The secret of AS litererary geniuses

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Caution: this post in very hard reading, but I believe what I say. Simply skip it if you have to strain too much to understand. The fault is mine and I apologize for my lack of clarity. It's Easter time and to put down these ideas (if they are not entirely delirious) helped me to survive.


All this people had retired in a restricted region of the world to build castles of perfection, talking mostly or exclusively about themselves, and established a system of rules of the game perfectly designed to allow them to win. The meaning and aim of language was, in this way, put upside down. Language is aimed at staying with others, to make things with them. But the language of the various Kafka, Beckett, Heidegger or Proust was directed to close any form of dialogue with others. Others are enticed in it with seductive tricks only in order to capture them and oblige them to assist to the authors’ solipsistic discourse. Discourse is for them a kind of monologue, it shows off the acrobatics of those lame people that they are (mutilated in life). Their talk is a kind of occupation of territory, marking it with an idiosyncratic word rather that with the usual urine, using a double face language, one meaning for others and another meaning for the self confessing authors. It is a strenuous fight for conquer loneliness and a proof of the effectiveness of the effort is in the fact that crowds of critics and commentators have put themselves at the disposal of the lame loners, without generally being able to pollute them. The produce of the lame loners is treated like a sacred message. Enormous quantities of Talmudic comment have been grown on these texts like an Amazonia forest. With their ambiguity they have occupied their space in the world at least for some time before the end.

Now I will walk a little the little dog, who, being a female, will not do much marking with urine.

I didn't find it hard to read, and you bring up an interesting point.

I agree - in part. These chieftains of literary discourse you mention (Kafka, among others) were very self-absorbed. When reading their words, others are forced to try and make sense of symbolism that changes meaning depending upon the reader. Yes, their writings are a reflection of their self-absorbed nature and like an overly rich buffet table, we take from it only that which appeals to us and discard the rest.

If an aspiring author wants to enter into this clandestine world of so-called literary genius, they have to pretend they understand the esoterics and symbolism behind the writings of the authors you mention and do it passably enough to impress others of their ilk. On the other hand, though, the work of these self-absorbed, egomaniacal highbrows has lasted for decades. Their flowery verbiage is foisted daily upon thousands of college students -- who in turn pretend they actually have the key to this secret language of symbolism. In essence, it makes for great conversation over a hot cup of cappuccino whilst impressing the socks off the cute but near-illiterate economics student sitting on the other side of the coffee table.

There really IS something to be said for Occam's Razor.

I found it very difficult to read, as it followed no discernible rules of grammar, usage, or punctuation. Words were jumbled together, with no consideration for whether they actually meant anything in context.

If the writer is not a native speaker of English (a matter on which I have no data), I can understand the way in which the ideas were presented. That doesn't make them any more comprehensible, of course, any more than I would be comprehensible if I attempted to type this message in French. My desire to communicate (or not) is irrelevant, if I do not possess the tools of communication. (One cannot be said to be refusing to do something which one cannot do, just as I cannot be said to be refusing to levitate.)

As for the purpose behind writing, I think Robert Heinlein may have been right when he said that a writer - any writer - must have as his first goal the entertainment of the audience. One may have other goals as well - education, the spreading of a desirable meme, whatever - but if one does not entertain, no one will ever read one's words, and they will accomplish nothing. (And if you wish to accomplish nothing, why go to the trouble and expense of publishing random assemblages of words? Do nothing, and nothing will be accomplished successfully and easily.)

Dante has been foisted on millions of high school and college students, but this is not his legacy. T.S. Eliot was one of his many heirs. Eliot in turn wrote very difficult poetry, full of quotations and references to other poets and literary figures. Some Eliot is much more comprehensible than “The Waste Land” and is clearly intended to a larger public (the Quartets). Addressing to others (readers) is often ambivalently wanted. Kafka published a few tales, but wanted all his novels to be destroyed after his death.
I wouldn’t talk of symbolism or verbiage (which is disparaging) but of obliquity, in the same sense that you don’t talk or at least you don’t depict (in the Moslem tradition and in part also in the Judaic tradition) of God in a direct way. Some themes can only be treated with allusions, in very convoluted ways. Then you may have highbrow conversation about Dante or Beckett over a cup of tea, but certainly this was not what major writers wanted to be done of their work.

Maybe the writers of obscure pieces are like Kay in The Snow Queen, who sits in the Queen's icy palace, trying to solve the icy puzzle that she had left him with, and which he is unable to solve for many long years, until his childhood companion Gerda finds him and weeps tears over him, which dissolve the glass splinters in his eye and heart which had fallen in there so long before when the mirror which distorted all, ( made everything more or less, polarised things ), was shattered and the pieces, fine slivers of glass, blown everywhere in the world.

Maybe language, or life itself if language is believed to be the real thing, is an icy puzzle, impossible to finish if you do not have all the pieces, or if you look at life "through" language under the illusion that it (language ) is not there.

How did Gerda heal him/solve the puzzle/melt the splinter?

She brought dreams with her, ( kings, and princesses, and crows/ravens, and deer, and old women, and robbers and prisoners, and animals of all kinds, and gardens and rivers...). The most glorious collection of dreamlike oldest tales and archetypes. She reconnected Kay with something essential , before-language.

And modern society maybe is thirsting for that.

From what I understand you're criticizing those writers for being navel-gazers rather than politically active.

I read a lot of European classics as a teenager but changed track in college. That's when I decided the academic path wasn't for me. I was learning about colonialism and feminism, and couldn't reconcile the reality of people's experiences with the literature. But I don't think it's fair to fault individual writers for the dead white male bias that intellectuals are corrupted by; once canonized their radicalism is overlooked.

I'm currently reading a book called Moving Toward Life by a dancer, choreographer and teacher in San Fransisco, her name is Anna Halprin. She was active since the forties as a modern dance activist, she talks a lot about redefining the artist as a community vessel rather than a solitary hero. It's interesting. But I wouldn't rate one kind of work over another, everything feeds on what's around it.

I remember though how I used to watch intellectuals whose thoughts were all in their heads and think how wrong it looked. That's why I like dance and yoga, they integrate the body and mind and the intelligence is enriched as a result.

I was reading this thread while listening to Bob Dylan's "It's alright, ma (I'm only bleeding)". When I finished reading all the comments, I thought I should turn off Dylan so I could focus on Paolo's original post and formulate a response (sometimes I read the comments first before I read the original post...I know weird). I realized the song was almost done, so I waited. Then near the end, "And if my thought dreams could be seen/they'd probably put my head in a guillotine". Ah, Dylan.

With literary obfuscation, dangerous thought dreams may still be displayed without any of the consequences that come with literal accountability. Once you're pinned down, history can erase your relevance. The hindsight of all future thinkers looks for challenges yet to be superceded, not paying attention to those whose "thought dreams" were not elusive enough to avoid the critics' falling blade or dangerous enough to even warrant notice.

I apologize for any lack of clarity as well. I follow a train of thought and I don't know where I end up sometimes.

"I cannot speak well enough to be unintelligible."
Jane Austen