Thursday, July 13, 2006
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DON’T SHOOT THE PIANO PLAYER
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Almost all catastrophic blunders begin by exaggerating the importance of a blade of grass and ignoring the prairie. And such exaggerations come naturally to us because we live with ourselves 24/7 and think we harbor more complexities than the rest of mankind.
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It is no exaggeration to say that World War I (which prepared the ground for World War II) began because a nobody assassinated another nobody in the middle of nowhere during a non-event. Why was this assassination so important? I suspect only a handful of specialized historians may have an answer, which may succeed only in exposing the absurdity of human conduct.
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The happiest years of my life were when I knew nothing and understood even less. This may explain why most people prefer ignorance to knowledge; and if you dare to share your knowledge with them, they resent you; they may even hate you because they feel more comfortable in a world of clichés and platitudes. Clichés such as “first nation to convert to Christianity,” which is immediately and invariably followed by another first – “first nation to experience genocide in the 20th century.” Even clichés that open old wounds are welcome because they shift the burden of responsibility and guilt on others.
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The other day I received an e-mail from a gentle reader that said, among other things, “How dare you think of yourself as a writer?” As a matter of fact, whenever I think of myself as a writer, I can’t write. The responsibility paralyzes me. Don’t think of me as a writer but as a fellow human being who for a few minutes every day likes to share his thoughts with a handful of readers who are absolutely free to ignore him.
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Friday, July 14, 2006
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Can you imagine anything more tedious and unreadable than a work of fiction whose central character and narrator is a small-town clergyman? I would have answered that question with a resounding no, until I read Marilynne Robinson’s GILEAD; and when I finished reading it I felt as though I had lost a good friend. So I decided to reread it.
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Another book I have been rereading is Samuel Beckett’s WAITING FOR GODOT, whose central two characters, wonderfully named Estragon and Vladimir, while waiting for someone whose arrival is perpetually postponed, spend their time verbally abusing each other, their final insult being “Critic!” Sounds familiar?
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Luis Bunuel: “I am neither a believer nor an atheist, but the exact opposite.”
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Nothing comes easier to an Armenian than to overestimate himself. If he is cunning, he will think of himself as intelligent. If he is intelligent, he will think he is wise. If he is talented, he will brag about his genius. Saroyan bragged about the fact that his initials were the same as Shakespeare’s. And then there is the type of Armenian who prides himself on his superior brand of Armenianism but who writes with the concentrated venom of a Turkish viper.
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Saturday, July 15, 2006
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ON CORRUPTION
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To be a writer does not mean to know and understanding everything or, for that matter, to be infallible. I don’t mind admitting that compared to what there is to know, what I know is no more than a drop in the ocean, and that there are a great many things that I don’t understand and I will never understand. On the subject of my deficiencies I could also add that I have experienced very little and done even less. But I can say one thing in my favor: I have at no time knowingly supported the corrupt or anyone who has abused his power by violating someone’s fundamental human right.
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Whenever I speak of corruption, I am immediately, not to say automatically (that is to say, unthinkingly) informed by some readers that there is corruption everywhere, meaning, I might as well shut up and mind my own business. To these gentlemen I would like to ask: If, as you say, there is corruption everywhere, what exactly have you done to expose it? What are you doing to combat it? If you have done nothing, on whose side are you? Don’t you think it is the duty of all decent men to expose corruption and combat those who profit from it? If you have done nothing, why do you find it necessary to obstruct the path of those who, unlike you, refuse to come to terms with it? What makes you think the rest of mankind should accept you as a role model by adopting a passive stance? Doesn’t it ever occur to you that by explaining corruption and in the process justifying it, you may also be perpetuating and legitimizing it? Don’t you think to ignore the cry of victims means to be on the side of victimizers? And worse, much worse. Don’t you think by coming to terms with the corrupt of this world and by accepting it as if it were an inevitably fact of life, like death and taxes, you dishonor the memory of countless decent men throughout history who opposed corruption and abuses of power, and by doing so they risked their own lives?
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If you tell me I take myself too seriously and that even if I were to scream at the top of my lungs for the next hundred years nothing will change and that if anything has changed during the last twenty or thirty years that I have been writing it has been for the worse, then I will reply by saying, at least I have harmed no one but myself. But if, and I say if, by what I have written I have made one or two individuals here and there, now and then, uncomfortable even if it means for a fraction of a second, then I don’t think it has all been for nothing.
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