Although it is not possible to say that there is such a thing as an ideal narrative method, it is admirable to see the author who interweaves sounds and images, actions and thoughts, as if stimulating our whole imaginative apparatus. Such a balance gives a stimulating dynamic to the lines we read, and it seems that a great part of the effects of the work derives from these variations that make the singularities more salient. A static, descriptive scene is followed by a sudden action, which leads to reflections, and so on; that is to say: each passage ends up emphasized in contrast with the previous and the following one; and, perhaps, this is something positive for the whole.
Tag: literature
The Use of Ink and Paper
It is with great enthusiasm that I read notes from writers justifying, in this century, the use of ink and paper. It is the arguments concerning productivity that most impress me: for many, the cerebral rhythm seems to fit better with manual writing. I am amazed to note that, for centuries, this is exactly how literature has been made, by this method that is as averse to my way of writing. There is no doubt that there is a certain charm, a certain enchantment in seeing the ink on the paper, in seeing in the handwriting another trace of the author’s uniqueness, in seeing the natural cadence of handwriting, whereby slowly the letters take shape, the idea turns into words, and the mental creation materializes. It is all stimulating. But… what to say? These writers claim that the slowness of the method favors fair reflection and, therefore, more precise words emerge. For my part, I only know writing as a process much more like the destruction and reconstruction of sentences: the mind, aided by the rapid beating of the fingers on the keys, spits out ideas disorderly on the screen; the brain then reasons and goes about ordering and shaping these ideas, which are then rewritten in a more appropriate manner. Every two sentences, one is completely erased and better conformed in a new attempt; at the end of the paragraph, new corrections… So here I am left wondering what I would do if I had to adapt myself to paper and ink: and it seems to me, more than ever, that Kafka’s ever-burning fire is justified.
There Is Nothing More Boring to the Modern Reader…
There is nothing more boring to the modern reader, inhabitant of the gray metropolis, than such pastoral poetry. It is impossible for him to go on for more than a few pages in this poetic genre that cannot stir anything in him. This is firstly because the modern reader lacks the experience of harmony with the environment that is indispensable to open a pastoral poem. Having been bombarded from birth with the visual aggression that is a metropolis; having always associated the common environment with danger, with the possibility of a sudden robbery, with a sense of discomfort, insecurity, and fear, he can never understand how anyone can derive satisfaction from the environment. But beyond that: his whole existence has been shaped in a rhythm completely distinct from that of the poet accustomed to the countryside, so that between them there are so few psychological and behavioral similarities that they can definitely be said to be strangers.
The Futile Appreciator of “Beauty”
Perhaps the image of the poet as the futile appreciator of “beauty” is irreversible, as the idler whose life’s goal is to “touch hearts”. Oh, ridiculous! And to think that poets were Dante and Homer… In any case, there is nothing left to do. Unless poetry proves to be an objective inducer of tangible qualities that those who do not know about it do not possess, and unless a current of poets emerges who totally break with what has been done in poetry, and they become known, have their works widely disseminated, read and re-read,—something quite unlikely,—such a scenario seems definitive.