elke mens soen sy lewensmaat op sy eie manier. letterkunde is stories wat menswees deel. elke mens lees sy lewenservaring by 'n boek in. sommige verwysingsraamwerke is akademies of rasioneel wyl ander meer emosioneel of intuitief is. die leeservaring vir elke individu bepaal of die boek " beautiful language of emotional is" sou die ervaring opbouend vir die individu wees, is dit seker "letterkunde" die punt is : lees is die mees wonderlike aktiwiteit vir my denkbaar. ek hoor stemme uit kulture, geografiese uithoeke en honderde jare gelede duidelik. boeke gee ons collective unconscious stemme en karakters. voorwaar 'n truth-ervaring in the making.
abrham's Blog
Male, 52, rustenburg
“
middeljarige skrywer wat worstel met n fel aanslag van penopause. ek dink ek oorwin.
Member For: 1 year, 6 months
Posts: 223
Posts: 223
Recent Posts by abrham:
sylvia plath
March 23, 2009 by abrham
Son of Sylvia Plath commits suicide
Published: March 23, 2009
Nicholas Hughes, the son of the novelist Sylvia Plath and the British Poet Laureate Ted Hughes, killed himself at his home in , a half-century after his mother and stepmother took their own lives, according to a statement from his sister.
Mr. Hughes, 47, was an evolutionary biologist who studied stream fish and spent much of his time trekking across on field studies. Shielded from stories about his mother's suicide until he was a teenager, Mr. Hughes had lived an academic life largely outside the public eye. But friends and family said he had long struggled with depression.
Last Monday, he hanged himself at his home in , his sister, Frieda Hughes, said over the weekend.
"It is with profound sorrow that I must announce the death of my brother, Nicholas Hughes, who died by his own hand on Monday 16th March 2009 at his home in ," she said in a statement to the Times of London. "He had been battling depression for some time."
Mr. Hughes's early life was darkened by shadows of depression and suicide. Ms. Plath explored the themes in her 1963 novel The Bell Jar, which follows an ambitious college student who tries to kill herself after suffering a nervous breakdown while interning at a magazine. The novel reflected Ms. Plath's own experiences, including her early struggles with depression and her attempt at suicide while working at Mademoiselle in as a college student.
After a stay at a mental institution, Ms. Plath went on to study poetry at , where she met Ted Hughes, who was on his way to world fame as a poet. The two were married in 1956, and had two children — Nicholas and Frieda — but separated in 1962 after Mr. Hughes began an affair with another woman, Assia Wevill. Ms. Plath killed herself at the age of 30 by sticking her head in an oven in her home on Feb. 11, 1963, as Nicholas and Frieda slept nearby.
Six years later, Ms. Wevill, who had helped raise Nicholas and Frieda after Ms. Plath's death, killed herself and her 4-year-old daughter, Shura. Ms. Wevill styled the murder-suicide in the same manner, using a gas-stove.
Mr. Hughes, who became Poet Laureate in 1984 and was widely regarded as one of the greatest poets of his generation, resisted speaking openly about the deaths for many years. But in his last poetic work, Birthday Letters, published in 1998, he finally broke his silence and explored the theme. He died the same year, as the book — in some ways considered a quest for redemption — was climbing best-seller lists.
Mr. Hughes was said to have protected his children from details about their mother's suicide for many years. But in at least one poem he seemed to indicate that Nicholas, who was only 1 at the time of her death, was pained even as a small child, recalling in one stan how Nicholas's eyes "Became wet jewels/ The hardest substance of the purest pain/ As I fed him in his high white chair."
Nicholas had a passion for wildlife, particularly fish. As a young adult he studied at the , where he obtained a bachelor of science degree in 1984 and a master of arts degree in 1990. Afterward, he traveled to the , earning a doctoral degree from the of , where he became an assistant professor at the and Ocean Science. According to the University, Mr. Hughes was an expert in "stream salmonid ecology" and carried out his research in and . He resigned from the faculty in 2006 but continued his research, the school said.
One graduate student there, Lauren Tuori, recalled a peculiar habit of Mr. Hughes', saying he would often "seek out a larch tree in a forest of spruce."
She added, " could use more biologists like Nick who still display wonder at the small things around them."
Boris Paternak
February 21, 2009 by abrham
Did the CIA fund a Russian-language publication of Boris Pasternak's "Doctor Zhivago" in order to help the dissident author win the Nobel Prize? Ivan Tolstoi, a literary historian and correspondent with RFE/RL's Russian Service, has spent the better part of two decades trying to find out. Tolstoi's research has resulted in a book, "The Laundered Novel: Doctor Zhivago, Between the KGB and the CIA,” which was recently published in Russia. In this first-person account, Tolstoi describes his pursuit of the truth behind "Zhivago's" first appearance in Russian.
By Ivan Tolstoi
On October 23, 1958, Boris Pasternak was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for his "important achievement both in contemporary lyrical poetry and in the field of the great Russian epic tradition."
The latter clause referred to a controversial novel, banned in the Soviet Union, smuggled out to the West, and released in 1957 in Italian by the prominent Milanese publisher Giangiacomo Feltrinelli.
The work, "Doctor Zhivago," was a tragic love story set against the tumult of Russia's Bolshevik Revolution. Goslitizdat, the Soviet Union's main publishing house, had initially promised to publish the book in a season of growing social liberalition. But the Hungarian uprising in 1956 prompted Moscow to once again tighten the screws. Pasternak, whose work was seen as a subtle critique of the Soviet regime, was once again in the cold.
Without a "Zhivago" in the original Russian, Pasternak would lose his most important audience -- and, it was believed, his chance of winning a Nobel. Although the Swedish Academy is famously protective of its rules for eligibility, it has long been believed an author must be published in his native language in order to be considered for the prize.
After Feltrinelli's Italian publication, "Zhivago" was later translated into English and French. But it wasn't until September 1958 -- just a month before the Swedish Academy made its announcement -- that a version of the original Russian text saw light at Expo 58, the Brussels World's Fair.
It was a mutant of a book, riddled with typographic and grammatical errors, incomplete passages, and underdeveloped story lines. The jacket appeared to come from The Hague-based academic publisher Mouton, but the title page was Feltrinelli's. This "Zhivago" had clearly not gone through ordinary publishing channels. So who was responsible?
The Soviets, infuriated by Pasternak's Nobel win, blamed the agents of imperialism.
Nikita Khrushchev denounced the Swedish Academy for political meddling and demanded that the prize be awarded instead to socialist realist Mikhail Sholokhov.
Still, few had reasons to doubt the Soviet accusations. It was obvious Moscow hadn't published "Zhivago" or lobbied for its author to win the Nobel. If it wasn't them, it stood to reason it had to be the other side. But the University of Michigan soon published an official Russian version of the work, and questions about the "mutant Zhivago" soon faded.
Thirty years later, I set out to trace its mysterious lineage.
Freshly Printed 'Zhivago'
In a way, "Doctor Zhivago" and I were born the same year. My father, a diplomat who represented the Soviet Union at Expo 58, returned home to Leningrad that year with a little plastic Volkswagen for me and a freshly printed copy of the Brussels "Zhivago" hidden at the bottom of his customs-exempt luggage.
My father over the years collected a vast assortment of banned modern literature, and by high school, I had devoured the Solzhenitsyn, Nabokov, and Brodsky that made up his illicit library. The "Zhivago," however, had been lost in years of lending and relending. But its unusual history stayed fresh in my mind.
The execution was so sloppy, in fact, I felt confident a thread leading to its true provenance would be easy to find.
In 1988, as the Soviet borders opened, I left for France, where I was delighted to come across a copy of the mysterious Brussels "Zhivago" amid a collection of emigre literature. Cracking open its blue leatherette, I was delighted to discover that everything I had heard and suspected about the book was true.
While the binding was unmistakably Mouton, or at least a perfect replica of their standard issue, nothing else was suggestive of the respected academic publisher. The title page, which said Feltrinelli, had been pasted in with glue. The font was unusual for a Western printing press; the errors in the text were quite appalling. The execution was so sloppy, in fact, I felt confident a thread leading to its true provenance would be easy to find.
The thread came to me by accident the following year.
Working as a freelancer with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in Munich, I met a colleague, Grigory Danilov, who in the 1950s had worked as an editor with the Central Union of Postwar Emigres, or CUPE, a European subsidiary of the CIA. He casually mentioned that "Zhivago" had been among the union's printing projects.
"You must be mistaken," I said, surprised. "CUPE never published 'Zhivago.' "
But no, he insisted, he had typeset it himself.
Arrived Through Back Channels
It was a tantalizing lead, but there was little more Danilov could tell me about the book's origins. The manuscript had arrived through back channels, and the galleys were confiscated as soon as they were prepared. Since then, I've spent nearly 20 years traveling the world in search of more clues.
By December 2006, I felt I had collected enough evidence to support my suspicions: that the first Russian edition of "Doctor Zhivago" had been published by the CIA.
I announced my findings at a lecture at the Moscow Library of Foreign Literature, adding that I had reason to believe the publication of a Russian-language edition had been crucial in ensuring that Pasternak won the Nobel Prize in 1958.
The CIA has refused to comment on my report.
Pasternak's son, Yevgeny, insists his father had no connections to the CIA, and that the prize would have gone to him regardless -- if not that year, then the next.
The strongest argument mounted against my claims involved the connection between the Brussels "Zhivago" and the Nobel Prize. I conducted numerous interviews over the years with people close to Pasternak, including his European charge d'affaires, Jacqueline de Proyart, whose friend, Albert Camus, was spearheading Pasternak's Nobel campaign. Time and again, I was told that Swedish officials had specifically stipulated that the publication of a Russian-language "Zhivago" was essential for Pasternak's Nobel bid.
Yet, despite the abundance of personal testimony in support of this idea, I have been able to find no documentary proof.
Nobel Prize historians know of no such "original language" rule. The Swedish Academy, which opened its Pasternak archives only this year, has defended the prize as apolitical. Horace Engdahl, the secretary of the Nobel committee, has said only that he believes the academy has no requirement that nominees be published in their original language.
'The Formal Obstacle'
Admittedly, the fact that Pasternak had been short-listed for the Nobel on so many occasions before "Zhivago" was available in any language suggests that this may nave not been a barrier at all. But the idea seems to be widespread. Even Yevgeny Pasternak, in his biography of his father, writes: "The formal obstacle was that the novel hadn't been published in Russian -- only a translation existed."
My claim, in part, requires readers to abandon the self-styled notion of the Swedish Academy as a paragon of impartiality and admit that, like any other organition, its agenda was not immune to the issues of contemporary politics -- especially during the Cold War.
The Soviets, who granted Swedish writer Arthur Lundquist the Lenin Prize for literature in 1958, could easily have had occasion to warn the Swedish Academy that a Nobel, given the severe political climate in the USSR, would only harm Pasternak.
Moscow's motive is clear -- they wanted the hype over "Zhivago" to die down. It was bad enough that Giangiacomo Feltrinelli had defied them in publishing an Italian translation; international recognition would not only legitimize, but virtually deify, the insolent poet.
It is possible that the Soviets, in their talks with the Swedes, could have offered to provide a translation themselves, but at a later date, when -- the KGB could have argued -- the threat of political repercussions against Pasternak would have subsided. Thus, by pretending to wait for an opportune moment to celebrate one of their prominent literati, the Soviets could have postponed -- possibly permanently -- the domestic disgrace of Pasternak's Nobel win.
But one can easily see motivation for the CIA in such a moment, as well.
Talent For Sabotage
Pasternak's celebrity was a thorn in the Kremlin's side. Publishing "Zhivago" in Russian would only escalate the hype and strengthen internal dissent. A successful debut at Expo 58 -- no matter how shabby the workmanship -- could be seen as an ideal opportunity not only to thumb their nose at the Soviets, but show their own talent for sabotage as well.
Having received the Russian copies, the Swedish Academy was likely forced to consider the situation that Pasternak had been put in. While he was not yet directly persecuted by the Soviet authorities, editions of his poetry were disappearing from print, his translations of European plays were being pulled from theaters, and he was finding it increasingly difficult to find work.
Thus, a concerted effort was being made not only to drain him economically, but also to efface his image from the public view. Pasternak had already managed to send a number of alarming letters abroad, indicating that he was being sustained by occasional handouts from friends and admirers. It is plausible that, realizing this was Khrushchev's new way of disposing of his high-profile dissenters, Swedish Academy members decided to follow their moral imperative and save the poet by throwing him the lifeline of ultimate celebrity -- the Nobel Prize.
That is not to say that Pasternak was undeserving of the honor.
In the years following World War II, he was shortlisted for the Nobel six times, so it was all but inevitable that his candidacy would eventually be successful. What my analysis suggests is that there were additional political circumstances that created motives for the Swedish Academy to award the prize sooner rather than later.
As it turned out, the tragic end was inevitable.
Pasternak was tormented in the press, shunned by many of his peers, and died of a cancer that was arguably induced by the incredibly stressful two years that followed the award, which, ironically, he had refused to accept
arabian nights
January 22, 2009 by abrham
Wens dis al krismis dan ek die boek dalk op my wishlist sit.
So which Nights are they, the Arabian, or the Thousand and One? Both appear on the title page of this, the first full English translation since Richard Burton published his version well over a century ago. The dual title neatly illustrates the hybrid nature of the work: it is part of Arabic and European literature, it contains stories and motifs that may be traced to Sanskrit, Persian and Greek literature, it hovers between the oral and the written, the popular and the highbrow, the pious and the scabrous, realism and fantasy. “Arabian”, an epithet it acquired in Europe, is a misnomer, for it was neither conceived nor written in Arabia and the great majority of the stories are set in , or rather than the . The original Arabic title, Alf layla wa-layla, translates as “A Thousand and One Nights” – but one should be cautious using the term “original”, for the earliest mention in Arabic refers to a Persian book called Har afsana, “A Thousand Tales”. An Arabic version, including the frame story about the resourceful and eloquent Shahrad and the murderous misogynist King Shahriyar (a story that may be of Indian origin, whereas the names are Persian), was around in the tenth century, but the text is not preserved, presumably because it was deemed to be “silly stuff”, in the words of a tenth-century scholar. It was anonymous, its language was not sufficiently polished, and it was too obviously fictional and fantastic in parts, all of which precluded its acceptance in highbrow circles. At the same time it was never as truly popular, in the sense of widespread among and beloved by the illiterate, as the monstrously lengthy and equally anonymous epic tales such as Sirat Antar or Sirat Bani Hilal.
Lees hier verder...
Re: heita kiewietan en willemien word groot
January 21, 2009 by abrham
DANKIE KLARISABET EK WAARDEER JOU MOOI WOORDE
boekmerke
December 28, 2008 by abrham
You Never Know What You’ll Find in a Book
Essay
By HENRY ALFORD
We may never fully understand what prompts people to leave unusual objects inside books. I speak of the slice of fried bacon that the novelist Reynolds Price once found nestled within the pages of a volume in the Duke University library. I speak of the letter that ran: “Do not write to me as Gail Edwards. They know me as Andrea Smith here,” which the playwright Mark O’Donnell found some years ago in a used paperback. I speak of any of those bizarre objects — scissors, a used Q-tip, a bullet, a baby’s tooth, drugs, pornography and 40 $1,000 bills — that have been discovered by the employees of secondhand bookstores, according to The Wall Street Journal and AbeBooks.com. Mystery surrounds these deposits like darkness.
But the motives of some depositors — the novelist David Bowman, for instance — are knowable. “I was cleaning out a drawer and thought, Let’s do something with this,” Bowman said of the day four years ago when he stumbled upon all of the rejection letters from agents and editors about his first novel, “Let the Dog Drive” (1993). “Some of the letters were nasty,” he said in a phone interview. So Bowman scooped them up, tucked them in between the pages of a first edition of the book and sold the noxious bundle to the Strand, New York City’s famous used-book store. “It was very liberating,” Bowman said. “Revenge is a dish best served cold.”
Bowman’s quest for vengeance is on the far end of the book-stuffing spectrum. More commonly, the stuffers are trying to create an aide-mémoire for themselves. “I have filled books with flowers I’ve received, to save the ¬flowers in dried form and to remember the happy moment of receiving them,” Anne Rice said in an e-mail message. After Wayne Koestenbaum interviewed Vanessa Redgrave at a hotel bar about her role in the movie “Mrs. Dalloway,” he took Redgrave’s lipsticky napkin and placed it in the paperback copy of the novel he’d brought with him. That Redgrave’s lipstick traces might have besmirched his book seems not to have fazed him. “I might have also taken her swizzle stick,” he confessed.
die kind wat dood geskiet is deur soldate by nyanga- ingrid jonker
December 26, 2008 by abrham
Die man werk op Kersdag, Afrika is honger en moet gevoed word. 'n Werker kom roep die man. 'n Vrou is in kraam waar sy bier drink. Die man kry 'n kombers van die rak af. Die vrou steun, haar water reeds gebreek. Bierwalms kreet bekken ontsluiting. Die man maak die vrou gemaklik, sprei haar knieë. 'n Benoude vrouereuk laat die man dapper sluk. Druk, sê die man terwyl die vrou gil. Omstanders vorm 'n gordyn. Iemand gee die vrou 'n plank, wit tande kners op hout. 'n Babaseuntjie glip donkerkoper 'n Feesdag in. Die ma se onwettige status verseker die kind se onseker toekoms. Die vrou byt die naelstring af en bind die kinddermpie met skoenveter af. Afrikasterk draai sy baba in kombers toe en loop regop na die plakkerskamp. Die man is verslae, hoeveel geboortes word daagliks sonder seremonie voltrek. Wat word van Afrika se kinders, wie se lewenswonder misken word. Die man gaan lees 'n gedig oor 'n ander kind. Wanneer wonder die man, gaan die kinders van Afrika ophou ly? Die Kind van Vrede ongekend in 'n steeds geknelde land.
Die kind wat dood geskiet is deur soldate by Nyanga
Die kind is nie dood nie
die kind lig sy vuiste teen sy moeder
wat Afrika skreeu skreeu die geur van vryheid en heide
in die lokasies van die omsingelde hart
Die kind lig sy vuiste teen sy vader
in die optog van die generasies
wat Afrika skreeu skreeu die geur
van geregtigheid en bloed
in die strate van sy gewapende trots
Die kind is nie dood nie
nòg by Langa nòg by Nyanga
nòg by Orlando nòg by Sharpville
nòg by die polisiestasie in Philippi
waar hy lê met 'n koeël deur sy kop
Die kind is die skaduwee van die soldate
op wag met gewere sarasene en knuppels
die kind is teenwoordig by alle vergaderings en wetgewings
die kind loer deur die vensters van huise en in die harte
van moeders
die kind wat net wou speel in die son by Nyanga is orals
die kind wat 'n man geword het trek deur die ganse Afrika
die kind wat 'n reus geword het reis deur die hele wêreld
Sonder 'n pas
Ingrid jonker
Maart 1960
Re: Nuwe Groot Verseboek
December 23, 2008 by abrham
flippet anita, soek jou goeie vriend in die kaap nie 'n goeie vriend in wes-transvaal nie ? dit my vriendin, is defnitief bo aan my lys vir my kerskous. ongelukkig is die anner helfte en lendevrugte op 'n shoestring budget. oh well, my sokkies is hoeka gaar.
maria - elisabeth eybers
December 22, 2008 by abrham
My eerste tympano plasty operasie het ek in die Katatura hospitaal in Windhoek ervaar. Ek sê ervaar want daai ouens het nie gespeel nie. Ek is negeuur gedoen en drie uur ontslaan na 'n prosedure wat twee ure geduur het. Nodeloos om te noem die hegting het nie plaasgevind nie. In 1978 is ek verwys na 'n spesialis, 'n van Bergen kêrel. Hy het sy spesialiteit vanuit die Little Company of Mary bedryf. Die Katolieke Hospitaal se bestuur was nog onder die beheer van die Archbishop iewers. Die senior verpleegpersoneel was nog nonne en die atmosfeer was gewyd. Ek het langs 'n oom opgeland wat 'n totale verwydering van 'n prostaat oorleef het. Die oom se dreineringssakkie het by my gespook. Ek wou weet wat veroorsaak dat mens se prostaat verwyder moet word. Drink water, het die oom my beraad. Vandag een en dertig jaar later drink ek my 500 mil warm water elke oggend. Ek besoek my dokter een keer 'n jaar waar hy my digitaal sans sy trouring ondersoek. Ek gaan nie 'n aggresiewe prosedure op my prostaat beleef nie.
Die rede vir die skrywe is die effek wat vroeë more mis op my gehad het. Ek is vir tien dae gehospitaliseer en dit was oor die paasnaweek. Die hospitaal was redelik leeg. Ek het in gesprek met die nonne getree en as Protestant was ek verbaas oor hul werklikheidsbelewing van moeder Maria. Die artefakte in die kapel, die priester se intonasie en die nonne in hul gewade se opregte geloofsbelewing bly my vandag nog by. Maria, die moeder van Jesus kan seker nie afgemaak word as 'n gewone vrou en moeder nie, het ek gedink. Sou God haar net gebruik om as incubator vir Sy Seun te dien. Ons almal spruit voort uit moeders. Elisabeth Eybers se gedig ‘Maria’ het vir my nuwe insigte ge-open. Wat ook al 'n mens glo of nie glo nie dink ek is nie tersaaklik nie. die gesindheid waarmee die glo of nie glo ander affekteer dink ek gee die deurslag. My opersaie was nie geslaagd nie, my insig in moeder Maria wel.
Maria
'n Engel het dit self gebring,
die vreugde-boodskap – en jy het
'n lofsang tot Gods eer gesing,
Maria, nooi uit Nasaret!
Maar toe Josef van jou wou skei
en bure-agterdog jou pla,
het jy kon dink eenmaal sou hý
die hele wêreldskande dra?
Toe jy soms met 'n glimlag langs
jou liggaam stryk ... die stilte instaar ...
wis jy met hoeveel liefde en angs
sou hý sy hellevaart aanvaar?
Die nag daar in die stal – geeneen
om in jou nood by jou te staan –
het jy geweet dat hy alléén
Getsémané sou binnegaan?
Toe vorste uit die Ooste kom
om nederig hulde te betoon,
wis jy hoe die soldate hom
as koning van die volk sou kroon?
En toe hy in jou arms lê,
sy mondjie teen jou volle bors,
het jy geweet dat hy sou sê,
toe dit te laat was: Ek het dors!
Onmoontlike kerswense?
December 22, 2008 by abrham
"Perhaps we cannot prevent this world from being a world in which children are tortured. But we can reduce the number of tortured children," said Albert Camus, French philosopher. It is Christmas week. The world is in turmoil. Children are the innocent victims of conflict, poverty, and disease.
Here is a wish list for the children:
1. A home with loving parents who will guide and care for them. That all parents will lead by example and teach kids spiritual and family values, and good manners. That all children will be safe from domestic violence and abuse.
2. Good health. That all children, especially in the remote rural areas, will have proper nourishment, medical and dental care to grow strong and healthy. That the essential vaccines to combat diseases will be available to all children.
3. A pollution-free environment with fresh air, clean and pure water. Open fields and parks with trees and flowers. That children may appreciate and respect nature and learn how to protect the seas, rivers, lakes, and forests.
4. Quality education. That the public school system will be upgraded with dedicated teachers, classrooms and books, mobile libraries and reading programs. That all kids will have the opportunity to study, the chance to excel and learn independence.
5. An accelerated science, math, and technology educational program to equip students with international standard skills to compete in the global markets.
6. A comprehensive sports program for national and international competitions. That all kids will learn the values of team work, friendly competition, and the art of winning and losing gracefully.
7. A gender-discrimination-free society that will encourage girls and boys to aspire to become leaders in their chosen professions. That they may have the resources and opportunities to fulfill all their goals.
8. A national arts and culture program and outreach projects to elevate the consciousness of children and their parents.
9. A stable economy. Jobs and livelihood projects, microfinance programs for parents so that their children can go to school.
10. A country with visionary national leaders, hardworking, honest officials with wisdom, integrity, and heart. Worthy role models for children to admire and emulate.
11. A safe, crime-free, drug-free, abuse-free environment. That all kids will be protected from the menace of incest, physical and emotional abuse, and the scourge of drugs.
12. Freedom of expression and communication. Children have the right to be heard, to have privacy, and to be themselves. They need respect to develop self-esteem and confidence.
13. Innocence. A happy childhood and the chance to enjoy being a child. A balanced life with time to play, study, and rest. Above all, time to grow up — at his/her own pace.
We pray for spiritual grace, love, forgiveness, and lasting world peace.
A Blessed Christmas to all!
By Marivic Rufino
SUSAN SONTAG
December 18, 2008 by abrham
Reborn: Journals and Notebooks, 1947–1963
by Susan Sontag, edited by David Rieff
For Sontag it seems to have been less an intellectual stance than it was part of a constellation of burdensome characteristics, deeply rooted in her personality—though hardly exclusive to her—which she comes to identify and, for a while at least, to refer to as X. Here are bits about X from entries throughout February 1960 ("I." is Irene Maria Fornes, Sontag's lover at the time):
I. thinks "X" is the reason I can't talk to two people at a time (but always focus on one) and also why I block other people out—even casual intruders like waiters—when I am with someone....
So with each person I betray everyone else. Then after I feel guilty, my accounts are messed up again....
I didn't feel X toward Philip. Because I was satisfying his demands as well as I could, because I wasn't discussing him with anyone else, because he was #1.
"X" is when you feel yourself an object, not a subject. When you want to please and impress people, either by saying what they want to hear, or by shocking them, or by boasting + name-dropping, or by being very cool.
America a very X-y country....
The tendency to be indiscreet—either about oneself or about others (the two often go together, as in me)—is a classic symptom of X....
How many times have I told people that Pearl Kazin was a major girlfriend of Dylan Thomas? That Norman Mailer has orgies? That [F.O.] Matthiessen was queer? All public knowledge, to be sure, but who the hell am I to go advertising other people's sexual habits?
How many times have I reviled myself for that, which is only a little less offensive than my habit of name-dropping.... And my habit of criticizing people if other people invite it....
I have always betrayed people to each other. No wonder I've been so high-minded and scrupulous about how I use the word "friend"!...
The source of X is: I don't know my own feelings....
...So I look to other people (the other person) to tell me. Then the other person tells me what he or she would like my feelings to be....
...That's why I'm so interested in moral philosophy, which tells me (or at least turns me toward) what my feelings ought to be. Why worry about analyzing the crude ore, I reason, if you know how to produce the refined metal directly?...
All the things that I despise in myself are X: being a moral coward, being a liar, being indiscreet about myself + others, being a phony, being passive.
"Think of Blake," she exhorts herself in September 1961; "He didn't smile for others." And "No matter what I have said," she writes in January 1960, "my life, my actions say that I have not loved the truth, that I have not wanted the truth."
satire upon tyranny
December 17, 2008 by abrham
Between the word "public" and the word "intellectual" there falls, or ought to fall, a shadow. The life of the cultivated mind should be private, reticent, discreet: Most of its celebrations will occur with no audience, because there can be no applause for that moment when the solitary reader gets up and paces round the room, having just noticed the hidden image in the sonnet, or the profane joke in the devotional text, or the secret message in the prison diaries. Individual pleasure of this kind is only rivaled when the same reader turns into a writer, and after a long wrestle until daybreak hits on his or her own version of the mot juste, or the unmasking of pretension, or the apt, latent literary connection, or the satire upon tyranny.
Christopher Hitchens
Wittgenstein in 90 Seconds - carter kaplan
December 16, 2008 by abrham
In a series of architectural notes Wittgenstein made while building the spare and block-shaped family home in Vienna, the philosopher proposed that aesthetic reactions consist of feelings or impressions associated with distaste—“discontent, disgust, discomfort”—and the expressions of these forms of aesthetic distaste were formulated as instructions for reform and improvement—“Make it higher! . . . too low! . . . Do something to this.” If I am not wrong, these notions may lead to a characterization of Wittgenstein’s philosophy at its highest level. This characterization is as follows:
The essential thrust of Wittgenstein’s philosophy is the search for an appropriate response to phenomena. In order to identify this elusive appropriate response, it is necessary to construct a critical synoptic surview; that is, an imaginative overview or “story” in which the phenomena in question can be regarded with clarity and precision. Our conceptual confusion, however, can cloud our overview and lead to an inappropriate response, be it in our understanding, in our pronouncements, or in our actions. Our use—but of course more essentially our misuse—of language can lead to conceptual confusion and philosophical credulousness, and hence the attention paid in analytic philosophy to the use of language; thus the analysis of propositions is the activity, but the philosophy itself is the quest for an appropriate response, and an understanding of the world that both supports and is incumbent upon that appropriate response.
In an age which has mythologized science—or, indeed, in past ages which have mythologized sympathetic, superstitious and magical relationships—and as well amongst a species (Homo sapiens) which tends toward uniformity, conformity, rationalization, and following the habits of custom—empirical explanation is generally accepted as the end of all serious intellectual inquiry. While offering empirical explanation is the appropriate response to some phenomena—exploiting a pharmacological reaction for medical purposes, for instance—empirical explanation is an inappropriate response to other types of phenomena, such as aesthetic phenomena, which are more appropriately approached with the idea of getting hold of some sort of understanding. This understanding chiefly consists of understanding where we stand in relation to the phenomenon we are examining.
Interestingly enough, our understanding—our nurtured and cultivated understanding, which is rooted in an understanding of our feelings—can and has reformed our science, which (since Bacon, Locke and Newton) has been taken from a level of pursuing empirical explanation to a level of an on-going skeptical-empirical enquiry. In our cultivated response to poetry we have learned that our poetry (our mythological expression) is in a state of “semiotic flux” and transformation. When our myths become fixed, they stultify and breed orthodoxy and barbarism. Our myths must therefore become supple and changing, yielding softly to the shifting impressions of the poetic consciousness. Civilized science—the skeptical-empirical method—is in a like state of flux. Aristotle’s notion of potentiality and actuality is revised by Galileo’s emphasis on the quantitative measurement of the physical characteristics of motion, which is revised by Newtonian mechanics, which is revised by Einstein’s relativity, which is revised by quantum mechanics, and so on. These different models are “right” for different times, at different scales, for different tasks, and they all the time progress along a path weaving in and out through ever more subtle and deft articulations of understanding. We don't believe in them, but rather believe in what they can show us, or what they can do for us. They are not essential models, but tools we pick up and set down as we go about engineering new methods for dealing with (and in) the world.
Re: Rainer Maria Rilke
December 13, 2008 by abrham
------------------------------------------------------------------------------RETHINKING RILKE - by Michael Heller
A friend writes: "If you can find a positive way in Rilke, please let me know what it is--I see him leading to orphic silence, luxurious melancholy and a kind of stellar voice that few are capable of." I take up my friend's word, "positive," and bobble it before me in amusement. How much we want our ironies (Rilke claimed no civilization could be built on irony!), and how little we want them to cost us. In the last twenty years, we've built our ironies around discourse and "language," on their duplicity and on their power to impose, and that, I presume, is what makes for something "positive." During this time, we've thought little or at best, indelicately, about the word as emanating from a carnal being though perhaps with the appearance of Bakhtin's work and with Elaine Scarry's The Body of Pain a balance is being restored. In this new atmosphere, Rilke's work ought to be reconsidered, and I can think of no better place to begin than in this collection, Letters on Cezanne. The volume consists of letters and extracts of letters written from Paris mainly in the fall of 1907 to Rilke's wife, the painter, Clara Westhoff.
Rilke, it is true--to respond to my friend's comments--in the quest for Western art's sense of presence, its quest for "being," walked the last linguistic mile, so to speak. He imagined, against any situation in which a verbal act, let alone the poem, took place, a world of silences, of muted existence. It is this orphism, with its seemingly abstracted pain, its metaphysical hunger, that we tend to dismiss in Rilke's enterprise. Further, Rilke's admixture of extremis and care- fulness, the exactitude with which these marked his poetic trail, appeals neither to dionysians nor apollonians. Finally, that he is not easy, not "humorous," not frameable by theory, leads,as well, to the charge that he is not positive.
Still, as I have written elsewhere, Rilke represents a fruitful direction, one which since Pound we have been reluctant to take up. Thus, my reading here is an attempt to understand Rilke not as a historical figure but as a potentiating force for contemporary poetry.
**
In late May of 1907, after a ten-months' absence, Rilke returned to Paris in a curious and feverishly receptive state of mind, a state which continued into the fall. In October, the annual Salon d'Automne exhibition opened with two rooms dedicated to the paintings of Cezanne, who had died only the year before. Rilke's letters to his wife of this period show not only the agitations of his mind but testify also to an atmosphere of psychological vulnerability where, as he put it, seeing and working were "almost one and the same." Before his eyes, the world seemed to be reforming itself as a kind of benison: "All the things of the past rearrange themselves, line up in rows, as if someone were standing there giving out orders; and whatever is present is utterly and urgently present, as if prostrate on its knees and praying for you." (LOC 3) These words are not fanciful, especially if we consider that they issue from one of Europe's great workers in homelessness, a poet whose reputation in large measure was built on rootlessness and alienated consciousness. What they suggest is an unusual psychological climate in Rilke, an alteration of his characteristic dis-ease with surroundings.
For Rilke, artistic creation was less a matter of learning than of unlearning, of foreswearing intellectual or psychological certainty by making some sort of radical leap. "Surely," he writes a month after his return to Paris, "all art is the result of one's having been in danger, of having gone through an experience all the way to the end, to where no one can go any further..." "Therein," he continues, "lies the enormous aid the work of art brings to the life of the one who must make it,--: that it is his epitome; the knot in the rosary at which his life recites a prayer." (LOC 4) The religious tone is instructive. Homelessness, Rilke's artistic donn�e, is set aside, and the world is perceived as animated and, more importantly for Rilke, uncharacteristically welcoming and beneficent. Suddenly, the work of art is not so much an alienated jewel in the world's crown but a tutelary device, a way for entering and participating.
For Rilke, the encounter with Cezanne's paintings in the months immediately after his arrival, marked, what he called, "a turning point." In part, the drama of the Cezanne encounter, a muted subtext throughout the letters, is the difficulty of "assimilating" Cezanne's work which, as it turns out, becomes the most useful demand ever placed upon the poet.
Rilke through the course of his life sensed himself a kind of laborer in beginnings, in unending preparations for work still to come. This attitude was an essential part of his openness and receptivity; it colored his life and work with a certain tentativeness. And yet, it also brought with it a thirst for great precision. Heinrich Petzet, in his introduction to the Letters on Cezanne, writes about Rilke's concern for "the smallest units of language" by which entire areas of experience could be illuminated. Rilke scoured the moment-- the very point at which something caught his attention-- for every detail and nuance, for every psychological, historical or aesthetic implication. One finds, despite its metaphysical vastness, little dreaminess or vagueness to Rilke's work. Its much criticized "incompleteness" may be, all things considered, less the product of the work than testimony that the human psyche itself, which the poetry so completely investigates, operates by virtue of an active incompleteness. This incompleteness (an inadequate word) is, in Rilke, the very basis for exchange and dialogue, for change and growth. And, in a very powerful sense, Cezanne does not give to Rilke something which might complete the poet. The painter's life and work are instead a kind of pressure: to contemplate the radical nature of Cezanne's work, to view the paintings, is to put oneself "in danger." This is the supreme value one artist has for another.
Rilke's work, the poems and prose, the entire corpus of his letters, are best seen as way-stations toward some unfinished and unfinishable project. The all-pervasive sense of incompleteness is a tidal swell on which the texts float, which at times bouys them up, at times pulls them under. For Rilke, the poem records at best only a momentary feeling of completeness, a simultaneous if fleeting instant when the work of art and the life are mutually realized. For that moment, a kind of totality is achieved, but it always seems to point forward to an ideal goal or condition. The poem never acquires the status of a thing, nor does it degenerate into an ornament and thereby become a bourgeois object in the usual sense. For Rilke, the artist's function is to catch this moment of being/non-being. One of his best-known poems of the period, "The Panther," is nearly a textbook example of this moment. In it, the poet and the object of the poem seem so completely interanimated that "An image enters/ and pierces the long restrained limbs/ and stops being within the heart." (TRMR 158) The aim of the poem can hardly be to paint a picture of the panther. Rather, the ambiguity of the passage, especially the way "being" can be read as both verb and noun, recreates the dissolution of the border between the poet and the object of his attention. Rilke calls such a work a "thing-poem," but the poem deconstructs even as it constructs. The poetics here are indirectly related to those of the imagist and objectivist poetry of American and English poets who came later.
Rilke believed himself able at last to see Cezanne's paintings because, as he put it, "I had just reached it [the turning point] in my own work or had at least come close to it somehow, after having been ready for a long time, for the one thing which so much depends upon." (LOC 164) What caught Rilke up was that he could sense in Cezanne things he most earnestly desired to do himself. There was first, as Petzet's introduction relates, a desire to resolve an "inner war" against representation, against the all too sentimental and easy stylization of the visible which had become the artistic coin of the day. What Rilke admired in the painter was the difficulties he had set for himself. "Cezanne," Rilke noted, "had to start over again, from the bottom." (LOC 43)
Still, Rilke could not envision poetic form without closure. For Rilke, the act of closure has a formal structure: it is that which signals the death of an older form as the very ground of new creation. (One finds a similar parallel concerning closure in Bakhtin's notions of "the limits of utterance," limits which are deeply connected to semantic interaction, communal awareness and the dictates of genre.) Rilke could not conceive of any break in artistic tradition which did not somehow value that which it had broken from. Tradition, writ large, was not to be abolished but conserved, particularly at the very moment when its latest instancing was about to be surpassed. Thus, form and closure are nearly always spoken of in Rilke, through the metaphor of death. And yet the poem, like the death of an actual person or thing, always leaves a residue of memories and of its marks upon the earth. The new form is best viewed as a kind of resurrection, a rebirth of the old but secreted within the new.
Rilke, as one of the important letters show, mused on the fact that Cezanne's favorite poem was Baudelaire's "La Charogne" ("Carrion"), where dead flesh is made beautiful, not in the conventional sense, but in Baudelaire's ability to raise carrion out of the conventional formats and value structures which had left its beauty unarticulated. If, in Cezanne, painting allows that which was formerly unseen to be seen, "La Charogne" allows that which was formerly inarticulate to be heard. The completion of the poem is the moment of truth because it is the point where the poet surrenders mind, ego, world-view, to the necessities of the perception. At this point, he is no longer a maker but an element in the equation of the poem. The perception, the poem-work, like the countryside around Cezanne's house or the face before the painter, is an otherness which imposes its demand. Closure recognizes the other as other by carrying the art work to it but never fully arriving there. Someone writes a poem about the moon but the moon is still in the sky when the act of poetic "defamiliarization" ends, and she will have to take up the moon again. Thus, for Rilke, learning from Cezanne, poetic "defamiliarization" was not in itself sufficient to create great art. What would be necessary--instead of novelty erasing novelty--would be "the wrestling with, rather than abolishing, of memory."
Modern and contemporary poetry's concern for "the new" has perhaps obscured the revolutionary nature of the challenge Cezanne posed to Rilke. In these letters, the "wrestling" between memory and the present is no simple thing, for it does not take place at the level of convention or morality but at the much deeper level of the nature of psycho-physical reality. And yet, because of that depth, it cannot help but irradiate the social and cultural realms as well. Let me try to explain this challenge by referring to one of the most evocative works ever written about the painter, Merleau-Ponty's magnificent essay, "Cezanne's Doubt." (MP 9-25) Merleau-Ponty writes that "Cezanne makes a basic distinction not between 'the senses' and 'the understanding' but rather between the spontaneous organization of the things we perceive and the human organization of Ideas and Sciences." (my emphasis) Cezanne, as Merleau-Ponty views him, prompts in the viewer a way of perceiving and being that are initially alien to him. The paintings thrust the viewer, as they did Rilke, into the terra incognita of artistic creation where biases, ideologies and methodologies lose their hold. Echoing Rilke's comment about having to "start over," Merleau-Ponty tells us that "Cezanne's difficulties are those of the first word." They are difficulties, however, precisely because they must come to terms with memory, particularly that aspect of memory exemplified by tradition.
For Rilke--and this is the heart of the transmittal from Cezanne--"reality" is a habit of the mind, a "tradition" deeper than all the other traditions, neither true nor false, but an anchor by which one holds fast against the new or the troubling. A break with the "real" can never be merely a matter of technique or even philosophical stance, since the stance itself is already a form of conceptualization. Technique and stance by themselves are but aspects of the rigor mortis we name reality. What Cezanne could teach Rilke, in Merleau-Ponty's words, was the example of one who "abandons himself to the chaos of sensations," not that sensations themselves are more 'real' but that by the central act of abandonment one also drives a wedge into one's own propensities for methodologies and the seeking after pre-determined effects. In this regard, the Cezanne letters articulate a kind of Dantean passage from confusion to knowledge. For Rilke, Cezanne was a way of crossing Limbo, a way of preparing himself for the late work of the Sonnets to Orpheus and of completing the Elegies already begun in this period. Cezanne's work is, among other things, a personal quarrel with the Enlightenment tendencies of craftsmanship, with the Old Masters who, he wrote, "replaced reality by imagination and by the abstraction which accompanies it." It was necessary to return to the real, but not as to an object which would then be put back into the work where it would lose its potency (as a controlled act of representation, for example). The 'real' would have to exist en face before the artist and the artwork, where, as Rilke noted of Cezanne's blues, they would no longer have any "secondary significance." Craftsmanship here is redirected away from producing effects or knowingly manipulating the viewer or reader of the poem and towards making possible and articulating discoveries.
Still, as Rilke remarks, "memory must be wrestled with," not merely abolished. What Cezanne gives to Rilke is a way to use the past. Rilke's letters speak of our usual relationship to the past as one of comfort, of sentimentality and nostalgia; our identity, our sense of the world is all part and parcel with the 'real.' His metaphors and personifications of the past all carry with them the warmth of familiarity. Struggling with his own bourgeois heritage, Rilke, in the Cezanne letters, attempts to see into the past with the same clarity he would bring to the present. The problems are co-terminous. The past is a "palace" rich in decor and memories. Yet, he remarks in a memorable passage, "even someone who had such palaces to utter would have to approach them innocently and in poverty, and not as someone who could be seduced by them." Elsewhere he writes that one must reject "the interpretative bias even of vague emotional memories, prejudices and predilections transmitted as part of one's heritage, taking instead whatever strength, admiration or desire emerges with them and applying it, nameless and new, to one's own tasks. One has to be poor unto the tenth generation." (LOC 73)
The hold the past has on Rilke is likened to an old "grand' mère" whom one visits partly out of duty and partly out of genuine affection. The decisive moment for him, half-real and half imagined, comes as he wanders past some noble houses on his way to the Salon. A servant at one of them, about to close the gate, turns and gazes at Rilke "carefully and thoughtfully." Rilke meditates "at the same moment it seemed to me that it would have taken only a very slight shift in the pattern of things at some time in order for him to recognize me and step back and hold open the door." Within dwells the "grand' mère" who would receive him, and there, walking about such a house with its beautiful furnishings, Rilke would "feel the presence of all the interrelated things: the gaze of portraits, the dials of musical clocks and the contents of mirrors in which the clear essence of twilight is preserved." (LOC 25-27)
The image is marvelous for both its richness and ability to signify the poet's relationship to the past, that "clear essence of twilight" which has had such a nostalgic hold on him. The grand' mère, "the old lady in violet and white," is described in enigmatic terms, very much as Pater described the Mona Lisa, in that she can barely be pictured in the mind's eye "from one time to the next because she is made up of so many things..." This old woman has great but unbending dignity, and he wonders what he could tell her of the exhibit he is going to see. One thing is clear: "Cezanne is no longer possible for the old lady." (LOC 27) The passage is full of claustrophobia and secreted ambivalences, for in it the poet is striving to break into open ground, to acknowledge, as Merleau-Ponty says of Cezanne, that "the meaning of what the artist is going to say does not exist anywhere." (MP 19)
Rilke found himself in deep affinity with Cezanne precisely on the above point. An art which could dispel the "essence of twilight" would be an art of perceptual faith, of bringing to the fore not conception but the act of attention. Thus Rilke was delighted when the painter Matilde Vollmoeller, accompanying him to the Cezanne exhibit, remarked that Cezanne was "like a dog, he sat there in front of it [the thing to be painted] and simply looked, without any nervousness or irrelevant speculations." (LOC 46)
Cezanne moved Rilke in a way the Impressionists could not. He saw in Impressionist work a struggle to convince the viewer of how much "they loved" what they painted. Their paintings, he wrote, "judged instead of saying." Cezanne had shown him how to move beyond such considerations, even "beyond love," to what the thing itself revealed.
Cezanne's work was the painterly form of the "thing-poem," and the ambiguities it gave rise to--the kind Rilke felt were essential to his own poetry--were psychological and ethical: to return the world to the possibility of a not-as-yet conditioned response. On this level, Cezanne and Rilke seem involved in rescuing the world from the mechanistic scientism of their day. To rescue an object in art does not mean to give it scientific or objective status, but to break it free of its role as part of some prescribed conceptual scheme. A like moment can be discerned in contemporary poetics, in, for example, that of the Objectivist poets, whose aim was never to make the poem scientifically "objective," but to free the poem from the claims of scientism and so re-animate it by refusing the reductions which science and philosophy would impose on our perceptions of the world. Such a search for freedom in the act of poetic composition necessarily began with the break from Imagism and its strategies, which were, by the time of Zukofsky, a literary version of scientistic principles.
Rilke sought to keep the question of existence open. The ambiguous flavor which steeps his work is in no way the result of some procedural indeterminacy. Rather, what he learned from Cezanne was that there was a way of attending to the world which can apply pressure and so expose to the looker the bias and ideology with which his or her gaze is infected. Rilke could then go beyond the simple-minded poetry of rendering or representation toward a poetry in which precision and uncertainty were inextricably united. It was this unity which for Rilke demonstrated that consciousness is never co-terminous with either world or language. Not only other's words but silences surrounded the poetic act; therefore, he sensed that being a poet only incidentally involved the production of texts. Much deeper was a "devotion" to perception which "without ever boasting of it, approaches everything, unaccompanied, inconspicuous, wordless." (LOC 68) Without this devotion, he noted, everything said or written was only "hearsay." In some regards, his work stands, not with, but against many of the 'experiments' of the twentieth-century modernists, and by implication, against many tendencies in the Anglo-American line of Pound and Lewis, and even Eliot. The great danger in reading Rilke is that the uncertainty will be taken as vagueness, sentimentality or existential ennui. The letters on Cezanne show us how ill-founded is that charge. But they are also about less understood matters: utterance and voice. Rilke sought a nearly impossible goal, but a noble and liberating one. As he put it after studying Cezanne: "One has to be able at every moment to place one's hand on the earth like the first human being."
In the forest of paradoxes - Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio
December 13, 2008 by abrham
In the forest of paradoxes - Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio - The Nobel Prize Winner in Literature 2008 - Translated by Alison Anderson
"How is it possible on the one hand, for example, to behave as if nothing on earth were more important than literature, and on the other fail to see that wherever one looks, people are struggling against hunger and will necessarily consider that the most important thing is what they earn at the end of the month? Because this is where he (the writer) is confronted with a new paradox: while all he wanted was to write for those who are hungry, he now discovers that it is only those who have plenty to eat who have the leisure to take notice of his existence."
- Stig Dagerman, The Writer and Consciousness
This "forest of paradoxes", as Stig Dagerman calls it, is, precisely, the realm of writing, the place from which the artist must not attempt to escape: on the contrary, he or she must "camp out" there in order to examine every detail, explore every path, name every tree. It is not always a pleasant stay. He thought he had found shelter, she was confiding in her page as if it were a close, indulgent friend; but now these writers are confronted with reality, not merely as observers, but as actors. They must choose sides, establish their distance.(....)
Something simple, and true, which exists in language alone. A charm, sometimes a ruse, a grating dance, or long spells of silence. The language of mockery, of interjections, of curses, and then, immediately afterwards, the language of paradise.(....)
For all his pessimism, Stig Dagerman's phrase about the fundamental paradox of the writer, unsatisfied because he cannot communicate with those who are hungry—whether for nourishment or for knowledge—touches on the greatest truth. Literacy and the struggle against hunger are connected, closely interdependent. One cannot succeed without the other. Both of them require, indeed urge, us to act. So that in this third millennium, which has only just begun, no child on our shared planet, regardless of gender or language or religion, shall be abandoned to hunger or ignorance, or turned away from the feast. This child carries within him the future of our human race. In the words of the Greek philosopher Heraclitus, a very long time ago, the kingdom belongs to a child.
The Independant
December 11, 2008 by abrham
Winde van verandering waai blykbaar orals.
Philip Hensher: Help save the review (and the reviewer)
Thursday, 11 December 2008
Newspapers are going through a period of change, no one can doubt that. Under the pressure of the internet and its myriad contributors, the purpose of pages of criticism seems less obvious as it once was to some owners and editors. In an age where everyone is willing, it seems, to express their views for nothing, and to make them universally accessible for nothing, what is the point of paying a critic to express what is only one person's opinion?
One hears, almost everywhere, gloomy prognostications of the future of newspaper criticism in its traditional form. Some newspapers have done away entirely with a standing critic of some art forms or media, and have found that the world doesn't collapse if you get rid of a television critic, say.
Last week, the much-loved and greatly admired literary editor of The Daily Telegraph, Sam Leith, was unexpectedly sacked. There is no sign that the Telegraph is planning to get rid of the books pages, although Private Eye has reported that he was told that his job was now "otiose". Nevertheless, at a party to launch the new online Book Club of The Spectator, there were plenty of people prepared to venture that the books pages, in their traditional form, had had their day. The future belonged to bloggers and the view, taken en masse, of the reviewer on amazon.com.
I declare an interest here as a regular book reviewer for The Spectator and other papers. It's not, however, an accident that the best literary editors in London are often among the most admired and respected in the literary world. They walk a demanding path, matching expertise with subject, thinking who will write with some sparkle, who will supply gravitas, who will exercise some sympathy towards a book which may need it, who perhaps may entertain readers with a sharp view of an overindulged author. Casting against type is a favourite game in the theatre; the unexpected commission is as much an art form as any other.
The ones who stick around are very good at it. Kate Summerscale at the Telegraph, Erica Wagner at The Times, Suzi Feay at The Independent on Sunday, Boyd Tonkin at The Independent, Mark Amory at The Spectator and Claire Armitstead at The Guardian – some of whom, before you ask, I write for, some of whom I don't – are ones that stand out in memory or present reputation.
What the books pages offer, I think, is some guarantee of expertise, and some guarantee of responsible disinterest. Neither is total, of course – you don't want expert quibbling with expert, nor a page full of reviewers who don't live in the literary world at all. But there must be some kind of guarantee here, considerably in excess of anything the self-publishers of the internet can offer.
The best literary blogs, such as dovegreyreader.com, are clearly as good as anything written in the paper press, expert and disinterested. Others, frankly, are self-publicists who know very little, and who may, as far as anyone knows, be serving an agenda. Every author knows the obsessively hostile blogger or online reviewer who turns out to be a slighted participant on a creative writing course; those reviews on amazon are interesting guides to what ordinary readers think, but not necessarily the product of any great expertise or experience. Nor are they meant to be.
There is a place, however, for expertise and experience to speak out in a critical fashion, and that place, I think, is going to continue to be the books pages of newspapers. I hope the party chatter that proprietors are looking at eight or 10 pages of book reviews and shaking their heads is just that, chatter. If not, you'll miss them when they're gone, I promise you.
Wie is die beste filosoof
December 10, 2008 by abrham
Die persoon wat hierdie stuk geskryf het is in ‘n dodesel. Alleen in sy sel is die soeke na sin seker 'n bietjie laat. Tog inspireer hy my met sy insig oor dinge ewig.
Who Is The Best Philosopher?
The answer is: an archetype
The best philosopher is not an individual but rather an archetype, possessing certain qualifying traits which authentic romancers of wisdom will strive to attain. First, the consummate philosopher must emulate the inquisitional intrepidness of Socrates: they must be fearless in challenging existing ideas and paradigms, even at the risk of the forced consumption of an untherapeutic dose of tasty hemlock. The paragon philosopher must be familiar with many systems of thought, yet identify with no single religion or doctrine: for what are dogmas to a lover of truth but an accumulation of detritus which impedes the quest? Faith is what happens when we lose faith in ourselves, intimates Lao Tzu. Thus the authentic seeker embraces the advice of Kahlil Gibran, and makes his life his temple and religion. The ultimate philosopher also understands Jesus’ assertion that “the Kingdom of Heaven is within you,” and they realize, as did John Milton, that the mind “can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.” On the advice of Confucius, the ideal philosopher seeks not flattery, nor do they shun reprimand: rather, they rejoice in hearing their errors, knowing that the truth is one step closer. They compete with nobody except themselves, espousing Muhammad’s maxim that we need only be greater today than we were yesterday. There isn’t a care for dominance over others, but only victory over oneself, as Buddha suggested. The supreme philosopher is also not enslaved by longings for wealth or hedonism: “For what good is it to gain the world,” asks Jesus, “if we lose our very selves?” Following Bertrand Russell, a Casanova of wisdom is seduced not only by truth but also by beauty and passion. They distinguish between loneliness and aloneness, and like a mystic, are not repulsed by the latter, but enchanted. An existential hazard to the ordinary person, solitude provides the model philosopher adequate time for self-reflection, to fulfil the immortalized Greek axiom gnothi seauton, ‘know thyself’ – because like Socrates, they have accepted that the unexamined life is not worth living.
Shawn Harte, Death Row, Nevada
Re: The Shack - william P young
December 9, 2008 by abrham
trisa, ek dink sy kwyt haar uitstekend van haar taak om enige leser genoeg rede te gee om te lees of nie te lees nie. is dit nie die eintlike doel van 'n geslaagde ressensie nie? wel gedaan, sonkind - crito op litnetblogs sal jou laaik.
Re: The Shack - william P young
December 9, 2008 by abrham
"The Shack" is the publishing phenomenon of the year
By GEORGE DUNCAN
There is no question that "The Shack" is the publishing phenomenon of the year. Published by a small Christian firm, it has shot to the top of best seller lists. The sub-title might be dialogues with God, as the protagonist carries on an extended conversation with God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit in an abandoned shack.
The book has received both criticism and extended praise but reading it reminded me of a long-ago book review by short story writer Harlen Ellison. He was reviewing a "Best of the Year" volume of science fiction stories. One story that had won critical acclaim was "Patron of the Arts." Although the author was a friend of his, Ellison admitted he had a blind spot with it came to the story. Although others had praised it, the story left him cold, if not frozen.
That's the same reaction I have to "The Shack." (I am ignoring any sparks of envy that might arise because author William Young has made the best seller lists and my books haven't been within light years of the top ten.) I just don't understand what all the fuss is about because the book is, at best, mediocre in writing and, as the critics charged, theologically flawed.
To have the Trinity talking at length for a hundred or so pages, The Shack should be packed with a more wisdom and insight. God is a vivacious black woman, Jesus is a carpenter with a plaid shirt and the Holy Spirit is an Asian called Sarayu. It's not the multicultural nature of the Trinity that has upset author MIchael Young's critics, but their belief that he has a theologically skewed version of Christianity.
The narrative hook of the book - besides the talking Trinity - is the shack where the conversations take place is the site where the protagonist's young daughter was brutally murdered. So although the question of evil lures readers to pick up the book, the author never really grapples with the subject. In fact, the three members of Young's Trinity sound less like Deity and more like they have degrees in the psychology of self-actualization.
At one point Mack - the book's main character - says to God, "If you couldn't take care of Missy, how can I trust you to take care of me."
God's answer is a bit evasive. "Mack, I'm so sorry. " Tears began to fall down her cheeks. "I know what a great gulf this puts between us. I know you don't understand this yet, but I am especially fond of Missy, and you too."
But if Mack, and the reader, doesn't understand it yet, it's the perfect place for an explanation of evil. Yet Young doesn't pursue the subject.
Later in the book, when Mack brings up the murder of his child again, God answers, "there are millions of reasons to allow pain and hurt and suffering rather than to eradicate them, but most of those reasons can only be understood within each persons's story."
If there are millions of reasons, perhaps the author could have shared one or two at this point in the book.
In another place, the Holy Spirit says, "...that in one instance, the good may be the presence of cancer or the loss of income - or even a life."
That's utter nonsense. It is contrary to scripture and totally idiotic. Anyone who believes that line is a moral and theological cretin.
The other, minor literary annoyances of The Shack pale to the scriptural errors. The characters - both divine and human - in the book don't say things. They reassure, interject , exclaim, etc. as they sprout their off-the-wall theology.
Ironically, in a book about evil, there is nothing said about the devil, a rather glaring omission. Christianity teaches that evil is a reality and is personified by the Devil and his demonic allies. Why Satan and demonic being are allowed to roam the Earth has been the major issue in Christianity. Possibly the best answer - as noted by many in the charismatic branch of the faith - is man has authority on the Earth, as represented by Adam when God gave him rulership. Therefore, if evil is to be conquered it must be overcome by the Body of Christ, with individual Christians using the name of Jesus and the weapons that Paul describes in Ephesians. But if they don't act, evil has the ability to run wild over the Earth.
(As an aside, even as early as 1900, many philosophers, intellectuals and writers spoke of Europe as being in a post-Christian age. The new non-Christian age brought forth Nazism and communism, two secular philosophies that killed hundreds of millions before they were buried in un-hallowed ground. The withdrawal of Christianity opens the door to evil.)
This goes along with John Wesley's statement that "God seems to be able to do very little on the Earth without his people praying." The statement makes sense if God - at least for a time - has given (almost all) authority on Earth to men, so will not move unless his people pray and stand in faith.
Even if you disagree with that theology, it is better than pretending that sometimes cancer and the lost of an innocent life is a good thing.
In one of his books C.S. Lewis grappled with "The Problem of Pain" and Christians have forever struggled with the problems of evil and suffering in the world. Christian authors - including this one - have also done their best to tackle the subject. But The Shack doesn't bring literary light or insight on the age-old question. Young's Trinity are more simply more annoying than they are profound.
Re: Koos Prinsloo – Vehale
November 25, 2008 by abrham
wat vir my interresant sal wees is om die belewenis van vroue wat sy verhale gelees het te hoor. jy is reg as jy se dat die intensiteit skroeiend was in slagplaas en dat hy in n vakuum van gewaande weklikheid geleef en beleef het. die groot geeste baklei oor sy pre/post of dalk post/post oedipala komplekse maar hy figureer vir my as mens wat soos almal stoei om sin aan 'n gebreklike beeld van die werkliheid te gee. niemand word dit gespaar nie. ja en toe is die popster ook nie n droewige einde gespaar nie. alle vlees is gras.
Koos Prinsloo – Vehale
November 25, 2008 by abrham
Die bundel met vier van Prinsloo se publikasies is 'n moet. Eerstens met die saamlees van die vier boeke kry mens 'n geheelbeeld oor die skrywer, sy belewenis van die werklikheid en sy soeke na er/herkenning. Alhoewel die boeke in die vroeë tagtigs tot vroeë negenntigs geskryf is, is van die knelpunte en uitbreiding van grense vandag nog relevant. Prinsloo was beslis 'n onstoke man en in sy uitbeelding van sy seksuele voorkeure, eksplisiet. Die ontplooing van manlike seksuele energie is soms onhutsend, ons lewe in 'n onhutsende wereld. Daar is te veel stories in die bundels wat diep gryp om enige uit te sonder. Jonkmanskas was in ag genome die tydsgewrig tentatief. Die hemel help ons meer ge-aksentueerd maar as ons by Slagplaas kom, spaar Prinsloo ons nie die full Monty nie. Ek dink met Weifeling het hy besef hy het dalk sy pad geloop en bekyk retrospektiewelik na ingrypende grepe in sy lewe. Dit sal onregverdig wees om enigiets uit die bundel aan te haal maar tog sou ek die tema van die tekste in breë so verwoord:
“ 'n Paar gedrae vrae, my liewe toehoorder: Slag 'n mens jouself dalk met jou eie offermes, deurboor jy jouself met jou eie pyl, is dit jy wat jouself verwond en bevrug of is hierdie aanbidding van die lans maar hoe 'n paar van ons noodwendig ondergaan in hierdie tyd? Slagplaas, Drome is ook wonde.
In geheel is ek bly ek het die boek gekoop en gelees.
Koos Prinsloo, VERHALE , Human $ Rousseau, ISBN -10 0-7981-4940-X
Re: Resensies
November 24, 2008 by abrham
hierdie is so raak beskrywing oor die aard en wese van resensiekunde dat ek dit sommer alhier'spoeg en plak'. meet gerus 'kundiges' wat nilly willy resensier aan meegaande. ons drie afrikaanse dagblaaie en ons sondagkoerant se boeke-editors behoort ge-re-educate te word!
Resensering en die strewe na objektiwiteit
Bernard Odendaal
Die polemiek oor literêre kritiek en poësie-resensering wat die afgelope weke in By, maar ook in die portale van LitNet, opgeklink het, laat nog vrae in die lug hang. Een daarvan betref die "subjektiwiteit" van kritiek, wat volgens almal eintlik onvermydelik is.
Hoe kan 'n groter mate van objektiwiteit wél nagestreef word?
Sou dit moontlik wees om meer as een kritikus saam te laat werk aan 'n resensie? Twee of meer koppe wat darem beter oordeel as een alleen?
Dis 'n besliste moontlikheid, hoewel ek my bedenkinge het of daar alte veel literêre kritici is wat met ander sal (wil) saamwerk aan so iets. Bowendien sal so 'n werkswyse waarskynlik tydsamer verloop as die skrywe van soloresensies, en boekebladredakteurs, veral dié by koerante - en die uitgewers en skrywers wat tog maar brand om te weet wat die kritici sê! - sal in sulke gevalle meer geduld aan die dag moet lê. Ander potensiële nadele is dat die kompromisaard van kollektiewe beslissings die spontaneïteit van indiwiduele menings mag aantas, of dat 'n sterker persoonlikheid by een lid van die resensentegroep tot gevolg kan hê dat sy of haar besondere interpretasies dié van die ander oorheers, en die verskeidenheid unieke reaksies op die werk derhalwe beperk word.
In elk geval sal die groter "objektiwiteit" van 'n spanresensie neerkom op 'n vorm van intersubjektiwiteit, of van uitbalansering van subjektiewe uiterstes. En dan kan die belangstellende leser net sowel Charl-Pierre Naudé se raad (By, 25/10/2008) volg om liefs resensies deur verskillende kritici én die boek of bundel self te lees in die vorming van 'n oorwoë mening daaroor.
Kan die indiwiduele resensent iets doen om eie oordele "objektiewer" te maak?
Dis seker nie nodig om te sê dat resensente hul slegs behoort te veroorloof om te resenseer binne velde en oor onderwerpe waarvan hulle diepgaande kennis het nie. Eintlik sou 'n goeie resensent, dus ook 'n literêre kritikus, 'n ware liefhebber van sy vak moet wees. Hy dien veral sy vak, speel sy bepaalde rol op byvoorbeeld die literêre terrein met oortuiging. Daarom sal hy hom juis besonder steur aan die norme wat ideaal geld, waaronder objektiwiteit.
'n Resensent is 'n (dikwels vroeë) ontvanger in die stuk literêre kommunikasie wat deur middel van die bepaalde teks aan hom (ook) gerig word. Die "objek" van sy aandag - dit wat in die oorspronklike sin van die woord "objektiwiteit" bepaal - behoort in die eerste plek die téks voor hom te wees. Nie die sender (die digter met wie hy byvoorbeeld 'n byltjie te slyp het) nie. Nie 'n aspek van die konteks (byvoorbeeld een of ander sosiopolitieke aangeleentheid wat die resensent in die letterkunde weerspieël wil sien) nie. Nie stilistiese of vormlike of beskoulike aspekte waaraan die resensent voorkeur gee of waarvan hy afkerig staan nie. Die bepaalde boek (boodskap) staan sentraal. Tensy 'n mens op postmodernistiese trant die outoriteit van die teks radikaal bevraagteken - wat dan eintlik impliseer dat jy, weens die wesenlike onhaalbaarheid van die norm van (volkome) objektiwiteit, ook die stréwe daarna prysgee. In so 'n geval kan die "etiek van interpretasie" waarna Hennie van Coller in By van 1 November 2008 verwys het, ook maar by die agterdeur uitvlieg.
Om die kommunikasie so goed as moontlik te laat slaag (so het taalhandelingsteoretici al lankal uitgewys), behoort die resensent dus net soveel as die skrywer te voldoen aan die koöperatiewe beginsel en die gespreksvoorwaardes wat dáármee gepaard gaan. Dis die moeite werd om weer vir Hillis Miller oor respek vir die teks aan te haal (soos Hennie van Coller dit, in Afrikaans vertaal, in die genoemde By-bydrae gedoen het): "Dit is die verpligting om te lees [...] sorgvuldig, geduldig en noulettend, met die basiese voorveronderstelling dat die teks wat jy lees iets totaal anders mag sê as dit wat jy verwag dit moet sê of wat jy graag daarin sou wou lees óf wat ander daaroor te sê gehad het."
Die resensent moet bereid wees tot "a willing suspension of (own) beliefs" (om die bekende uitdrukking van SR Levin om te dop - darem met 'n verwante strekking!). 'n "Objektiewe" resensent se aard is dalk soortgelyk aan dié van die kunstenaar, soos deur DJ Opperman in sy opstel "Kuns is boos!" beskryf. So 'n resensent streef ook eers daarna om as 't ware wesenloos te wees, "amoreel deur sy onpartydigheid". Hy en sy beskouings los as 't ware op, gáán op in die idees en sienings soos dit vergestalt word in argumentatiewe strukturering en in die styl- en vormgewingsaspekte van die kunswerk. So werk hy aktief mee om betekenis tot stand te bring, probeer hy agter die "bedoeling" met die kunswerk te kom (al is so 'n denkbeeld al die "intentional fallacy" genoem). Trouens, hy word, waar dit om poësie gaan, 'n soort mededigter-aan-die-ontvangkant om die bedoelde boodskap met die bundel te verwerklik - vir sover so iets bestaan en rekonstrueerbaar is. Om dit daarna te kan beskryf en die bepaalde werk in terme van die geslaagde en funksionele samehang, al dan nie, tussen die verskillende aspekte daarvan te beoordeel. (Vandaar die mening wat al gelug is dat digters waarskynlik die beste poësieresensente sal wees?)
Dat dié "objektiwiteit" (gerigtheid op die objek) egter net in die eerste plek kan geld - en dan nie eens noodwendig chronologies so nie - word nou duidelik. Bloot die eis dat die resensent belese op die betrokke vakgebied moet wees om voldoende te kan meewerk om betekenis tot stand te bring, bring die vergelykingsbasis van interpretasie en van kwaliteit- en waardebeoordeling ter sprake (daar is dus van die begin af ook 'n konteksgerigtheid). Daarby laat die uniekheid van lees- en leerevarings (ook aangaande die skrywer en sy bestaande oeuvre), en van byvoorbeeld poësiebeskoulike voorkeure, hulle eweneens vanuit die staanspoor geld (subjektiwiteit).
Soos alle "ingeligte" lesers word resensente onvermydelik beïnvloed deur kodes of interpretasiereëls wat in hulle bepaalde omstandighede die skryf en lees van byvoorbeeld die poësie domineer, of hulle die dominante sienings deel of nie. Kodes soos dat alles met alles in 'n gedig of bundel saamhang. Of dat alles in 'n gedig of 'n bundel betekenisdraend is of kan wees. Of dat "nuutheid" tot literêre kwaliteit bydra. Ensovoorts, ensovoorts.
Sulke kodes is van groot belang in literêre kommunikasie, want indien skrywer en leser nie (grootliks) dieselfde kodes deel nie, sal die poging om die vergestalte "bedoeling" in die teks te agterhaal, nie kan slaag nie. Voorts vorm die kodes die basis vir die vergelyking van die nuwe teks met bestaande tekste en derhalwe vir die beoordeling van die relatiewe geslaagdheid, oorspronklikheid, nuutheid, strekking, werking en waarde daarvan.
'n Mens kan selfs sê dat jy hier te doen het met 'n tweede vlak van "objektiwiteit": die resensent tree uit die "eerste" beskouing van die objek-in-isolasie terug om nou 'n betragting te doen van die objek-binne-kommunikatiewe-verbande.
Dit mag lyk of daar by die lees van historiese tekste, of tekste uit 'n vreemde kultuur, net mooi andersom te werk gegaan moet word om "objektiwiteit" te maksimaliseer. Die breë kulturele en ook talige en literêre milieu moet éérs deur die ontvanger ingevul word, en hy moet kennis van die outeur en sy oeuvre inwin, voordat hy koöperatief en effektief met die teks as objek kan omgaan.
Maar eintlik is die leser van die historiese of "vreemde" teks in so 'n geval eintlik net besig om 'n konteks te skep wat soortgelyk kan wees aan dié van die ingeligte resensent wat 'n eietydse teks moet beoordeel: juis vanweë sy meerdere kennis van die konteks waarbinne die boek verskyn (het), is hy in staat om die relatiewe effektiwiteit, nuutheid, ensovoorts daarvan na waarde te skat.
Objektiwiteit in interpretasie en resensering, moet 'n mens dus weer beklemtoon, is eerder 'n strewe as 'n feit. Etiek vereis dat dit as norm gerespekteer word. Daarom moet die feit dat resensies "voorlopig" is, dat dit "'n eerste mening" of "'n vroeë indruk" verteenwoordig, nie méér word as 'n beskrywing van 'n helaas onvermydelike stand van sake nie. Dit mag nie 'n verskoning word om nie deeglik, onder andere strewend na objektiwiteit, te lees nie.
Heel dikwels is resensies die enigste openbare kritiek van noemenswaardige diepte en omvang wat ooit oor 'n literêre werk gelewer sal word. En as die skrywer (en die uitgewer) dan moet voel dat die resensent nie moeite gedoen het om agter die kap van die byl met die boek te kom nie ...
Re: Universele litirere kritiek
November 23, 2008 by abrham
nadia, 'this exploration of male inadequacy and frustrated ambition' blyk die deurslag te gee. wel, ek hoop jou 'mannehaat' word gevoed!!!
die ' is ook myne. dis verfrissend om die teenkant van misogany 'n slag raak te loop.
Re: Universele litirere kritiek
November 23, 2008 by abrham
hier te lande het ons in ons eie agterjaart tussen ons brothers ook maar onenigheid. voels van eenderste vere die spul skrywers
November 22, 2008
Stephen Gray vs Zakes Mda: Tiff between revered literary critics
Filed under: free state black literature, literature, zakes mda — ABRAXAS @ 12:04 pm
By Raphael Mokoena
8/10/08
The literary scene in South Africa this week has been largely dominated by the literary “brickbats” between two of the country’s greatest academics and writers, Stephen Gray and Zakes Mda. Mr. Gray published a piece in a national newspaper (Mail and Guardian) where he criticised a number of aspects of Mr. Mda’s writing. The latter responded vigorously – both of them rather strongly picking on each other with more than a hint of personal attacks.
The furore awakened what many black African people in the literary business have known for years. The genre of literary criticism does not sit too well with most of our writers, and in the end it becomes difficult to separate authentic literary criticism from personal attacks. Over the decades as African literature grew by leaps and bounds, friendships between writers had been ruptured, with resentment in the air all because of “literary criticism”
Writer and cultural activist, Aryan Kaganof has referred to “mean spiritedness” (accusing Stephen Gray of this). But the history of literary criticism over the years and centuries shows that in so many cases critics can easily be accused of this, even if this might not be their intention. Often literary criticism goes too far and it does seem as if the pertinent critic has something against the writer being “attacked”.
A case in point was the way James Joyce’s immortal masterpiece, Ulysses, was greeted by some top critics after the book was first published. The great Virginia Woolf remarked on it thus: “Ulysses is the work of a queasy undergraduate scratching his pimples”; DH Lawrence, top writer commented: “The last part of Ulysses is the most indecent, dirtiest, most obscene thing ever written. It is filthy”; literary critic, Edmund Goose said: “The author (of Ulysses) is a charlatan…the book is an anarchical production, infamous in taste, in style, everything”
As regards the “tiff” between Stephen Gray and Zakes Mda, both of them remain formidable literary activists and writers. I can not agree with the suggestion that a literary figure can only be judged on their prolificacy and having books on the shelf almost on a yearly basis. Whether Chinua Achebe published any more novels after his classic Things fall apart came out fifty years ago, he would always be revered for his pioneering masterpiece (indeed, Achebe has not published any new novel for over 20 years). Stephen Gray is ensconced as a very important critic and imaginative writer whose works have been published world-wide, with many different editions.
On his own part, despite the fact that Zakes Mda began publishing novels less than fifteen years ago, he has already proved that he’s at the top of his craft, and he has quickly joined the elite of the all time great novelists in the continent. Works of his like Heart of Redness, Madonna of Excelsior, Ways of Dying belong to the top drawer. Of course he is also a veritable academic too. He and Stephen Gray know only too well that the genre of literary criticism is often an acerbic one. But one always regrets seeing personal attacks between illustrious people (in this case, wordsmiths.)
Mr. Mokoena, a literary activist, lives in Qwaqwa.
this article first appeared on raselebeli khotseng’s black african literature blog
3 Responses to “Stephen Gray vs Zakes Mda: Tiff between revered literary critics”
1.femi leadbelly Says:
November 22nd, 2008 at 5:40 pm
the blahicans
and their
blah blah
hem and haw
whilst folks of
the continent
dig for treasure
or some measure
of
self worth..
where is
the love.
2.sarah hills Says:
November 22nd, 2008 at 6:15 pm
ms/r belly ~ you’re so right ~ and love is everywhere if you can source it, but sometimes not on this cyberpaper………. ~~~~~~~~~~
3.femi leadbelly Says:
November 22nd, 2008 at 11:11 pm
lets all co-write
our narratives
minus
all the
inter
textual
inter
racial
critique
of dem
mutha…..
elites..
amening
again
the source
of all africa,
the world.
