Tag: literature

One cannot help but be struck by the nobility, by the beauty of an education led by a man of integrity and talent, since wonderful results can be derived from it. This is, however, of such rarity that those who come across a real example can only lose themselves in idealizations about how everything would be better if everyone had opportunities identical to those of a select few enlightened ones. And then confront it with the real world… but let the regrets remain for another day: those who honor this noble vocation deserve the highest recognition.

And we see, with a mixture of pleasure and surprise, Nabokov describing in detail five centuries of his genealogy. Five centuries! And, on the other side, those who do not even know the name of any of their great-grandparents. It is nice to think that there is, in both cases, a reason for this; and if in one of them we have a great writer extracting meaning from his family, filling himself with a healthy and stimulating sense of belonging, in the other we have the practical justification for a particular philosophy…

There is something really funny about Bocage’s burlesque verses that, if read in small amounts, provoke sincere laughter. However, the fun boils down to this. They are verses that cannot be read in piles without causing boredom. This is the way obscenity is: it only causes effect as long as it astonishes; once the astonishment disappears, it can only generate boredom and aversion.