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Monday, July 12, 2004
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UD’s JERRY SPRINGER MOMENT
Today’s show: Haughty Inverts Who Love Books Too Much Jerry: Please welcome University Diaries, a college professor in the Washington D.C. metropolitan area who teaches courses on … the novel…. Hi UD. UD: Hi Jerry. Jerry: …and by “novel” we don’t mean Carrie, do we, UD? UD: Uh…no, Jerry. We mean challenging, serious, canonical novels like Middlemarch, Buddenbrooks, A La Recherche… Jerry: And - let me make sure I’m getting this right - you, UD, spend most of your time reading, teaching, and writing about long difficult novels of this sort. Yeah? UD: Yeah. Jerry: Can I ask what do you do with your time when you’re not involved with these books? … I mean, since you read so much you must also be volunteering in your community… ‘Cause in the recent NEA report about levels of serious literature reading among Americans, it says… well, first of all it says most Americans don’t read anything at all! And it says this is a horrible and frightening thing because a democracy is based on an educated and involved citizenry, and people who don’t read are withdrawn and stupid! Audience: Huh? What the fuck…? Jerry: But on the other hand - I’m quoting from a summary of the report now - there‘s “a strong correlation between those who read literature and those who help their community; 43 percent of readers do charity work, while only 17 percent of nonreaders do. … immersion in great literature can give you the perspective to reach out beyond yourself. But the dominance of electronic media…has meant a decline in social interaction, civic participation, and cultural attendance.” … A New York Times writer links “aliteracy” - that means the ability but not the desire to read - with depression and Alzheimer’s... He says we’re gonna lose the war on terrorism because Americans don’t read serious literature: “The retreat from civic to virtual life is a retreat from engaged democracy, from the principles that we say we want to share with the rest of the world. You are what you read. If you read nothing, then your mind withers, and your ideals lose their vitality and sway.” Another writer says that the report “portends a culturally and morally bankrupt future for America.” Pretty strong stuff. UD: Yeah. Jerry: So, uh, UD - I guess as a serious reader you’re out there reaching beyond yourself and doing charity work and helping your community… Can you tell us what exactly do you do? UD: Well, uh… you know, Jerry. The usual things… Jerry: Like? … I mean, what are we talking about here? While the rest of us are eating Doritos and watching reality shows and letting Islamofascists in the back door, you’re… what? Fighting forest fires? Visiting old ladies in nursing homes? Audience: Yeah! What does she do? [chants] What does she do? What does she do? What does she do? Jerry: Hold on people. Let UD answer… UD: Well, uh, I… uh…. Jerry: Maybe it’d help if we brought in someone you know, UD. Please welcome -- your across the street neighbor, Faustia Wijesinghe! UD: [eyes go wide] Faustia?… Jerry: Hi Faustia. Faustia: Hi Jerry. Jerry: Tell us something about yourself. Faustia: I live across the street from UD. My house is up on a hill overlooking hers, and she keeps her curtains open most of the time, so I can pretty much see everything she does. Jerry: Faustia, do you read a lot of serious literature? Faustia: Well, Jerry, growing up in Sri Lanka, where there’s been a violent civil war for decades, we were starving and being shot at a lot, so it was hard to find time to read Mrs. Dalloway. But even though I wasn’t able to read serious literature and had a pretty difficult life, I volunteered at my church every Sunday, I helped register voters in municipal elections, and I raised three cousins who’d been orphaned by the fighting. When my family emigrated to the States, we all took late-night jobs at the 7/11, so there again I didn’t really have time for Don DeLillo’s Underworld. But I volunteer at the church we’ve joined in Bethesda, and I also teach English and life skills to recently arrived immigrants. Jerry: Faustia, is there anything you’d like to say to UD? Faustia: Well, UD, when I read that NEA report I was pretty steamed. Day after day I watch you get up, brew a Crème Brulee tea, slowly read through your New York Times, take a long bath with Estee Lauder’s Youth Dew lavishly poured into it, and then sit at your computer reading - I don’t know what you’re reading, but you’re giggling most of the time - maybe the Onion or something? Anyway it doesn’t look like serious literature. Just reading and smiling and sipping your tea for hours. At around eleven you walk your dog just far enough for him to do his business and then you come right back home and lie down on that deep beige couch in your living room and read and read and read. While you read, you listen to Ella Fitzgerald recordings - I know, because you put the volume up real loud… UD: Uh… uh… Faustia: Then at around three o’clock you get up off your couch and … and you go out to your front garden with this little teeny pair of silver scissors and you clip overgrowth! For hours! Jerry: Is this true, UD? UD: Uh… uh… Jerry: Let’s hear from the audience. Man: The only thing I read all of last year was my Harley warranty, but I give blood every fifty days at my local hospital, I organize a monthly park cleanup in my neighborhood, and I’m about to ship out to Afghanistan with the National Guard. Does that shit who writes for the New York Times pick up a gun and fight terrorism? No, he fights terrorism by reading Lolita! Give him the medal of honor! Woman: Sure I sit on my ass watching tv all day -- but she sits on her ass reading all day! Neither one of us lifts a finger to help our fellow man! Jerry: We’re almost out of time. UD, is there anything you’d like to say? UD: Yeah…uh…look, Jerry. That guy in the New York Times quotes Franz Kafka on the wonderful moral effects of reading as if Kafka were the Oprah Winfrey of the early twentieth century… Do you know anything about Kafka’s life? Have you ever read what Kafka says about human beings? Kafka was a suicidal depressive totally withdrawn from emotional and social life. To read Kafka is to learn that human beings are hideous and cruel and that life is too meaningless to be worth the effort. That guy in the New York Times says reading’s all about empathic interaction with others and then he quotes Kafka, who was so into interaction that on his deathbed he ordered his best friend to destroy every word he wrote! We only have the stories of Franz Kafka because his friend refused to do what he asked! … Ladies and gentlemen, you don’t read the bloodbath at the end of Hamlet and decide that the response to this sort of tragedy is to set up a soup kitchen. Great literature appals and freezes us; motivational speeches get us going again. And look - speaking of motivational speeches - today’s New York Times has an article about the Irish tenor and motivational speaker Ronan Tynan, who sang “Amazing Grace“ at Ronald Reagan‘s funeral. May I read a paragraph from it? He was born in 1960 in County Kilkenny, with a congenital deformity of the legs. When he was 20, he damaged his legs further in a motorbike accident and underwent a double amputation below the knee. He wears prostheses, which account for his slightly lumbering gait. He nevertheless went on to earn a medical degree and to become a nationally rated equestrian and a gold-medal winning athlete in the Paralympics, for disabled athletes. He still holds records in the long jump, shot put and discus. I’ll make a deal with you. If you promise not to beat the shit out of me, I promise to attend Ronan Tynan’s next motivational speech… |