WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.020 align:middle line:90%


00:00:05.020 --> 00:00:08.200 align:middle line:84%
It is my honor, this year
end Prose Series night,

00:00:08.200 --> 00:00:10.230 align:middle line:90%
to introduce David Shields.

00:00:10.230 --> 00:00:13.690 align:middle line:84%
A writer who contains,
well, something of everyone

00:00:13.690 --> 00:00:15.550 align:middle line:90%
we've heard before.

00:00:15.550 --> 00:00:17.480 align:middle line:90%
And then some.

00:00:17.480 --> 00:00:20.120 align:middle line:90%
A writer finale.

00:00:20.120 --> 00:00:22.430 align:middle line:84%
That may sound like
effusive praise.

00:00:22.430 --> 00:00:26.210 align:middle line:84%
Just the pre-game trumpeting we
want to cover our ears against.

00:00:26.210 --> 00:00:29.840 align:middle line:84%
But I mean it in the quieter
spirit of this reading series.

00:00:29.840 --> 00:00:34.010 align:middle line:84%
Prose, the dictionary
says, is all talk.

00:00:34.010 --> 00:00:36.920 align:middle line:90%
Plain words, nothing more.

00:00:36.920 --> 00:00:41.030 align:middle line:90%
Ordinary, non-poetry.

00:00:41.030 --> 00:00:44.450 align:middle line:84%
as Michel de Montaigne-- perhaps
our consummate prose stylist--

00:00:44.450 --> 00:00:47.480 align:middle line:84%
put it, everyone has,
within themselves,

00:00:47.480 --> 00:00:49.740 align:middle line:90%
the whole human condition.

00:00:49.740 --> 00:00:52.820 align:middle line:84%
And so, for a writer to
be something of everyone

00:00:52.820 --> 00:00:57.240 align:middle line:84%
is to be something
for everyone, too.

00:00:57.240 --> 00:01:02.670 align:middle line:84%
The new Shields
book is 369 pages.

00:01:02.670 --> 00:01:06.120 align:middle line:84%
My numerology tells
me the three digits

00:01:06.120 --> 00:01:09.600 align:middle line:84%
represent the branching
out of society, the rooting

00:01:09.600 --> 00:01:13.740 align:middle line:84%
down of home, and the
transcendence of the universal,

00:01:13.740 --> 00:01:15.360 align:middle line:90%
respectively.

00:01:15.360 --> 00:01:17.370 align:middle line:84%
And though I have little
faith in the occult,

00:01:17.370 --> 00:01:21.780 align:middle line:84%
I can't help but read into
these last pages of Shields.

00:01:21.780 --> 00:01:26.970 align:middle line:84%
All our secrets are the same,
the concluding piece is called.

00:01:26.970 --> 00:01:31.200 align:middle line:84%
On the surface, a confession of
harsh criticism for his prior

00:01:31.200 --> 00:01:32.010 align:middle line:90%
works.

00:01:32.010 --> 00:01:34.500 align:middle line:84%
The piece wonders whether
bad reviews might, quote,

00:01:34.500 --> 00:01:37.650 align:middle line:84%
"tell you something
unexpected about yourself."

00:01:37.650 --> 00:01:42.150 align:middle line:84%
Though, in service of
portraying what Shields calls

00:01:42.150 --> 00:01:45.820 align:middle line:90%
a representative human being.

00:01:45.820 --> 00:01:50.560 align:middle line:84%
A tube boob, one
reviewer called him.

00:01:50.560 --> 00:01:56.110 align:middle line:84%
A pathetically guilty
white liberal, another.

00:01:56.110 --> 00:01:59.575 align:middle line:84%
Or, as Shields
prefers, my shtick.

00:01:59.575 --> 00:02:03.130 align:middle line:90%


00:02:03.130 --> 00:02:05.530 align:middle line:84%
I mean for David
Shields, David Shields

00:02:05.530 --> 00:02:08.770 align:middle line:84%
writes, to be a
highly stylized figure

00:02:08.770 --> 00:02:11.590 align:middle line:84%
through whom cultural
energies and all manner

00:02:11.590 --> 00:02:15.590 align:middle line:90%
of mad human needs flow.

00:02:15.590 --> 00:02:17.960 align:middle line:90%
And therein lies the impossible.

00:02:17.960 --> 00:02:21.680 align:middle line:84%
Still impossible 500
years after Montaigne.

00:02:21.680 --> 00:02:26.180 align:middle line:84%
How on Earth to
style the universal.

00:02:26.180 --> 00:02:29.270 align:middle line:90%
How many ways Shields has tried.

00:02:29.270 --> 00:02:31.790 align:middle line:84%
Why, not a month ago
on this very campus--

00:02:31.790 --> 00:02:34.970 align:middle line:84%
in what felt like one
simultaneous happening--

00:02:34.970 --> 00:02:37.550 align:middle line:84%
Shields held us at the
Tucson Festival of Books.

00:02:37.550 --> 00:02:40.400 align:middle line:84%
And giving a lecture,
sitting on a panel,

00:02:40.400 --> 00:02:42.440 align:middle line:84%
running a creative
nonfiction workshop,

00:02:42.440 --> 00:02:45.860 align:middle line:84%
taking questions on the
screening of his recent film.

00:02:45.860 --> 00:02:50.180 align:middle line:84%
And reading and signing
his new book, Other People.

00:02:50.180 --> 00:02:53.390 align:middle line:84%
Found in the Library of
Congress under biography

00:02:53.390 --> 00:02:57.500 align:middle line:84%
and autobiography, personal
memoir, literary collection,

00:02:57.500 --> 00:03:00.360 align:middle line:84%
essays, literary collection,
American, general.

00:03:00.360 --> 00:03:04.910 align:middle line:84%
And finally, simply, perhaps
most accurately, other.

00:03:04.910 --> 00:03:07.580 align:middle line:90%


00:03:07.580 --> 00:03:10.160 align:middle line:84%
The country's oldest
federal institution

00:03:10.160 --> 00:03:12.740 align:middle line:84%
and the world's
largest library would

00:03:12.740 --> 00:03:14.960 align:middle line:90%
seem to agree with the author.

00:03:14.960 --> 00:03:19.310 align:middle line:84%
There's something
universal about otherness.

00:03:19.310 --> 00:03:25.440 align:middle line:84%
That, or somehow-- in a catalog
of over 164 million items--

00:03:25.440 --> 00:03:30.230 align:middle line:84%
there's no obvious
place for David Shields.

00:03:30.230 --> 00:03:33.230 align:middle line:84%
His many honors and
awards notwithstanding.

00:03:33.230 --> 00:03:35.840 align:middle line:90%
Guggenheim and NEA fellowships.

00:03:35.840 --> 00:03:38.180 align:middle line:84%
A National Book Critics
Circle Award finalist.

00:03:38.180 --> 00:03:44.397 align:middle line:84%
20 books and counting,
translated into 20 languages.

00:03:44.397 --> 00:03:45.980 align:middle line:84%
Then I ran out of
space in the margin.

00:03:45.980 --> 00:03:48.147 align:middle line:84%
There were a few other
things that I didn't include.

00:03:48.147 --> 00:03:50.420 align:middle line:90%


00:03:50.420 --> 00:03:53.780 align:middle line:84%
In Zen Buddhism, we say
that sitting in meditation

00:03:53.780 --> 00:03:58.490 align:middle line:84%
with a cone can be like
creating a wound in perfectly

00:03:58.490 --> 00:04:00.860 align:middle line:90%
healthy flesh.

00:04:00.860 --> 00:04:04.520 align:middle line:84%
We were getting by just
fine without you, wisdom.

00:04:04.520 --> 00:04:06.690 align:middle line:90%
[LAUGHING]

00:04:06.690 --> 00:04:07.190 align:middle line:90%
Thanks.

00:04:07.190 --> 00:04:09.560 align:middle line:90%
[LAUGHING]

00:04:09.560 --> 00:04:12.530 align:middle line:84%
I wonder if a Shields book
right there on the title--

00:04:12.530 --> 00:04:15.920 align:middle line:84%
Other People, Reality
Hunger, The Thing

00:04:15.920 --> 00:04:19.250 align:middle line:84%
About Life Is That One
Day You'll Be Dead--

00:04:19.250 --> 00:04:22.320 align:middle line:84%
shouldn't come
with a hazard sign.

00:04:22.320 --> 00:04:27.120 align:middle line:84%
Caution, this gate
will lock behind you.

00:04:27.120 --> 00:04:29.670 align:middle line:84%
At this year's festival,
someone asked Shields,

00:04:29.670 --> 00:04:33.780 align:middle line:84%
if we can't ever really
know other people,

00:04:33.780 --> 00:04:35.580 align:middle line:84%
why don't we just
kill ourselves?

00:04:35.580 --> 00:04:39.024 align:middle line:90%
[LAUGHING]

00:04:39.024 --> 00:04:40.293 align:middle line:90%


00:04:40.293 --> 00:04:41.835 align:middle line:84%
I don't remember
what his answer was.

00:04:41.835 --> 00:04:44.838 align:middle line:90%
[LAUGHING]

00:04:44.838 --> 00:04:45.750 align:middle line:90%


00:04:45.750 --> 00:04:48.900 align:middle line:84%
But I do know that David
Shields is one to whom we

00:04:48.900 --> 00:04:50.040 align:middle line:90%
want to pose the question.

00:04:50.040 --> 00:04:53.130 align:middle line:90%


00:04:53.130 --> 00:04:54.930 align:middle line:90%
I is another.

00:04:54.930 --> 00:04:59.190 align:middle line:84%
This book ends, just as
it begins, with the words

00:04:59.190 --> 00:05:00.680 align:middle line:90%
of other people.

00:05:00.680 --> 00:05:02.430 align:middle line:84%
Please join me in
welcoming David Shields.

00:05:02.430 --> 00:05:03.680 align:middle line:90%
[CLAPPING]