When I think of the sannyasis of India, I realize that I have, of course, renounced nothing, that I lead a life of pleasure and comfort, and that I have faced nothing but minor obstacles in pursuing my calling. If, however, I compare my circumstances with what I have become, if I reflect on the natural path I rejected, on an adult life that has amounted to successive defections, to ever-increasing isolation, to small deprivations that have piled up, to the continuous abandonment of what I was and much of what I was destined to become, I see that it was no small matter. Surely, I would have no trouble convincing an ordinary citizen of my madness. And perhaps I will end up, like Lima Barreto, attending a mental institution. But it is certain that, just as Lima Barreto could not, I could not have done anything different from what I did.
Tag: literature
The Failure of Tolstoy’s Life
All the contradictions, the dehumanization, and the very failure of Tolstoy’s life as recounted by Paul Johnson are very sad. However, it would be unwise to take his account as a summary of Tolstoy’s life: the biography lacks the literary testimony. And, without a doubt, the image we form of Tolstoy changes when we compare the two. On the one hand, there is the outward appearance, the actions, and all manner of human weaknesses and flaws that tend to surface when a man is called upon to act. All of this is regrettable. However, when we read a few lines by Tolstoy, we realize there is something different about him. It is not a matter of literary genius, but of the absolute impossibility that such a profound understanding of human nature could not have entailed an awareness of his own contradictions, his own dehumanization, and his own failure. It is impossible to imagine that Paul Johnson’s Tolstoy did not experience an excruciating inner conflict. And, upon noticing this, only the devil is incapable of empathy.
It Is a Rather Silly Notion That…
It is a rather silly notion that, with each new poem, the author must “invent” something new. And it goes hand in hand with this other idea that the greatest poet is the one who has employed the greatest number of formulas, who has explored the widest range of compositional possibilities, who, in short, “has not repeated himself.” That is why versification manuals, after a certain point, begin to grow tiresome. The same is true of treatises on stylistics. There comes a point where the essential seems long since surpassed, and the text begins to dwell on the irrelevant. The student is left with the feeling that his noble interest is being trivialized, and that art itself is of little value.
It Would Undoubtedly Be More Fruitful…
It would undoubtedly be more fruitful, rather than speaking of “styles” and “schools,” to classify writers by types of artistic motivation. Curiously enough, however, there are many cases in which, based on the work itself, one can barely discern what motivated the writing. Or rather, such a classification would reveal that the most trivial of motivations were responsible for the bulk of what was written. On the other hand, however, there would be no doubt that a writer like Proust belongs to a specific family of writers. And that Antero, Vigny, Leopardi, and Unamuno are all, in their respective countries, representative of a similar motivation. It would not be difficult to demonstrate that these latter, through their artistic form, sought nothing more than to give the most refined expression to the issues they deemed fundamental. But in literature, unfortunately, not everyone is driven by motivations so simple and of such clear significance.