Fiction can poison the mind

In your world, you were supposed to care, you were supposed to show an interest in all realms of human knowledge, to study math as well as penmanship, music as well as science and your much-admired Holmes was saying no, some things were more important than others, and the unimportant things should be tossed away and forgotten, since they served no purpose except to clutter one's mind with useless bits of nothing. Some years later, when you found yourself losing interest in science and math, you recalled Holmes's words - and used them to defend your indifference to those subjects. An idiotic position, no doubt, but you nevertheless embraced it. Further proof, perhaps, that fiction, can indeed, poison the mind.

FUBAR

Trecho final da carta do Paul Auster para o Coetzee, de 3 de dezembro de 2010.

"Must run, but I wanted to dash off a few words to you before leaving. I'll be back in New York on the sixteenth. In the meantime, I offer you an American military expression from World War II, which I recently came across for the first time: FUBAR. (Translation: fucked up beyond all recognition.) Not bad, eh?

Warmest best,

Paul."

Mais cartas

Eu já amava o Paul Auster por todos os livros de ficção, pelos autobiográficos, e agora ainda mais pelas cartas trocadas com o Coetzee.

Numa delas, de 23 de outubro de 2009, eles discutem o porquê da arte ter um papel menor do que tinha no final dos anos 1970 e 1980. Trecho do Paul:

"Something is gone now that used to be there. I don't know if artists themselves are to be blamed for this loss. There are probably too many factors involved to blame anyone in particular. One thing is certain, however: stupidity has increased on all fronts. If one reads the letters of soldiers from the American Civil War, many of them turn out to be more literate, more articulate, more sensitive to the nuances of language than the writing of most English professors today. Bad schools? Bad governments that allow bad schools to exist? Or simply too many distractions, too many neon lights, too many computer screens, too much noise?

My only consolation is that art forges on, in spite of everything. It is an unquenchable human need, and even in these grim times, there are countless numbers of good writers and artists, even great writers and artists, and even in the audience for their work has grown smaller, there are still enough people who care about art and literature to make the pursuit worthwhile."

Paul Auster

Meu primeiro raciocínio quando vejo um livro do Paul Auster: ai que delícia. Meu segundo: que bom que ele está vivo e não para de escrever.

E comecei a ler este aqui. Não-ficção. Sempre uma maravilha de texto. E um pouco de inglês no blog.

"The only proof you have that your memories are not entirely deceptive is the fact that you still occasionally fall into the old ways of thinking. Vestiges have lingered well into your sixties, the animism of early childhood has not been fully purged from your mind, and each summer, as you lie your back on the grass, you look up at the drifting clouds and watch them turn into faces, into birds and animals, into states and countries and imaginary kingdoms. The grilles of cars still make you think of teeth, and the corkscrew is still a dancing ballerina. In spite of the outward evidence, you are still who you were, even if you are no longer the same person."