I love this guy. Ever since I discovered him when I was 14, he has provided me with hours of side-splitting laughter. His novels center around either one of two themes: the deconstruction of the national myths or an apocalyptic variation on the Schreber case.
However, it's his essays that I enjoy most. I remember in one of them from the early '70s, he discussed a psychological study that had something to do with the relationship between rich kids and their parents. As a kid who had grown up around some very privileged people, he noted that the focus of the study was absolutely wrong and observed quite wryly. "Psychotherapists seem to know all of the questions, but none of the answers."
In the same essay, he argued that Americans should be encouraged to think more rather than to feel or emote. This is a point he's made in countless other places and he raises it again in this interview:
“Does anyone care what Americans think? They’re the worst-educated people in the First World. They don’t have any thoughts, they have emotional responses, which good advertisers know how to provoke.”
He should have added all we have in America are advertisers and consumers of advertised products. Madison Avenue peddles soap and cars and gadgets, with the same gusto and elan it uses to market political leaders and wars.
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