It is of no surprise that literature is a social mirror
(and the same holds true the other way around. even plato in his ideal republic knew that the city would mirror men's characters and dispositions)
.
I had this idea for some time now
(it found itself in the midst of the chaos of all ideas. literature that refers to suffering or that is the reflection of periods of great suffering such as wars hungry invasion political despotism and artistic silence has been extremely prolific and rich)
but my diction was so poor that I found no means to phrase it. It was when I was reading Shirley Hazzard's “The Great Fire” that I finally made sense of something that had been dormant since I first read
(for this is the example that i most clearly remember)
“All Quiet On The Western Front”
(erich maria remarque)
. Shirley Hazzard's has a plot which is quite simple
(one could almost mock it for its simplicity of boy meets girl they are apart and then they end together)
, but that is the less important part of the book. The backdrop, the post-second-world-war China and Japan, the famished and destroyed London, set the scenario of what she really wants to convey
(the plot should serve the only purpose of a deeper philosophical idea concept or questioning social issues much as cultural ones. plot for the sake of plot as much as art for the sake of art transforms literature into mere entertainment a vulgar ascription of this artistic medium)
: the difficulty the one finds in living with oneself after having committed and testified the most brutal actions of/in war.
When I set myself on writing I feel that what surrounds me is a ridiculous backdrop. I won't say it is absent of suffering
(but the usage of specific words such as internet mobile phones so departed from literature is almost ridiculous)
, but having born and living in an Europe which hasn't seen war or sheer suffering for fifty years, I cannot help but turn inside, to the human nature rather than the influence that the zeitgeist has.
As I read one of Graham Greene's biographies
(an enchanting memoir by shirley hazzard. yes it is her one more. for different reasons though)
, I learn that in his youth he travelled
(amongst his peers into different directions of the globe and neglecting europe by the same token)
to the end of the world and back again. And I wonder if I shouldn't be engaged in some form of deeper suffering
(one that afflicts the human race in general something that it his so deep that will bruise me in the inside so much that will transpire to the outside)
rather than my own personal one whilst I try to make it universal through half digested platonic or nietzschean ideas and concepts.
(and the same holds true the other way around. even plato in his ideal republic knew that the city would mirror men's characters and dispositions)
.
I had this idea for some time now
(it found itself in the midst of the chaos of all ideas. literature that refers to suffering or that is the reflection of periods of great suffering such as wars hungry invasion political despotism and artistic silence has been extremely prolific and rich)
but my diction was so poor that I found no means to phrase it. It was when I was reading Shirley Hazzard's “The Great Fire” that I finally made sense of something that had been dormant since I first read
(for this is the example that i most clearly remember)
“All Quiet On The Western Front”
(erich maria remarque)
. Shirley Hazzard's has a plot which is quite simple
(one could almost mock it for its simplicity of boy meets girl they are apart and then they end together)
, but that is the less important part of the book. The backdrop, the post-second-world-war China and Japan, the famished and destroyed London, set the scenario of what she really wants to convey
(the plot should serve the only purpose of a deeper philosophical idea concept or questioning social issues much as cultural ones. plot for the sake of plot as much as art for the sake of art transforms literature into mere entertainment a vulgar ascription of this artistic medium)
: the difficulty the one finds in living with oneself after having committed and testified the most brutal actions of/in war.
When I set myself on writing I feel that what surrounds me is a ridiculous backdrop. I won't say it is absent of suffering
(but the usage of specific words such as internet mobile phones so departed from literature is almost ridiculous)
, but having born and living in an Europe which hasn't seen war or sheer suffering for fifty years, I cannot help but turn inside, to the human nature rather than the influence that the zeitgeist has.
As I read one of Graham Greene's biographies
(an enchanting memoir by shirley hazzard. yes it is her one more. for different reasons though)
, I learn that in his youth he travelled
(amongst his peers into different directions of the globe and neglecting europe by the same token)
to the end of the world and back again. And I wonder if I shouldn't be engaged in some form of deeper suffering
(one that afflicts the human race in general something that it his so deep that will bruise me in the inside so much that will transpire to the outside)
rather than my own personal one whilst I try to make it universal through half digested platonic or nietzschean ideas and concepts.
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