Amused to death, until the Sweet Bird flew away (Book Review)
by Jason Joseph

A review of Amusing ourselves to death: Public Discourse in the age of showbiz by Neil Postman and Sweet Bird of Youth by Tennessee Williams

What I read of Amusing ourselves to Death, a truly a well written, easy to read book about how the media environments have changed because of technologies, techniques and modes of information that shape human life and affairs, really got me thinking about my own discourse in my personal life and journalistic sphere of my life too. Basically it is a book about discourse and the dissemination of communication. Why do we communicate the way we do today? Where and how did it all start?

What the author Neil Postman had to say about public discourse in his book: Amusing ourselves to Death is that the way in which we value information and information dissemination in this day and age, is very different from how they valued it before. The reason for this is because of the ways in which knowledge dissemination has changed.

Before the printing press, or newspapers, or newsletters, or even little pamphlets that were used to spread the news, gossip, what-have-you, there was great value placed on orality and a speakers’ ability to speak and quote from memory. Way back when, in the age before the computer or the interweb, people (apparently) knew things. Now we just Google it, so we have so much less knowledge archived in our brains, and we instead, infers Postman, fill our minds with nonsense and frivolities for amusement sake.

Postman also writes on how instead of being more informed because of the reservoirs of information we have available to us, we are instead over-inundated with information and instead know much less…

The main crux that Postman would seem to be trying to get across is that form excludes content. What he means by this is that particular mediums can only sustain particular levels of ideas. Postman also examines the difference between written speech and television as forms of communication. For example, Postman argues, written speech relied heavily on content to sell what it tried to communicate, where as television relies on visual images to sell lifestyles, etc. He highlights this point by making reference to politics and politicians of then and now. Nowadays, a candidates appearance and how favourably they come across on the television screen, is vitally important, more so perhaps important than their ideas and solutions; hence the upsurge of use of image consultants by politicians when campaigning.

There is more to what Postman had to say about discourse, but alas I cannot tell you it. You see, some dear person put the book on hold and I had to return it and I was unable finish the whole book… but I at least got halfway. This book is definitely worth the read though, especially if your interested in how language, communication and discourse has grown, or if your are just a little bit hungry for information about how society, and knowledge dissemination, has changed. What’s more is that it is laid out in an easy-to-read and captivating style of writing.

The rest of the book and what it has to say was stolen away from me; it fly away like the sweet bird of some people’s youth. This brings me to another book – play rather – that is definitely worth the read. A play by the truly talented Tennessee Williams: Sweet Bird of Youth.

Sweet Bird of Youth is one of three Tennessee Williams plays I have read that encompass what I would like to coin hyper-cognitive-realism. I verge away from straight realism when discussing Williams’s style of writing because it is as if sometimes as the reader one is transported into the minds, feelings, and emotions of the characters inexplicitly. Stage descriptions and directions and naturally the visuals you would see on stage, help with this transportation.

But more that that, it is in part a play about people lives. And the way Williams writes it can provide us as journalist another tool in how to tell peoples stories. The more we show the less we need to tell and the more an audience can engage with what you present to them. We can learn a lot from the way in which Williams writes and tells stories.

You see, Williams writes in a way that is really captivating and easily accessible. Furthermore, one often feels a sense of empathy for the characters; because one can inexplicably relate to what the characters are feeling and going through. And it seems as though you are able to understand them more than usual. It is as if Williams opens a window into a life and tells a story that somehow resonates true – you just seem to know what it’s like...and quite like what one expects from a really good piece of journalistic writing about someone’s story, this is exactly what a good book, a good story, ought to do, and what this story does do: tell you a story to know what it’s like; opening of a window onto a life.

What Sweet Bird of Youth focuses on mainly is the idea of missed opportunities, regrets and manipulation (to try get to what you most desire). Revolving around the story of a chancer and drifter, Chance Wayne, who has come back to his hometown of St. Cloud, Florida with a legendary movie-star to prove to everyone that he has made it! … But has he really?

Williams reports on Chance and his goings on, and also about all the people around Chance that affect him and his desires. What Williams reveals to us by showing us is that the real reason for Chance’s return is to win back the affection of his sweetheart from his youth (whose father – a mobsterish politician – ran him out of town years before).

Sweet Bird of Youth and Amusing ourselves to Death, are two books from different genres that are both worth the read that will leave you feeling a little introspective of yourself and your habits of discourse, which will most definitely help you sharpen you journalistic skills. And the best part is you wouldn’t even have expected it. Both these texts are really well written, so much so that you really wouldn’t want to put the either down, and if you have to, will leave you thinking about them, milling the ideas they sparked in your head, throughout your day.