The most damaging thing about fame seems to be that it clouds the judgment so sneakily, so imperceptibly that, viewed from a distance, the famous seem to have lost track of himself. In the face of this, vanity is a detail. Paul Johnson’s book comes to mind once again—a book that seems to have been written so as never to stray from memory. We think of those, and others, to whom fame has given its treacherous embrace, and we see how destructive it has been to their conscience, how ugly it seems to us the manifestation of the very high concept they had of themselves in front of others. Sometimes the most common criticism of the Stoics is nothing more than temperamental implication: a Marcus Aurelius, when compared to a Rousseau, is much more than a great sage.
Category: Notes
That Feeling of Love for Language…
That feeling of love for language, magnificently portrayed by Bilac in one of his immortal sonnets, is something that seems indispensable in any authentic culture, and any culture that intends to survive. Perhaps this is precisely the distinctive unifying element lacking in some of Europe’s essentially cosmopolitan countries, which sometimes seem to sociologists, if not amorphous, more like an extension of any neighboring country. On an individual level, that feeling seems even more important, and if language could speak, it would be very good if it determined, in order to avoid a countless number of nonsense: “If you don’t love me, please leave me alone”.
If a Theme Becomes Recurrent…
If a theme becomes recurrent, as if reappearing in the mind asking for a new approach, it is a sign that it deserves more attention. The common thing would be to abandon it, putting it down to a supposed lack of creativity, when one only rarely uses something new to create. The fact is that feedback is often evidence of personal importance, evidence that should be mandatory in everything the artist sets out to do. It is therefore important to consider it carefully, because a great work is usually the offspring of a great obsession.
Literature Would Be Dead if Its Artists…
Literature would be dead if its artists were required to be as rigorous as writers in other fields. Coherence, or rather the thought of hypothetical coherence, is paralyzing, it is something that takes away possibilities. The artist must be free to move forward despite possible consequences, focusing only on bringing life to the creation. It does not matter about his previous works, or what he might think of what he is now writing: the work has to be independent, and condense in itself the reasons for its conception.