Publicity, like polemics, is dispensable in literature and requires a predisposition. From the moment one enters this game, one has to have the talent not to stray and not become corrupted. To imagine a Kafka, for example, dealing with such protocols is impossible. When he thought of his writings in the hands of the general public, Kafka thought it would be more convenient to burn them, and this shows that if publicity were forced upon him, he would never have written what he wrote. It is really a matter of vocation to remain serious and sincere in front of any audience.
Sometimes It Seems That This Critical Need…
Sometimes it seems that this critical need for agglutination, which aims to present a panoramic historical view of the paths taken by literature, does more harm than good to understanding the authors. In other words: if the agglutination works for lesser authors, it seems to misrepresent the great ones, and we get the impression that it would be much better, instead of fitting them into a collective, to simply compare their lives and works, as is done with notorious success in some biographies. What is striking is that criticism sometimes completely distorts the individual in order to explain the whole.
When One Follows the Recommendation…
When one follows the recommendation of Ortega y Gasset, Viktor Frankl and Louis Lavelle, who, from different perspectives, emphasize the importance of seeking to integrate individual circumstances into the plane of existence, the act certainly acquires an extraordinary solidity and life becomes more serious. But there is an unavoidable problem here: sometimes the circumstance is so miserable and depressing that its assimilation is dangerous. That is to say: he who wants to look at and understand raw reality, if taken by this sense of responsibility towards the circumstance, can never do so as a detached and impartial observer. What he calls to himself is what he suffers, what he seeks to integrate is what hinders, pressures and depresses him. What he does is the opposite of the rational path of detachment, and this task is never undertaken without leaving deep marks on the character. The result may not be good…
Dostoevsky Prophesied It
Dostoevsky prophesied it, and today exhibitionism has become so ingrained in customs that not practicing it is scandalous. The greatest evil derived from this behavior is the common notion that what is not exposed, is not; that in order to be, it has to be shared. And then there’s the old story that the lie, driven by credit, becomes the truth: those who believe it end up, in fact, suffocating their inner dimension.