Getting people wrong

Jeg sad og så dokumentaren Roth: Unmasked igår. Den var ikke noget særligt. Men Roth er noget særligt og et af de citater, som han læser op i filmen, er nedenstående fra American Pastoral, der som en række af de andre senere romaner i Roths forfatterskab, er et mesterværk. Efter fire romaner, hvor Roth leger med det selvbiografiske i forskellige genrer, The Facts, Deception, Patrimony og Operation Shylock (som jeg er ved at forberede et paper om for tiden) skriver han pludselig to fantastiske, store romaner: Sabbath's Theater og så denne American Pastoral (bagefter følger romaner som The Human Stain, en serie med små romaner, bl.a. Nemesis, Everyman etc.). Det fik mig til at tænke på: Mange selvfremstillende skandinaviske forfattere er sådan cirka 15 år bagefter Roth, og hvis man gerne vil se, hvad der kan komme efter selvfremstilling, autofiktion, selvbiografi osv. i litteraturen, er Roths sene forfatterskab måske værd at undersøge. 

“And yet what are we to do about this terribly significant business of other people, which gets bled of the significance we think it has and takes instead a significance that is ludicrous, so illequpped are we to envision one another’s interior workings and invisible aims? Is everyone to go off and lock the door and sit secluded like the lonely writers do, in a soundproof cell, summoning people out of words and then proposing that these word people are closer to the real thing than the real people that we mangle with our ignorance every day? The fact remains that getting people right is not what living is all about anyway. It’s getting them wrong that is living, getting them wrong and wrong and wrong and then, on careful reconsideration, getting them wrong again. That’s how we know we’re alive: we’re wrong. Maybe the best thing would be to forget being right or wrong about people and just go along for the ride. But if you can do that – well, lucky you.”

Philip Roth: American Pastoral (1997).