Transcripts For CSPAN2 Philip 20240705

The first time, welcome to those who have been with us since friday. This journey began. Welcome to the philip roth. Unbowed and our weekend long celebration. The life and legacy of novelist and newark native philip roth on the occasion of would have what have been his 90th birthday today in fact would have been philip roths 90th birthday so happy birthday, roth. My name is carey and im a coproducer of the along with jon schreiber, president and ceo of njpac. Rosemary steinbaum, a trustee of the newark public library. Chelsea keyes njpac, director of strategic initiatives. James shapiro, professor of english at columbia university. And bernard schwartz, director of Unterberg Poetry Center at the 92nd street y. Over the course of these past three days, weve been telling a story. On friday, that story was about newark or, as they apparently say here. Newark, one syllable not to a majority minority city whose, cultural, political and economic and triumphs have in many reflected the Greater National situation over the decades, expressed roths work and voices characters as dynamic and distinct as the citys five wards. Yesterday day we told a story about roth himself, about roth discovering himself a story of outrage, identity, absurdity, friendship, comedy, and of course sexual appetite. Today, on the festivals final day will tell a bigger story, a story that is in many ways about america itself. And about an artist whose gaze in his maturity to turn outward, whose preoccupations had evolved in. Roths later novels, we saw Nathan Zuckerman transform gradually from suburb act to narrator and become a writer no longer merely obsessed with what might happen in bed, but with what couldnt. Whose characters no longer lived exuberance but face their mortality with panic, dread, regret, and too many unanswered questions. Characters no longer wild with freedom, but with concern for protecting it. The idea for this particular conversation american berserk history, democracy and the relentless unforeseen came out of a lunch john. Rosemary and i had with todays moderator, sean wilentz last winter in princeton, sean served, as something of a personal historian for roth suggesting what to read when philip had questions or ideas discussing those books with him, offering his thoughts on how roth then expressed those ideas and events in his later novels. What struck me most was a remark sean made about roths historical consciousness. And i left that lunch fixated on the question of what it actually meant to historically, as a writer. I think that question is really at the heart of this conversation, which will certainly nod to the American American pastoral and married communists and the human stain. And of course, the plot against america. But well also explore more broadly something about roths concern for, the fragility of our democracy with, freedom writ large and of history itself as it forms and unfold in the moments we all actually and have it, whether we see it or not. And by the late books, it becomes more more clear that this american story was, one roth had been telling all along, whether lindbergh, nixon or trump, it was something perhaps born being a , an american , that roth had been worrying over from his earliest work or so a case can be made. I think what sean have meant and youll correct me by thinking historical has to do with with fluency so that what seems to a reader to be in works like pastoral plot is perhaps something more like pattern recognition remarkable not only for demonstrating how serious roth was about and capturing the american experience. But, of course, for the breathtaking roth somehow then expressed that sweep of historical forces through character. As a novelist joining us this morning to consider what it means to think historically why it matters for distinguished writers and thinkers. Daryl is the author of two novels, high cotton and black deutschland. Three collections of essays and memoir come back in september. Literary education on west seventh street, manhattan, which was published this past fall. Philip gourevitch, a longtime staff writer at the new yorker and former editor the paris review, is the author standard operating procedure. The ballad of abu ghraib a cold case and the award winning. We wish to you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families. Stories from rwanda Francine Prose is the author of more than 20 works of fiction, including the vixen and cleopatra. Her most recent works of nonfiction include the highly acclaimed and frank the book the life, the afterlife and the New York Times bestseller. Reading like a writer. Francine is distinguished visiting writer at bard and our moderator sean wilentz is the George Henry Davis 1886 professor of american history, princeton. His most recent study, property in man slavery, antislavery at the founding was recipient of the annual Thomas Cooley prize cooley book prize paris siegel, who is listed in your program as a participant today, was unable to join us so we apologize for that. Before we begin before we begin, a quick reminder. You can purchase copies of titles by all panelists and by philip roth outside the lobby where theyre being sold by newarks source of knowledge bookstore as. Our special festival posters designed by nel. During the conversation our ushers very important will be walking with notecards for you to submit any questions you might have. Well a q a at the end of this event and well our best to get to as many questions as we can. The ushers will be walking through at a quarter of 11 and at 11 00. Please have your ready and do. Please note. We still have tickets available. A few tickets, very few for todays nine. Actor nine chapter adaptation of the plot against america. So do be sure to visit the box office and now please join in welcoming our panelists. Thank you. Thank you. Carrie, its wonderful to be here with my friends, colleagues and there was that lunch in princeton. Actually, it was it was a lot of fun. And as i remember it, we were talking about phillips place and World Literature actually. And i came back to hawthorne and i kept thinking about hawthorne or i think about his relationship with, hawthorne and melville and not just, you know, call me smitty is a wonderful first line for any novel. But but but in a new order sense of historical, which both of them had and, of course he did, too, in a somewhat different way. And thats we just sort of took it there. Right. And were ending up here. So what is the way to start off . What i thought we do im going to read this off of my phone, but heres the book anyway, because i have to give a plug. Right . We have to give the plug. Its run the plot against america. Okay. And youll remember in the book, those of you whove read it, those are you havent probably heard about it anyway, the book is predicated the idea that Charles Lindbergh actually won the president ial election in 1940, thereby bringing more than a hint of fascism to American Life and how his family in newark. In newark, whenever they would have dealt with that. Okay. But that novel theres a line theres a passage which im going to read which says this sets as many questions because theres a lot of ways to think historical consciousness, actually, its not just one thing, but it it up in all its richness or much of its which is im going to read it now and then im going to turn to the panel and ask them to comment. It goes like this and is lindberghs election couldnt have made clear it to me the unfold leading of the unforeseen was everything to turned wrong way round the relentless unforeseen was what we schoolchildren studied as history harmless history where everything unexpected in its own time is chronicled on the page as inevitable the terror of the unfor. Seen is what the sides of history turning a disaster into an epic. Darryl. Do you have any thoughts you to share with us about that . I only if im forgiven for rambling rambling wouldnt sent that around. I was thinking is the charterhouse of parma an historical novel or is it a novel . But theres setting. Is it about, um, its only 20 years after the napoleon campaigns. It describes so when is when does something become historical is that a matter of reflection . Is there some narrative in the novel that. On the other hand. Whereas far from modernism as modernism was from romanticize ism so is the great gatsby history, we certainly read the fiction and learn something about the jazz age. We feel so the historical presence fiction. One of tome witness point of view or attitude. Gertrude stein said what good are roots if you cant them with you and . One thing about reading philip roth, is everything starts in newark. It doesnt start anywhere else. It starts in newark. The families starts in newark. The Second Chances for the immigrants start in newark. There is very little of this kind of past before pogroms or with pogroms, its always sort of newark and is thinking about. And the philip roth book, i still love the most, forgive me, is good bye columbus. And that day hes standing there. Yes. Is everything there that he is as a writer . All there, you know, sort of. Its just wonderful and i hes standing there wondering whos going to come after us, whos going to come after the people who came us, the , whos going to come after . And he hadnt seen the portuguese and the brazilians yet, but all of his right. Well, the writing ive read of philip roth has this historical sense because he comes from a people who need a historical sense. So well to pick up on what daryl was saying about what is a historical novel. I was thinking that like 95 of novels are historical novels and that they take place in history. I mean, mrs. Dalloway, is a historical novel because was injured in world war one in search of lost as a historical novel because dreyfus affair which is a historical event runs all the way through it but but difference is that with philips novels i think theyre about history in the sense that theyre about the moment history hits his characters like a truck so not theyre about history in the sense that history is is the thing makes the novel happen in a way that it doesnt necessarily other novels theres another line in american pastoral. I think that im probably going to misquote where says something like, im in retrospect, history happens slowly, but when its it happens very quickly. And thats certainly true in the plot against america. I mean. Lamb right from the beginning. So so that putting history not only as at the center, but as the drama forest that shapes the novel i think is what makes philip roths novels different from from many other from from all the other. I mean, beckett is not his whole story will novelists but but but most others and then philip roths are quite different i think. Okay. Yeah. I dont think of him as a historical novelist, but a novelist in history and conscious of it and that what hes interested in is this intersection between, as you say, the private and, the public life, you know, and i remember sort of talking to him about once and he was saying how say with with plot against america and with other things. He said, you know, the problem is when people start to tell me, like well, youre youve got this take on this or youre sort of telling us about some sort of a historical pattern or a political pattern, he said, i dont views i am not i as soon as somebody says that i dont recognize my work anymore, i am interested, as the novelist should be in specific data and am interested in that particular and in particular izing everything which seems to reduce it down from the general. But its to me the general obliterates all thats particular and he said you know with newark yeah it all comes from there. I didnt, he didnt really write about it for that period in the seventies, in the eighties and so forth. After patrimony he starts to come back and and hes he he said, you know when youre in your earlier decades up until at least 50 you think if you think youre absorbed yourself as a person and becoming person and what you are and later you suddenly how much thats shaped by where you were and he said travel made a difference with that going to london going to israel going to Eastern Europe and seeing how much people were both particular psychological human and individual selves and that interacted with some kind of a collectivized experience of that place. Time in historical circumstance and and if think about it that way it helped me understand what he was up to. Right. Its exactly what youre saying about how history slams into people. Its about those moments when the unforeseen. In other words, when when what will later be looked at as history helps reshape a life. And in his own case, he said, you know with plot. He said the biggest difficulty, the reason he abandoned it a few times along the way is because he he never really wanted write about a childs perspective. And in some ways this passage you read is the moment when it kind of explodes out of that because he takes the childs perspective to something larger. Its where the unforeseen comes in. But he said he was a happy child and his view and an exuberant sort of happy to be a newark boy played baseball every day, etc. And then the war was there and that became for him the first time that he saw that it affected the whole community somehow affected and how the emotions of war coincided with the emotions was you know that you have like at the beginning you have fear then you have defiance that youre proud of your country. Then you have this all these things that were out there that you think of as your own and then you start to see later in life as you look, the larger shapes that that kind of became the ambition of that later period. I want to pick up on, i also a hes asking who pays for this history . You know, i think thats a big part of late novels. What these characters rather anxious about what life amounts to and zuckerman being rather and thinking well it doesnt amount to anything i think that the question was also who pays and in the. The point the plot against america you know its that poor kid who gets shipped down to kentucky whos as heartbreaking as frank conroy, his best friend, and that kind of thing, who pays i married a communist who pays well, ira, american. Who pays the people who were bombed, i think, uh uh. And of down that way, um hmm. Oh i lost by that point to come back. Sorry. Well, thats why theyre novels. I mean not a history that because yeah, go ahead. You know in fact its something i read in the paper irritated me because i was going to say and anyway were so on systemic causes and structural causes, etc. And this one review was saying these concentrations take away our attention from personal agency and this is what novel does that it returns a sense of history as human drama a sort of man made that these forces are not necessarily faceless that they do. Yeah yeah well thats what we were i mean. We were talking earlier before the panel about what we remember and what we dont remember about books and and just the plot against america. I the pages of information about. Lindbergh in the pages of information about, the germanamerican bond go into your head and out of your head because partly we already know it or whatever. But what we remember are the scenes of philip getting locked in the bathroom and selden mother talking him down or poor calling from kentucky after mother has been killed and so forth and so its its what happens to the human beings that seems important to us and it sticks us. And the history is where it happens and why it happens but its not the excuse. Horrible word. Take away away meaning you didnt say you take out but you know but thats but but thats what i mean you could tell that was the heart of it for him that that those characters it is he he he was interested in that context to i mean he was interested in this i ran into him around 2016 at a gathering and it was, you know, right before after trump had been elected before the inauguration, though. And i said he he he sees me because what the hell is going on, right . Im a reporter so he sort of says it like that. Right. And i said, tell me you wrote the book on it. He said, i write anything about this which i which, i think, i mean, and i was like, yeah, but, but he didnt, he didnt write. He meant like, i wrote about that and what wrote about there was he had read a half sentence and arthur juniors memoir where it mentioned that there was no nothing wing of the Republican Party had wanted to nominate lindbergh and he thought, boy, they made a big mistake he would won hands down he said you know everybody says, oh, but he made that bad speech in des moines about the. He said that would have helped him he would he would have picked up all votes that lieberman lost for gore. He said, you know, this is how he thought like it was all alive for him. He hated lieberman with a passion. He did. Yeah. He said lieberman managed to lose even more votes by being jewish because of me and my friend russ miller. We wouldnt for him in connecticut he but he was he was very clear about like that sense that like heres unforeseen with trump even though of course he had a road map to it in some. Yeah isnt it eerie i mean rereading i think of us reread the book in preparation rereading it now and i kept looking back and saying wait, this was written in 2004 because for however math is not my strong point. 12, 12 years and the human stone. I think an even more in that sense much more descriptive our own time you know he did care about the context basically had me fact check all that stuff and not me actually i got it my most talent undergraduate to do it. Samantha williamson was her name. I want to give credit where credit is due since were on tv. But he cared immensely that because he didnt think that the character of it could really operate well without. His knowing that stuff without him, you know, he couldnt have himself reacting history unless he had the history. And it was much back there for him. I mean, i think i remember i got an email from him just after trump got elected saying he will suspend the constitution. Now, he wasnt saying that out of anything other than what had just happened, you know, he wasnt he wasnt he had some historical you know, he he wasnt human. Steyn, however, does i mean, i think human stain, the one that that he was capturing not just in the i mean theres so in that novel, but not just in the story that we all talk about, but in all of the characters because they still are alive. Delphine, ru see . Delphine ru i see 100 dolphin rooms every i go now, that is extraordinary because thats something you couldnt have called, but that he called out and he managed to put their it wasnt history so much but he was in a historical moment and he understood it just one that kept on going. I right well he writes about class and never tells you that he is. Yes. So its one of the things that makes his social landscape very real. When i first was aware of philip roth, you know, he was a kind of real bad boy. And i remember an early essay he wrote about criticism. He got for was it portnoys complaint and, you know, sort of not being respectful of the 6 million and all of this kind of thing made him very attractive to generation and also sort of spoke across tribal lines a way. And so the late touched me because theyre kind of reconciled especially that moment in the plot against america when the whole neighborhood is to the same radio broadcast, you know, from house to house to house, this kind of belonging or community. I found that passage a rather touching plot against americas not high castle, which i have not. But, you know, its a kind about its its about not so much about lindbergh as, about antisemitism in america, in youth. And that time and then following when people in the fifties still had to change their names to sort of get jobs or harvard still had quotas and things like that so i find a lot of his i to a lot of his. Work because he finds the whos an insider you know sweet as a kind of outside hitter but nobody had dreamt that he felt that way and then his daughter did this terrible thing so i found a lot of reconciliation in the late work as well as panic about age mortality and what has been the worth of what ive done and there are a couple of moments in the plot against america and then i also know the plot against america and american pastoral. And then and one of the others where zuckerman is hard on these ordinary guys, these, you know, these these guys who just work and sort this way. Theres a right way and a wrong way. And you do it this way. And hes very hard them when they wonder what it all amounts to. He you know but he also, i think, a kind of bravery that they stuck out they lived out their choices. And thats very hard in america. And then the last word of, the human stain is america. So i thought id look at his writing life. Its this project to make these people who were always outsiders, jewish to remind us that no, theyre americans. That i thought was a big part of his i dont know drive. I remember as a well grandmother that said somebody else want to because i have a question excuse the question. Part of the unforseen you talked about is all about how history but the other side of that is accident and accidental in history. And there are many in history. And one of the accidents is the accident. The accident of geography and history irks me. And you see something thats concerned. Actually, Claudia Pierpont was talking about this the other day. Its about america. In the end, its a reconciliation. But here it yet again, something happening in europe at that moment, which she lived through but is now become history and and he was playing baseball he was having that now it strikes that theres a haunting aspect in philips work and anne frank is the central character of all that that so an accident of geography happened to him very very differently than it happened somewhere else. And its about. Its about america. Its about what happened. And it kind of comes, you know full circle right here in book. So im wondering if thats a thats something that you connect to in thinking about whats work. Well, i reread the plot. I was thinking that that probably more than any other writer reading it now i was thinking about the way in which the nightmare hes been able to bring the nightmares of the 20th century into the 21st century and and then you realize its not just the 20th or the 21st century as the nightmares of every century in history. So so in a what he was always looking for, i think, or a human stain. It was a nightmare for 400 years that he brought into what he was looking for was these recurring patterns that happened in the history. And then the way affected individual lives. So, you know, antisemitism, not as we all know, it was not invented by hitler and so forth. So all these things had been been preexisting and he found a way to extract it in the way a novelist does. You find a particular moment, a particular set of characters, and then you take this larger historical forces and you just watch how it they affect these, like, yeah, i dont think that i mean, as far as his response to the holocaust goes. Yes. And frank, as a as almost a kind of a literary version of that. But i think he knew that he didnt know that. Right. I mean, his way of responding was to be engaged with writers like apple feld and, primo levy, and but but he try to intrude on that or trying to and when he went to israel and writes about demjanjuk, its about a guy who came to america. Its about sort of an who gets hauled back into it, whos who and its also, of course, about one of his favorite themes, mistaken identity, an overlap identitys right. He wasnt ivan the terrible after all. He was ivan the not terrible he was. It was like it turned out he was actually a, you know, acquitted of being in the concentration guard that they thought he was. And he was a concentration guard from the next camp. And and he gets over there and and he he spoke about that. And i think he even wrote a few pieces when the book came out that were both, you know, not so much identifying as a historian, as a journalist, almost. He said, im not journalist, im not a reporter, but i get the thrill all that you guys get. He would say, you know, when when was at this trial, trial where historys on trial and, people are passionately screaming in the streets and wanting him executed and why is he still alive . And then you go to the palestinian camps and theyre yelling at me because im a. And hes like, how fantastic everybodys yelling . You know what . What could make roth happier than people like in the heat of, their own personal passion, yelling historical and political like that are ultimate and eternal right. He thought. This is just incredible. But then he turns it into a version of that that is as different from reporting or history writing as you could imagine. Right through literally through imagination, through characterization. Well, only a novelist could write passage from John Demjanjuk point of view. I mean, to talk about how much i mean, that passage where he talks about how much he loves killing and goes on and on and on, does not appear any reportorial journalistic that i know. So, you know, as were gonna read well one thing the plot against america shows is that Historical Documents often need to be improved on because he clearly looked at lindberghs diaries they were there as boring as lindbergh. So you know, he couldnt sort stick with that material for very long. Philip roth was just one of these writers with an exquisite ear. He really could just get it or get something or hear something. And so i was struck in these late, this kind of the rhetorical fire and force, these sort of ideas that come from these people bursting open and. He doesnt, after a point, bother to try to give each a voice, you know, like a kind of ventriloquist instead its just the the passion of feeling and the eloquence of this what i think and yet they can go on four pages and youre rather riveted and he does something that is always very important in literature, which is give the credit, characters credit for thinking because theres so much American Literature in which that was not the case were observed from the outside. But hes really this kind of master of the interior and of the masculine interior as well, which is not hasnt always sort of been done with this kind of sympathy, uh, but thats the thing sort of strikes me as just this kind of force of language and, and of argument that comes life and also his attention to detail when sweet is going on about how they can make gloves that was really actually rather fascinating because its something you want to tell students or yourself is that its very good to have something that whats the word for it that takes the place of feeling that occupies instead of talking about what you want to talk about you put all the feeling in something off to the side. Well lets use that word. Yeah, yeah. Its a sort of majesty aerial displacements that reveal. Yeah, i mean, yeah and also he was a great writer. I mean, thats so much. I mean, i think something has to be said for what a good actual writer he was. He really its novels are a con and he was one of the great great i just you know, just word by word sentence by he was a great sentence writer. I mean, there was one year i was teaching a class on totalitarianism and literature. And over thanksgiving break, i had them read the plot against america and, the handmaids tale, forgive a book i despise. But anyway, so i said to my students, they said, oh, we love him. And i said, just open and read me like one sentence. You like. And they were going and they were. And then i said, open a plot against america at random and oops, i forgot this is recorded. But anyway. But and every sentence they read was a beautiful sentence. So. So you knew that. So the beautiful sentences finally are one of the reasons that we going back to roth, he was a master of of just very clear also of the super complicated that he would get he would get these things going mean you didnt have to suspend your belief he suspended it for disbelief. He suspended it for you. He he came in and just started telling you how it was in this world that he had invented. And it was the monologues. Amazing they are. But they also give that sense of people. The particular the and the and the general or the particular in the collective experience. Right. This is that person responding to it, that person thinking about it. Its just these people arent supposed to be stand ins positions. If they hold positions, theyre not generalized positions. He had no ideological stake except a sort of broad democratic american that mostly he didnt feel he needed to preach in his novels. Did any of you ever get into an argument with philip roth . Yeah, i dont want to talk about it. Okay. Oh, well, no, i ill talk about mine. I mean, i i okay. Because its in print, so i cant i cant deny it. Okay. So it was the 2008 primaries and he had one candidate and i had the other candidate. I wont say, which one . It would spoil the story, but we held our positions hard. We would not let no right. But one of the things about arguing with and unfortunately Joyce Carol Oates was at the table and thats why its written up. I mean, unfortunately for not enough for the readers. She writes very well and but one of the things about working with philip that was very special and it goes to what you saying, daryl, earlier, is that a he was an extraordinary listener. The was because he actually listened to you were saying, you know, sometimes have an argument. They dont really get what youre saying. He got right to the point he can listen and he guardedly and he put it on the page right and then there was this way in which its not that its a historical thing, its just that he he hadnt ability with words to put you and to have you think harder. He had me thinking about things that. I just couldnt have done the most arguments. You set you there, boom. I had to come with other things, other ways in. But it was that quality of his being able to understand and he understood where we were in history because a lot of his argument back me was about what had happened ten, 15, 20 years ago and why it matters now. It was right there in this political yes, he had the broad liberal thing we, had all of that stuff in, but he understood all of that. But it was his ability as a listener that got to me because. He was listening in a way that i guess most that are two people, two kinds of people in the world, someone said this the other day, there are people who listen those who dont write he was a listener, you know, and and he could not have done what he did with history, with a fiction, whatever, without without that quality, you know. Well, ill ill tell you how, the argument ended. Okay . It was an argument over dinner. And the last thing i said to him was im going to sit here and defend the not being a vestigial organ because. And i couldnt believe that i was saying that human being over dinner but but you know its not completely beside the point because because it does speak to his desire to provoke and and the way and you know and desire to say which i think is i didnt think so on this occasion. But, you know, which is a wonderful to say the thing that is that no one is saying or to say the thing you feel for whatever reason has to be said or true or not in some cases. But in this case. But but and that was a big of his writing and a valuable i mean, the the John Demjanjuk monologue. No one else would do that for a reason because it was so disturbing and. And but you can imagine it happened. Well, i can only ever remember the thought such a tasteless idea. But he didnt worry about that kind of thing. I do i this be hard to. Oh sorry. You. This has a point. I will probably get there. I can remember remember in class and this sort of you know know the 67 the sixday war in 67 and the teacher left the room and everyone throwing paper airplanes with the star of david. No one wanted to have a crescent. It was like cowboys and indians. Nobody wanted to be an arab. Just throwing stars for david, things like that. And its the kind of school and the kind of year where it was jewish kids, suburban, and they went out of their way to befriend you. They actually wanted to have a black friend either they didnt know any better or their parents told them things. But, you know, they wanted. And so they give you the of david to sort of throw around and thats part of their education as part of their education. And it became part of mine. So this kind of i cant pronounce his name kime potok shame that chosun was a very grim book. It seemed to me and full kind of this anxiety about the holocaust you know and and it what sort of this kind of physical humiliation of the holocaust because he kept saying to young guy on the team, youre going to be a maccabee warrior, youre going to be a maccabee. I thought that was rather grim, all that kind of stuff. And then suddenly theres philip roth, whos you know your friends parents didnt want your friends to read it. And i still remember mrs. Holt is going, yes. And years later, she remembered the only line she remembered from portnoys complaint was and not talking dreck. Im talking chicken the sea two for 39. This is how it is remembered that you know and so for us philip roth was sort of fun and forbidden. And then came the whole feminist phase. And i kind of left him there. And the late novels, what surprises me is the aggression and it made me think back to this kind of anxiety in part talking and trying kind of cope with the physical defeat of, of in europe. The victory in the sixday war, and this feeling of aggression. And in the late novels of that, you know, were going to sort of stand up to all of this. I find in the late novels this of. Mailer took it too far. But its sitting there in philip roth, which is this postwar jewish are not pushovers. Jewish men are not weak. We are not Norman Podhoretz were not scared of black people. Were not this and that. And i feel that some sort of big of philip roths is a not the womanizing but the kind of being an american jock, you know, able to hold his arm. I find that a lot as undercurrent in the late novels kind of physical yes the strength of being the strength of being a jewish man physically or am i were no youre not i mean i dont know if youre weird or not terribly that wasnt weird but also very you understand what im trying say and its also a specific idea that over its a jewish cultural thing. Its an American Jewish thing, right . Yes. We got beat up on the. But we are we are here, you know, were not were not holocaust survivors, not victims for life. We mean in his im speaking to we his particular experience his father was born in newark. So he wasnt first generation. And you i remember in terms of his desire to provoke an outrage sometimes i just think he got bored but i was at a dinner once where he managed at a certain point the conversation wasnt scintillating and somebody made some to something in the bible and he was like, worst book ever written. And were like, you mean pernicious about it has no literary merit at. Its just a ridiculously bad book. Its a bad book. You cannot find a decent passage anywhere in it or anything of any at all. And he i left soon afterwards because like even that, he just basically threw a bomb. It was like, what are you supposed to say . Everybodys like, well, but of literature that you like comes of it right . That he was like, now, now the literature i like does not come out of it. So youre stuck and he didnt even believe it. Of course he did. But but at that point, there was nowhere you could go with it. If you went, you were like walking right . His like into his like great going to have were going to have a row about thatll maybe become interesting and i think he was sort of disappointed nobody took the bait right because that would have he would have sort of admired you for jumping in and wanting to like the i dont know, argue with him about that. But but there was that he didnt care about religious study. He thought that was beside the point. He did mean theres that element in operation shylock where the philip roth doppelganger character, the impersonator of philip roth whos running around jerusalem promoting diaspora ism right in israel at the demjanjuk trial, using that as his backdrop and, you know, where did that come from . He invented it roth invented it. He said, like, you know, i never went around advocating that should return to poland. Im not insane but i also but is some part of him that was very intrigued by this idea of like concentrating in a state as a security proposition. Its not a good one, right. Like that. And its its a very american like you have to have a certain of security in the diaspora to even think the idea that having your own homeland isnt a sort of security guarantee for those left in the diaspora, and it isnt necessarily security guarantee for the survival. The people in that highly targetable small space and were the kinds of things he did think about that way and i think that like that added to his sense of himself really being from here, you know, hed gone out into the world that mattered to him. Hed gone to Eastern Europe, hed met the Eastern European jewish writers that he cared about he had met the holocaust survivor writers that he cared about. He went to israel. He looked those conflicts and that all. And he went to england and lived there with claire bloom and thought, among other things. It was very culture and came home and sort of felt, yeah this is this is what weve got this is who we are and this is where weve ever been of our time right now doing what i do is writing novels. Its an interesting assimilation perspective. I think. All right. Yeah, i agree. Its good, but were going to get to question. Were going to get to questions in about 10 minutes. But i wanted to delve that its just a stupid plane. I was always very afraid of deception. And i married a communist because of the claire bloom story. I was like, i had never well, the title alone, as you were already know. There you watch. All right but but that was interesting too because i was reading a letter of of of saul bellows he didnt like book which one i better do communist. I invented a comedy he really didnt like it. And why didnt he like it . He didnt like it because thought ira was a stiff. That that, you know, ira was a stalinist and the stalinist were insufferable. And how can you make a hero out of a stalinist betray him, you know . Yeah, thats easy. I didnt like that book either, particularly. I mean, mainly theres certain kinds of book when, you know, i mean, its a problem to know that theyre based on real life. But once you do, youre reading it in a sort of way for gossip that you dont. Its not the same as i mean, youre just going, oh my god, happened, you know, so thats the i mean, it was a daughter and the daughter. Yeah, yeah. But story. Yeah. Were going to get sort of a little aside on you know, you mentioned earlier rereading and i also had feeling of rereading it not but trump and feeling like the politics became more impressive and interesting or just the history sort of really did feel like it matched where the time i read it, i had much more the experience you described of sort of you know, the germanamerican bond kind of comes and goes in one ear and out the other, except that my father, who was born in berlin in 25 and was there as hitler, came to power and said, how did he know how did he know what it like to be a boy of exactly that age surrounded by this stuff, including the fact that as a jewish boy in that scene, you would be attracted to it, that you would see the pageantry and sort of wish to be of it and also see that its against you. How did he know . In other words, its just a tribute to the imagination, but that it rang incredibly true. I just say that, as almost a coda to what i was saying about how he he of didnt intrude in a sense on trying to claim all this other experiences but was talking about this american experience. But he had the imagination of how history collides just at that level. And i thought that was to me that was he didnt say that a lot about books he read you know that somebody had really imagined an experience hed had. And i thought that was striking. It was pretty particular experience. Well, when you read it now or when i just read it now, it was a fact that everybodys talking about should they moved to canada . Not its eerie. Its eerie. Its like, how do they know the conversations we were having in 2016 . Because. At first i mind minded on sort of really shallow compared to live oppression grounds you know like how is he going to do this at a time when we were really having a bad time and then because of the force of his novelistic skills by page three i forgotten this you know, its completely gone because. Hes telling my story to. Mm mm. You know, i do really mind that way of teaching now where you bribe the young to read by promising them a reflection of themselves. Mm. I think that the best i ever had were parents, teachers who insisted that i read anything and find myself in. Right. Because, you know, something that no one can take from you, these particular journeys. And he a lot of them. So heres to you. And carry his carry around someplace. Okay, here we go. Her. I want to do my job here. Okay . I want to get everything. Right. Okay. Thank you very, very much. Okay, lets see. Okay okay, lets see. Okay. Oh, here, see, heres one for all of you. Okay the novelist Alexander Hayman recently in the New York Times dismissed human stain as, quote, quote, positively proto trumpist, you know, can i say any validity to this assertion . Its not only its not such a human, its Walter Mosley in the same column. I know. Never said he was a liar. They both called him a liar. And im glad someone that because i dont know so was hoping someone else knew because had no idea what they were talking about they just said he was a liar. I didnt get it. Why you i mean, its a novel. What was he lying about . Oh, well no, thats. He was passing. So is passing a lie mean . No. They were accusing philip roth of being alive about one. Thats why i hope she. Well, i know. I mean, i just wonder what posttrump is to that. I dont get i mean, i like heymans writings. Im surprised. Yeah, yeah. I like mosley. Sorry. Thats if hes been correctly quoted. I want to make sure that the human stumbling survived a genre that used to be a staple of American Literature the passing novel. We dont think it now but late 19th century and early 20th century literature is full of bestsellers about passing. Its like the landfill of American Literature, the last good passing novel was by nella larsen passing in 1928 because she found she wasnt in the persons head who was passing. She found someone looking at her who knew she was what she was doing. So it sort of freed her in a point view. I think the human stain wonderful in and in the way it was sort of done and put together and is not the only thing its about its about. Posttraumatic stress syndrome vietnam and of course the early kind campus war where you can get canceled or dismissed over the silliest misunderstandings or things taken out of context, which i think, you know, has a lot to say us now, especially. But no, its not a lie at all if fact, everyone saying, oh, its anatole, your sort of says, how true it feels, but i was very impressed that way. He got this sort family, the black family, who they were, their roots cape may, you know, the plausible ity of this Free Community nothing about it was i wrote or sort of passed off and and actually the village scene that ross invokes here and not nearly certainly fits with what freud himself in kafka was all the rage and i think that, you know, wrath really alive in that memory at a saying territory occupied by mailer and vidal others but his just sort of still alive you know its youre not looking through glass when youre reading wrong maybe the lie i mean i dont know maybe the lie they talking about was was the lie. I mean, the the lie and the way roths about the way men about women. I mean, i can imagine that they might think that was a lie but but it was interesting to me that there was two men saying that because no woman have thought that was a lie they know men think about that way. Right. Right. So that was right. Right, right. Well, unrelated thing actually is another question theres a passage in sabbaths theater dismissive of the peace and 1960s. What was roths take on the counterculture of the 1960s and seventies and . Why . To feminists like Vivian Gornick have such a problem with roth. To someone say, well can i can i ask for it . All right. Well, you there was this famous incident. Famous was an incident that i wrote that i actually wrote about when roth came up to talk about it. And i guess maybe theater just come out and and there was a whole the feminist group on campus was just lying in wait him and they were just going to rip and shows and he read. Theres a wonderful book called on trial, which is about its a im sure you know, this book, which is a transcript of the trial of youre in daniel runde and sinofsky. Right. And to russian writers who are about to be sent to gulag, it was the first show trial that people were actually on trial because of their work and not because of trumped up charges. And during the trial, one of them, they were accused of defaming the russian peasantry. And one of the writers said, i am did not defame the russian peasantry. I wrote about a peasant who was not a good character, good person. And and philip said, thats what i did. Im not defaming women as in sex, gender, whatever. Im writing about these characters are women. Im not talking about almond in misogynist. Im writing about one character. And i think thats what fiction is that you dont that youre writing from particular of view, which are not necessarily the point of view of the writer, which is extremely important. Its not the writers of view. Youre getting into the heads of character. But he had i was when i went through notes from conversations before he had this remark about sort of, you know, what the novel is all about and hes like and its also about a sailor. Hes like, what is maurice . Then the men in novels, he said how long do i have to be called a chauvinist, right . When they are so unsalable and i thought it was just funny how he started using this word over and over, you know, that this whole ability, my men, they are like a mass and. So in a way, his argument was also, yeah, yeah, you can say these women characters, first of all, theyre not all awful or caricature ish or so, but also these men arent like exactly paragons of, you know, sort of. Their complexity. And so forth, but theyre not really the sort of people that people around admiring and saying, well, he did he did well by masculinity, even though you say is true about the later novels, sort of creating a sense of that. But along the way, not know mickey sabbath live like him i dont know that thats you want to put it what bird of the count as an equal opportunity narcissist for men and women. Exactly but what about the you know he used to hang around with albert goldman. You know, that was one of the people he hung around with in seventies was a countercultural figure of a kind. I mean, what yesterday or two days ago, we did i did a thing on on rotherham, which i think is very important. I think music plays a lot big role in his in his you cant you cant hes music is all over phillips books and i played a bit of Benny Goodman from 1938 and theres a scene established theater where hes playing this for for for for character. But was very much, you know. He kept coming back to newark, but to keep kept coming back to billy eckstine. He kept coming back to time and a place. Its not just the village in, but that was it. It was a place and it was rooted in the music and it never really ended. I mean, as classical music. Yeah, yeah. But that is his connection to america was there. The counterculture wasnt part of that even though he was on the scene during times i get the feeling that i never really much of it you know, when dylan got the nobel prize, he said hope next year they give it to peter, paul and mary, which kind of gives you a sense of how up to date he was that was yeah that was only disappointment is that they didnt get it you know the generation the generation of divide does figure there you know that people who were sympathy to the counterculture or wrote about it etc. Werent a part of it themselves at all. You know, you couldnt more high fashion sort of lives. Mary mccarthy or Elizabeth Hardwick or barbara epstein. Theyre not going around in jeans. No, no, no, no. So i thought i think thats generational. Yeah. You know and also he didnt need anyone to preach to him about free love. I mean little to little late. Yeah okay lets see. Well darrel, heres one for you. Well, maybe for the group, but. But directed by with your name at the top Darryl Pinckney mentioned the great gatsby. Cant the human stain be considered . Let me gatsby rewritten. If so, did philip think literary crime the handwriting can read this down there a literary historically. Okay that means thats very interesting who wrote that question as well as historically. Thats really interesting i never thought about that have to think about that but i know what you mean because everyone says the secret of gatsby is, of course, that hes jewish, though now, of course, everyones saying, oh, hes black, but no that is jewish. And so i think its different though, really, because the for the change of identity would be very different. I somehow but i understand you mean thats an interesting question. If you see me writing about it one day without attribution. He did think literary historically though. I mean, he thought in reference literature him as much as his nonfiction in an historical and newspaper. He was constantly aware of and talking about literary references and he read incessantly. And all the Eastern European writers mean he started or helped start that series of publishers. He started. Was it bruno . Bruno brought it up and kundera and i loved that book. Street. Okay. And like joan of queens, daniel kish yeah. Philip said, i dont know who wrote this quote, the most difficult thing in the world is to be a fiction in america, a really . Hold on, can we finish the thought . Oh, sorry. Because i wake up every morning, each morning and read things that happen in. The newspaper that as a fiction writer, i never imagine happening. How do you see thought . Just riff. Its like i read the actual passage a little bit happened. That was one thing that really scholar on the panel know its now its not a scholarly thing its just he wrote this in 1960, which is interesting because its as hes starting out and he says, you know, the american in the middle of the 20th century, he has hands full in trying to understand, describe and then make credible much of american reality. Its stupefying, its sickens, it infuriates. And finally, it is even a kind of embarrassment to meager imagination. The actual he is continually outdoing our talents and the culture tosses up figures almost daily that are the envy of any novelists, he says, watching the Kennedy Nixon debates, he, you know, what he really felt was envy as a novelist and. The daily newspapers, you know, the sickness and despair, the fixes, the scandals, the insanity, the idiocy, the piety, the lies, the noise for a writer of fiction to feel he does not really live in his own country as represented by life magazine or by what he experiences. He steps out the front door must seem a serious occupational impediment for what will his subject, his landscape. Then of course he goes on absurdly to praise henderson, the ranking as a novel that goes out into the world, which i think we all agree, is a dreadful novel. But he, like bellow a lot and he. But there is idea that he was always kind of aware that as a novelist you were up against the newspaper. Well, i think i think the hard job for the novelist in that case is to make it believable. I mean, that history, its believable it happened or its supposed to have happened. Better believe it. You Better Believe it. But but if youre writing a novel and youre writing about something absurd and crazy and grotesque that happened putting that on the page in a way that is credible, is as a challenge. I mean, thats in a way, the triumph of really all his is he makes you believe that hes insane things actually happen and the triumph of the daily because one thing his books do is sort of say, i will have the time to tell this, you will have the time, read it and the book still the last place where can make a complicated argument. And that includes the novel. The novel is just a complicated argument. So if anything, you feel the tremendous good fortune of his life and his late work, but he can still get up and really do this every day unencumbered. You know, someone makes so that someone is free to do this. And he has this complicated story in that direction. But he didnt waste any of the advantages he wrung from life. I wouldnt say not a bit. You know, you put even if you had his moments. Its okay. Somebody out there has finds a clear criticism of the American Jewish communities embrace of suburbanites. Asian. I think weve heard this before. Lets talk it as myopic from goodbye columbus to plot america. We lost our souls. Any comments. I chance to ill say it again. And who who wrote . I dont want to know. I dont want you to shame the town. Sorry but i find a clear criticism. Aggressive season phillips work, a criticism of the American Jewish communities of suburbanization. Okay. And that that somehow he sees hes criticizing good go on his on that hes all of that is myopic that theres something that we lost our souls or so the questioner do you have any comments on that . Do you think its true . Do you think its just unfair or is there anything to it at all. I mean, certainly i know people whove read goodbye columbus that way. Im trying to think of what after goodbye made that a theme. Well, sweet, well, sweet its sweet. Its lovely, right, right, exactly. But. But i wrote the plot against america and i meant american. Oh. Oh, okay. All right. Very good. Very okay. Well, that makes perfect sense. Okay, so what do you think . Well, i think thats an important way to be drawn, not jewish suburbanization, but american consumerism. And what does a culture of asian or assimilation mean . Its a very important group. Its not so pressing as an individual in an odd way, because there are so many ways to escape, starting with college. But yes, think its fair because we forget the days when. Dubinsky lee or abraham kayhan or all these early black or jewish writers were of black and jewish arrival as transformative for america and then when we do get there, its not so transfer normative. Were just a part of it. So the old question, the displaced used to ask themselves lingers, but with faint and faint. Echo or something. Yeah, well, those are the final novels or those historical novels. I mean theyre as much about assimilation as they are about anything else. I mean, how do escape history . By assimilating, pretending its not happening right . Right. I love that sort of basement and the potemkin house, that was really fabulous. The to the great refrigerator sports is still my favorite im sorry its gross sports equipment. Right. And and and i mean on the other hand, it was there was an element of that critique and was there was observation of it more than a i think i dont think its a critique. I just its true. So it seems like when i think observer and a chronicler of that but the fact that he ends the book what be less reprehensible than the lives you know is right is the opposite not no its Something Else its more complex than exotic. Yeah yes and think that sort of goes i cant remember a line line. Oh, there it is. There it is. Hey, i knew we did the thing makes the novel full of history is that it contains the truth thats what happens you know and the truth agents whatever it ages but as long as its true but then the writer has done his or her their job. I mean, just listening to a tape of of of roth with his power. Well, chuck, from 1968 and theyre talking about newark the old days and theyre talking about going the theaters and they talking about basements he still was. You know, this is well after bill, after goodbye bridge, talking about those finished basements were so wonderful. Finished and. Then, of course, he gets to dance and get to the girls. And then the you know, all the rest of it. But it the finished basement that was why we didnt have a finished basement. You know, like like that. And then he goes on this, you know, completely insane, you know, obscene riff at the basements. But but but its all there. But american pastoral did make me remember peoples basements right then. Its like ping pong table. Right, right, right. Leisure. Leisure rooms, things like that. Okay, well, this question. Its a good question i thought it would come up. What would reaction to the woke have been . And of course, the removal of books from curriculums, etc. , etc. Etc. , something that everybodys talking about all the time anyway. I suppose we could bring it up here and we, you know, we dont have to restrict ourselves to to imagining what philip have thought. We could talk about ourselves. Or didnt want to talk about it. I mean, i either way, i dont care. Its such a large subject. Well, lets, lets lets redefine it we can do whatever we want. I like to think he would be on the side of free speech. Well, is there a way i mean i went back to when my dolphin room reminiscences in terms of book banning are we talking about the woke movement or the antiwoke . Were talking i think i think the question was asking about whats whats coming from the left than whats coming from the right. Right, right. Its a mistake to separate exactly. Think thats right. I think thats right. It does excuse by the antiwoke right. Thats true. I mean, ive never heard anybody call themselves while banning a book, but ive heard a lot of call themselves antiwoke about banning books. Right. Right. I heard of a book removed from a library by anybody who called themselves woke. I have not ive never seen state power used in the name of wokeness to ban books. Well, clearly mean it used repeatedly now and political power to ban books that are perceived to be books of woke people. But the discussion about banning books still reminds me of discussions about segregation. We dont want you moving into our neighborhood. Thats all it is. We dont want your story part of our curriculum. Thats all it is. You know, the two of you is integral and ten of you is the neighborhood in decline, you know . So paragraph off in the corner is fine. But central to the story, not and. My ap history class. We didnt do slavery. We know we started with Richard Hofstetter and Woodrow Wilson and was never a mention of a black person in any of the ap history classes. I had no and to black history you had to sign up for it in college specifically. But thats changed in the intervening. Thats all changed in the half century since. I was young. Yes, thats true. Im not just that. The difference between it and the desegregation debate or the desegregation debate is theyre trying to resegregate something that had been there and had become familiar and had not been for a while in those books. And other words, these were not books that were flipping people out in the nineties, but now theyre in the night. Theyre just buzz words now because theyve got trends, the title or this and that. So thats the point. I find it depressing that were always sucked into debating with these people when you cant. Its so primitive, you cant get down to their level to answer and i used to ask my parents, why did you just walk away . And she said, you cannot be drawn into conversations that low, that far beneath. You and i feel the same way about. Sort of a lot of this right wing . Banning books kind of stuff. Its just you cant you almost cant answer it because i mean, poor skip gates writing this letter about the ap curriculum and trying to out this compromise and at the same time, hes putting on the air all these things that an ap history class would have. So not like students cant find it anywhere. Now, 50 years ago, i couldnt have found this anywhere else now. But now an ap history class is not the only source of history available in culture. So, you know, their students lose them because the ones who wont get into you name but but its not even about students or the its about the voters mean its about its part of politics. Its about politics. Right . Its another reason not to. Thats why i run into it. Yeah, i wont. In any of the conversations about, say, governor because i say governor sanders is not interested in history, hes not interested in hes interested in books and hes stirring up a base. I mean, its just not a conversation. One comment. No, i think the culture wars very wasting our time wasting our time. But what about the the show at in the silk kind of cancellation, right i mean, thats not taking books out of libraries. No. But the aspect of that novel is that the department that had got tired of emperor outgrown him wouldnt support him. Right. And that me sort of spoke to a bit of. I married a communist also. Yes. To our present moment. Yes. As soon as anybodys accused, nobody stands up for him. Got it. Or her. You know, the boards are first to collapse and to go along with it. And this sort of terror of fan to market some young consumer power, whatever being canceled sort of means that we have these sort of phantom terrors that going around with and why but but theyre also real terrors if youre young i mean like my students afraid to defend someone, even though they think the person has been wrongly because then the twitter in the college or the thing get off twitter, then go off social. But theyre in a closed community. So get out of the closed community has to tell them thats the door. I said i said that yes. Well you trust me read shakespeare. Theres the door. But but but i said that once to a young historian. Yeah. And i said twitter, you sticks and stones. What do you care . He says, you dont understand. You dont understand. There could be a twitter mob, right . Raised against me and that twitter mob would write to my who is spineless he will write to my committee by Department Chair who is spineless and i will not get tenure. Now, is that true or not . I dont know. Is he . I dont know. But thats a lot of young people are living with. Then somebody has to say, okay, ill take tenure at Berea College instead. I mean, nobody wants to. But i think the moment is asking of us enormous sacrifices and the polity are trying to assure us we have to make any and. This is false you know the way ahead is fraught. I believe and there are sacrifices that we should make now before we dont have choice. But i dont find it at all helpful to get engaged in these cultural wars. Theyre eating the one thing, right, that you know, america can offer the world which is liberal culture free culture or, you know, our music, our films, everything. I dont see the point of joining in the wing surveillance of our theres nothing harmful about i mean, theres all this stuff that parents cant do anything about that they kids pick up or this or that but you know know choice still an important definition of freedom for me, you know, and living with people. I like is an important part of. Being an american to me. So i just have with everything coming china, russia, and youre sitting here talking to me about your triggers, have you any idea happening in the world . You know, i find cultural wars the most corrupt expression of bourgeois decay. And i feel very sorry for the because they are inheriting the world. And every really impossible moment. But there is nothing else is going to happen except tomorrow. Philip. I mean, i feel like weve been around these loops before. I mean, the fact that coleman so you know was there that we had that we have the human stain reminds us of that if you go back i mean i went to college in the early eighties there was all kinds of Political Correctness and and battles about these things, campuses and people who were their fashions and their fashion, police intellectual fashions and fashion, you know you pick up any issue of the new york of books from the 60 seconds or eighties, and theres plenty cultural war going on in there disguised as unassailable, you know, understanding by anyone who has sophistication, but of course, theres this is always with us. It i think were at a point in a cycle where its particularly exaggerated and raw, but i dont think its singular. I think it may it may be singularly extreme in the last 20, 25 years or in certain, particularly in academic quarters. And and i also think that like many of these things, its an excess that reflects positive progress. In other words, you know, you could say, well, people being all uptight about people using, pejorative words about minorities, right . Like, lets just know, you know, now after about 20 years, a politically correct diktat against sort of extreme derogatory, pejorative language about, lets say the most obviously , blacks, asians, you know, so forth. You can then get more and more and the disabled world its what have you right that people are like i got i was with it with blacks and , the disabled. I mean, do i really have to like change my vocabulary here, you know, up the air . Well, maybe you should, you know, maybe thats not so terrible. Like what . Things will seem preposterous that we were defending 25 years, you know. Well, i think there probably quite a few of them. So im willing to at it as like, you know, every or every. And the fact that a lot of came up after metoo and george that this sort of got this extra crank the extra crank cultural is institutional takeover its its institutional of something that was felt which was we thought wed gotten further or we were relaxing some progress that had been made and failing to recognize how much weve slid either slid back or never progressed past some of these really basic things. You know, the killing of young black men is just too much, not an experience of the past, you know, one could say, well, that used to be a specter haunted everybody. Yeah. Sandra this but somebody on a boardroom doing this does not really have the effect the life. I agree im not a black guy the problem is everybody tries to respond and it becomes strange in the way that were talking about. But im not i guess theres a part of that even when im repelled by lot of of it. And agree with you that im not drawn into wars. I dont particularly find them a place to play in any way. But do think that i have a i have a sort of on the one hand. On the other hand, im also lucky i sit at home and i write my stuff and i work independently. And even when i work with institutions that i dont have to get sucked into, what could be . I can tell from friends who academic jobs or friends who have institutional jobs can be oppressive and it can be any kind of institution. It can be a hospital, it can be anything. I dont where where it sets people who Work Together for long time and extremely consuming conflict. So thats not. Yes, i understand. But, you know, i dont think find it shocking that that a Society Needs to be traumatized in order to decide to call people by the names want to be called by i that in itself very weird you know manners in black america were always a form of morality right. You know because you had to have because you couldnt expect the other person to have the manners, morality impose on you. The burden of a Higher Consciousness and and you live with that. But all of this to me is political not cultural you know i mean and and ive lived all my life with people calling me one name or the other and i dont believe in universities being a safe place. And i got called a lot of names at university so but universities are not supposed to be safe places at all youre supposed to trust the people in care. You are right and from there youre sort of free. My problem is that trump and all that recent stuff has given people license not to express views, but to behave in this politically threatening and dangerous way, right . Correct. And they attack culture not because they care about. Correct, but we do it right. So i dont think we should be tempted. Cultural wars among ourselves. When those people over there who have no idea how even to beethoven right. You know, are sort of making do this. So i find all that so being you know, talk about being khan being to set up a set of a set up and a diversion and a diversion. I mean its a way of not talking about the things that are really the problems the more you talk about culture wars the less you talk about rogue capitalism or. Citizens united. Yeah, right, exactly. Well, theres a well, i mean, look what happened. Were just all like question came along and 10 minutes ago and now we have not we didnt mention roths in that card was read right and were here to talk about roth which is well, theres a way in which theres a famous line that you hear all the time that politics is downstream, culture and culture sets the agenda. And politics, derivative culture, which i think is nonsense, but it is a way of know i do we can debate that later. I think that politics is actually very very important in setting up things and when we and we if we think that the real battle is in the cultural realm, were a terrible mistake. Terrible, terrible. They wouldnt spend billions keep you from voting if it didnt. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. And i and i actually. I mean, may i be so bold . I think that philip would agree with that . I hope . Yeah, i think you would. I think a Perfect Place to start. Well, thank you. I want to i want to take a minute to thank our panelists, carol, francine, philip, sean, i want to thank you guys for coming to our panels this weekend. If this conversation didnt sell you, im buying your extra seats to plot. I dont know what would so please go do that and you would just stay seated until panelists exit the room. Thank you very