What’s your favourite book of the 21st century?
The key authors today are female crime novelists, so it’s Tana French’s The Likeness. If there ever was a subtle leftist novel, this is it; one can argue that the murder is justified, as in Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express.
What’s the last book you read? Would you recommend it?
Due to my age and lack of time, I now read only theory and watch TV series or movies on TV. The last one I’ve read in detail is Rowan Williams’s Solidarity. I once overheard my wife and her friends talking about their choice of sex partners. Their conclusion was that there is a vast domain of men with whom you would never do it, one with whom you would maybe do it, and one with which it would be likely. However, there is a category above this hierarchy, men with whom you would absolutely do it, just if they give a hint. For me, Rowan Williams is in this category among theological authors: whatever his new publication is, I grab it and read it, no questions asked.
What’s a book that every child should read?
Kafka’s The Trial, but the child should be taught to read it as what it is, a comic novel that provides some good laughter.
Is censorship always bad?
In principle, yes. But I am resigned to the paradox that we need it sometimes to preserve freedom. Freedom is not abstract, it always exists within a set of rules.
Who’s your cultural hero?
In the UK today, Jonathan Glazer. He has shown us how the struggle against antisemitism and against the Israeli ethnic cleansing of Palestinians are two sides of the same coin. Many antisemites (in their own country) support Israel’s expansion, while many deeply spiritual Jews (like Glazer himself) sympathise with the plight of Palestinians.
You once wanted to be a filmmaker. What sorts of films would you have made?
Now I no longer even dream about it—my latest dream is to stage a Wagner opera. Sixty years ago, when I was dreaming about making movies, these were modernist movies like Alain Resnais’s L’Année dernière à Marienbad.
Your list of favourite movies seems to be constantly shifting. Give us five.
I’ll limit myself to 21st-century movies: Mulholland Drive, Children of Men, Sinners, Tár and The Act of Killing.
Do you follow any sports?
No, and I never did. I found it boring and stupid: who among a couple of idiots can run faster, jump higher, throw a ball better... who cares?
Which work of art is overrated?
Hundreds, beginning with da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, which is today of some use only as an object of jokes. Suffice it to recall the (wrongly) so-called mystery of Mona Lisa’s smile. I think it is a fake mystery—there is no secret behind her smile. Its best explanation is provided by Slovene, my own language. Slovenes do not have their own dirty words, they have to borrow them, mostly from Serbo and Croat, but also from Italian. We know that “Mona” is a popular Italian name for vagina, and “lisa” (pronounced “leeza”) is the root of the Slovene verb “to lick”—Mona Lisa’s smile is the satisfied smile of getting gentle cunnilingus.
Do you play video games?
No. I simply don’t have time for them, plus I am more a suicidal type, so I get bored of trying to survive…
Who’s your favourite James Bond?
Daniel Craig in Casino Royale, also with the best Bond girl (Eva Green) and the best villain (Mads Mikkelsen).
Should opera be state-funded?
Absolutely, it’s the only way it can survive. I don’t want to live in a world without Wagner.
Did you rebel against your parents’ cultural tastes?
I’ve just ignored them; they had no cultural tastes.
Tell us a joke.
Today reality itself is more an obscene joke, so let me paraphrase an old joke from the GDR: Ursula von der Leyen, Putin and Trump meet God and each is allowed to ask him a question. Von der Leyen begins: “Tell me what will happen to the European Union in the next decades?” God answers: “It will fall apart as a union and under Russian domination become a popular spot for tourists.” Von der Leyen turns around and starts to cry. Then Putin asks God: “Great, so what will happen with my beloved Russia?” Putin turns around and starts to cry. Finally, Trump asks: “And what will be the fate of the US after a decade of Maga rule?” God turns around and starts to cry.
This is the true change, when God himself (who stands here for the big Other, the neutral frame that encompasses the situation) breaks down.
Slavoj Žižek’s “Liberal Fascisms” (Bloomsbury, £9.99) is out now
