Joshua Prager: Wisdom from great writers on every year of life
Joshua Prager: La sagesse des écrivains pour toutes les années d'une vie
Joshua Prager’s journalism unravels historical secrets -- and his own. Full bio
Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.
va être une bonne année,
is going to be a very good year,
et de réussite.
m'attend, moi particulièrement,
particular in store for me,
que ce serait une bonne année
par Norman Mailer en 1968.
quarante-quatre...,
' Les Armées de la nuit ',
et du sentiment d'être un homme,
and sentiment to be a man,
n'écrivait pas à propos de moi.
wasn't writing about me.
Il écrivait pour nous tous.
the subject of his book,
à la même vitesse,
dans le même ordre :
along the same great sequence:
and confinements of childhood;
de l'enfance ;
and frustrations of adolescence;
de l'adolescence ;
and millstones of adulthood;
de l'âge adulte ;
and resignations of old age.
du troisième âge.
"It will happen to me as to them."
comme pour eux. »
où ils deviennent des histoires
where they become narratives
ce sont les pages. »
if it passes into anything."
a thought leapt to mind:
une idée, il y a six ans :
il devait donc y avoir, quelque part,
there were, somewhere,
à tous les âges de la vie.
je pourrais en faire une histoire,
assemble them into a narrative.
les plus chanceux d'entre nous.
wrote William Trevor.
écrivait William Trevor.
sur le temps et les âges.
cumulé à ma propre blessure,
and later an injury to me
présumer de mon veillissement.
could not be assumed.
only postponed the inevitable,
que repousser l'inévitable :
ce que la situation avait empêché.
what circumstance did not.
montrant toujours plus de vulnérabilité,
year by vulnerable year
what was fleeting,
une réalité mouvante,
de risquer un œil dans le futur,
a glimpse into the future,
I was quickly obsessed,
année après année, devint une obsession.
for ages and ages.
through our first hundred years.
de nos premiers cent ans.
of sudden revelations,"
de révélations soudaines. »
de discret ralentissement. »
that such insights were relative.
que ces images étaient relatives.
and so age more slowly.
et vieillissons donc plus lentement.
the phrase "the yellow leaf"
le terme « la feuille jaune »
l'a utilisé pour se décrire à 36 ans.
used it to describe himself at 36.
virer brutalement et soudainement
can swing wildly and unpredictably
différemment par des gens différents.
the same age differently.
que la liste s'enrichissait,
son reflet dans un miroir,
as the reflection in the mirror,
and less sure of who one is;"
en moins sûr de qui l'on est » ;
of preparation into active life;"
« friche préparatoire à la vie active » ;
the doors to rooms
« à fermer doucement les portes
les magnifiques œuvres,
visualizations you see here,
écrivit Nabokov –
and an apotheosis," wrote Nabokov --
comme l'art et la couleur,
de ce que nous avions vécu.
what we've experienced.
the list with my grandfather,
cette liste à mon grand-père,
et allait bientôt mourir,
que Proust avait raison
we are sure we will not die,
on est sûr de ne jamais mourir,
named Edwin Shneidman was right
du nom d'Edwin Shneidman
on est sûr du contraire.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Joshua Prager - JournalistJoshua Prager’s journalism unravels historical secrets -- and his own.
Why you should listen
Joshua Prager writes for publications including Vanity Fair, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, where he was a senior writer for eight years. George Will has described his work as "exemplary journalistic sleuthing."
His new book, 100 Years, is a list of literary quotations on every age from birth to one hundred. Designed by Milton Glaser, the legendary graphic designer who created the I ♥ NY logo, the book moves year by year through the words of our most beloved authors, revealing the great sequence of life.
His first book, The Echoing Green, was a Washington Post Best Book of the Year. The New York Times Book Review called it “a revelation and a page turner, a group character study unequaled in baseball writing since Roger Kahn’s Boys of Summer some three decades ago.”
His second book, Half-Life, describes his recovery from a bus crash that broke his neck. Dr. Jerome Groopman, staff writer at the New Yorker magazine, called it “an extraordinary memoir, told with nuance and brimming with wisdom.
Joshua was a Nieman fellow at Harvard in 2011 and a Fulbright Distinguished Chair at Hebrew University in 2012. He was born in Eagle Butte, South Dakota, grew up in New Jersey, and lives in New York. He is writing a book about Roe v. Wade.
Joshua Prager | Speaker | TED.com