Author Aaron Goldfarb returns home to Oklahoma City
Q: How exactly does one fail?
A: If you’re not failing, you’re not living. You’re not trying. Henry Ford said: “There is no failure except in no longer trying.” So if you’re not occasionally flopping in your work projects, if you’re not getting turned down by women, not getting told “No” once in a while–then perhaps you need to fail a little more to make your ultimate successes all the better. Don’t you just love that? A Jew quoting a known anti-Semite to prove his point!
Q: Why did you choose to write about failing?
A: Not to sound all mystical, or Luke Skywalker-like, but I didn’t choose to write about failing. It chose me. I was fed up with the countless self-help guides released every year, something like a million. Most written by people who had never succeeded at anything in life EXCEPT writing a self-help guide and then getting schmoes to buy it. So, I thought, well I haven’t succeeded in any great fashion in life either, nor will I claim I have. I’ll write a self-hurt guide, the polar opposite of a self-help guide. The world’s first and only in fact. Now I have my own section in Barnes & Noble, with my one book in it! I’ve succeeded at failing to the ultimate degree!
Q: Is your book autobiographical at all?
A: One of my favorite novelists, Bret Easton Ellis (“American Psycho”), often notes that his books are “emotional autobiographies.” As in, he didn’t do any of the things in them, but he’s certainly perhaps felt the way and maybe wanted to do all the things the characters do in them. I’m the same way. I am not Stu Fish (“How to Fail”‘s protagonist) but I could have been him. I could have become him. I could have at times emotionally felt like him. He’s my Raoul Duke.
A: Honestly, I’d gotten fed up with the rigmarole of getting movies made and the total subversion of the art. To get a movie made you need about 100 guys and gals in suits to say “Yes” and even after all those yeses, the final product will ultimately look nothing like you originally envisioned it. I figured I’d only need about 3-5 total “yeses” to get a book out to market and I was indeed right. And, you know, I’ve ultimately found it a ton more satisfying artistically and I’ve even sorta realized that perhaps I should have been writing books all along!
Follow
