JOSEPH BRODSKY
539
I in all possible respects. And that's enough. You simply think about
people who are better than you are, and you spend your life sort
of- how shall I put it - thinking about everybody you bump into.
DM:
In your poem "Nature Morte," is there an echo-maybe it's
because of the shortness of the lines - of "September 1, 1939"?
JB:
No, no. That's not true. I know what makes you feel that way.
It's the opening of "Nature Morte." Well, there is that. There are
other poems perhaps which have strong echoes of Wystan's , but I
think at that time I was more under the influence of MacNeice than
of Auden . That poem is an old one.
DM:
You've stressed several times in your writing how language
outlives the state. But, in our precarious age, the life of the state may
in fact be the life of the language .
JB :
No, not at all. No.
DM:
What I'm getting at is the nuclear threat.
JB :
Yes, I know.
DM:
A sense of the continuity of language is so important , not to
mention confidence in the future, which may seem very fragile or
even nonexistent to some. Does this have an effect?
JB :
No, I don't think that the future's fragile or nonexistent. I think
we are in very good shape. That is, I don't think nuclear disaster is to
occur. The greater the proliferation of all that nonsense, the safer we
are, if only because the machines will try to control one another and
the sense of command, the sense of responsibility is going to be far
more diffused. Today it already takes two to launch a missile. So,
eventually it will require three, four.
DM:
Nobody can do it.
JB:
Yes, nobody can do it and so forth. It's of course a little bit silly,
but something along those lines sort of instills hope in you. But
should the worst come, should the worst happen, I don't think that
will automatically mean the end of the language. In the first place, I
think whatever the destruction inflicted by the states upon one
another, something will survive. And language obviously will sur–
vive because the funny thing about language is that it knows better
than anything or anyone what it means to mutate. The language's
ability to mutate is terrific . It's a bit like roaches.
DM:
A last question. Absolutes are something you deal with a lot in
your prose . What absolutes would you say we have to live by if our
sense of good and evil is somewhat oversophisticated perhaps, or
sophisticated to the point of paralyzing us? What other types of ab–
solutes are there, if any, or do we need them?
