The dilemma of the would-be writer in a world in which everything has been said
"The narrators of [Beckett's early] books are afflicted by a sort of logorrhea: They want to stop talking - because there is nothing new to say and the old things are too terrible to contemplate - but they can't bring themselves to do it."
"Beckett's prewar English novel ``Murphy" began, ``The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new." "
(from this article about Samuel Beckett)
I wish we could go back to the old days, when people just told stories that conveyed interesting ideas in beautiful ways. But I'm almost certain we can't. That stuff's turned into pop romance now. I've hardly read any contemporary (i.e. post-world-wars) literature really - probably wouldn't understand it; I don't really have a contemporary brain. I'm kind of a postmodern cynic whose sympathies and understanding and aesthetic viewpoint haven't yet been through the ravages that western culture experienced last century. I feel like I have no right to contribute to the English literary library until I've been down into the depths of 20th century madness and figured out how we got to where we are now. I've sort of skipped that part, and am part postmodern, part Victorian.
But in any case I've read enough to know that everything's been done. Which is why I never write anything. The only new thing left to do is to stop talking. And even that's been done.
"Beckett's prewar English novel ``Murphy" began, ``The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new." "
(from this article about Samuel Beckett)
*
I wish we could go back to the old days, when people just told stories that conveyed interesting ideas in beautiful ways. But I'm almost certain we can't. That stuff's turned into pop romance now. I've hardly read any contemporary (i.e. post-world-wars) literature really - probably wouldn't understand it; I don't really have a contemporary brain. I'm kind of a postmodern cynic whose sympathies and understanding and aesthetic viewpoint haven't yet been through the ravages that western culture experienced last century. I feel like I have no right to contribute to the English literary library until I've been down into the depths of 20th century madness and figured out how we got to where we are now. I've sort of skipped that part, and am part postmodern, part Victorian.
But in any case I've read enough to know that everything's been done. Which is why I never write anything. The only new thing left to do is to stop talking. And even that's been done.
posted by Kat | 10/10/2006 04:29:00 pm
5 Comments:
this isn't a post about butterflies! interesting though. :)
I don't know if I'd dismiss entirely every book that's been written since the world wars, there have been some good ones (Asterix and Obelix for example), let me just think what they are.... :P
Heh being a post-modern victorian means you could write some quite curious stuff that no one else has done, cos there haven't been/aren't many other post-modern victorians :)
*equally writery-lacking hug*
Christina: I certainly don't mean to dismiss 20th century literature. Just saying I don't really get it, largely because I haven't really read it.
I can perhaps relate a little - I've often been frustrated at the lack of viable substance with which to communicate, due to how everything seems to have slipped into the realm of cliche. And if I do use something cliched, I feel that I must explain myself by first defining it, so that I am operating from a definition and not merely a hackneyed idea or expression.
I blame what could perhaps be seen as postmodernism's 'evolutionary' mindset, with its abhorance of banality, placing value and worth in only what is perceived to be new. And I also consider it an 'evolutionary deadend', in the sense that it is doomed to silence or ignorance due to the finiteness of what is available.
Perhaps it has something to do with the relativist's lack of confidence in anything having true meaning, which is why we must constantly reinvent things for ourselves, so that the meaning is real to us at least.
In any case, I do not consider myself a postmodernist, and am trying to rid myself of any postmodern mindsets which I may have absorbed through society. According to Christianity, there does exist actual, unchangable truth, and based upon my belief in God, I am trying to find it.
As far as I am aware, didn't postmodernism arise from existential thinking, following the nihilist's conclusion that truth can not be known, based upon the logical progression of naturalism's worldview, which prohibits God? So the whole sorry state we're in is based upon the choice to not believe in God.
However, I do, so I will search for meaning and truth, and try to have confidence in the meaning that actually exists in cliches, basing my value in God and not in what is novel.
Perhaps though we can afford to indulge ourselves in a little postmodernism, and stand against the trend of being completely original, by being content with a little of what is old to create, even being content with the fact that nothing is truly new... using the postmodernist mindset we could stand against postmodernism!
Matt: I dunno, I rather like postmodernism. Or bits of it anyway. I don't consider that it denies absolute truth - just encourages a proper degree of humility with regard to human knowledge. Including knowledge of God.
At any rate, that is where I'm at in my worldview at this point in time. Seems kinda dumb in the sense of just thinking according to current trends, but I guess there's a reason trends become current - because in some way they reflect the way the world appears to people at that time.
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