Saturday, 29 March 2008
Wednesday, 26 March 2008
69
I have been reading The Death of the Heart by Elizabeth Bowen. It has reminded me what a treat it is to read a really great book; of how literature can expand and excite the mind, how it can seem a crucial stimulant, a vital education.
The best books for me are not those that tell of enviably exciting lives; they are those which make a poetry of quotidian experience by articulating its most sensitive, deepest truths. The stars of this kind of writing for me are Virginia Woolf, Katherine Mansfield, Elizabeth Bowen and, in a somewhat different vein, Anthon Chekhov. Henry James, Marcel Proust and James Joyce do something similar (and there must be others whom I haven't read).
Wherein, exactly, lies the richness of such writing? Is it a richness in life which we all savour, unconsciously until such writing brings it to our attention? Does the writing confer a grace upon human life which renders it richer than our actual experience of it? What is it about me that draws me to such literature, which is not liked by all, which has its critical detractors?
I feel we need this grace (but don't I really mean I need it?). Oh, Elizabeth, illuminate our lives, as we trudge wearily through the supermarket. Render them deep and subtle and poetic.
Write my biography please, Elizabeth. Place my life in an appealing context, render me a rich character in a rich world. Merge the constant lonesome negotiation of experience with a context that goes beyond my self, connects me to the total history of the human race as a benign, fascinating symphony.
The best books for me are not those that tell of enviably exciting lives; they are those which make a poetry of quotidian experience by articulating its most sensitive, deepest truths. The stars of this kind of writing for me are Virginia Woolf, Katherine Mansfield, Elizabeth Bowen and, in a somewhat different vein, Anthon Chekhov. Henry James, Marcel Proust and James Joyce do something similar (and there must be others whom I haven't read).
Wherein, exactly, lies the richness of such writing? Is it a richness in life which we all savour, unconsciously until such writing brings it to our attention? Does the writing confer a grace upon human life which renders it richer than our actual experience of it? What is it about me that draws me to such literature, which is not liked by all, which has its critical detractors?
I feel we need this grace (but don't I really mean I need it?). Oh, Elizabeth, illuminate our lives, as we trudge wearily through the supermarket. Render them deep and subtle and poetic.
Write my biography please, Elizabeth. Place my life in an appealing context, render me a rich character in a rich world. Merge the constant lonesome negotiation of experience with a context that goes beyond my self, connects me to the total history of the human race as a benign, fascinating symphony.
Saturday, 22 March 2008
Friday, 14 March 2008
Tuesday, 4 March 2008
66
I celebrate the kind people of the world.
I don't celebrate the cool people of the world. Cool people are often wankers. Cool is a cowardly hiding of one's true, vulnerable self behind unoriginal, two-dimensional posture. Like hiding eyes behind sunglasses.
While we're at it, fashion is even worse. Fashion is a horrible conformity, a debasement of one's individuality. It's terrible that it has such an impact on the arts. A good work should communicate from the individual artist to each individual in the audience, in a unique individual way that has inherent validity - bollocks to fashions.
Indeed I refuse to keep up with the times. 'The times', as commonly understood, can go stick themselves up their arse. In truth, though, really we all constitute the times. An unfashionable 90-year-old hermit is just as much 'the times' as the latest pop idols. You can do your own bit for the times by being your own self with pride and integrity, not kowtowing to what you're told is contemporary.
But kind people lubricate existence. Modest, unpretentious, unselfish helping of our fellow human beings, that's the thing. If you're a kind person, I salute you. If you're not, up yours.
I don't celebrate the cool people of the world. Cool people are often wankers. Cool is a cowardly hiding of one's true, vulnerable self behind unoriginal, two-dimensional posture. Like hiding eyes behind sunglasses.
While we're at it, fashion is even worse. Fashion is a horrible conformity, a debasement of one's individuality. It's terrible that it has such an impact on the arts. A good work should communicate from the individual artist to each individual in the audience, in a unique individual way that has inherent validity - bollocks to fashions.
Indeed I refuse to keep up with the times. 'The times', as commonly understood, can go stick themselves up their arse. In truth, though, really we all constitute the times. An unfashionable 90-year-old hermit is just as much 'the times' as the latest pop idols. You can do your own bit for the times by being your own self with pride and integrity, not kowtowing to what you're told is contemporary.
But kind people lubricate existence. Modest, unpretentious, unselfish helping of our fellow human beings, that's the thing. If you're a kind person, I salute you. If you're not, up yours.
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