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December 11, 2007

Doris Lessing sets off a blog flap; Make under $60k and Harvard is free

Doris Lessing's acceptance speech of the Nobel Prize for Literature (transcript at A hunger for books at The Guardian) has set off a Web flap, largely because of this:

...we never thought to ask, "How will our lives, our way of thinking, be changed by the internet, which has seduced a whole generation with its inanities so that even quite reasonable people will confess that, once they are hooked, it is hard to cut free, and they may find a whole day has passed in blogging et cetera?"

Shelley Powers defends (Do something useful: Don't read this).

I'm not in this one, in part because I am guilty of daily sifting for gold among the inanities of Digg and Reddit -- largely young men's fancies -- then switching off to mystery novels rather than serious literature.

But mostly because what struck me about her speech -- read by her editor, since the woman whose Golden Notebook challenged me at 15 is frail now at 88 -- is the secret she had him speak aloud:

We are in London, one of the big cities. There is a new writer. We cynically enquire: "Is she good-looking?" If this is a man: "Charismatic? Handsome?" We joke, but it is not a joke.

This new find is acclaimed, possibly given a lot of money. The buzzing of hype begins in their poor ears. They are feted, lauded, whisked about the world. Us old ones, who have seen it all, are sorry for this neophyte, who has no idea of what is really happening. He, she, is flattered, pleased. But ask in a year's time what he or she is thinking: "This is the worst thing that could have happened to me."

Some much-publicised new writers haven't written again, or haven't written what they wanted to, meant to. And we, the old ones, want to whisper into those innocent ears: "Have you still got your space? Your soul, your own and necessary place where your own voices may speak to you, you alone, where you may dream. Oh, hold on to it, don't let it go."

I confess that my my "voices" speak loudly when I divert the chattering monkey brain with this computer game, The Treasures of Montezuma, which I have been playing for weeks, and recommend as a Christmas gift for writers and other patient people.

I do not think Doris knows this secret space.

Make under 60K a year? Harvard is free: Harvard Targets Middle Class With Student Cost Cuts

(Bloomberg) -- Harvard University will cut the costs of attending the Ivy League school by as much as 50 percent for families that earn $120,000 to $180,000 a year, making access easier for ``middle-income'' students.

These families will pay 10 percent of their yearly earnings to send a child to Harvard, the Cambridge, Massachusetts, university said today. The payments decline on a sliding scale, with those making less than $60,000 attending for free. The school also eliminated student loans, saying they will be replaced by grants as needed...

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 11:49 AM | Permalink