Paul Auster: Why Roth Is Wrong About the Novel

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ABOUT BIG THINK:

Smarter Faster™
Big Think is the leading source of expert-driven, actionable, educational content -- with thousands of videos, featuring experts ranging from Bill Clinton to Bill Nye, we help you get smarter, faster. S​ubscribe to learn from top minds like these daily. Get actionable lessons from the world’s greatest thinkers & doers. Our experts are either disrupting or leading their respective fields. ​We aim to help you explore the big ideas and core skills that define knowledge in the 21st century, so you can apply them to the questions and challenges in your own life.

Other Frequent contributors include Michio Kaku & Neil DeGrasse Tyson.

Join Big Think Edge, to gain access to a world-class learning platform focused on building the soft skills essential to 21st century success. It features insight from many of the most celebrated and intelligent individuals in the world today. Topics on the platform are focused on: emotional intelligence, digital fluency, health and wellness, critical thinking, creativity, communication, career development, lifelong learning, management, problem solving & self-motivation.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Follow Big Think here:

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[VincentEatonStories]

Roth only said he doesn't read much fiction because "he wised up." and prefers history and biography. And that's fine and dandy for him. Cormac McCarthy's the same. These are hugely talented writers who have other ways of entertaining their teeming minds at this time of their lives.

[noelthorne]

auster makes a good point - if roth says the novel is dead why does he churn out a new novel every year?

[Dracsius]

'Human beings need stories, in WHATEVER FORM...', yeah well, exactly.

[shackyl]

i'm on that shady part of the internet where people's comments are as interesting as the video itself

[vigtigyouuber]

My point was: a story that is well-composed and suspenseful, but lacks in intellectual and or emotional depth can coexist with classics of literature that have exactly those latter qualities. Even within the taste of the same person. Just like I like both Die Hard and Synecdoche, New York at the same time within the film-universe.

[spd]

Last weekend I was in Barnes & Noble trying to get the new Vendela Vida novel, "The Lovers", for my wife's birthday. I couldn't find it, and went to the counter, where the female employee told me they did not have it in stock. She then said maybe I should get my wife a Nook, which I proufoundly did not want, nor would my wife. We like books, with pages, and good stories. I don't want to move my index finger across a fucking computer and pretend I'm turning a page. I want to turn the page.

[pkingo]

It's not just the younger generation - it's the adults too. I was at a beach next to a beautiful lake at the country-side, the weather was sunny and the water was warm, and I thought - where is everyone? And it was like this most days except maybe at the weekends.. everyone was spending their time, after working, in their homes in front of the TV. 

The younger generation doesn't have a attention deficit problem, they have a bad information overload problem. They are in the process of learning to discern the magnitude of information they are bombarded with every day.. most of it says: you need our information, you need our products, you need to give us your attention because your welfare depends on it - don't miss it! Or you'll be a social outcast, a dummy, out of the loop, etc. So they are really doing their best, in a world where everyone wants their attention, and were scientists are working in labs to find the best way to convince them they need their product. And sadly most adults fall for it also.

So in this context the advice "read these books society considers good" is not easily taken to heart. The younger generation need to say "no thanks" to information that clearly isn't serving their interest. They need to turn off the TV (on a optimistic note this is happening more and more). And everyone need to start to improve their own discernment of what is empowering and what serves them. Then people will gravitate to the good works of fiction.

[WMDistraction]

I see magazines phasing out in favor of electronic "print". However I, personally, cannot read an entire novel on a monitor screen. I use my computer every day, usually for hours, but I need real pages with words on them to read a novel. :D

[Graenelolz]

Why does nobody mention the importance to advertise these book well? I mean not on tv, but on school, etc.. Many of my friends grew up with the belief that reading books is for eighty year old men that don't get the internet. That's a dangerous assumption. And that's a reason why we should be thankful for Dan Brown, for JK Rowling, even for Stephanie Meyer and hollywood adaptions, that they get people curious to read books and, in my case, turn it into a passion.

[vigtigyouuber]

Yet he writes some of the sharpest prose we see of all the living writers today. How about turning down the pretentiousness a notch? We have here a writer who on one hand has incredible fascination for the simple, realistic story (his screenplay "Smoke") and on the other writes incredibly challenging, intellectually dense novels ("The New York Trilogy", "Leviathan")

[reconstructioncoyote]

Watch Roth's interview with Tina Brown on this subject and it's pretty clear he doesn't mean that novels will go away. They'll just become like the Tony Awards. @HousleyMike: You're absolutely right, and let's not forget that a major reason the big publishers are in trouble is because they have been vastly overprinting for years. @Molloyxx1: Graphic novels requirement more equipment, frankly. They are simply a unique art form and can be just as "hefty" as a text novel.

[spd]

I dont want to read a short story on my telephone, nor on any electronic device! Good to hear from Paul, however.

[jorgepuell]

I dont know if it happens in english, but in spanish I have found very good personal internet blogs of people with literature and poetry interests. And some blogs are much better written than many paper books.

[luckyswine]

No, his point is that just because something is contemporary doesn't mean its bad. Philip Roth of Portnoy's Complaint was jostling, sharp elbowed amongst the paperbacks with the best of them in his day, he's just forgotten. And people are reading great books - they are churned out by the million each year in cheap paperback copies. They might also be reading The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo - which might be excelelnt, I don't know I haven't read it.

[Theanchoritegarlic]

I love grabbing a dusty old book from a remote corner, and opening it to a random page and just read for a bit...

[LionEntity]

Hey, this guy is speaking truth!!!! Big respect to you sir! I never heard of you before or anything, but I totally agree 100%! :) my understanding exactly!

[nicholasschroeder]

Well, people said 60 years ago that TV would end reading. My dad LOVED TVs: he was an EE, and we had one in every room. Yet, I became a reader. 🤷‍♂️

[mdrtec]

The medium of delivery may evolve but books in will last forever

[Grifiki]

"Write what you know! Write about what you think will fill at least three chapters, by that time other idea's will come."

[PacRimJim]

Don't let moribund geezers dissuade you. If you tell a good story, and tell it well, there will be a market. It might not be in paper. It might be on the Web. Keep in mind that billions of people will become literate in this century.