The Philip Roth Biography Mess | Aryeh Cohen-Wade & Laura Marsh [Culturally Determined]
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- Опубликовано: 25 июл 2024
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00:00 Accusations of sexual assault against Philip Roth's biographer, Blake Bailey
05:56 Laura's early negative review of the biography
13:45 How Bailey justified Roth's mistreatment of women
23:34 Aryeh worries about an alleged rapist framing the historical record
35:35 Laura argues against the "this changes everything" reaction
45:19 Criticizing the actions of Norton, the book's publisher
52:42 What Laura found in Roth's novels that she didn't expect
59:38 What do we do with the fact that many great authors were awful people?
Aryeh Cohen-Wade (Joking on the Square, @AryehCW) and Laura Marsh (The New Republic). Recorded April 28, 2021.
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![Philip Roth and Blake Bailey [CC]](/img/1.gif)
Who cares about what Blake Bailey did in his personal life? Does it in any way negate his scholarship or writing ability? If he were a plagiarist, then by all means, stop the publication of his book. There were plenty of great artists and writers who were less than morally impeccable, to say the least. This should not detract from the greatness of their work. That's all that matters: the work.
Ms. Marsh is a great guest: incredibly articulate, calm, measured and very very fair. A nice contrast to Aryeh with all his nervous ticks.
*tics
@@aryehcohen-wade9696 Both. Perhaps nervous ticks prompt your nervous tics. 😊
This seems like a scene from a lost Roth novel. I am afraid I won’t elaborate
Very enjoyable conversation, thank you for sharing. A correction at 59:00: the Bellow biography is by Zachary Leader, the biographer of Kingsley Amis, not James Atlas.
Bailey claimed to have access to the first wife's journal, so he should have excellent insight into her thinking. So I think Ms. Marsh may be incorrect or mistaken at about 17 min in.
I agree that this is a hot mess. Based on the reviews from the New York Times and the Washington Post, I bought the audio book from Audible, then the news hit the fan the same day. All the subsequent comments about the biography and Bailey have put me on the fence. Is is possible to read this books without seeing some kind of taint?
My Life as a Man is about the first marriage I thought, even though Roth would probably deny that.
I'm not sure I understand why the former students' accusations are brave, rather than gossip. The woman who alleges a rape is accusing Bailey of a crime, presumably committed within the statute of limitations; the former students are accusing him of having been an undesirable sex partner, a decade and change ago. It is odd to litigate rape accusations through a publisher, but if Bailey is guilty, he doesn't really have standing to object to her prosecuting a total war against him. To what redress are the former students entitled? Supposing everything they say is true (leaving aside how a reasonable person could expect to adjudicate the claim that a teacher was nice to children in hopes of taking them to bed, six years later, after chance meetings), what business is it of anyone else's?
When there begin to be multiple accusations of rape, all the women having strikingly similar stories, it's more than just gossip. It's troubling, to say the least. I don't think he had a master plan when he was teaching these people as children, but it does cast his focused interest in them in a disturbing light. This was a man who was absolutely out of control.
You should read the two pieces on this that Slate published today and reassess your opinion. (Not linking because of the spam filter.) The man is a sociopath.
@@aryehcohen-wade9696 Thank you for directing my attention to them. I have now read the first-hand account in full, and most of the other, skimming the excerpts and analysis of children's diaries. I agree that it's pathological to be nearly so interested in children's diaries as Bailey was, and as the authors of the rehash evidently think people ought to be. I was incorrect to call them chance meetings (my recollection is that they were characterized that way, initially, but that could be mistaken, too).
Sociopathy could explain why he seems to have devoted the same immediate, incautious, intimate (a peculiar trait of the privileged, I've read) attention to the boys in his class as he did the girls--covering his tracks--but so would the absence of a master plan. It is not hard to imagine a middle-aged man, not overly-dutiful to his marital vows, discovering (not devising) that the devotion of his former students could be put to other uses. That's a nasty enough thing to do, and he's earned whatever hard feelings the aggrieved have for him. That is their business. What makes it anyone else's?
Ms. Crawford Peyton's accusation is complicated. It is obviously possible to stop raping a person in the middle of doing it. And, as obviously, whether he did or didn't, he will say that he stopped as soon as she indicated she wished he would. If it happened exactly as she says it did, I don't blame her for not seeking his prosecution--the mechanism we have established for adjudicating the sexual behaviors of adults we are collectively willing to punish. I do not begrudge her telling anyone else she likes, but this is gossiping (as it was when this chapter of the story began by her account: in a Facebook group). Declaring gossip a sacrament does not make it dignified, and cannot make it any more likely to produce justice.
@@johndalton3180 There are two accusations of rape, so far as I know. There are additional accusations of regrettable, but consented to sex. There are additional accusations of physical attempts to initiate sex that were successfully rebuffed, without Bailey's attempting to impose sex after it was declined. I would call these markedly dissimilar stories. The only pattern I appreciate is that Bailey seems to have made a habit of trying to go to bed with women who had been his students.
Gossip needn't be false or petty; it only needs to be none of the business of the person being informed of another's behavior. I'm willing to be told why these stories are my business, but I haven't been, yet.
@@postman2971 If I'm not mistaken, there are three (3) accusations of rape at this point. I read a detailed account of one of them, and found it to be credible. Why is this "your business?" That smacks of being a straw man type of question. But I can tell you why it's newsworthy. Blake Bailey is a public figure, and his upcoming book was roundly criticized for how it dealt with its subject's long history of alleged misogyny and mistreatment of women. I'm not sure how to answer how it's "your business," but I do know it's a topic worthy of exploration and discussion, and certainly warrants a response, explanation, and/or apology from Mr. Bailey.
Domestic violence is unpunished in the USA?
This is a story about cancel culture. Is there no canceling going on by conservatives, or is just not labeled as such? I'm thinking about when gays are fired from religious schools. Or public/ private schools ban books.
Does this guy ever get to the point?
Nope.
@@aryehcohen-wade9696I think it’s due to a disability he has, he’s not intentionally trying to bore you.
Disability is not always a choice. Are you the most eloquent speaker?
This host is terrible