The impression one gets after reading several nautical novels is that man, in order to embark on a sailing ship, had to suffer from at least one serious mental disorder. It is very amusing to see how absurd the navigations of the past seem to us today, when ships were like toys exposed to the fury of the sea and travelers, harassed by the terrors of the storms, were on their knees before fate. This voluntary exposure to the unknown seems irrational to us, although it expresses a courage that we lack today. But the clash of the man with the irrational, the powerful and uncontrollable still exists; although we no longer learn lessons as before, nor do we leave with the same dignity.
Tag: literature
Nocturnal Minds
Cioran, Antero, Kafka… all endowed with a nocturnal mind, that is, a mind that, in opposition to daytime bodily habits, chooses the night to put itself in intense activity. Most nights, therefore, a real torture, an incessant conflict that only ends when the light already invades the bedroom window. The tired body asking for rest, and the mind having in the stillness of dawn the perfect time to work. Ideas bursting like firecrackers, reasoning that builds upon each other, scenes, judgments, afflictions, plans, expectations, all bursting forth, sucking attention when the desire is to annul them all. Then, already accustomed to it, the spirit begins to call good nights those in which sleep is like a semi-sleep—the maximum it can reach—a state in which mental chatter blends into a middle ground between dream and reasoning, already automated by an unconscious enchainment and only interrupted by spaced awakenings, in which a conscious glimmer questions the degree of its own lucidity. And from this apparently terrible routine, many, many fruits, solutions that would never be given in a fully awake state, ideas that, if not originating from the deepest recess of the mind, seem to be placed by the hands of a superior spirit. Very well, very well: it is possible to learn to enjoy nights like this—it is just not possible, for a mind like this, to be in a good mood in the mornings.
Children Deluded by the Futile
Not to say non-existent, it is at least rare to find in this so-called lyric-love poetry verses in which a real experience is sung, something truly high and beautiful as seen in Dante. On the other hand, no matter the language or the time, one always finds the very same elements that bore the reader who is thirsty for some elevation. Of course, of course: there are exceptions; but the compassion that most of these poets arouse has nothing to do with the verses they have written. Sadly, they seem like children deluded by the futile, who lived by feeding on this never realized desire that maturity would disperse. Maturity, that is, wisdom or experience. Both seem to have been lacking, otherwise they would have found something more noble to direct their attention to.
There Are Many Advantages to Publishing Small Volumes…
There are many advantages to publishing small volumes on a regular basis rather than letting the work grow indefinitely. The first is the more tolerable distribution of the revision work. Another, and perhaps the main one, is that one does not know when death will come, and it is good to avoid the risk of having passages published that would never pass the most faulty and inattentive revision, as one sees a lot in Kafka’s Diaries. What irony! Kafka, who loved to label as bad and burn what he wrote, had published in its entirety, with obvious errors and many idle lines, a work that he would probably have thrown on the bonfire. No doubt, it is something that could have been avoided.