Philip Roth: "All you have to do is attach one word to the other"

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American novelist Philip Roth died on May 22, 2018. Like everyone of my generation, I read Portnoy's Complaint when it was published. (People spoke about it in hushed whispers, behind closed doors.)

In 1969, critics didn't quite know how to respond to a satire on sex, in particular when the sex was explicit, but the book accomplished what it was supposed to. It defined Philip Roth as an iconoclast.

In keeping with his role as an iconoclast, Roth was also politically outspoken.

In an interview published in the New York Times, Roth called Trump “a massive fraud, the evil sum of his deficiencies” and “devoid of everything but the hollow ideology of a megalomaniac.” In more literary terms, Roth accused Trump of “wielding a vocabulary of seventy-seven words that is better called Jerkish than English.” Trump was “humanly impoverished” and “ignorant of government, of history, of science, of philosophy, of art, incapable of expressing or recognizing subtlety or nuance” and “destitute of all decency." 'Nuff said.

In addition to his pithy remarks about Trump, it's worth listening to Roth's observations about writing. As with politics, Roth puts things in perspective.

"You must be interested in what you are writing."

"I began to write stories. The first ones were terrible, but then it got better."

"All you have to do is attach one word to the other."

“Writing is frustration – it’s daily frustration, not to mention humiliation. It’s just like baseball: you fail two-thirds of the time.” (The New York Times.)

“I work all day, morning and afternoon, just about every day. If I sit there like that for two or three years, at the end I have a book.” (The Paris Review.)

“The novelist’s obsession, moment by moment, is with language: finding the right next word.” (Stanford University)

“Literature isn’t a moral beauty contest. Its power arises from the authority and audacity with which the impersonation is pulled off; the belief it inspires is what counts.” (The Paris Review)

Ursula K. Le Guin, My Hero: Dead at 88

Ursula Le Guin was my hero. And I made sure to tell her that.

In 1985, Le Guin was invited to speak at Dartmouth College by the Anthropology Department. At the time, I was an adjunct lecturer in the Anthropology Department, teaching a course in Linguistics. When I heard that Le Guin was coming to Dartmouth, I was thrilled. I was even more thrilled when I discovered that she had been seated right next to me.

"You are my hero," I whispered. I was not just starry-eyed, I was awestruck.

She ignored me.

Le Guin's book, The Left Hand of Darkness, had left an indelible mark on me when I read it in college. Up until the publication of her book, science fiction writers were essentially an old boys' club. From the first science fiction by Jules Verne, straight up through the post WWII titles of Asimov, Bradbury,  Aldiss, Vonnegut, and Anderson, men predominated. These were all great writers whose works focused on "hard" science, ethical dilemmas surrounding artificial intelligence, or space sagas, and in which women, if they appeared at all, were thrown in for sex appeal.

Le Guin changed all that with The Left Hand of Darkness, a book that explored gender. It hit the bookstores in 1969, just as the feminist movement was reaching a peak. The book not only broke the gender barrier, it featured a black protagonist, Genly Ai. Le Guin's wide-ranging explorations of sexuality, gender roles, social change, capitalism, race, Taoism, and civil disobedience struck a nerve. Those of us who were involved in the social activist movements of the 70s read, and discussed at length, every one of her books.

Because it was ground-breaking, The Left Hand of Darkness was roundly and soundly rejected by publishers. Le Guin, in an effort to encourage writers to "Hang in there!" posted the full rejection letter on her site. (Miss Kidd was her agent.)

Dear Miss Kidd, 

Ursula K. Le Guin writes extremely well, but I'm sorry to have to say that on the basis of that one highly distinguishing quality alone I cannot make you an offer for the novel. The book is so endlessly complicated by details of reference and information, the interim legends become so much of a nuisance despite their relevance, that the very action of the story seems to be to become hopelessly bogged down and the book, eventually, unreadable. The whole is so dry and airless, so lacking in pace, that whatever drama and excitement the novel might have had is entirely dissipated by what does seem, a great deal of the time, to be extraneous material. My thanks nonetheless for having thought of us. The manuscript of The Left Hand of Darkness is returned herewith. Yours sincerely, 

The Editor 

21 June, 1968 

(When it was finally published, The Left Hand of Darkness went on to win both Hugo and Nebula Awards. It has since been reprinted 30 times, and it redefined the genre.)

When I heard that Ursula Le Guin had died on January 22nd, I thought of that talk she gave at Dartmouth. She had brushed me off, but she regretted it. The next morning, she invited me to have breakfast with her. I brought my baby daughter, who was only two months old, and she expressed her joy in motherhood. And years later, when I published my first novel, a children's fantasy based on bedtime stories I had told my daughter, I sent her a copy. She wrote me a gracious note of thanks. Two decades had passed, but she had not forgotten me.

Ursula Le Guin was, and always will be, my hero.

Terry, we'll miss you: Quotes, Quips, and Courage

Terry Pratchett, April 2, 1948 – March 12, 2015

Terry Pratchett is dead at the age of 66. He produced 60 books, and was the fourth most read author in the UK (seventh in the US).

But even with his long career, (celebrated with a knighthood), Terry Pratchett did not produce enough. His dry wit, sharp observations, and unerring eye for the ludicrous were qualities that made his work addictive. No matter how many books he wrote, we would never be satisfied. It is all the more tragic that he was taken before his time.

The last few years of Terry Pratchett's life were marred by the decline brought on by a rare form of Alzheimer's disease, posterior cortical atrophy (PCA). He could no longer read, although he still wrote. He could not speak in public, but had to rely on others to speak for him. His brain fooled him time and again. Yet, he had the inner strength of a writer for whom Death always figured as a prominent character. Terry Pratchett was a man who did not shy away from the inevitable, no matter how tragic.

After being diagnosed in 2007 at the age of 59, Terry Pratchett donated a million dollars to Alzheimer's research in the UK. In this speech (below), "Shaking Hands With Death" (read by his "stunt Pratchett," Tony Robinson) he talks about his diagnosis, how he came to the decision to "come out," and why shaking hands with death (assisted dying) is something whose idea has come.

Death is a taboo topic in the United States. We like to believe that by eating the right food, exercising regularly, and avoiding EMFs we will live forever. (Though, I have yet to meet an immortal, American or otherwise.) As always, Terry Pratchett, makes us face reality. "I enjoy my life," he says. "I wish to continue it for as long as I am myself, knowing who I am, recognizing my nearest and dearest. But I have my appointment with Samarra."

“DON'T THINK OF IT AS DYING, said Death. JUST THINK OF IT AS LEAVING EARLY TO AVOID THE RUSH.” ― Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch

“Time is a drug. Too much of it kills you.” ― from Small Gods

“The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.” ― from Diggers

"The whole of life is just like watching a film. Only it’s as though you always get in ten minutes after the big picture has started, and no-one will tell you the plot, so you have to work it out all yourself from the clues." —from Moving Pictures

"Real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time." —from Hogfather

"I’d rather be a rising ape than a falling angel." —from the Guardian Book Club

"It’s not worth doing something unless someone, somewhere, would much rather you weren’t doing it." —from the foreword to The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Fantasy, by David Pringle

"Stories of imagination tend to upset those without one."

"Fantasy is an exercise bicycle for the mind. It might not take you anywhere, but it tones up the muscles that can."

"The presence of those seeking the truth is infinitely to be preferred to the presence of those who think they’ve found it." – from Monstrous Regiment

"It’s still magic even if you know how it’s done." – from A Hat Full of Sky

"There are times in life when people must know when not to let go. Balloons are designed to teach small children this."

"The entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks."

"If you don’t turn your life into a story, you just become a part of someone else’s story." – from The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents

"The truth may be out there, but the lies are inside your head."

"Goodness is about what you do. Not who you pray to."–from Snuff

"I have no use for people who have learned the limits of the possible."

"So much universe, and so little time."

RIP Terry Pratchett

Galway Kinnell, Poet: Dead at 87

Photo: NY Times

On Tuesday, October 28 Galway Kinnell died of leukemia at his home in Sheffield, Vermont. He was 87 years old.

Galway Kinnell was one of the great American poets. He won both a Pulitzer and a National Book Award for his poetry, and should, in my opinion, have joined Robert Frost - whose poems also evoked the fields and forests of New England - among the ranks of  Poet Laureates.

Kinnell was not a subtle poet. His poetry was direct, no-holds-barred, and straight from the gut. He used natural imagery to convey the profoundest of human experiences in a way that defied convention and dragged us back to our roots.

Of his poems, one of my favorites is The Porcupine, which I had the pleasure of hearing him read. One stanza (I can still hear Kinnell's powerful, booming voice) has stuck with me for 30 years.

"I roll
this way and that in the great bed, under
the quilt
that mimics this country of broken farms and woods,
the fatty sheath of the man
melting off,
the self-stabbing coil
of bristles reversing, blossoming outward—
a red-eyed, hard-toothed, arrow-stuck urchin
tossing up mattress feathers,
pricking the
woman beside me until she cries."

Kinnell was a big man, a big poet, and a true son of New England. His voice will be sorely missed,

Read the USA Today article HERE.

Maya Angelou, Poet, Dead at Age 86

Author, poet, and civil rights activist Maya Angelou died at age 86 at her home in Winston-Salem, North Carolina last Wednesday. Angelou had been frail and suffering from heart problems, according to her agent.

Angelou's contributions to the literary world are legion. She published seven autobiographies, three books of essays, and several books of poetry, and is credited with a list of plays, movies, and television shows spanning more than fifty years.

Maya Angelou (Marguerite Ann Johnson) was born on April 4, 1928 in St. Louis, Missouri. Angelou attended high school in San Francisco, where she studied dance and drama. At the age of 14, she dropped out of school and became the city's first African-American, female street car conductor. She later graduated and soon after gave birth to her son, Guy. As a young woman she worked as a cook, prostitute, night-club dancer and performer, cast-member of the opera Porgy and Bess.

Angelou's most famous work, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, tells of the life of Marguerite Ann Johnson up to the age of 16. Abandoned by her parents and raped at the age of 7 by her mother's boyfriend, she was homeless and became a teen mother. The book, which has been banned many times, has become a mainstay of student reading lists.

Although referred to as Dr. Angelou, she never went to college. But she had more than 30 honorary degrees and taught American Studies for years at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem. She also spoke six languages, and worked as a newspaper editor in Egypt and Ghana.

Maya Angelou will be remembered for her stunning poetry, and for her words of inspiration, which will provide a source of inner strength and courage for generations to come.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Dead at 87

Gabriel Garcia Marquez was one of my all-time literary heroes, and I was deeply saddened to hear of his death on April 17. The literary world will be all the poorer for his absence.

Even if you are not a fan of magical realism - which, after spending five years in Latin America, I can assure you is a misnomer; every word of Garcia Marquez' books is true - you should read his memoir, Living to Tell the Tale.

Garcia Marquez published his novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude, when he was 40. Prior to writing what would become one of the enduring classics of the 20th century, he worked as a journalist in Bogota. He wrote sporadic short stories, and a novella, but most of his time was absorbed by exposing government corruption.

During his years as a journalist, he spent every lunch hour in a cafe with a group of colleagues where they would pass the afternoon tearing each other's work to shreds. By the time Garcia Marquez was ready to lock himself in a room and write the epic of Macondo, he had been honed to a razor's edge.

That is how you learn to be a great writer.
_____________________________

The magician in his labyrinth

The Economist, April 26, 2014

IN JULY 1965 Gabriel García Márquez—Gabo to all who revered him later—decided to lock himself away in a house on Calle de La Loma in Mexico City. He ordered his wife to sell the car and get credit from the butcher. For 15 months, using only his index fingers, he typed for six hours a day in a room he called “The Cave of the Mafia”. He survived on a diet of good Scotch and constant cigarettes. At five in the afternoon he would emerge into the fading light with his eyes wide, as though he had discoursed with the dead.

Inside the four walls of that room lay the immense delta of the Magdalena river, the grey frothy sea of Colombia’s Caribbean coast, the suffocating swamps of the Ciénaga, the interminable geometries of the banana plantations, and a long railway line that ran into the farthest territories of his heart. It ended at the village of Aracataca, now renamed by him Macondo, where his maternal grandparents had brought him up amid prospectors, fornicators, gypsies, scoundrels and virginal girls bent over their sewing frames. In that room where he had locked himself away he inhaled the sweet milk-candy and oregano of his grandmother and absorbed again the political venting of his grandfather, who had fought on the Liberal side in the War of a Thousand Days and who, at the book’s beginning, took him to discover ice, a great block of infinite internal needles that boiled his hand when he touched it.

“One Hundred Years of Solitude”, the fruit of his self-imprisonment, sold 50m copies in more than 30 languages. Critics observed that its style, magical realism as they called it, was not new: Jorge Luis Borges, a blind Argentine poet, had felt his way through those labyrinths before. But its fame was startling. The world was seduced by a Latin America where the Buendía family feuded internally and externally, with rifles or with silence, for generations; where death gave its female victims instructions to sew their own shrouds; where the blood from a suicide by shotgun flowed all through Macondo, carefully avoiding the carpets; and where Remedios the Beauty was taken up to heaven as she hung out sheets on the washing line.

And it was all true. So Gabo insisted, to those who found his world outmoded and impossible. What seemed fantastical and extraordinary was merely reality in its local guise. Between novels he kept up his first profession, journalism, fearlessly reporting government scandals and narcoterrorism. When he had become hugely famous the government of Colombia sent him to mediate with the FARC guerrillas. That was surely as surreal as anything he wrote in the house on Calle de La Loma.

What the world could not grasp about Latin American literature, he told his Nobel prize audience in 1982, was the presence in it of the ghosts of the disappeared, as many as the population of Uppsala, and of émigrés and exiles, as many as there were Norwegians. These shadows, with their different reality, were as persistent as the continent’s beauty, its violence and its pain. In the year after he was born a crowd of banana workers, their number as fluid and fleeting as memory, were killed by the army in Aracataca, the bodies taken so silently by train to the coast that the story at once became myth. It grew with him.

His sympathies stayed on the left-Liberal side of things. Under General Rojas Pinilla Colombia became uncomfortable; he took refuge in Mexico in 1961, and for years was refused entry to the United States. Fidel Castro and Hugo Chávez were proud to count themselves his friends. With Mr Castro he went fishing and talked books, he said, not politics. But he had a weakness for the “halo of power”, of whatever colour, and a soft spot for old autocrats still carrying, like Simón Bolívar in “The General in his Labyrinth”, their bullet scars, their memories of past glories and their faded battle tunics, with buttons made from the gold of Atahualpa.

Writing was difficult; the words came as painfully as kidney stones. Nonetheless, there was nothing else he had wanted to do in life. He burned “to write so I would not die”. The desire began with “The Thousand and One Nights” in childhood and the tale of the fish, slit for frying, with a diamond as big as an almond in its belly. It was reinforced in his cub-reporter-student days in the cafés of Barranquilla and Cartagena, where he discovered Kafka, Faulkner, Woolf and Hemingway. His strongest influence, though, remained his grandmother, who had told him with the most deadpan face that the strangest things were true.

Taking the steamboat

Those tales assumed no division between the waking and dreaming state. Like him, his characters were often insomniacs, terrified of the dark and plagued, as he was, by intrauterine memories and premonitory dreams. Their affliction was so acute that their days became seamless and infinite as winter rain. Yet his lovers too, in sheer happiness, were in the same suspended state. His last substantial novel, “Love in the Time of Cholera”, based on the forbidden romance of his own parents, ended with the aged lovers on the creaking Magdalena steamboat, pushing through purple lotus and past crocodiles with their mouths agape to catch butterflies, out to the mouth of the sea. But as his grandfather had told him, when they first saw that horizon, “There is no shore on the other side.”

This article appeared in the Obituary section of the print edition under the headline "The magician in his labyrinth"