That is not something you could ever level at Studs Terkel. But like many of us nowadays he fails Lenny Bruce’s injunction to see ‘what is, not what should be’. He’s admirable in many ways and he is a product of our times. I’m not especially knocking him for this. The lives of other people are there as the grist to his mill and the voice that is most evident is his own. In many ways de Botton is the main protagonist in his own book. Interesting, but he won’t be winning the Pulitzer like Studs Terkel. He stands in marked contrast to many people who’ve attempted to describe work such as Alain de Botton, whose book The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work was backed by a PR campaign and a number of features and interviews in newspapers and magazines. The voices of others come across very strongly in his writing, especially in his book Working, a portfolio edition of which sits on my desk for dipping into. What is especially striking is that he saw himself as a chronicler of other people’s lives rather than a commentator on them. He did lots of other stuff but that was his work. His characteristic approach was marked by interviews with ordinary Americans about their jobs and how they felt about them. I like his name, his style, his association with jazz but also the way he wrote. Studs Terkel is a particular hero of mine.
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