Tag: writing

It is hard to say, but this frustrated longing for isolation, which has to be accepted as unfeasible and fought over in an apparently hostile daily life, seems more beneficial to the artist than actual, full and consummate isolation. In the first case, we have a spirit energized by circumstance; in the second, an incentive to inertia. In the first case, an effort that renews and justifies the longing, which makes the artist value isolation much more when it is partially achieved—because this is the truth: his longing, at worst, can always be partially achieved, and to better advantage than one might suppose.

The realistic and objective fictional narrative, if held and practiced as a dogma, ends up depriving the writer of this true delight that is style, since, by definition, to be realistic and objective is to adopt, so to speak, an “impersonal style”. But this delight, experienced by the poet, the philosopher, the historian and anyone else who understands the individual element necessary for writing, and without which the work is devoid of a link with reality apprehended in the first person, is also an unparalleled incentive to refine expression. The satisfaction of shaping words is the satisfaction of the freedom to say things as we see fit.

Before becoming an obsession or a futile refinement, focusing on form means respecting the value of what is intended to be expressed. It means not wanting to present it sloppily, but in a way that does it justice. It is therefore a natural concern for anyone who does not have fun throwing words to the wind, but works with matters of real and personal importance.

Despite the general recommendation, the writer whose life is involuntarily invaded and disturbed by politics has not the right, but the duty to insert politics into his literary work. This is, in short, an obligation to future generations, to whom he must pass on the flavor of his personal experience. Not to do so is to deny oneself. A political prisoner, then, even if he is against it, has lost the right to remain silent about the oppression he has suffered, and it is precisely he who has the mission of giving the lines a political flavor, because it is precisely he who has the the support of a circumstance that all the others don’t have.