A week of literary celebration: LitBash 7

Meet some of the world’s most fascinating writers and their works. A weekly celebration of literary anniversaries, an opportunity to read a book! Read and perhaps you'll discover a fascinating world, as Italo Calvino said: "Reading is going toward something that is about to be, and no one yet knows what it will be."

Born this week:

Norman Mailer, USA
"With the pride of an artist, you must blow against the walls of every power that exists, the small trumpet of your defiance."

Oe Kenzaburo, Japan
"The fundamental style of my writing has been to start from my personal matters and then to link it up with society, the state and the world."

James Joyce, Ireland
"The demand that I make of my reader is that he should devote his whole Life to reading my works."

Ayn Rand, Russia / USA
"There is a stage of worship which makes the worshipper himself an object of reverence."

Gertrude Stein, USA
"We are always the same age inside."

James Michener, USA
"The really great writers are people like Emily Brontë who sit in a room and write out of their limited experience and unlimited imagination."

Simone Weil, France
"Rights are always asserted in a tone of contention; and when this tone is adopted, it must rely upon force in the background, or else it will be laughed at."

Ugo Betti, Italy
"Memories are like stones, time and distance erode them like acid."

William Burroughs, USA
"Cut word lines — Cut music lines — Smash the control images — Smash the control machine — Burn the books — Kill the priests — Kill! Kill! Kill!"

Lothar-Gunther Buchheim, Germany
Author of Das Boot.

Died this week:

John Galsworthy, Great Britain
"The world's a fine place for those who go out to take it; there's lots of unknown stuff' in it yet."

Jean Giraudoux, France
"To win a woman in the first place one must please her, then undress her, and then somehow get her clothes back on her. Finally, so she will allow you to leave her, you've got to annoy her."

A.A. Milne, Great Britain
"It is hard to be brave," said Piglet, sniffing slightly, "when you're only a Very Small Animal."

Mary Shelley, Great Britain
"Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of void, but out of chaos"

Alistair Maclean, Scotland
Author of popular thrillers.

Bohumil Hrabal, Czech
"No book worth its salt is meant to put you to sleep, its meant to make you jump out of your bed in your underwear and run and beat the author's brains out."

Carlo Goldoni, Italy
"Each day a day goes by."

Universal Silence of the Leaders of Thought

 

I met my neighbor in a dog park. We got to talking about the wars, the universal silence that surrounds them, about the Nobel Peace prize recipient - turned bloodiest war criminal, and we wondered about the anti-war movement, about voices that are supposed to speak against the crimes committed in the name of the people. What ever happened to them? My neighbor pointed out to writers and actors who go on joyful tours of military camps, doing stand up comedy, spreading comic books… This brought us to recall certain similarities and differences from the times past. We recalled the likes of Rudyard Kipling, and ardent war supporter, who turned against it after the death of his son, to Jack London who did not see the future of the war for the shear escalation of its costs, and to Romain Rolland who, a lonely voice, so tirelessly crusaded against both world wars. It was Rolland whom we discussed for over an hour while our pooches frolicked in the snow, in oblivion. Rolland did not mince words, and his words remain fresh to this day. He named those complicit in waging wars and who were responsible for war crimes: the ruling elites, the media, the intellectuals, the Church leaders…

"What brings it home to us most nearly is that not one of those who constitute the moral and intellectual elite — not one really suspects the crimes of his Government; I know that many of them would weep with grief and shame; the worst and the vilest is to have concealed its crimes from its people. For by depriving them of the means of protesting against those crimes, it has involved them for ever in the responsibility; it has abused their magnificent devotion. The intellectuals, however, are also guilty. For if one admits that the brave men, who in every country tamely feed upon the news which their papers and their leaders give them for nourishment, allow themselves to be duped, one cannot pardon those whose duty it is to seek truth in the midst of error, and to know the value of interested witnesses and passionate hallucinations. Before bursting into the midst of this furious debate upon which was staked the destruction of nations and of the treasures of the spirit, their first duty (a duty of loyalty as much as of common sense) should have been to consider the problems from both sides. By blind loyalty and culpable trustfulness they have rushed head foremost into the net which their Imperialism had spread. They believed that their first duty was, with their eyes closed, to defend the honor of their State against all accusation. They did not see that the noblest means of defending it was to disavow its faults and to cleanse their country of them. […]

Is our civilization so solid that you do not fear to shake the pillars on which it rests? Can you not see that all falls in upon you if one column be shattered? Could you not have learned if not to love one another, at least to tolerate the great virtues and the great vices of each other? Was it not your duty to attempt—you have never attempted it in sincerity—to settle amicably the questions which divided you, the problem of peoples annexed against their will, the equitable division of productive labor and the riches of the world? Must the stronger forever darken the others with the shadow of his pride, and the others forever unite to dissipate it? Is there no end to this bloody and puerile sport, in which the partners change about from century to century—no end, until the whole of humanity is exhausted thereby?

The rulers who are the criminal authors of these wars dare not accept the responsibility for them. Each one by underhand means seeks to lay the blame at the door of his adversary. The peoples who obey them submissively resign themselves with the thought that a power higher than mankind has ordered it thus. Again the venerable refrain is heard: "The fatality of war is stronger than our wills." The old refrain of the herd that makes a god of its feebleness and bows down before him. Man has invented fate, that he may make it responsible for the disorders of the universe, those disorders which it was his duty to regulate. There is no fatality! The only fatality is what we desire; and more often, too, what we do not desire enough. Let each now repeat his mea culpa. The leaders of thought, the Church, the Labor Parties did not desire war ...  That may be.... What then did they do to prevent it? What are they doing to put an end to it? They are stirring up the bonfire, each one bringing his faggot.

The most striking feature in this monstrous epic, the fact without precedent, is the unanimity for war in each of the nations engaged. An epidemic of homicidal fury, has spread like a wave and overflowed the whole world. None has resisted it; no high thought has succeeded in keeping out of the reach of this scourge. A sort of demoniacal irony broods over this conflict of the nations… it is not racial passion alone which is hurling millions of men blindly one against another, so that not even neutral countries remain free of the dangerous thrill, but all the forces of the spirit, of reason, of faith, of poetry, and of science, all have placed themselves at the disposal of the armies in every state. There is not one amongst the leaders of thought in each country who does not proclaim with conviction that the cause of his people is the cause of God, the cause of liberty and of human progress…"

Read the complete text of Above the Battle, by Romain Rolland.

Death of a Publisher

Had a chat with my cousin who only just found out that my publisher went bankrupt and closed its doors last year. The cousin is concerned about the future of my unpublished novels. She need not be. Death of a publisher is not nearly as lethal as that of a bookseller (though these days even the lack of a bookseller does not mean the end of a book and reading).

We are living in different times from those when my first novel was published. Writers and readers have access to channels and technologies that did not exist only few years ago. An e-book reading device, and an espresso book machine take the place of a traditional publisher. Death of a publisher does not spell the end of a book and reading. The two core pillars are still there: authors and readers. As long as there are writers who write books, and readers who want to read them, books will be with us. Publishers, on the other hand, will be buried, just as George Bernard Shaw wished:

"I object to publishers: the one service they have done me is to teach me to do without them. They combine commercial rascality with artistic touchiness and pettishness, without being either good business men or fine judges of literature. All that is necessary in the production of a book is an author and a bookseller, without the intermediate parasite." George Bernard Shaw

A week of literary celebration: LitBash 6

Meet some of the world’s most fascinating writers and their works. A weekly celebration of literary anniversaries, an opportunity to read a book! Read and perhaps you will discover, as did William Shakespeare, that "Knowing I lov'd my books, he furnish'd me / From mine own library with volumes that / I prize above my dukedom."

Born this week:

Pierre Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, France
A watchmaker, inventor, musician, diplomat, fugitive, spy, publisher, arms dealer, revolutionary, and author. "If censorship reigns, there cannot be sincere flattery, and only small men are afraid of small writings."

Edith Wharton, USA
"No insect hangs its nest on threads as frail as those which will sustain the weight of human vanity."

Emil Ludwig, Germany
Best known as a biography writer, and for saving Goethe and Schiller's graves.

Virginia Woolf, Great Britain
"But can we go to posterity with a sheaf of loose pages, or ask the readers of those days, with the whole of literature before them, to sift our enormous rubbish heaps for our tiny pearls? Such are the questions which the critics might lawfully put to their companions at table, the novelists and poets."

Ilya Ehrenburg, Russia
"Knowledge has outstripped character development, and the young today are given an education rather than an upbringing."

Philip Jose Farmer, USA
"Everybody should fear only one person, and that person should be himself."

Lewis Carroll, Great Britain
"I suppose every child has a world of his own — and every man, too, for the matter of that. I wonder if that's the cause for all the misunderstanding there is in Life?"

Leopold Sacher Masoch, Austria
Gained renown for his romantic stories of Galician life. The term masochism is derived from his name.

Jose Marti, Cuba
"A knowledge of different literatures is the best way to free one's self from the tyranny of any of them."

Sidonie Colette, France
"The writer who loses his self-doubt, who gives way as he grows old to a sudden euphoria, to prolixity, should stop writing immediately: the time has come for him to lay aside his pen."

Valentin Katayev, Russia
"Returning home one day, a long time ago, I found an envelope with foreign stamps on it in my letter-box. Inside there was an invitation from the Pen Club, an international literary association, to attend its next conference, in Vienna. I was a young writer then, and I was greatly flattered. I told everyone I met about the remarkable honour that had been accorded me. When I ran into Vladimir Mayakovsky in one of the editorial offices I showed him the letter from abroad. He calmly produced an elegant envelope exactly like mine from the pocket of his jacket. "Look," he said. "They invited me too, but I'm not boasting about it. Because they did not invite me, of course, as Mayakovsky, but as a representative of Soviet literature. The same applies to you. Understand? Reflect, Kataich (as he called me when he was in a good mood), on what it means to be a writer in the Land of Soviets." Mayakovsky's words made a lasting impression on me. I realized that I owed my success as a creative writer to the Soviet people, who had reared me. I realized that being a Soviet writer means marching in step with the people, that it means being always on the crest of the revolutionary wave."

Thomas Paine, Great Britain
"Society is produced by our wants, and government by wickedness"

Anton Chekhov, Russia
"If only one tooth aches, rejoice that not all of them ache.... If your wife betrays you, be glad that she betrayed only you and not the nation."

Romain Rolland, France
"No one ever reads a book. He reads himself through books, either to discover or to control himself."

Vicente Blasco Ibanez, Spain
Author of the excellent The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

Died this week:

Gerard de Nerval, France
"Our dreams are a second life. I have never been able to penetrate without a shudder those ivory or horned gates which separate us from the invisible world. "

Charles Nodier, France
Author of gothic literature, vampire tales, explored the importance of dreams as part of literary creation/

Giovanni Verga, Italy
Author of Cavalleria Rusticana, later turned into an opera.

Isaak Babel, Russia
"If the world could write by itself, it would write like Tolstoy."

John Updike, USA
"Suspect each moment, for it is a thief, tiptoeing away with more than it brings."

Vicente Blasco Ibanez, Spain
See above.

Dino Buzzati Traverso, Italy
"It seems to me, fantasy should be as close as possible to journalism. The right word is not "banalizing", although in fact a little of this is involved. Rather, I mean that the effectiveness of a fantastic story will depend on its being told in the most simple and practical terms."

Astrid Lindgren, Sweden
"There is very little you can beat into a child, but no limit to what you can hug out of it"

J. D. Salinger, USA
"There is a marvelous peace in not publishing. ... It's peaceful. Still. Publishing is a terrible invasion of my privacy. I like to write. I live to write. But I write just for myself and my own pleasure. ... I don't necessarily intend to publish posthumously, but I do like to write for myself. ... I pay for this kind of attitude. I'm known as a strange, aloof kind of man. But all I'm doing is trying to protect myself and my work."

Edouard Rod, Switzerland
Anton Czekhov: "You once praised Rod, a French writer, and told me Tolstoy liked him. The other day I happened to read a novel of his and flung up my hands in amazement. He is equivalent to our Matchtet, only a little more intelligent. There is a terrible deal of affectation, dreariness, straining after originality, and as little of anything artistic as there was salt in that porridge we cooked in the evening at Bogimovo. In the preface this Rod regrets that he was in the past a “naturalist,” and rejoices that the spiritualism of the latest recruits of literature has replaced materialism. Boyish boastfulness which is at the same time coarse and clumsy.... “If we are not as talented as you, Monsieur Zola, to make up for it we believe in God.”"

Pierre Boulle, France
Author of The Planet of the Apes, and The Bridge on the River Kwai. "Ape's brain ... has developed, is complex and organized, whereas man's has hardly undergone any transformation."

LitNews you may have missed (2)

Some news from the literary world that you may have missed in the past weeks:

A book club is making the difference for patients and doctors alike: "Neelon, now medical director for the Rice Diet Program, felt the literature discussions had been beneficial to his medical work. ... "A patient comes to see you, and they are going to tell you a story," he explained. ... "The doctor must understand it as a narrative. Reading literature, discussing poetry, hones your skills, makes you see the narrative thread. It deepens your understanding."

Now that you've turned your CD collection in to MP3 files, you can go ahead and easily turn you "traditional" books into ebooks: "Called the Book Saver, it's a large frame into which you place an open book. Tap the Scan button and the spread is digitised and dropped onto an SD card, ready to be transferred to your computer. Each page is saved separately, thanks to the unit's two flash-equipped cameras."

"Why are some women writers reluctant to acknowledge that they are women writers?" "In the 70s and 80s, many women found the female in literature inspiring but then Nathalie Sarraute snarled in an interview: "When I write I am neither man nor woman nor dog nor cat." To her, the notion of female or male writing – écriture féminine ou masculine – was totally void of meaning. Moi finds that since then the discussion has gone nowhere. "To make women second rate citizens of the world of literature is to say that the female experience of the world carries less value than the male."

"But the lack of interest in the written word, Diaz added, was only one aspect that posed a problem to a writer in the USA. Changing belief systems about the pursuit of humanities, he added, was the other bigger challenge that writers like him faced. "There's an entire belief in the USA about the utter uselessness of art in the material world. That's what keeps me going. My attempt is to convert at least a few persons in that space,'' he added. "

That's why I pick books printed using German Gothic: "A study by Princeton University found that a significant number of those tested could recall more information when it was presented in unusual typefaces rarely used in textbooks.
The research suggests that introducing 'disfluency' - by making information superficially harder to understand - deepens the process of learning and encourages better retention.
The psychologists said information which has to be actively generated rather than 'passively acquired' from simple text is remembered longer and more accurately.
'When we see a font that is easy to read we're able to process that in a mindless way, but when we see an unfamiliar font, one full of weird squiggles, we have to work a little bit harder.
'That extra effort is a signal to the brain that this might be something worth remembering.'"

A week of literary celebration: LitBash 5

Meet some of the world’s most fascinating writers and their works. A weekly celebration of literary anniversaries, an opportunity to read a book! Read and, perhaps you will discover, as did William Somerset Maugham that "When I read a book I seem to read it with my eyes only, but now and then I come across a passage, perhaps only a phrase, which has a meaning for me, and it becomes part of me."

Born this week:

Jack King, Writer
Author of suspense drawing on social and political issues.

Pedro Calderon de la Barca, Writer
"What surprises you, if a dream taught me this wisdom, and if I still fear I may wake up and find myself once more confined in prison? And even if this should not happen, merely to dream it is enough. For this I have come to know, that all human happiness finally ceases, like a dream."

Anne Bronte, Writer
"All true histories contain instruction; though, in some, the treasure may be hard to find, and when found, so trivial in quantity, that the dry, shrivelled kernel scarcely compensates for the trouble of cracking the nut. Whether this be the case with my history or not, I am hardly competent to judge. I sometimes think it might prove useful to some, and entertaining to others; but the world may judge for itself. Shielded by my own obscurity, and by the lapse of years, and a few fictitious names, I do not fear to venture; and will candidly lay before the public what I would not disclose to the most intimate friend."

Charles Montesquieu, Writer, Thinker
"Republics end through luxury; monarchies through poverty."

A. A. Milne, Writer
"Pooh always liked a little something at eleven o'clock in the morning, and he was very glad to see Rabbit getting out the plates and mugs; and when Rabbit said, "Honey or condensed milk with your bread?" he was so excited that he said, "Both," and then, so as not to seem greedy, he added, "But don't bother about the bread, please."

Arthur Ransome, Writer
"Grab a chance and you won't be sorry for a might-have-been."

Auguste Comte, Writer
Coined the words "sociology", and "altruism". "The dead govern the living"

Johannes Jensen, Writer
"He developed his theories of evolution in a cycle of six novels, Den lange rejse (1908–22), translated into English as The Long Journey (1923-24), which was published in a two-volume edition in 1938. This is often considered his main work in prose, a daring and often impressive attempt to create a Darwinian alternative to the Biblical Genesis myth. In this work we see the development of mankind from the Ice Age to the times of Columbus, focusing on pioneering individuals."

Oleg Volkov, Writer (Real name" O. W. Osugin)
Author of gulag memoirs, compared to Solzhenitsyn.

Stendhal, Writer
"Politics in a work of literature is like a gunshot at a symphony, it adds an element of thugness i simplicity, and yet we cannot ignore it. Although for many reasons we would prefer to remain silent about some of the subjects discussed herein, unfortunately we must talk about these nasty things."

Camilla Collett, Writer
"When she raises her eyelids, it's as if she were taking off all of her clothes."

Died this week:

Camilo Jose Cela
"Cela's typical style—a sarcastic, often grotesque, form of realism—is exemplified in La Colmena, featuring more than 300 characters and a style showing the influence of both Spanish realism (best exemplified by Miguel de Cervantes and Benito Pérez Galdós) and contemporary English- and French-language authors, such as Joyce and Sartre."

Bettina von Arnim, Writer
"A work of art should express only that which elevates the soul and pleases it in a noble manner. The feeling of the artist should not overstep these limits; it is wrong to venture beyond."

John Ruskin, Writer
"No small misery is caused by overworked and unhappy people, in the dark views which they necessarily take up themselves, and force upon others, of work itself."

Alexander Herzen, Writer
"There is nothing in the world more stubborn than a corpse: you can hit it, you can knock it to pieces, but you cannot convince it."

George Orwell, Writer
"When one reads any strongly individual piece of writing, one has the impression of seeing a face somewhere behind the page. It is not necessarily the actual face of the writer."

Abe Kobo, Writer
"The minute you begin to have doubts, the floor under your feet starts to shake."

Industrial Espionage

According to WikiLeaks, France is the worst offender when it comes to industrial espionage. Not China, or Russia, but France, an example of a "democratic", capitalist society. Capital, or greed, is the key. That's why during communist times the People's countries ran informational campaigns warning of the imperialist thieves...

This poster from communist Poland reads:

"Guard state secrets"

And this one reads:

"Guard professional secrecy, perhaps the enemy wants to get it out of you"