Philip Roth

[Otto Sell]

DIE ZEIT No. 38, Sep. 14, 2000, p. 49-50 * Literatur: (sorrily not online)
"Bleib nicht, wo du bist!"
Die Kulturkritik ist am Ende und Big Brother herrscht über die moderne Welt.
Ein Gespräch mit Philip Roth. Von Denis Schenk

Pynchon is only mentioned shortly in a question of the interviewer (with Don
DeLillo and Saul Bellow).
Roth says some nice things about Bill Clinton, novelwriting and literature.
He says that despite the fact that the last twenty years have been a "Golden
Age" for the American Literature the number of "readers" has declined:
"Sie haben drei Schriftsteller erwähnt, ich käme wohl auf zehn, darunter
natürlich Updike und Toni Morrison, auch Robert Stone (...) Dennis Johnson
(...) Raymond Carver (...) William Styron (...). Alle diese Schriftsteller
sind unglaublich stark, und keiner gleicht dem anderen. Es gibt keine
dominierende Schule, keine vorherrschende Ästhetik oder verbindliche
Ideologie. Wir haben in den letzten 20 Jahren eine echte Blütezeit der
US-Literatur erlebt. Aber Amerika ist ein Land von Romanciers ohne Leser.
Gegen den Tod des Lesens kann man nichts tun."
(DIE ZEIT No. 38, Sep. 14, 2000, p. 50)
(there's no cure against the death of reading)

He offers a good explanation of the *Big Brother*-phenomenom: Orwell had no
idea that Big Brother isn't the government but the media, so it's not *Big
Brother is watching us* but indeed *We're watching Big Brother* - the trap
is even more perfect because we believe we are watching the counter-reality
raised by the media by our own free will, thus developing no resistance.
Reading and p-listing keeps me effectively from getting the idea of watching
it . . .

I loved Achebe and Conrad when I came across them, the first at school
(really, a very good English-teacher, Arthur Eva) and Conrad at the
university where it was used as "background" for colonial studies.

Otto

----- Original Message -----
From: Terrance F. Flaherty <lycidas2 at earthlink.net>
To: Paul Mackin <pmackin at clark.net>
Cc: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Tuesday, September 26, 2000 3:10 AM
Subject: Re: Rocket(s) & Savagery.7

> Anyway, I'm not teaching Conrad's Heart of Darkness, To Kill
> A Mockingbird, or even Things Fall Apart (Students hate this
> book, that's my experience, taught it dozens of times), but
> I'm teaching Savage Inequalities again and  Monster :
> Autobiography of an L.A. Gang Member,The by Sanyika Shakur,
> Monster Kody Scott. Word!
>
> Peace out,
>
> Terrance