Happy New Year (ala Roth)
posted by Frank Pasquale
I was recently listening to an interview with Philip Roth, and he recited a provocative passage he wrote in 1999 (apropos of millennium celebrations):
We watched the New Year coming in around the world, the mass hysteria of no significance that was the millennial New Year’s Eve celebration. . . . TV doing what it does best: the triumph of trivialization over tragedy. The Triumph of the Surface, with Barbara Walters. . . . a global outbreak of sentimentality such as even Americans hadn’t witnessed before. . . . The slightest lucidity about the misery made ordinary by our era sedated by the grandiose stimulation of the grandest illusion. Watching this hyped-up production of staged pandemonium, I have a sense of the monied world eagerly entering the prosperous dark ages. A night of human happiness to usher in barbarism.com.
From Roth, The Dying Animal, 145. As Roth said in the interview, the only time he does “redemption” is at the grocery store.
Anyway, the discussion of civility below reminded me of one of the essential qualities of our profession–the ability to look, together, at a desperate situation, and even in the midst of strong disagreement about what to do about it, treat each other with respect. Best wishes for a happy 2007, and I hope to see many of you at AALS.
Art Credit: George Grosz, Self-Portrait: Warning. This choice was inspired by the exhibit “Glitter and Doom” currently showing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC.
December 31, 2006 at 8:18 pm
Posted in: Culture
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