Kafka, in his Diaries, cheekily names his room as a “headquarters of noise”. He complains about the slamming of doors, the trotting of hurried footsteps, the dragging of robes, the scraping of ashes, the shouting… Oh, my dear Mr. Kafka, it was God who freed you from the sertanejo music, from the mad cursing of referees, central defenders and side-backs! You never knew what it was like to interrupt a composition with punches on the wall, with the heavy heels of an elephant just above your ceiling! To read with the unbearable sound of the drums of a gospel band, memorizing the chants of the cult instead of understanding the lines read! Be thankful, my dear! You lived when there was not yet this mobile phone crap, when churches did not have microphones, amplifiers, and did not set up on every corner, especially yours, no matter how many times you changed your address!…
Tag: literature
Vigny and I
Much of what Vigny says about himself I could attribute to me without changing a comma. I have, like Vigny, this “besoin éternel
d’organization”, without which I cannot move; I am, like him, “seul”, “exempt de tout fanatisme”; life has also taken care to endow me with this “sévérité froide et un peu sombre” which is not innate; as for the creative method, identically I conceive, plan, mold, and let cool down before the final execution; I could also say with all my soul that “l’indépendance fut toujours mon désir”; I also share Vigny’s repugnance to futility, fruit of someone who, being “toujours en conversation avec moi-même”, finds in the hindrance of interruptions always a reason for frustrations… and the list could go on. Vigny, however, makes the point: “Aimer, inventer, admirer, voilà ma vie.” Ah, Monsieur! Regrettably, these words of yours I can no longer subscribe to…. But it is okay: God gave me the sense of humor.
Vigny and Kafka
Vigny lines:
Dans cette prison nommée la vie, d’où nous partons les uns après les autres pour aller à la mort, il ne faut compter sur aucune promenade, ni aucune fleur. Dès lors, le moindre bouquet, la plus petite feuille, réjouit la vue et le coeur, on en sait gré à la puissance qui a permis qu’elle se rencontrât sous vos pas.
Il est vrai que vous ne savez pas pourquoi vous êtes prisonnier et de quoi puni ; mais vous savez à n’en pas douter quelle sera votre peine : souffrance en prison, mort après.
Ne pensez pas au juge, ni au procès que vous ignorerez toujours, mais seulement à remercier le geôlier inconnu qui vous permet souvent des joies dignes du ciel.
It is curious how Vigny and Kafka, starting from similar premises, come to completely different conclusions. The analogy between life and prison, the absurdity of unjustified punishment, the certainty of condemnation… all of these factors, in both, are like obsessions from which they cannot divert themselves. The recognition of their own conditions seems to them an imposition of conscience. In Kafka’s hands, the plot culminates in despair; in Vigny’s, therein lies a recommendation that would sound strange to many of his critics: “remercier le geôlier inconnu qui vous permet souvent des joies dignes du ciel.” “Joies dignes du ciel”: this, from the pen of the “pessimist” Alfred de Vigny! It is true, it is true: not all critics have ignored this face of him…. But it is possible to go further and say that, perhaps, Kafka himself would be the target of hasty judgments. Would such a look be impossible in Kafka? I mean: the last act of Kafka’s life, his testament, leaves us reticence. But it would not be a bad hypothesis to conjecture Kafka’s astonishing resolution as simple regret of his conclusions or, at least, regret that his work does not leave the outline of a different conclusion…
The Poet Easily Becomes a Good Prose Writer
It has been noticed that the poet easily becomes a good prose writer, while the opposite hardly ever happens. Compared to prose, poetry is so much more difficult that the first seems almost funny to the poet. To compose verses, one must first be in a propitious state of mind, that is, in a state of mind that allows one to concentrate entirely on the composition. Dispersed, the mind does not make poetry. Then, the slowness in composing, the technical difficulties, the large number of elements that must be harmonized in the creation, all this, over time, accustoms the mind to a patience and discipline that, for prose lines, is far beyond what is necessary. One does prose by force; fluid and natural prose. The simple movement of the fingers is enough to stimulate mental creation which, as if by automatism, registers itself as it is being created. How different it is to write poetry! The prose writer who is used to this almost therapeutic ease, if he risks composing verses, will find something very, very different…