Interview with Tim Hall - Excerpts Part 41 - Narcissism and Abuse

Written by Sam Vaknin

I once wrote in "The Malignant Optimism of the Abused":

"I often come across sad examples of the powers of self-delusion that the narcissist provokes in his victims. It is what I call "malignant optimism". People refuse to believe that some questions are unsolvable, some diseases incurable, some disasters inevitable. They see a sign of hope in every fluctuation. They read meaning and patterns into every random occurrence, utterance, or slip. They are deceived by their own pressing need to believe in the ultimate victory of good over evil, health over sickness, order over disorder. Life appears otherwise so meaningless, so unjust and so arbitrary... So, they impose upon it a design, progress, aims, and paths. This is magical thinking."

2. Interview granted to The Modern Author

The edited interview appeared here -

Q: Is this the only genre you write and if so have you ever been tempted to write something else (and what)?

A: I resist temptations poorly. Hence my varied portfolio: poetry, short fiction, nonfiction, political and economic articles, opinion columns and even mystery.

Q: What are the names/genres of your books? Where can they be found?

A: All my recent books - there are too many to enumerate here - can be found here: http://samvak.tripod.com/freebooks.html

Some of them can be freely downloaded - others must be purchased, I am afraid...

My Hebrew short fiction is available through here: http://samvak.tripod.com/sipurim.html

My poetry is here (warning: not for the squeamish!): http://samvak.tripod.com/contents.html

Older titles can be found or accessed through my biography page:

My United Press International (UPI) archive:http://vakninupi.cjb.net

Author archive of political columns in "Central Europe Review"

http://www.ce-review.org/authorarchives/vaknin_archive/vaknin_main.html

Q: Who/what influenced your writing?

A: In my youth I was swayed by authors such as Poe, Conan Doyle and other weavers of mystery and intrigue. I liked their baroque, Victorian style - penumbral and ponderous with a pathology lurking just beneath the surface.

My fiction, though, is post-modern: lean, amoral, documentary. My columns attempt to imitate the erudition and crispiness of The Economist - a tall order, admittedly.

Q: What is your favourite book?

A: By far, Alice in Wonderland. A prophetic tome which foretold the gathering storm of the 20th century: moral relativism, social disintegration, lethal authoritarianism, the absurd. A dark, haunting and disturbing masterpiece masterfully disguised as a nursery tale.

Q: Who is your favourite author?

A: A low-brow answer: Agatha Christie. The unwitting and morbidly fascinating chronicler of her own demise - the gradual fading of her milieu, her period, its mores and values, beliefs and superstitions, dreams and aspirations. The mirror of pre-Hitler Europe crack'd and then there were none. She was there, an indefatigable and uncannily observant documentarist of a dying era.

Q: Which book that you have written is your favourite?

A: My first book of short fiction - "Requesting my Loved One" (http://samvak.tripod.com/sipurim.html) - records the simultaneous processes of disintegration and self-revelation I experienced in jail. It is such an intensely intimate document that I dare not delve into now, years after it was published and won critical acclaim and awards.

But my favorite work is "After the Rain - How the West Lost the East" (http://samvak.tripod.com/after.html). It is an anthology of political jeremiads of biblical fury and imagery. I didn't know I had it in me.