"Why write off all the wisdom of thousands of years? People imagine technology will solve all the problems, which it won't." - HRH Prince Charles
19 October 2010
He Said She Said
"Technology has left me behind. I do the same things every day. I work. I write. I read every night, which is one of the great pleasures of my life. I like my days of being by myself. I don;t see people, except on weekends. That's the way I live." - Philip Roth
"Why write off all the wisdom of thousands of years? People imagine technology will solve all the problems, which it won't." - HRH Prince Charles
"Why write off all the wisdom of thousands of years? People imagine technology will solve all the problems, which it won't." - HRH Prince Charles
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i don't know about prince charles, a man who still relies on his valet to draw his baths for him as to what technology can do for him.
ReplyDeletebut from the way he describes his daily routine, i'd imagine that technology - as in fast internet-connection - would precisely be a boon to a solitary writer like mr roth. the whole world's information just awaiting his mouse-click, without having to go through any cumbersome 3rd-party human intervention. strange that he hasn't tapped - literally - into that.
Dear Anon: I wish I had a valet to draw my baths and hand me a toasty towel - don't you? if you read about his causes, you will see they are actually rational and timely... and just to be mischievious - technology can never replace a valet can it?
ReplyDeleteAs for mr roth, to each writer his own methods - i don't think he actually mentioned a third-party human intervention. whatever it takes to get that book written, i suppose.
but i think technology can certainly help to squeeze toothpaste, an act which Prince Charles is said to have been 'once famously accused of being too grand' to do on his own:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1321220/Team-Charles-Camilla-124-costing-6m--man-runs-bath-woman-talks-plants.html
as for Mr Roth, i really am way past the age where i can tolerate to read straight authors who write obsessively about heterosexual sex. i found that out recently while trying to crack Mr Salman Rushdie's Shalimar the Clown.
in a way that's very good: so many authors can now be automatically eliminated from my potential reading list...:)
Dear Erudite Anon: You see, I love eccentricity of all kinds so the royals bring me special joy. i wouldn't want them to be otherwise.
ReplyDeleteAs for these very old men writing about the sex act as if they just discovered it? very adolescent - stay well clear. i really think rushdie is too clever for his own good and his books are unreadable. i'm constantly amazed at the honours he's regularly heaped with. he must have great charm.
bravo hear hear re: mr rushdie! and i thought i was the only philistine who finds him unreadable...;)
ReplyDeleteDear Erudite Anon: But you are far more literary than me, so you must not go with my very limited views... But having said that, mr rushdie's work is very intricately anglo indian.
ReplyDeleteanglo indian: now that reminds me of a question that has been bothering me for a long time:
ReplyDeleteall things being equal, why is it that India/Pakistan have consistently outranked & out-performed all the other former British Colonies in producing award-winning and/or best-selling English-language writers, e.g. rushdie, arundhati roy, vikram seth, hanif kureshi, v.s naipaul, michael ondaatje (ok sri lankan but you know what i mean), anita and kiran desai et al?
why? why are writers of Indian descent seem to have re-colonised the English language so much more successfully than the rest of us former British Colonial subjects, e.g. s'poreans, m'sians, hk-ers, burmese etc etc? :(
Dear Erudite Anon: I've always wondered this, but never aloud. It sounds a little...? I'm sure you've come across some wonderfully intellectual essay on this subject. I'm guessing it has to do with the character of the indian people.
ReplyDeleteI wonder what you mean by the character etc....
ReplyDeleteJ.