Tag: writing

The most difficult thing about portraying the temporal circumstance in a literary work is to specify it to the point where it becomes special, while at the same time synthesizing its action as an external agent in a scheme that goes beyond time. Tend to either side, and the artist will fail to make the work arouse lasting interest, which is only possible when different but inseparable layers of meaning are built up, connecting the comprehensive to the particular.

The individual who does not read fiction usually considers literature to be futile and incapable of having a practical influence on his life. But whether he knows it or not, to deprive oneself of literature is to deprive oneself of the apprehension of possibilities, which practically means limiting one’s own life. Still in practical terms, the illiterate will always distinguish himself by taxing the old as new, and by standing in front of an infinity of trivialities without knowing how to react.

The false writer gives up his individuality in order to please, and for this he receives the prize of social acceptance. He is false, firstly, because he does not assert himself, and secondly, because he believes that social acceptance is a prize. How much easier things are for the true writer! He sees the dilemma as a wonderful win-win situation: he affirms himself by displeasing, and thus receives the benefit of social rejection.

The least that is expected of a writer worthy of the name is to consider as an insult the mere conjecture of these adepts of modern social engineering, who think they have the right and the power to determine how others should express themselves. Because this is exactly what the language police deserve: absolute and utter contempt, which must be extended to the writer who submits to it, who humiliates himself by adapting to the sudden and delirious dictates of half a dozen clowns who believe they are powerful enough to subordinate literary traditions that go back centuries and will go on for many more.