Let’s Talk

W hen you sit down at the Schutte table for a meal, you never know what you’ll be discussing. The weather, daily schedule, and quality of food are all par for the course, but talk rarely remains focused on such generalities. During one recent memorable meal, our family was dramatically divided on the subject of sneezing. Specifically: If you sneezed hard enough, would it propel you into a backflip? Contrast that with another discussion just a bit later, in which the topic of celibacy vs. marriage was hotly debated.

Rousing conversation certainly isn’t lacking in our home, be it amusing or serious, but it seems that much of the world struggles in this area. What does it mean to have a good conversation? What, for that matter, is a bad conversation? Paula Marantz Cohen attempts to answer these and other questions in her recent book Talking Cure, which combines anecdotes, philosophical discussions, Shakespeare, Henry James, and much more to get at the root of this crucial element of society.

Cohen piques readers’ interest by comparing conversation to “certain kinds of sports, where the game proceeds within certain parameters but is unpredictable and reliant on one’s ability to coordinate with another person or persons.” This surprising description is both amusing and accurate, as we reflect on our own conversational history. Conversation is a balanced back-and-forth (hopefully) as we strive to grow in relationship with other people, but it’s not an easy skill to attain. Taking the sports analogy further, Cohen says:

Words in conversation can be arranged in infinite ways, but they wait on the response of a partner or partners, making this an improvisational experience partially defined by others and requiring extreme attentiveness to what they say. Also like sport, conversation requires some degree of practice to do well.

The rise of social media, sadly, has led to much of our conversation being performative, a fact that Cohen laments. She marvels that even though we have 24-hour news stations, they seem fixated only on getting the next “soundbite,” which doesn’t allow for meaningful discussion. In our era of “content creation,” this is true of all fields, not just news and politics, and it leaves little time for exploring nuances and deeper meanings.

The book’s title, Talking Cure, might lead readers to believe Cohen has some practical solutions to our cultural divisions. To some extent, she does, especially when she tells us, “In good conversation, there is always something left out, unplumbed, and unresolved, which is why we seek more of it.” She bookends her work with the idea that to engage in good conversation, we must be open to the words of others and not worry that we need to convert them with our own. Concrete tips such as truly listening and not monopolizing the conversation are sprinkled throughout, but the book ultimately feels incohesive: Most chapters read like mini essays that don’t quite add up to a whole. A chapter on the conversational prowess of the French (for which she makes a convincing case) is set next to a chapter bullet-pointing “schools of talk” (the various manners in which we employ conversation).

On top of this, Cohen at times makes points that seem contradictory. Throughout the book, she says things such as, “I am convinced that the kind of conversation we engaged in over good food . . . did more to raise the consciousness of the bigot and broaden the outlook of the chemistry major than any amount of diversity training would have done.” Yet she also makes a few comments bemoaning the fact that we elevate the conversation of “white men.” One wonders if white men are to be welcomed or not to the conversational table as equal participants.

Cohen begins a chapter on female conversation with a gentle jab at English gentlemen’s clubs, which she contrasts with French mixed-sex salons referenced in an earlier chapter. She seems to portray these coed gatherings as good but finds the gentlemen’s clubs distasteful. I’m a firm believer that men and women can have fruitful, robust conversation with each other, but why is it bad that there are clubs that are exclusively for men? Men and women should be allowed to have private conversations with those of their own sex, and having spaces in which to do that is not a sin (and can be very healthy).

Her chapter “Food, Drink, and Conversation,” however, is wonderfully on point. As someone who believes the kitchen is the heart of the home, I couldn’t agree more with her stance that good food in a welcoming environment stimulates community and conversation. She uses the example of a college dining hall, something I experienced firsthand at Hillsdale College. Larry Arnn, Hillsdale’s president, insisted that we have only one dining hall specifically because of this idea that gathering together over a meal is a vital part of the learning process.

Cohen uses evocative quotes from Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own to explain her point, as well as drawing on her own university experience:

The food was copious, varied, and well-prepared . . . and I firmly believe that, following Woolf, it helped to inspire the quality of talk we engaged in: rational intercourse of a high order. Ideas were traded with abandon, nothing was off-limits, devil’s advocate positions assumed with relish. . . . An unfair or mean-spirited remark would be called out, but its perpetrator was not banished or stigmatized for all eternity.

This is a marvelous atmosphere, one I loved experiencing and hope to cultivate. Cohen has put into words something that our society often skips over, and she eloquently expounds on its crucial importance in creating and maintaining culture.

While it falters at times, Talking Cure will give readers an endless supply of material upon which to muse. It is a call to civility and to wonder, and importantly, it is a call to turn our attention outside of ourselves and learn about the lives and experiences of the fascinating people who surround us.