NP Philip Roth speaks

[pynchonoid]

Philip Roth: 'I feel like saying: Stop, that's
enough...'

Philip Roth is arguably America's greatest living
novelist, and a powerful voice of dissent in his
country's public life. In a rare interview, he
explains to Jean-Louis Turlin how being in New York on
September 11 2001, and witnessing the subsequent
'kitschification' of the deaths of 3,000 people, made
him question President Bush - and the nature of
patriotism

[...] 

Have we properly assessed what happened on September
11?

I really don't know, and I don't care. That interests
me as a citizen, but not as a novelist. September 11
is not something that I can draw on on an imaginative
level. The only story that I can take from it is the
kitsch in all its horror – not the horror of what
happened, but the great distortion of what happened.
It's almost embarrassing, the kitschification of 3,000
people's deaths. Other cities have experienced far
worse catastrophes. America itself has inflicted some
in its past, even if it was for the right reasons –
I'm not a pacifist. One wouldn't dream of slighting
these people, it is awful, but we need to keep a sense
of proportion about these things. What we've been
witnessing since September 11 is an orgy of national
narcissism and a gratuitous sense of victimisation
that is repellent. And it doesn't stop. Even now, it's
impossible to watch a baseball game without having to
listen to "God Bless America" beforehand or without
being asked to remember "our heroes". I feel like
saying: stop, dignity demands that you stop it.

It has been said many times that with September 11,
the United States lost its innocence.

What innocence? That's so naïve. From 1668 to 1865, we
had slavery in this country. Then, from 1865 to 1955,
a society marked by brutal segregation. What
innocence? I don't really know what people are talking
about.

Does that revolt you? Do Bush's declarations revolt
you?

Oh, everything revolts me [laughs]! Not out of my
superiority, and I hope not out of righteousness, but
language is always a lie, especially public language.
And that's why Norman Mailer and myself and others are
trying to counter the untruths, the lies in our
writing. Our writing scratches the surface and reveals
what's underneath. McCarthy used a certain language to
hunt down the communists. The language used against
Clinton and, in The Human Stain, against the
protagonist, Coleman, is a bit more sophisticated. As
regards Bush, the ventriloquists make him speak. His
speeches are like an advertising campaign, but I don't
know if it's going to work. [...] 


continues at:
http://news.independent.co.uk/people/profiles/story.jsp?story=342912




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