I remember the day I decided to start these notes. Like all important decisions, this one came to me like a gust, seizing my mind and forcing immediate action. In the next instant, the thought of what to write. The consensus: start with the acknowledgments. So I wrote about Nelson, Dostoevsky, Swift, Pondé and a few others, and it was not a week from the decision to the publication of the first notes. Fair enough. To the initiate, I see no reasonable posture other than that of humility; it is necessary to be accountable to those who contributed in some way to his initiation. Gratitude is a noble and profitable exercise, recognition is a requirement of character. I say this to conclude: the faculty of gratitude seems to me a good parameter to distinguish the one who, by voluntary effort, strives to be greater than his vanity.
Tag: literature
Details, in Art, Are Valid as Long as They Invigorate
Details, in art, are valid as long as they invigorate an immediate impression. When they merely hide “secret treasures” they are, at best, useless. Subtlety and care in a composition of innocuous first impression constitute a waste. The art of not saying everything risks the ridicule of not saying anything; we just have to look at the movies…
Objective: Word Invented by Men
I think of the artistic conceptions of Poe and Tolstoy, and suddenly I start laughing. On one side, the construction of a supreme beauty; on the other, the transmission of a feeling to the reader. Objectives: therein lies the fun. I do not know why, I start thinking about art and comes to my mind the blind universe, the ultimate representation of chance. I think of everything as a whole, and I see nothingness, the empty sky, indifference, the certain extermination, and the improbability of a purpose. “Objective” is a word invented by men who, like men, tend to perish. Stars shine for nothing, an immense galaxy can simply vanish. And I end up reflecting on the very old “useless effort”. Is beauty hidden in the certainty of defeat? Does mercy require the fall? If nothing else interests me, why exactly do I have art as valuable, as the inducer of meaning? It all seems to me, always, to lead to the very same questions…
Every Book Should Have a Colored Label Attached to the Cover
When I imagine Cioran’s posture in front of a piece of paper and compare it with that of some of the best-selling artisans of entertainment, I think that every book should have a colored label attached to the cover indicating whether the work is serious or whether it is fun, a pastime, a joke—perhaps a happy face would fulfill the role well for these. Sincerity has an aggressive potential that marketing should avoid at all cost. Who pays to be attacked? Certainly not the mainstream audience. Moreover, the classification would be useful for the reader to know from whom he could ask any satisfaction, from whom he would be seen as a customer and, therefore, who would be truly interested in his satisfaction. It would be useful and very easy to identify who publishes for fame and who scratches the paper realizing they are bleeding.