I'm reading Phillip Roth lately - one of his novels I somehow missed over the years, PORTNOY'S COMPLAINT - as well as a chronology of Mr. Roth's work and life, and various interviews with him.
What emerges isn't a surprise, but is perhaps worth noting here. Mr. Roth doesn't boast; he doesn't lecture; he doesn't rant. He talks eloquently about his books, and a few other subjects. He has a humility that is, I think, borne of the life-long suffering and achievement and hard work. Hard work. Writing...nearly always writing. Yes, it’s true that he hit it big when he was young and gained a foothold in a different age - one that better supported literature; but he worked hard.
His generation of authors - the recently departed Mailer and Updike and Bellow; and the still with us Toni Morrison and Joyce Carol Oates and Doctorow and others... what a great generation of writers of which he's a part.
I’m concerned about the distractions that younger, modern authors face. From the excesses and inanities of social media - how many millions of short stories and novels have been twittered away? and how many potential audiences don’t have the patience or inclination toward anything longer than 140 characters? - to the difficulty of surviving as an author in today's market, where there are fewer vehicles in which to publish and earn a living, to the harshness of modern America that doesn’t hold literature in the esteem it once did, to the MFA factory produced literary fiction, to the "entertainers" (as Roth calls them; he won't call them writers, but does credit them with a certain magic) like Nora Roberts and James Patterson on the other end of the spectrum... how will authors produce pure, original, non-formulaic voices like Roth's?
No answer here. I just write about it. And write in general. That’s all anyone can do. Oh, and may Roth continue his great work for as long as possible. Read More
What emerges isn't a surprise, but is perhaps worth noting here. Mr. Roth doesn't boast; he doesn't lecture; he doesn't rant. He talks eloquently about his books, and a few other subjects. He has a humility that is, I think, borne of the life-long suffering and achievement and hard work. Hard work. Writing...nearly always writing. Yes, it’s true that he hit it big when he was young and gained a foothold in a different age - one that better supported literature; but he worked hard.
His generation of authors - the recently departed Mailer and Updike and Bellow; and the still with us Toni Morrison and Joyce Carol Oates and Doctorow and others... what a great generation of writers of which he's a part.
I’m concerned about the distractions that younger, modern authors face. From the excesses and inanities of social media - how many millions of short stories and novels have been twittered away? and how many potential audiences don’t have the patience or inclination toward anything longer than 140 characters? - to the difficulty of surviving as an author in today's market, where there are fewer vehicles in which to publish and earn a living, to the harshness of modern America that doesn’t hold literature in the esteem it once did, to the MFA factory produced literary fiction, to the "entertainers" (as Roth calls them; he won't call them writers, but does credit them with a certain magic) like Nora Roberts and James Patterson on the other end of the spectrum... how will authors produce pure, original, non-formulaic voices like Roth's?
No answer here. I just write about it. And write in general. That’s all anyone can do. Oh, and may Roth continue his great work for as long as possible. Read More