04:11:00
Michiko Kakutani, the
chief book critic for The New York Times, interviewed President Obama about literature on
Friday at the White House.
Here are excerpts from the
conversation, which have been edited and condensed.
These books that you
gave to your daughter Malia on the Kindle, what were they? Some of
your favorites?
I think some of them were
sort of the usual suspects, so “The Naked and the Dead” or “One Hundred Years
of Solitude,” I think she hadn’t read yet.
Then there were some books
I think that are not on everybody’s reading list these days, but I remembered
as being interesting, like “The Golden Notebook” by Doris Lessing, for example.
Or “The Woman Warrior,” by Maxine [Hong Kingston].
Part of what was
interesting was me pulling back books that I thought were really powerful, but
that might not surface when she goes to college.
Have you had a chance
to discuss them with her?
I’ve had the chance to
discuss some. And she’s interested in being a filmmaker, so storytelling is of
great interest to her. She had just read “A Moveable Feast.” I hadn’t included
that, and she was just captivated by the idea that Hemingway described his goal
of writing one true thing every day.
What made you want to
become a writer?
I loved reading when I was
a kid, partly because I was traveling so much, and there were times where I’d
be displaced, I’d be the outsider. When I first moved to Indonesia, I’m this
big, dark-skinned kid that kind of stood out. And then when I moved back from
Indonesia to Hawaii, I had the manners and habits probably of an Indonesian
kid.
And so the idea of having
these worlds that were portable, that were yours, that you could enter into,
was appealing to me. And then I became a teenager and wasn’t reading that much
other than what was assigned in school, and playing basketball and chasing
girls, and imbibing things that weren’t very healthy.
I think all of us did.
Yeah. And then I think
rediscovered writing and reading and thinking in my first or second year of
college and used that as a way to rebuild myself, a process I write about in
“Dreams From My Father.”
That period in New
York, where you were intensely reading.
I was hermetic — it really
is true. I had one plate, one towel, and I’d buy clothes from thrift shops. And
I was very intense, and sort of humorless.
But it reintroduced me to
the power of words as a way to figure out who you are and what you think, and
what you believe, and what’s important, and to sort through and interpret this
swirl of events that is happening around you every minute.
And so even though by the
time I graduated I knew I wanted to be involved in public policy, or I had
these vague notions of organizing, the idea of continuing to write and tell
stories as part of that was valuable to me. And so I would come home from work,
and I would write in my journal or write a story or two.
The great thing was that
it was useful in my organizing work. Because when I got there, the guy who had
hired me said that the thing that brings people together to have the courage to
take action on behalf of their lives is not just that they care about the same
issue, it’s that they have shared stories. And he told me that if you learn how
to listen to people’s stories and can find what’s sacred in other people’s
stories, then you’ll be able to forge a relationship that lasts.
But my interest in public
service and politics then merged with the idea of storytelling.
What were your short
stories like?
It’s interesting, when I
read them, a lot of them had to do with older people.
I think part of the reason
was because I was working in communities with people who were significantly
older than me. We were going into churches, and probably the average age of
these folks was 55, 60. A lot of them had scratched and clawed their way into
the middle class, but just barely. They were seeing the communities in which
they had invested their hopes and dreams and raised their kids starting to
decay — steel mills had closed, and there had been a lot of racial turnover in
these communities. And so there was also this sense of loss and disappointment.
And so a bunch of the
short stories I wrote had to do with that sense, that atmosphere. One story is
about an old black pastor who seems to be about to lose his church, his lease
is running out and he’s got this loyal woman deacon who is trying to buck him
up. Another is about an elderly couple — a white couple in L.A., — and he’s
like in advertising, wrote jingles. And he’s just retired and has gotten
cranky. And his wife is trying to convince him that his life is not over.
So when I think back on
what’s interesting to me, there is not a lot of Jack Kerouac, open-road, young
kid on the make discovering stuff. It’s more melancholy and reflective.
Was writing partly a
way to figure out your identity?
Yes, I think so. For me,
particularly at that time, writing was the way I sorted through a lot of
crosscurrents in my life — race, class, family.
And I genuinely believe
that it was part of the way in which I was able to integrate all these pieces
of myself into something relatively whole.
People now remark on this
notion of me being very cool, or composed. And what is true is that I generally
have a pretty good sense of place and who I am, and what’s important to me. And
I trace a lot of that back to that process of writing.
Has that continued to
be so in the presidency?
Not as much as I would
have liked. I just didn’t have time.
But you keep some form
of a journal?
I’ve kept some, but not
with the sort of discipline that I would have hoped for. The main writing that
I’ve done during the presidency has been my speeches, the ones at least that
were important to me.
How has the
speechwriting and being at the center of history and dealing with crises
affected you as a writer?
I’m not sure yet. I’ll
have to see when I start writing the next book. Some of the craft of writing a
good speech is identical to any other good writing: Is that word necessary? Is
it the right word? Is there a rhythm to it that feels good? How does it sound
aloud?
I actually think that one
of the useful things about speechwriting is reminding yourself that the
original words are spoken, and that there is a sound, a feel to words that,
even if you’re reading silently, transmits itself.
So in that sense, I think
there will be some consistency.
But this is part of why it
was important to pick up the occasional novel during the presidency, because
most of my reading every day was briefing books and memos and proposals. And so
working that very analytical side of the brain all the time sometimes meant you
lost track of not just the poetry of fiction, but also the depth of fiction.
Fiction was useful as a
reminder of the truths under the surface of what we argue about every day and
was a way of seeing and hearing the voices, the multitudes of this country.
Are there examples of specific
novels or writers?
Well, the last novel I
read was Colson Whitehead’s “The Underground Railroad.” And the reminder of the
ways in which the pain of slavery transmits itself across generations, not just
in overt ways, but how it changes minds and hearts.
It’s what you said in
your farewell address about Atticus Finch, where you said people are so
isolated in their little bubbles. Fiction can leap —
It bridges them. I struck
up a friendship with [the novelist] Marilynne Robinson, who has become a good
friend. And we’ve become sort of pen pals. I started reading her in Iowa, where
“Gilead” and some of her best novels are set. And I loved her writing in part
because I saw those people every day. And the interior life she was describing
that connected them — the people I was shaking hands with and making speeches
to — it connected them with my grandparents, who were from Kansas and ended up
journeying all the way to Hawaii, but whose foundation had been set in a very
similar setting.
And so I think that I
found myself better able to imagine what’s going on in the lives of people
throughout my presidency because of not just a specific novel but the act of
reading fiction. It exercises those muscles, and I think that has been helpful.
And then there’s been the
occasion where I just want to get out of my own head. [Laughter] Sometimes you
read fiction just because you want to be someplace else.
What are some of those
books?
It’s interesting, the
stuff I read just to escape ends up being a mix of things — some science
fiction. For a while, there was a three-volume science-fiction novel, the
“Three-Body Problem” series —
Oh, Liu Cixin, who won the Hugo Award.
— which was just wildly
imaginative, really interesting. It wasn’t so much sort of character studies as
it was just this sweeping —
It’s really about the
fate of the universe.
Exactly. The scope of it
was immense. So that was fun to read, partly because my day-to-day problems
with Congress seem fairly petty — not something to worry about. Aliens are
about to invade. [Laughter]
There were books that
would blend, I think, really good writing with thriller genres. I mean, I
thought “Gone Girl” was a well-constructed, well-written book.
I loved that structure.
Yeah, and it was really
well executed. And a similar structure, that I thought was a really powerful
novel: “Fates and Furies,” by Lauren Groff.
I like those structures where
you actually see different points of view.
Which I have to do for
this job, too. [Laughter]
Have there been certain
books that have been touchstones for you in these eight years?
I would say Shakespeare
continues to be a touchstone. Like most teenagers in high school, when we were
assigned, I don’t know, “The Tempest” or something, I thought, ‘My God, this is
boring.’ And I took this wonderful Shakespeare class in college where I just
started to read the tragedies and dig into them. And that, I think, is
foundational for me in understanding how certain patterns repeat themselves and
play themselves out between human beings.
Is that sort of
comforting?
It gives me a sense of
perspective. I think Toni Morrison’s writings — particularly “Song of Solomon”
is a book I think of when I imagine people going through hardship. That it’s
not just pain, but there’s joy and glory and mystery.
I think that there are
writers who I don’t necessarily agree with in terms of their politics, but
whose writings are sort of a baseline for how to think about certain things —
V. S. Naipaul, for example. His “A Bend in the River,” which starts with the
line, “The world is what it is; men who are nothing, who allow themselves to
become nothing, have no place in it.” And I always think about that line, and I
think about his novels when I’m thinking about the hardness of the world
sometimes, particularly in foreign policy, and I resist and fight against
sometimes that very cynical, more realistic view of the world. And yet, there
are times where it feels as if that may be true.
So in that sense, I’m
using writing like that as a foil or something to debate against.
I’ve read that Lincoln loved
Shakespeare his whole life, but when he was dealing with the Civil War, reading
the history plays helped give him solace and perspective.
Lincoln’s own writings do
that. He is a very fine writer.
I’d put the Second
Inaugural up against any piece of American writing — as good as anything. One
of the great treats of being president is, in the Lincoln Bedroom, there’s a
copy of the Gettysburg Address handwritten by him, one of five copies he did
for charity. And there have been times in the evening when I’d just walk over,
because it’s right next to my office, my home office, and I just read it.
And perspective is exactly
what is wanted. At a time when events move so quickly and so much information
is transmitted, the ability to slow down and get perspective, along with the
ability to get in somebody else’s shoes — those two things have been invaluable
to me. Whether they’ve made me a better president, I can’t say. But what I can
say is that they have allowed me to sort of maintain my balance during the
course of eight years, because this is a place that comes at you hard and fast
and doesn’t let up.
Is there some poem or
any writing or author that you would turn to, say, after the mass
killings in Newtown, Conn., or during the financial crisis?
I think that during those
periods, Lincoln’s writings, King’s writings, Gandhi’s writings, Mandela’s
writings — I found those particularly helpful, because what you wanted was a
sense of solidarity. During very difficult moments, this job can be very
isolating. So sometimes you have to hop across history to find folks who have
been similarly feeling isolated. Churchill’s a good writer. And I loved reading
Teddy Roosevelt’s writing. He’s this big, outsize character.
Have you read a lot of
presidential biographies?
The biographies have been
useful, because I do think that there’s a tendency, understandable, to think
that whatever’s going on right now is uniquely disastrous or amazing or
difficult. And it just serves you well to think about Roosevelt trying to
navigate World War II or Lincoln trying to figure out whether he’s going to
fire [George B.] McClellan when Rebel troops are 20, 30, 40 miles away.
I watched some of the
civil-rights-movement documentary mini-series “Eyes on the Prize” after the
election.
It was useful.
You do see how far
we’ve come, and in the space of my lifetime.
And that’s why seeing my
daughters now picking up books that I read 30 years ago or 40 years ago is
gratifying, because I want them to have perspective — not for purposes of
complacency, but rather to give them confidence that people with a sense of
determination and courage and pluck can reshape things. It’s empowering for
them.
What books would you
recommend at this moment in time, that captures this sense of turmoil?
I should probably ask you
or some people who have had time to catch up on reading. I’ll confess that
since the election, I’ve been busier than I expected. So one of the things I’m
really looking forward to is to dig into a whole bunch of literature.
But one of the things I’m
confident about is that, out of this moment, there are a whole bunch of
writers, a lot of them young, who are probably writing the book I need to read.
[Laughter] They’re ahead of me right now. And so in my post-presidency, in
addition to training the next generation of leaders to work on issues like
climate change or gun violence or criminal justice reform, my hope is to link
them up with their peers who see fiction or nonfiction as an important part of
that process.
When so much of our
politics is trying to manage this clash of cultures brought about by
globalization and technology and migration, the role of stories to unify — as
opposed to divide, to engage rather than to marginalize — is more important
than ever.
There’s something
particular about quieting yourself and having a sustained stretch of time that
is different from music or television or even the greatest movies.
And part of what we’re all
having to deal with right now is just a lot of information overload and a lack
of time to process things. So we make quick judgments and assign stereotypes to
things, block certain things out, because our brain is just trying to get
through the day.
We’re bombarded with
information. Technology is moving so rapidly.
Look, I don’t worry about
the survival of the novel. We’re a storytelling species.
I think that what one of
the jobs of political leaders going forward is, is to tell a better story about
what binds us together as a people. And America is unique in having to stitch
together all these disparate elements — we’re not one race, we’re not one
tribe, folks didn’t all arrive here at the same time.
What holds us together is
an idea, and it’s a story about who we are and what’s important to us. And I
want to make sure that we continue that.
I know you like Junot
DÃaz’s and Jhumpa Lahiri’s books, and they speak to immigration or the American
Dream.
I think Lahiri’s books, I
think DÃaz’s books, do speak to a very particular contemporary immigration
experience. But also this combination of — that I think is universal — longing
for this better place, but also feeling displaced and looking backwards at the
same time. I think in that sense, their novels are directly connected to a lot
of American literature.
Some of the great books by
Jewish authors like Philip Roth or Saul Bellow, they are steeped with this
sense of being an outsider, longing to get in, not sure what you’re giving up —
what you’re willing to give up and what you’re not willing to give up. So that
particular aspect of American fiction I think is still of great relevance
today.
Source: NY Times
