Archives for May 26, 2005

“There is no single Greek literary work of art as great as The Divine Comedy; there is no extant series of works by a single Greek literary artist as impressive as the complete plays of Shakespeare; as a period of sustained creative activity in one medium, the seventy-five-odd years of Athenian drama, between the first tragedies of Aeschylus and the last comedy of Aristophanes, are surpassed by the hundred and twenty-five years, between Gluck’s Orpheus and Verdi’s Otello, which comprise the golden age of Italian opera: nevertheless, the bewildered comment of any fifth century Athenian upon our society from Dante’s time till our own, and with increasing sharpness every decade, would surely be: ‘Yes, I can see all the works of a great civilization; but why cannot I meet any civilized persons? I only encounter specialists, artists who know nothing of science, scientists who know nothing of art, philosophers who have no interest in God, priests who are unconcerned with politics, politicians who only know other politicians.'”

W.H. Auden, “The Greeks and Us” (from Forewords and Afterwords)

“There is nothing so pleasant as to give oneself trouble for a person who is worth one’s while. For the best of us, the study of the arts, a taste for old things, collections, gardens are all mere ersatz, succedanea, alibis. In the heart of our tub, like Diogenes, we cry out for a man. We cultivate begonias, we trim yews, as a last resort, because yews and begonias submit to treatment. But we should like to give our time to a plant of human growth, if we were sure that he was worth the trouble. That is the whole question: you must know something about yourself. Are you worth my trouble or not?”

Marcel Proust, Le C

– If you don’t like spoilers, don’t read Max Watman’s trenchant, frequently withering group review of the new Ishiguro, McEwan, Canty, and more. But you’d be missing out, and the review comes complete with a rationale for revealing plot points in reviews–basically, that the very notion of “spoiling” makes no sense with regard to literary fiction. I have mixed feelings about that, but I’m in total agreement with him on the brilliance of Canty. As for McEwan, I haven’t read Saturday yet, but seemingly have read every last review of it, and I have to say that Watman’s main critique of the novel is one that I was surprised not to encounter sooner.

From today’s New York Times story on Merv Griffin: