From Oaklahoma to California (a work in progress)
16 years ago
Monday, July 06, 2009
Thursday, December 02, 2004
Roth's Complaint
This is an excerpt from a piece on Philip Roth that appeared in a May 2000 issue of The New Yorker. The article by David Remnick is half essay, half interview. Remnick and Roth cover several topics during their ongoing conversation and the full article is very long--but very good. The selected section below (found near the end of the piece) put another chink in the box of my corn-fed, veal-for-brains head. In short, I agree with all of it except for one part (meet me at the end of the excerpt). If you are a reader or a writer, you will appreciate this.
---------------------------
The New Yorker, May 8, 2000
LENGTH: 9428 words (full version)
HEADLINE: INTO THE CLEAR;Philip Roth puts turbulence in its place.
BYLINE: DAVID REMNICK
[Excerpt]
....His opinion about the state of reading, in the academy and in the culture generally, seems now to be what makes him most unhappy.
"Every year, seventy readers die and only two are replaced. That's a very easy way to visualize it," Roth said. By "readers," he said, he means people who read serious books seriously and consistently. The evidence "is everywhere that the literary era has come to an end," he said. "The evidence is the culture, the evidence is the society, the evidence is the screen, the progression from the movie screen to the television screen to the computer. There's only so much time, so much room, and there are only so many habits of mind that can determine how people use the free time they have. Literature takes a habit of mind that has disappeared. It requires silence, some form of isolation, and sustained concentration in the presence of an enigmatic thing. It is difficult to come to grips with a mature, intelligent, adult novel. It is difficult to know what to make of literature. That's why I say stupid things are said about it, because unless people are well trained they don't know quite what to make of it."
We were sitting at Roth's kitchen table, and I could see that he was eager to change the subject. We'd talked about this before, and it made him anxious; he sensed that saying these things would make him seem crotchety and sour, hostile to his audience. But I said, "Go further."
Roth straightened in his chair. "Go further? You wanna know? All right. Well, I think that the whole effort of certainly the first half of the twentieth century, the whole intellectual and artistic effort, was to see behind things, and that is no longer of interest. To explore consciousness was the great mission of the first half of the century-whether we're talking about Freud or Joyce, whether we're talking about the Surrealists or Kafka or Marx, or Frazer or Proust or whoever. The whole effort was to expand our sense of what consciousness is and what lies behind it. It's no longer of interest. I think that what we're seeing is the narrowing of consciousness. I read the other day in a newspaper that I occasionally see that Freud was a kind of charlatan or something worse. This great, tragic poet, our Sophocles! The writer is just not of interest to the public as somebody who may have an inroad into consciousness. The writer is only interesting in terms of how much money did he get and what's the scandal. That's all they're interested in. Why? Because the other stuff is useless, they don't want it. There has always been a debate over what literature is and what's it for, because it is a mysterious thing, and the mysterious side of existence, certainly for secular people, is not an urgent problem.
"I'm not a good enough student of whatever you have to be a student of to figure this out, but one gets the sense-and not just on the basis of the death of reading-that the American branch of the species is being retooled. I see the death of reading as just an aspect of this. I have to see it that way, otherwise it's just cultural whining, and cultural whining is boring. It's an aspect of some great shift that's occurred-been going on for a while-in that which interests the most intelligent members of American society."
-----------------------------------------
I think this piece mostly right. The human mind is atrophying. Our species is being retooled, and not just here in America; and in this trend I am both victim and perpetrator. I know I don't read as much as I should (or even want to). I spend a lot of time, too much time, in front of various screens - computer, television, cinema. I know I can shut the machines off but I don't. I know that even high quality films, television shows, or video games do not come close to reading a slightly challenging book (not sure how blogging fits in). I am not a technophobe, or think that books can raise over-all quality of life. Sometimes you find things out in books you wish you hadn't; but, in terms of intellectual exercise, books have no substitute. What I must do now is exercise a little personal discipline, but when the multi-media world is part of your routine, you exercise discipline against the things that would interfere with it.
Roth is wrong about one thing. He claims that "the mysterious side of existence, certainly for secular people, is not an urgent problem." As a secular person I have to disagree. I always have three to four specific and semi-permanent concerns spinning in my head at all times. These are major things I think about on a daily basis. One of them is "the mysterious side of existence." I ponder frequently on life, death, and consciousness. The permanence of one, the impermanence of the others. Roth places some blame on the secular mind but there are varying degrees of secularism. Which secular people is he referring to? There are people who believe in religion AND believe in separation of church and state; there are some who are 100% atheist. Is Roth implying that no apathy or indifference exists among the non-secular regarding the development of the human mind? Some of the greatest minds I know, and know of, are secular. They have had to wrestle with the existential as well. I believe that when the commonly prescribed answers don't soothe or solve anything for you, it's time to find your own answers.
*Philip Roth has also been a frequent contributer to The New Yorker.
---------------------------
The New Yorker, May 8, 2000
LENGTH: 9428 words (full version)
HEADLINE: INTO THE CLEAR;Philip Roth puts turbulence in its place.
BYLINE: DAVID REMNICK
[Excerpt]
....His opinion about the state of reading, in the academy and in the culture generally, seems now to be what makes him most unhappy.
"Every year, seventy readers die and only two are replaced. That's a very easy way to visualize it," Roth said. By "readers," he said, he means people who read serious books seriously and consistently. The evidence "is everywhere that the literary era has come to an end," he said. "The evidence is the culture, the evidence is the society, the evidence is the screen, the progression from the movie screen to the television screen to the computer. There's only so much time, so much room, and there are only so many habits of mind that can determine how people use the free time they have. Literature takes a habit of mind that has disappeared. It requires silence, some form of isolation, and sustained concentration in the presence of an enigmatic thing. It is difficult to come to grips with a mature, intelligent, adult novel. It is difficult to know what to make of literature. That's why I say stupid things are said about it, because unless people are well trained they don't know quite what to make of it."
We were sitting at Roth's kitchen table, and I could see that he was eager to change the subject. We'd talked about this before, and it made him anxious; he sensed that saying these things would make him seem crotchety and sour, hostile to his audience. But I said, "Go further."
Roth straightened in his chair. "Go further? You wanna know? All right. Well, I think that the whole effort of certainly the first half of the twentieth century, the whole intellectual and artistic effort, was to see behind things, and that is no longer of interest. To explore consciousness was the great mission of the first half of the century-whether we're talking about Freud or Joyce, whether we're talking about the Surrealists or Kafka or Marx, or Frazer or Proust or whoever. The whole effort was to expand our sense of what consciousness is and what lies behind it. It's no longer of interest. I think that what we're seeing is the narrowing of consciousness. I read the other day in a newspaper that I occasionally see that Freud was a kind of charlatan or something worse. This great, tragic poet, our Sophocles! The writer is just not of interest to the public as somebody who may have an inroad into consciousness. The writer is only interesting in terms of how much money did he get and what's the scandal. That's all they're interested in. Why? Because the other stuff is useless, they don't want it. There has always been a debate over what literature is and what's it for, because it is a mysterious thing, and the mysterious side of existence, certainly for secular people, is not an urgent problem.
"I'm not a good enough student of whatever you have to be a student of to figure this out, but one gets the sense-and not just on the basis of the death of reading-that the American branch of the species is being retooled. I see the death of reading as just an aspect of this. I have to see it that way, otherwise it's just cultural whining, and cultural whining is boring. It's an aspect of some great shift that's occurred-been going on for a while-in that which interests the most intelligent members of American society."
-----------------------------------------
I think this piece mostly right. The human mind is atrophying. Our species is being retooled, and not just here in America; and in this trend I am both victim and perpetrator. I know I don't read as much as I should (or even want to). I spend a lot of time, too much time, in front of various screens - computer, television, cinema. I know I can shut the machines off but I don't. I know that even high quality films, television shows, or video games do not come close to reading a slightly challenging book (not sure how blogging fits in). I am not a technophobe, or think that books can raise over-all quality of life. Sometimes you find things out in books you wish you hadn't; but, in terms of intellectual exercise, books have no substitute. What I must do now is exercise a little personal discipline, but when the multi-media world is part of your routine, you exercise discipline against the things that would interfere with it.
Roth is wrong about one thing. He claims that "the mysterious side of existence, certainly for secular people, is not an urgent problem." As a secular person I have to disagree. I always have three to four specific and semi-permanent concerns spinning in my head at all times. These are major things I think about on a daily basis. One of them is "the mysterious side of existence." I ponder frequently on life, death, and consciousness. The permanence of one, the impermanence of the others. Roth places some blame on the secular mind but there are varying degrees of secularism. Which secular people is he referring to? There are people who believe in religion AND believe in separation of church and state; there are some who are 100% atheist. Is Roth implying that no apathy or indifference exists among the non-secular regarding the development of the human mind? Some of the greatest minds I know, and know of, are secular. They have had to wrestle with the existential as well. I believe that when the commonly prescribed answers don't soothe or solve anything for you, it's time to find your own answers.
*Philip Roth has also been a frequent contributer to The New Yorker.
