Interview with Michal Viewegh (60): I may not invite love anymore

How did the idea for Leaky Memories come about?

I simply realized last year that I will be sixty this year – which is old enough to write and publish memoirs… It must also be admitted that at seventy, let alone eighty, you remember less – and you don’t even have to be that age anymore to live… My father died at sixty-five…

They come out for your jubilee, when we feel like taking stock. Have you learned anything while writing your own resume? Was it also therapeutic in a way?

We should somehow come to knowledge just by getting older, but yes, intensively reminiscing, trying to describe one’s own life and naming key events has a certain therapeutic effect, I think. It’s a complete life assessment – and I’m not unhappy with its conclusions.

Did you have someone close to you read the manuscript for a possible correction of your view of yourself?

Yes, my mom read it before it was published. On her recommendation, I also softened a few controversial formulations or, exceptionally, even deleted them completely.

I belong to the generation that read you at the gym in the nineties, everyone knew Viewegh. Are there any female fans from back then?

I don’t know of any relevant sociological-literary research, but in general I think it can be said that my readers somehow grow old with me. At my readings, for God’s sake, young people are not completely missing, however, the average age of my readers is definitely increasing over the years. And yes, the audience is almost always dominated by women – which, as an old yeshita, is of course nice to me.

The 90s have recently been often inflected in connection with the hit TV series of the same name. Try to remember this period. Describe your life at that time in a few sentences.

A crucial first decade of my writing and actually a very important decade of my life! Opinions on murder, Wonderful years under a dog, Raising girls in the Czech Republic, Participants in a tour, Víbíjená, Zapisovatelé otcovský lásky… In 1995, I left for free – and already stayed there.

So for more than a quarter of a century, I haven’t had a boss or any nasty colleagues at work – but unfortunately I don’t have nice colleagues either… I also got divorced for the first time in this decade… So the wild years of sudden freedom – financial, civil and sexual…

What is Michal Viewegh like today, after everything he’s been through? What pleases you, inspires you, makes you happy?

More tired, lonelier, more reconciled, less ambitious, more grateful… Much more likable, actually – and much more humble. (laughs) I enjoy every calm day without annoying duties. The indomitability of Ukrainians is inspiring to me at the moment. They lost their homes, their loved ones – and now they are literally fighting every day.

I can kind of see it live, because I have a Ukrainian woman Olena and her little son at home… She smiles, she doesn’t give up, she works all day long… I used to feel defeated even in moments when I was still three times better than her

I can’t help but ask. Does an experienced, seasoned writer in his sixties wish for love as well for his birthday?

What’s the matter, I might even wish for one last great love, but maybe I’m already so picky, demanding and careful that I don’t invite love further, even when it passes by… Or maybe I don’t notice it at all, because just now sadly and especially I look at a beautiful twenty-five-year-old woman who usually doesn’t even register the elderly bearded gentleman with a protruding belly…

Writer Michal Viewegh: I don’t read my books after writing them!