It was a big moment in Roger Shattuck’s life when he realized that while he was a liberal in politics-that is, a decent egalitarian improver of on the social scene-he was a conservationist in culture, skeptical about fashion and dubious about improvement in the artistic and spiritual measure of man.
From that bold moment of illumination, Roger Shattuck has sounded less and less like everybody’s idea of the university professor of Great Books literature, though he was all of that.
He’s sounded more and more like the crankiest wise man in your village book club, with passionate opinions on why you must press on with Proust and forget Foucault; why “The Story of My Life” by Helen Keller is required reading and Nietsche’s not good for you; and why “Absalom, Absalom” by William Faulkner is the closest American approach to the majesty of Shakespeare.
(Hosted by Christopher Lydon)
Guests:
Roger Shattuck, author of Candor and Perversion, a catalogue of books.