It is impressive to note how easily writers of the last two centuries would go to jail if they published today what they published a few decades ago. They would be fiercely persecuted, fiercely censored, and, unless saved by a very rare confluence of factors, would be prevented from writing and publishing. Dead, however, with a few exceptions, they remain tolerated, if not ignored. This highlights both the hysterical and authoritarian character of this century, and it has become more than ever preferable to remain anonymous.
Tag: literature
Less the Man Than His State of Nerves
Style, says Brodsky, is less the man than his state of nerves. Very well observed! And it is possible to go a step further by saying that there is, in every writer, the man who lives and the man who writes—or, in other words, the man who thinks and the man who acts. Style is, to a great extent, the emotional and psychological effect triggered by the act of writing. The moralist is bitter because it is precisely bitterness that fills him when he writes about what he writes about. Likewise a grandiose style reveals a sense of grandeur. The poet is a feigner, says a verse by Pessoa—but only to a certain extent. Invariably, one can only express what one can feel.
What the Reader Seeks
Brodsky says something extremely true: what the reader seeks in literature is to read about himself. This justifies, on the reader’s part, literary preferences; on the writer’s part, it justifies his success or rejection. If we identify success with popularity, the most successful author will be the most popular, and it is easy to see that to be so, he will have to come closer than the others to the reality of the common individual. What the reader seeks, in short, is a book that could have been written by himself. And that says it all.
Originality Achieves Recognition More Quickly
In art and philosophy, originality achieves recognition more quickly than value. In philosophy, however, original ideas seem to guarantee longevity, and the more original they are, the more surely they guarantee it. The phenomenon is curious, because it occurs in spite of the value of the idea. This one, if original and even absurd, even if refuted a thousand times, always seems to deserve the generosity of a citation. In art, however, although originality makes noise, it invariably wears out with time. In art, a work only endures if, beyond originality, it retains something of value.