Granule & Mandolyn (15)
Little Pieces: This Side of Japan. Stories by Michael Hoffman
The reviews:
Compulsive Reader: http://www.compulsivereader.com/html/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2599
Japan Times: http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fb20101031a1.html
Japan Today: http://www.japantoday.com/category/book-reviews/view/little-pieces-this-side-of-japan
Metropolis: http://metropolis.co.jp/arts/book-reviews/expat-roundup/
Browse:
[Previous episodes:
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“William… I can’t publish this!”
“You can and will.”
“But William, it’s… it’s not journalism! It’s madness, raving!”
“I’ll take full responsibility.”
”You can’t take full responsibility! You know that perfectly well!”
He did know it, of course. What the paper published the paper must assume responsibility for. Joseph Edward Roth IV was a man of wide experience and expansive views, and fully capable, moreover, of appreciating the value of William Blurr’s work for the newspaper the Roth family had founded, had owned for generations, and held on to even now, firm in its resistance to the media mergers and takeovers and digitalization that, however sound from a purely business angle, were destroying, he was convinced, “journalism as we know it.” Joseph Edward Roth IV saw the challenge posed by the times and was determined to meet it. His guiding maxim, often repeated, was, “If journalism dies, so does civilization.” And he saw journalism dying before his eyes. Only men like himself – and they were very few in number; fortunately his son and heir was one of them – could keep it alive. And keep it alive they would, “until the world returns to its senses.” The paper had started out as a small-town weekly called Witness to Truth, evolving under successive generations of Roths into the Daily Witness, expanding steadily on the strength of brilliant journalism and superior writing into a national and even international organ, a must-read for the “superior” men and women on whom “civilization’s endangered future” depended.
Patiently William explained the situation. He knew who he was dealing with – a man of understanding and courage, a defier of convention – an eccentric, to be sure, and the butt of much ridicule on that account, but one blessed with a sense of humor; he enjoyed a laugh at his own expense as much as any other kind of laugh, and liked to say, “I take ridicule as a compliment.”
“I have a friend,” said William – “William Sutherland, the psychologist. Perhaps you’ve heard of him.”
“William Sutherland? Of course I’ve heard of him! Is he your friend?”
“A very close friend. Since age four, or thereabouts. No longer ago than last night I asked him, ‘William, am I mad?’ And he assured me I was not. Which gave me the courage to write what you have just read. So much for it being ‘madness, raving.’”
Joseph Edward Roth IV studied William over the rims of his spectacles. He took his spectacles off, put them on again, and said, “Madness in the clinical sense is one thing, Madness in the journalistic sense is something else.”
“I’ll tell you what Dr. Sutherland said to me in his own words. He said, ‘A lot of people feel as you do, though few admit it.’”
“Well, that’s the difference right there between clinical madness and journalistic madness! It is journalistic madness to admit it! It’s like… like taking your clothes off in public, like…”
“Yes, Sir Joseph, I understand” – years ago a journalist long since retired had mockingly addressed him as Sir Joseph; far from taking offense, Roth had roared with laughter, and the name stuck – “but you see,” William continued, “my hand is in a sense being forced. It was very stupid of me to get myself arrested, but I can’t undo that now, and if someone else digs it up and reveals it, it will discredit not only my journalism but the Witness. So you see – ”
“Yes, I see, I see! Anybody but you I’d’ve thrown out on his ear and that would be that! All right, so you disclose your arrest. Why the rest of it?”
“Well, I can hardly say I was arrested without saying what for.”
“Yes, but… dammit… no! I won’t have it! Not in my paper! It’s… it’s obscene! We die, you say, and death reduces us to… nothing! To nothing! And people… our readers… will read it and… and… children? Have you thought of them, of what this will do to their minds? Would you tell this to your own children?”
William reddened. “I already have.”
“You have! You’ve told them they’ll die and be nothing!”
“Nothing.”
“And you tell me you’re not mad? With all due respect to Dr. William Sutherland, I suggest you get a second opinion!”
“Thank you for your advice.”
“Be sarcastic if you like, but as to running this in my paper – no, no and no! Journalism is not – cannot be – based on knowledge acquired in a meditative trance!”
“That’s your last word?”
“William, listen to me. I’m old enough to be your father. At least… take a few days. Think about it, think about it calmly, quietly…”
“We don’t have a few days. That’s the point. My reporting, as you know, has made me enemies – powerful, influential enemies, who have every reason to discredit me if they can.”
“Publish this,” said Sir Joseph, “and you’ll be handing them the best weapon they could ever ask for.”
“Then there’s no hope for me. Sir Joseph, I’ve reached a point where… I can no long live knowing what I know and not communicating it. In that sense, and in that sense only, I’ll admit that I may be mad.”
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