what we say we are

8/18/2019 What We Say We Are

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What We Say We Are

Jonathan Safran Foer

Petr Ginz’s parents met at an Esperanto conference. That detail jumped out

at me from the introduction to Petr’s diary, written by his sister, Chava

Pressburer. ! failed lanuae " a bad idea born out of a ood instinct "

Esperanto held the promise of universal communication. Everyone would

understand everyone all the time# a new Eden would row out of the rubble

of $abel. Petr was, %uite literally the product of that dream.

&ow much su'erin is due to not havin the riht word( )orein words

are un*nown, familiar words are misunderstood or misinterpreted. +ords are

perverted by our histories personal and lobal-, by contet and tone of

voice. +ords are bad approimations. There is evil in the world. Evil too*

youn Petr from his parents and shu/ed him into the as chambers of

!uschwitz. $ut evil is not the only thin to fear or strule aainst.

0 read Petr’s diary as the randson of survivors, as 1rst2eneration

!merican, as a 3ew, and as a writer. 4nepectedly, it was this last identity

that most informed my eperience. +hile the diary in your hands is a

resoundinly ood boo* " by just about every imainable de1nition " what

it stands in opposition to isn’t evil, but speechlessness.

5ls6

Givin a word to a thin is to ive it life. 78et there be liht,9 God said,

7and there was liht.9 :o maic. :o raised hands and thunder. The


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articulation made it possible. 0t is the most powerful of all 3ewish ideas# words

are enerative. 3ews are people of the boo*# their parents are words.

0t’s the same with marriae. ;ou say 70 do9 and you do. +hat is it,

really, to be married( To be married is to say you are married. To say it not

only in front of your spouse, but in front of your community, and in front of

God. 0 believe in prayer. ?@As, he wrote, there wasn’t a word for

frustrated. !nd so until the mid2seventies, no &ebrew spea*er eperienced

frustration. =hould his wife turn to him in the car and as* why he’d fallen so

%uiet, he would search his incomplete dictionary of emotions and say, 70’m

upset.9


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To name the unnamed. To brin the unnamed into eistence. There are

writers who hold mirrors to the world. 7This is what it’s really li*e,9 they say.

7Eactly what it’s li*e. Down to the most eactin detail.9 That’s 1ne. =uch

boo*s are often nice to read, and at their best can ive us clear and focused

pictures of ourselves. $ut there’s somethin more to which writin can

aspire.

0’m not a reliious person, but writin for me is reliious in this sense#

to write is to participate in the creation that bean with that 1rst namin,

and will continue until someone or somethin 1nds an ade%uate word for

7end.9 To write is to brin into bein thins whose eistences depend on

their articulation.


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paper. Given his unprecedented situation, his words were unprecedented. &e

was creatin new lanuae. &e was creatin life.

0t can be danerous to treat a diary li*e this as literature " to 1nd

beauty in it, and symbolism, and structure. $ut how can one not( &ere is the

beinnin of the passae in which Petr recounts learnin that he would soon

be parted from his family#

5ep6 Don’t thin* that cleanin a typewriter is easy. There is cleanin

and there is 7cleanin.9 0f you want the typewriter to shine on the

inside and on the outside, you have to remove the carriae and wipe

the most invisible corners with a small brush. Then you have to use a

blowpipe to clear it out. The most diBcult part are the spaces between

the typebars.

+hen !dorno speculated about the possibility of literature after the

&olocaust, he wasn’t as*in somethin about art as is commonly

misunderstood-, but about lanuae itself. +hat meanin can words have in

the liht of such destruction( Can 7loss9 have any use( Can 7war(9 Can

7love,9 for that matter( +ill we ever aain be able to 1nd the riht word(

The answer is yes " it was built into the %uestion " but lanuae

must be reconstructed with an enery reater than that of its destruction.

This is what we " as readers, writers, and spea*ers " do. +e participate in

ti**um olam, the repairin of the world, which bean only moments after the


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world’s creation. !dam, the 1rst man, was iven the tas* of atherin the

divine liht " the oodness " that escaped the vessels bro*en by creation.

;oun Petr, another 1rst man, had a preternatural *nowlede of this. +hy

else, in the shadow of his death, would he have crafted these words as he

did( &ow else could such an e'ort have been possible( $y repairin the

dictionary, he was repairin the world.

The diary in your hands did not save Petr. $ut it did save us.

Safran Foer, Jonathan. “What We Say We Are.” The Diary of Petr Ginz 1941–1942. New

York: Atlantic onthly !re"", #$$%.

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