What I read

My son enters graduate school in the fall hoping to earn an MFA in creative writing. It is a three-year course, and he hopes to teach in college one day. He would make a marvelous teacher. He has a deep interest in writing and writers and has the rare ability to communicate this with an enthusiasm that draws you in. His problem is he is a white male, and the academy is a hostile environment for them.

He is impatient with my reading habits, which incline toward history and the rare biography. The modern novelists have little interest for me, with a few exceptions like William Boyd, who I gather is regarded by the cognoscenti as "old fashioned." That must be why I like him. Literature goes through fashions although by now it must be clear that there are reasons the old styles have been so enduring. The linear tale seems to suit us in some way that probably has to do with the way the brain is wired. Life happens in a linear manner, or at least seems so. That's the way we like our stories.

I read fewer biographies than was once the case because I have talked to enough of their authors to realize they are just a footnoted form of fiction. Recognizing this, many public figures in the past ordered all their private papers burned. At the end, their lives belong as much to the biographer as to them. If they have written an autobiography, they are automatically assumed to be self serving or mendacious. Those who live long enough to read their biographies are invariably dismayed or outraged. There are factual errors or misinterpretations. Many biographers end up disliking their subjects after spending years working on the books. This very often is reflected in what they write. The "authorized" biographies are hagiographies, the originals of which were the lives of the saints. Their behavior, obviously, was always saintly.

There was a story out of Portland today about a march organized in which women went topless to protest the differing view that society takes toward shirtless men and women. This sort of stuff goes on every few years or so. The organizers said they plan in future marches to suppress the objectionable "ogling" that occurred at yesterday's march. The worst thing about political correctness is it tries to impose its view on reality. Men should not stare at female breasts because women don't like it. Therefore, steps must be taken. It is hard to see what short of blinding men will remedy this situation.