AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
(Reading) The two friends held hands as they walked farther and farther away from the house. They passed the lawn chairs, where the boy and his mother would sometimes read together, and the fire pit, where they'd toast marshmallows. They passed the tire swing hanging from the short, thick-limbed tree. They even wandered past the old shed with the heavy lock on it.
That's a passage from the new book "Into The Uncut Grass." Trevor Noah is its author, and he joins us now. Thank you so much for being with us.
TREVOR NOAH: Thank you so much for having me.
RASCOE: So this book is about a young boy and his teddy bear, Walter, and an adventure they have just beyond his home in the uncut grass. What does the uncut grass mean to you?
NOAH: When I think about the internal adventure or the internal world that exists in a child's imagination, you know, I often think to myself how sad it is that we lose so much of it. And this book really is a tale of a young boy who does not want to do what his mother has told him to do, which is make the bed.
RASCOE: I mean, I don't make the bed myself.
NOAH: (Laughter).
RASCOE: So I really get where he's coming from on that.
NOAH: Exactly. It's an act of rebellion.
RASCOE: Is the little boy you? He doesn't have a name. He does have bushy hair. I don't know what a young Trevor Noah looks like, but I feel like it could be you.
NOAH: (Laughter) He could be me, but I mean, he could be anyone, really. It's more the idea of the child than the child themselves. It's something that connects us in such a beautiful way. If you ever see kids playing together, they don't get caught up in the who is who and what is what. If anything, kids define each other more by the activities that they enjoy versus how they identify.
RASCOE: They never know anyone's name, you know?
NOAH: Yeah. Exactly.
RASCOE: You ask your kid, who are your friends? Like, I don't remember their names.
NOAH: (Laughter).
RASCOE: They just know it's the people they play with. That's not important. The name isn't important.
NOAH: Yeah, and I actually don't think it is.
RASCOE: I had my son, who's 11, read this book. And I asked him about the perspective of the boy. And he said, the boy wanted adventure. And then I asked him, I said, well, what do you think about the mom? And he was like, the mom wanted him to do chores. I said, well, why do you think the mom wanted that? And he was like, because he lives under her roof...
(LAUGHTER)
RASCOE: ...Which gave me a perspective into how he looks at it. And I've probably said that. I've probably said, you live here in this house, and you got to participate, but I probably need to do better explanation of why 'cause he said the mom was being unreasonable.
NOAH: I'm so glad you had that with your son because you'll be shocked at how many times and how many children out there just don't understand their parents' point of view, nor do their parents actively try to explain it to them. And I often think to myself, I wonder what would happen if every parent spent a little more time trying to explain to every child why they're participating in the rules of the house and what it actually means. I'm actually really happy that your son came to that conclusion because that is a kid's point of view, is that parents are unreasonable.
RASCOE: Yes. (Laughter) Well, I mean, I want to ask you, in the foreword of the book, you write that part of this is about disagreements and difference and bridging those gaps, whether we're kids, parents, neighbors or political adversaries. In this political moment, what do you think this book has to say about how people can understand someone who thinks about things differently when it comes to politics?
NOAH: I think, oftentimes, we take for granted how many conversations and arguments we get into with people before we have tried to understand or before we have tried to explore. Exploration is key. You know, exploration is us not presuming an answer, not assuming an ending, but rather probing and being curious as to what we may find. I think imagination is more important than we give it credit for because it's literally how we create everything. All of the constructs that society exists within are the imagination. Where's the border of one country versus another? We imagine it, and then we draw it on a map. But really, it's not real. It's a fiction that we've all agreed to in society. And so once we're able to try and understand, I think there's a level of our imagination that expands. And all of a sudden, you can see a person as being more whole than they are because in the book, the child sees their mom as their mom. The child doesn't think of the mom as being a person.
RASCOE: Not a complete person, right? - just, like, they don't have an interior life that you understand. They don't...
NOAH: No, you don't. No.
RASCOE: ...Have desires outside of you.
NOAH: No.
RASCOE: Like, they live to serve you...
NOAH: Yes, exactly.
RASCOE: ...Or to thwart you. Like, it's one or the other.
NOAH: Yeah, that's exactly it. I think, in many ways, that's what we do to other people in society. We label people by their political affiliation. We call them that, and that becomes the defining characteristic. And I think what then happens is politicians leverage that and convince people that they should only live within that political designation, which then limits people's abilities to connect with each other. We don't live with politicians. We live with each other.
RASCOE: But, Trevor, I know some people will listen to that and say, look, I hear what you're saying. But - and there's a quote in the book that jumped out to me, and it was this - every person is just an obstacle unless you try to understand them. And I think that's a beautiful sentiment. But how do you deal with the kind of fundamental disagreements that people feel now? People feel like you are trying to threaten my right to exist. I can't find a middle ground with you.
NOAH: Well, this book isn't prescriptive, nor is it trying to say that it's found a solution. But what I believe, honestly, is there can be no hope of finding any solution until people sit down. I am yet to see a story of any major conflict around the world, between nations or between groups or between people, that was arrived at by people who didn't sit down together. Show me a treaty that wasn't reached by people who sat down together. I would argue there are none.
And now, I understand fundamentally, people are - well, I won't engage in - yeah, I understand that completely as a sentiment. And I think on a societal level, you owe it to yourself to be curious, and you owe it to yourself to try and at least understand where other people are coming from. You don't have to agree with them, but if you understand, it makes it a little less crazy.
Like, a simple analogy I think of is, like, imagine if you're waiting for an elevator, and then the doors open. And you try and step into the elevator, and the other people are trying to step out of there, and they're blocking you. And you're trying to go in, and they're - but they're blocking you, and they're trying to - if you don't understand that they're trying to step out of the elevator, and they don't understand that you're trying to step into it, you can literally just stand there and block each other for infinity, really.
And it's a stupid example, but I really do think that's the fundamental idea of understanding is realizing that, oh, I think that, in this moment, you're blocking me. But actually, what's happening is you're trying to go there, and I'm trying to go there. And if we understand this, I might be able to move out of the way so you can go where you need to go, and then I'll go where I need to go. The honest answer I would give you is what I apply to my life. I try to understand.
RASCOE: You spent seven years hosting "The Daily Show." Did you feel like your humor over that time - did you feel like it was a uniting force?
NOAH: I looked at it as a way to process reality. That's what humor is, first and foremost, for me. It's a bridge, you know, between what you're experiencing and what you thought you would experience. My humor, I would never say, is or isn't anything. You know, I think humor is very subjective. And so some people might think, oh, that joke is wonderful. It brought us together. I've had many people who've said that. But then I'm sure there's some people like, I don't like that thing that you said. OK. But ironically, it might not be my humor, actually. It might be my point of view that the people don't like. So I've learned to separate the two. Someone might find something funny but not like where I come from, and I understand that.
And when I look at "The Daily Show" as a whole, I always made sure that it was a space where anyone could come with any point of view. We had Republicans on "The Daily Show" all the time. We had libertarians. We had - you name it - because I always believed that conversation was the beginning of the journey that takes you, you know, as the book suggests, into the uncut grass, this area that is not traversed, that holds a whole lot of mystery, that may or may not lead to a solution that you're seeking but definitely doesn't leave you existing in the current state that you're in.
RASCOE: That's Trevor Noah. His new book is "Into The Uncut Grass." Thank you so very much for talking with me today.
NOAH: Thank you so much for having me.
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