DORIS LESSINC
21
bang, bang which kids now listen to. It's almost as if the tune doesn't mat–
ter. What they need is a pounding.
David Sidorsky:
They want the beat.
Doris Lessing: I
know, but I simply can't believe this doesn't affect people.
David Sidorsky:
Doris, why is reading such a great virtue?
Doris Lessing:
Yes, I was waiting for that . ..
David Sidorsky:
It's not a virtue, it's a companionship.
It
certainly does–
n't make you virtuous, but. ..
Doris Lessing:
No, but when you meet somebody, when I meet some–
body, okay, the same kind of person as myself, we have a kind of hinterland
of shared values, fj"ames of reference. The conversation sort of picks around
fj"om, well you know, you quote something, you mention something from
books.
David Sidorsky:
So when we're talking about reading, what we really
mean is reading what is worthwhile.
Doris Lessing:
Yes, I do.
Fred Ciporen:
And the audience for what is worthwhile, things of liter–
ary merit, in the United States is about 12,()()() or
15,000
people.
It
has
remained constant. I had a great cultural historian as a professor, Warren
Sussman, and he studied television. He thought "Mary Hartman" was one
of the most profound things. He thought that
II Happellcd Olle
N~i!.hl
was
one of the best things that was done on the Depression. You yourself said
that reading creates a loss of memory, so I don't know that reading in itself
is that much of a virtue.
Leonard Kriegel: I
remember some time in the early seventies, being on
a panel with Warren Sussman-we were arguing about popular cu lture
and literature and taking opposite sides. I wonder whether there isn't
something else that's also operating today. I think that people still read. I
think young people also read, but what I think has happened
to
the cul–
ture is that the sense of differentiation seems to be disappearing. Let me use
as an example my younger son, who is a reader. I remember once walking
into the room where he was sitting and reading
Ulysses,
which would make
