JOLLY DAYS

I.B. Singer, Some Final Words

Finishing up — some excerpts from a 1972 NYT Book Review piece about I. B. Singer:

People often bother me about the meaning of a story, its tendency, its moral. My answer is that if I have the three conditions just mentioned I worry very little about the meaning of the story, whether it will help humanity or, God forbid, set back its progress. I really don't believe that literature can influence life to any great degree. Art is a force, but without a vector. Like the waves of the sea it flows forward and backward, but the net result is static. While I believe that fiction requires a story and should appear dynamic, it actually describes human character and personality, which remains almost constant.

I'd say that art stirs the mind but never moves it far in one direction or another. Admirers of Dostoevsky and Goethe were Nazis who played with the skulls of childrren. The hope that great literature can bring peace or make the human race better is without basis. When readers ask me about the message of my works I tell them that the greatest message we've got is the Ten Commandments. They are short, precise, clear. We don't need new messages, and they will certainly not be found in novels, good or bad.

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Speaking of messages and meanings, Singer's comments reminds me of this:

I heard Karen Armstrong, a nun who became a religious scholar, say that she once asked a Jewish scholar about the essence of religion. He reminded her of the tale of Rabbi Hillel who was challenged to teach the whole of the Torah while standing on one foot. Hillel stood on one foot and said: “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.” [ Note that the link has a variant of Hillel's statement as conveyed to Armstrong. ]

Armstrong said that was an important lesson to her — Hillel's statement is the essence of religion.