In his newish book Gossip, essayist Joseph Epstein brings his elegant prose style, his wit and his erudition to bear on a subject with which many of us are all too familiar.
A couple of years ago, I tried to give up gossiping for Lent. It was even more difficult than forgoing chocolate, no easy feat itself. Reading Epstein's book I realize why I had trouble. Gossip has been with us from the beginning. It is part of the human condition. At times it even serves a moral purpose.
But in "these times" (oh, how my children hate to hear me talk like this!) — that is, in a celebrity culture where rumors travel at the speed of, well, whatever speed the Internet operates, which is pretty fast — gossip has morphed into something much more insidious and tricky.
Epstein tells some juicy tales in this book, but he also analyzes how society has become more gossip-riven and gossip-tolerant. How it has created a "change of social tone, an accumulation of many bridges being lowered ... [ which has ] helped to bring down the decorum that was a strong feature of — let us call it — square society. Not too many people around today to defend square society, with all its rules and inhibitions."
Thank God there are a few, Joseph Epstein, of course, being among them.
Full disclosure: I took a class from Epstein in college. It was under his tutelage that I wrote my first real essay.