'Appetizing, Clear and Understandable'

This I found in an interview with the late novelist Richard G. Stern: “I prefer windows to mirrors. Not just for diversion, or something to study. I like new vocabularies, rhythms, ways of thinking, associations of every sort.” 

Stern (1928-2013) was seventy-one at the time and his literary arteries seem not to have been calcifying. That’s nearly my age and I appreciate the impromptu pep talk. It’s so tempting to slide, to get complacent and arrogant about what we think we already know. But neither do I think there’s anything necessarily magical about the new. The proportion of rubbish produced by humans remains roughly steady across the centuries. Most new novels have always been not worth reading. Talent is rare and genius (Tolstoy, Proust) is virtually nonexistent. And I still plan, as I have for decades, to read Lady Murasaki.

   

One of life’s most embarrassing phenomena is an old person forever striving desperately to be young and hip – guys my age with ponytails come to mind. “Act your age” has taken on a new sobering sense. About still writing at his age, Stern says:

 

“To make life both appetizing, clear and understandable, what could be a more beautiful thing to do? I’m sure every serious writer feels this way.”

 

[James Atlas’ interview with Stern was published in the Chicago Review in 1999.]