled yellow pods clinging to the duck skin, the deep-fried cutlets oozing grease, every morsel daring Landau to push aside the most lethal delicious parts as Jiri Krakauer's handsome face wrinkles lightly with scorn. Kafka was permitted his stomach complaints. But Landau, apparently, isn't, so he is trying not to think about the low-grade nausea and diarrhea from which he has suffered since he arrived in Prague, probably thanks to the very same toxins that have turned the sunflowers such a crispy shade of dark brown.
Jiri is several rows back on the bus, but Landau can hear every word he bellows at his seatmate, Eva Kaprova, the Kafka Congress Director. Why shouldn't Jiri tell the whole bus: "This fucking country looked better when I was on my way to the camp!"
And all of Landau's metaphors are pulverized into rubble under the weight of experience that gives Jiri the right to say this. All of Landau's false metaphors: In fact the sunflower's problem isn't Chernobyl, their problem isn't the camps, but rather the summer-long heat wave that last week warped the train tracks so that the Kafka Congress had to change plans and hire a bus for the trip to the camp.
Outside, the greasy black landscape streams by, lumpy hills striped with stubble, powdery slag heaps, and compounds hidden behind high walls.
"Pigs!" Jiri announces. It takes Landau a moment to realize they're passing a pig farm.
"Ha, ha," says Landau pathetically, but Jiri isn't listening.
Landau wants Jiri to notice him, wants to ask him a million questions, Jiri is living history, an eyewitness to what Landau can't even bear to imagine. Unlike the Kafka scholars, those pussies and old maids, Landau would have the balls to ask: What was the camp like, exactly? What single true thing has Jiri left out of all his memoirs and stories and poems?
But it's neither Chernobyl nor the War that's poisoned the air between them. It's ego, Landau's ego, pettiness, resentment. Jiri is a star here, a celebrity based on nothing but bad luck, then good luck, endurance, nerve, resilience, no Survivor Guilt for this guy. Mr. Appetite -for-Life has a story to tell and they eat it up, these pathetic Kafka groupies, these idiots who dozed through Landau's reading of his play To Kafka from Felice.
Landau knew that the reading was strange. His drama in letters, his made-up lost half of that brilliant correspondence, was, after all, a one-woman play, to be read by a serious actress, as it was in the off-off-Broadway production that got such terrific reviews. Those female outcries of wounded pride and love were scored for a contralto with a sonorous vibrato for moments of hope and pain (Landau suspects that Felice's voice was a good deal shriller) and not for Landau's tenor, his dash of a Brooklyn accent. But that was no reason for Landau to took out over his audience and see vacant faces, half-shut eyes, the nodding tops of heads.
Guided Tours of Hell. Copyright © by Francine Prose. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.Table of Contents
| Guided Tours of Hell | 1 | |
| Three Pigs in Five Days | 69 |
What People are Saying About This
Irresistably readable...wit, knowingness, and an infinite familiarity with guilt and anxiety -- Francine Prose has these qualities in abundance.
Interviews
On Tuesday, May 27th, barnesandnoble.com welcomed Francine Prose to discuss GUIDED TOURS OF HELL.
Moderator: Welcome, Ms. Prose! We're glad you could join us tonight to discuss GUIDED TOURS OF HELL and your life as a writer.
Francine Prose: Thanks. It's a real pleasure to be in the Auditorium, though it's a little strange to see an Auditorium that looks so much like an office....
Amanda from New York City: Why did you choose Europe as the setting for these stories? BTW, I loved your book!
Francine Prose: Actually, Europe sort of chose itself as a setting for the novellas, or rather, my characters chose it. Almost before I knew it, they were on the plane and gone.... The fact was, I'd been spending a lot of time in Europe, seeing how complicated and hard it was to be there for a lot of Americans, so I thought it would be natural to write about it.
Amelia from Boston, MA: Was your title, GUIDED TOURS OF HELL, inspired by Dante? Were any of your themes inspired by his trilogy?
Francine Prose: Yes, but it came out of the blue. The tourists I was writing about were in hellish situations, in fact they were guided hellish situations, and of course it's impossible to think about someone taking you around hell without thinking about Dante, so the title just sort of came by itself.
Amanda C. from Minnesota: Was there one character in your novellas with whom you identified more strongly than the others? Nina perhaps?
Francine Prose: I did identify with Nina. That is, I remember being Nina -- but only at a certain point in my life, decades ago. And I'm a little embarrassed to say that I also identify with Landau -- the smallness, the pettiness, the teensy little jealousies, all the negative and unpleasant emotions he feels throughout the book. They're all too familiar.
Melvin Tomlin from Las Vegas: Hi, Francine. Love your latest. Here's an off-the-wall one for you: If you could live in another era, which would it be?
Francine Prose: The Neanderthal.
Stacy from New York City: Hi, Francine. What are you working on now? Can you give us an on-sale date and/or title?
Francine Prose: I'm working, with the director Nancy Savoca, on a screenplay about the life of Janis Joplin.
Wendy: How do you choose the topics on which you write?
Francine Prose: I usually find myself writing about my obsessions, but I rarely know what my obsessions are until I start writing about them. Also, I like to pick subjects that scare me, that seem frightening and difficult to write about, or even think about.
Carlos from San Antonio, TX: Hi, Francine. Have you ever wanted to be a travel writer?
Francine Prose: Actually, I do a lot of travel writing, and a lot of things in "Three Pigs" came from that experience -- for example, the thing that Leo does, of always including some impossibly seedy dive in the list of places he recommends for his readers to visit.
Michael from Boston: Do you use the Internet? What do you think about its growing popularity?
Francine Prose: This is the first time I've ever used the Internet.
Mike from the Bronx: What's your image of the typical American abroad?
Francine Prose: Curious, vaguely anxious, a bit defensive, resilient, and good-humored.
Thomas P. from Kensington, Australia: Have you spent much time living abroad yourself? Were you in America or Europe when you wrote the novellas? Also, have you travelled to Oz yet?
Francine Prose: I've lived in India for a year and spent time in the former Yugoslavia, just before the beginning of the war. I've also traveled throughout the U.S., Europe, Asia, Mexico. As for Oz, the tornado hasn't hit Manhattan as yet....
Amy from New York City: You said in response to Wendy's question that you like to write about things that you don't like to think about. What does writing about these topics do to you mentally? Does writing an essay or a book about subjects that frighten you make the writing process exhausting, draining, exhilarating...what?
Francine Prose: Writing about things that seem frightening or difficult provides a sort of adrenaline rush. A little like riding the cyclone at an amusement park. So it is exhilarating....
Elke from Long Island: Hi, Francine. What's your opinion on the recent surge in memoir writing? Do you consider it fiction or fact? Also, do you have a favorite by another author?
Francine Prose: People say that the surge in memoirs signals the death of fiction, but as someone -- I think Richard Price -- said, the novel will still be around at our funerals. I think my favorite memoir is still Nadezdha Mandelshtam's HOPE AGAINST HOPE, an incredibly beautiful and brilliant and haunting account of life in Stalinist Russia.
Funman from Work: Do you have any suggestions for young writers trying to make it?
Francine Prose: Obviously, the wisest thing is to worry about the writing first -- to write as well as you can -- and worry about making it later. That will take care of itself if the work is good enough.
Lisa from Washington: How do you think you have inherited the Holocaust? Through memories, through reading? How is your personal experience reflected in your writing?
Francine Prose: I can't imagine how it's possible to live in the world today and not be at least partly obsessed by the Holocaust. When I was working on GUIDED TOURS, I was reading a lot of Primo Levi -- and being constantly astonished and inspired by the clarity of his mind, and his vision.
James from Berkeley: Kafka is clearly an important writer for you. What is it specifically about his writing that you are so inspired by?
Francine Prose: Part of what I love about Kafka is his humor and the extraordinary precision of his language and detail. And of course the roiling terror and anxiety churning underneath everything -- it all feels so entirely modern and familiar.
Lynne King from Charlotte, NC: Francine, how many hours a day do you write? Do you sometimes have to force yourself to sit down and do it, or is it always a pleasure, a release to write?
Francine Prose: I write as often and as much as I can, but I too often have all sorts of other commitments that keep me from writing. I'd rather write than do anything.
Candace Paterno from Westchester: How long did it take you to write GUIDED TOURS OF HELL? Do you go with the first draft, or do you have to rewrite several times?
Francine Prose: It took me about ten months to do first drafts of each of the novellas. Now that I work on the computer, I've of course lost track of how many drafts I do, but I'd say that a rough estimate would be two or three hundred drafts of each one. That is, I probably go over every sentence, word by word, two or three hundred times.
Grant from Gambier: How do you think the American perspective changes when one travels abroad? Does it really lose innocence?
Francine Prose: I think anyone's perspective changes when one travels -- not just Americans'. That is, things are really different in other places, and it's always a great revelation to realize that. On the other hand, there are travelers who seem only to be looking for the things that are just exactly like the things they've left behind at home ("Look, honey, there's the Burger King")...so I don't know how much their perspective is altered.
Steven from Butler University, IN: Hi, Ms. Prose. Do you let people read your work in progress, or do you trust your own instincts?
Francine Prose: I let my husband read my work, and a few friends. Then my editor often has a number of useful suggestions. I think it's very important to be careful about who you let read your work in early stages. The wrong reader -- disapproving, discouraging -- can do a great deal of damage.
Brian from Hoboken: What authors do you read? Are there authors that have inspired you?
Francine Prose: I still go back to the classics -- Chekhov, Tolstoy, Dickens, Kafka, Joyce, Wharton, Kleist, Henry James. Each time, I find new things I've never noticed before -- and they keep on inspiring me.
Emily from Oregon: How do you go about forming your characters? Do they take after actual people? Do you write outlines of each or let them evolve as you write?
Francine Prose: My characters are almost completely invented. On the other hand, they're pastiches -- I borrow little mannerisms, gestures, lines of dialogue, attitudes, physical characteristics from people I know or people I've observed. Of course, I hope -- I assume -- that people will never recognize themselves, and luckily, they rarely do. I never outline characters, never write lists of what they like to eat for breakfast, what music they listen to, etc. So the characters keep surprising me -- I never know quite what they're going to say until they open their mouths and start talking.
Aaron from Los Angeles: Do you travel a lot? Any recommendations on places to go?
Francine Prose: Sicily.
Tod from Seattle: What are your hobbies? What would you be doing if you were not a writer?
Francine Prose: I wish I had time to have a hobby. I wish I had time to write. I think if I hadn't been a writer I would have liked to have been a musician, except that I had no musical talent.
Wendy: Is there one certain book or essay that you've written that means the most to you?
Francine Prose: I like GUIDED TOURS OF HELL the best -- it's the newest, it's the baby, though of course a very weird little baby. I'm still very fond of HOUSEHOLD SAINTS, and I liked the movie that was made from it.
Bill from Salt Lake City: Have you ever attended a writer's conference? Did you get anything out of it?
Francine Prose: I've never attended a writer's conference as a student, but I've taught at a great number of them and have had some terrific students who have gone on to become published writers.
Elisa from New York City: Where did you get the ideas for GUIDED TOURS OF HELL?
Francine Prose: The first thing that happens in "Three Pigs in Five Days" -- the young woman in the French hotel room, watching TV, and every time she turns on the TV, she sees another pig being slaughtered in a documentary...that was real, I actually saw those pigs being killed on French TV. The novella started there. Beyond that, I was trying to write about that state that young women sometimes find themselves in -- letting their boyfriend of the moment dictate their most basic notion of reality. GUIDED TOURS OF HELL began with a trip I made to a former concentration camp outside Prague, and the surprise and dismay seeing tourists arriving in busloads, trooping merrily around the grounds of the former camp. I wanted to write about the ways in which the Holocaust had been turned into kitsch -- into something marketable and commercial -- over the last decades. And GUIDED TOURS developed from that.
Ryan from Boston: When you sit down to write, how do you go about it? With pen and paper, or word processor? How do your thoughts get onto paper?
Francine Prose: I use a word processor. I can't think anymore unless I'm sitting in front of the monitor.
Jeremy Kuhn from Freiburg: Ms. Prose, have you gotten any negative reaction on GUIDED TOURS OF HELL, particularly regarding the Holocaust?
Francine Prose: I expected, and I was very worried, that there would be a lot of outrage. That is, that people would misunderstand the book and think that I was making jokes about the Holocaust, instead of -- what I thought I was actually doing -- making a rather bitter comment on what's happened to the memory of the Holocaust. And I feel I've been lucky. People who've read the book -- and really, quite a number of Holocaust survivors among them -- have seemed to understand what I was trying to do, and I've been very pleased and grateful. One woman called a radio talk show I was on to say that I had no business writing the book, but then it turned out that she hadn't read it.
Jim from Kansas City, KS: You mentioned that you liked the movie that was made of HOUSEHOLD SAINTS. Were you nervous beforehand that your story would be somehow ruined by Hollywood? Is that something you ever worry about when Hollywood comes knocking?
Francine Prose: I knew the director, Nancy Savoca, for several years before she made the film -- before she got funding to make the film -- and I always had complete confidence that she got the book, that she would do a terrific job. More often, when Hollywood comes knocking you just hope that they option the book for real money, that the checks clear, and they never actually make the film.
Jason from Los Angeles: Are you a big news, current affairs junkie? What pop-culture "stuff" do you follow?
Francine Prose: Yes, I read the paper, watch the news compulsively. I also watch TV, though mostly those news magazines. I like "The Simpsons" a lot.
Amy from New York City: I just wanted to tell you I completely relate to your impressions of tourists tramping around the concentration camps...not really getting the meaning of where they were. I saw something similar at Dachau in 1992 when I was studying in Germany. There was a memorial that day organized by family members of Dachau victims. As they marched back to the death sites, several American tourists were standing in their way and actually telling them to hold still for pictures. I really got a lot out of GUIDED TOURS OF HELL. Thanks.
Francine Prose: Yes, what got to me was the people craning their necks, sticking their heads into the little cells. Thanks. I'm glad you liked the book.
Naomi Seles from Venice Beach: What kind of research did you do on the Holocaust before writing GUIDED TOURS OF HELL? Was it already an interest?
Francine Prose: I read a great deal of Primo Levi, as I've said. Also I read two extraordinary books by Gitta Sereny, INTO THAT DARKNESS and ALBERT SPEER
Francine Prose: HIS BATTLE WITH TRUTH. I think she's the best journalist who's written about the Holocaust. Finally, I watched tapes of the Nuremberg Trials, which were fascinating.
Moderator: Thanks for joining us tonight, Ms. Prose. Best of luck with all your endeavors. We're looking forward to your next work!
Francine Prose: Thanks. It's been fun. Goodnight.