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.
Tag: literature
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.
The Experience of the Wars of the Last Century…
The experience of the wars of the last century has left such a mark on literature that it sometimes bores us to see it recounted again, since we are so far removed from it and it has long since been assimilated. The truth is, however, that it has not been assimilated at all, or at least the generations living today are not drawing on its lessons. It was to be hoped that, with so many accounts, so many examples of intellectuals thrown into prison and who took this circumstance as fuel for their own vocation, something would change in the human understanding of existence, and that at the very least a generation would emerge vaccinated against the mistakes of the recent past. But no, no… it is a myth that one generation starts from the point reached by the previous one. Today, we have to read and reread past stories as experiences that will probably return.
Despite the Great Risk of Degeneration…
Despite the great risk of degeneration inherent in human relationships, it must be a great satisfaction to take part in an environment of cultural exchange, such as those that have taken place and those that exist in different countries, where a small group of intellectuals with a genuine common interest talk, teach, learn, help each other and develop. What seems most beneficial, and it does not always happen, is contact between different generations, which enables the personal transmission of a legacy, which should be equally satisfying for those who pass it on and those who receive it. In fact, this is what universities could do if they did not get involved in so many formalities. The value of physical presence—absent in books—cannot be underestimated, and so culture owes a lot to these small informal associations.