Sunday, March 18, 2007

ABOUT LITERATURE Susan Sontag: "A great writer of fiction both creates - through acts of imagination, through language that feels inevitable, through vivid forms - a new world, a world that is unique, individual; and responds to a world, the world the writer shares with other people but is unknown or mis-known by still more people, confined in their worlds: call that history, society, what you will. But of course, the primary task of a writer is to write well." What you so often see is that people read (if they read at all) to be distracted from the real world, to have a good laugh; in short to be amused and entertained. That's the realm of television (and please forget about its informational value or task in the present time, it no longer has any - on the contrary, the task of television seems to be disinformation). Some people don't even notice the beauty of the written language. The only thing they are focused on is the plot, the story. They can't be bothered about the rest. No harm, you would say. Well, not really. Quite often every attempt to point to the real meaning(s) or value of a novel, to elucidate it or attempt to understand the connotations to the real world, are ridiculed and torpedoed. They only want to be amused and will twist anything that does not conform with their own limited views. You will find many of these among the collectors of every edition of their beloved writer. Fortunately not all of the collectors fall into this category. But there is a caste of literature groupies that resembles more that of stalkers and pop fans. 11:40:00 AM

© Copyright 2007 Hetty Litjens.