Too old for realism
Indignity Vol. 4, No. 166
ASK THE SOPHIST DEP'T.
Can Middle-Aged People Read Sally Rooney?
Dear The Sophist,
I WAS BORN in 1970. Will I understand anything in Sally Rooney's realist novels?
Your pal,
Not Much of a Fiction Reader but Now Game to Try Out New Things in Order to Keep Dementia at Bay
Dear Dimly Lit.,
The young people! They do so many things now. They write books! I've heard tell they make music. Who can keep up with them?
Not us! The Sophist was born a year after you, a distinction that stopped meaning anything c. 1989, as our slightly separated life experiences merged into the same smear of generational time. We're going to wither and die and the books and the—streaming audio files?—streaming audio files are going to keep piling up all along without a care for us. Sally Rooney herself will hear about a new book by some new person and go to read a review and realize she can't make out anything below the headline without her reading glasses.
You were born in 1970. Sally Rooney was born in 1991. Zadie Smith was born in 1975. Ursula K. Le Guin was born in 1929. Jane Austen was born in 1775. Haruki Murakami was born in 1949. Baroness Orczy was born in 1865. William Faulkner was born in 1897. Herman Melville was born in 1819. Imagine if you had to have been on a whaling voyage to relate!
Elena Ferrante wasn't born at all.
Do you fear the judgment of the imaginary young people on Rooney's pages? Or do you fear the judgment of the actual young people who have embraced Rooney's work, who say Yes, this is how it is, when you might possibly read the books and find them unreachable and alien?
Don't fret: they're not thinking about you at all. They're much too busy thinking about themselves. The question of whether or not you can relate to the youth is strictly one-sided. The Sophist hasn't read a word of Rooney—or maybe has read a story-excerpt in the New Yorker, you know how memory gets, at our age!—but has dealt with young people and has heard some of what they have to say for themselves. They seem sad? They have been trained, through some awkward combination of panoptical discipline and the salutory discouragement of cruelty, to turn away from anger when they need a bad emotion. They may be less horny, although not, as The Sophist understands it, the young people within the Sally Rooney novels.
Mostly they're just experiencing the human condition. People seem to like how Rooney writes about that. Why not try? The books are mostly reasonably short and the soulless machine of Amazon is offering them for like 10 bucks. More like 15 bucks if you go to Bookshop dot Org, in the hopes of sustaining the literary industry, so that future generations may also worry about their own ability to stay current.
Personally The Sophist is still working on The Passenger, but the typeface is very lightweight after a day of eyestrain at the computer.
Turn a new page,
The Sophist
Got something you need to justify to yourself, or to the world at large? Other columnists are here to judge you, but The Sophist is here to tell you why you’re right. Direct your questions to The Sophist, at indignity@indignity.net, and get the answers you want.
WEATHER REVIEWS
New York City, September 23, 2024
★★ There was one bright part of the gray sky, out beyond the East River, but the light coming through it could only cast weak shadows on the sidewalk pointing west for a few seconds. The breeze was outright chilly but tolerable. Back uptown on the West Side it was still dim and cool. The weak point in the clouds was higher overhead, and to the north were segments and patches of blue. The wind gathered strength but so did the sun, achieving a fleeting warmth. By midafternoon, though, the fresh air coming in was so cold it was necessary to lower the window sash partway. Soon after that, and contrary to the forecast, came the splatting of rain.
SIDE PIECES DEP'T.
Tom Scocca
FOR MY COLUMN at Defector, I wrote about the spectacle of Donald Trump ranting about people "coming from the Congo," and about the even more alarming spectacle of the campaign press ignoring it:
[T]he ever-expanding factual vacuum of Trump's message sucks more and more real things into it. Everyone understood he had no possible case that he had won the 2020 election, either, and then after two months of his seemingly pointless ranting about it, a mob was smashing into the Capitol to try to steal the victory for him—to steal it back, as they'd been told.
Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, have been telling people that Haitian immigrants are stealing and eating pets in Springfield, Ohio, and now Vance has moved on to saying that the Haitians are spreading disease. Vance knows that these things aren't true, and he admitted that he knows they're not true. It doesn't matter, because he's not telling his voters that he and Trump will protect their pets and promote public health. He's telling them they'll get rid of the Haitians.
EASY LISTENING DEP'T.
HERE IS TODAY'S Indignity Morning Podcast.
Tom Scocca
Click on this box to find the Indignity Morning Podcast archive.
TOM SCOCCA
SANDWICH RECIPES DEP'T.
WE PRESENT INSTRUCTIONS in aid of the assembly of a sandwich selected from 250 Meatless Menus And Recipes To Meet The Requirements Of People Under The Varying Conditions Of Age, Climate And Work, by Eugene Christian and Mollie Griswold Christian, published in 1910, and now in the Public Domain and available at archive.org for the delectation of all.
NASTURTIUM SANDWICHES
Place a few of the yellow petals and one leaf between buttered bread or cracker. Dressing can be used though it is unnecessary, as the nasturtium possesses a distinctive pungency of its own.
These are novel and very delicious when the flowers and leaves are gathered fresh from the garden.
If you decide to prepare and attempt to enjoy a sandwich inspired by this offering, be sure to send a picture to indignity@indignity.net.
MARKETING DEP'T.
Supplies are really and truly running low of the second printing of 19 FOLK TALES, still available for gift-giving and personal perusal! Sit in the crushing heat with a breezy collection of stories, each of which is concise enough to read before the thunderstorms start.
A Word from FLAMING HYDRA: The SWAG Fundraiser and ARCHIVE PROJECT
A FIERY COOPERATIVE for press freedom, NOW with gorgeous SWAG. Plus, help preserve THE AWL and THE HAIRPIN archives!! Now it is time for our PHASE TWO Kickstarter, to raise more daily operating funds while we reach even more subscribers—and also to underwrite some exciting new projects.
Many of the Flaming Hydras once wrote and/or edited at The Awl and The Hairpin, and we want these sites to have the posterity they deserve. So we’re getting started on the work of online scholarship. With your help, and the advice and help of the editors of The Awl and The Hairpin, we’re designing an online literary refuge for a handpicked selection of the best work these sites produced, presented with care in a well-designed archival setting, with captioning, commentary, essays, and comment sections available for Hydra subscribers. If we reach our GOAL, we’ll design and develop a living sanctuary for these important landmarks in the history of web publishing (so they don’t wind up in some gross AI chum farm where they steal bylines and wreck everything!!!)
SPECIAL BONUS KICKSTARTER EXCLUSIVE: THE AWL BOOK
This collection of top-shelf pieces from The Awl, edited by Carrie Frye and published and produced by Flaming Hydra in consultation with The Awl’s original editors and contributors, will also include ALL NEW commentary and original essays from contributors and readers.
