Stefan
Dupa ce citesti Demonul (1842), Luceafarul (1883) pare aproape plagiat. 2 observatii: a) Regret ca nu stapanesc limba rusa: nu ma pot pronunta asupra subtilitatilor poemului. (Eminescu fiind cam singurul poet romantic roman desavarsit, expresia lui Lermontov va fi automat comparata cu el, desi poetul rus este un antecesor. Mai mult, Lermontov m-a trimis mai degraba la Byron.) b) Cat de proaspat imi pare romantismul, cat de limpede (ca un film noir sau ca o tragedie clasica), dupa ani de lecturat poezie post-moderna, de cele mai multe ori confuza, agresiva si redundanta (asemenea turnului Babel).
A bit too unphilosophical & journalistic (e.g. I can't get over the feeling that Hitchens was writing the book with the tv and the news on: this version of reality, however official it may be, is not relevant for me). I prefer Michel Onfray's version of Nietzschean atheism and I wonder why there are so few philosophers in the atheist controversion: it's almost like the theologians and scientists (more exactly authors writing either for God or for science) do all the talking. Still Hitchens is a wonderful rhetorician and a master of argumentative discourse and as an atheist, I had much to learn from him. And to paraphrase a recent article by Lesley Chamberlain on Nietzsche from the Guardian (07.02.2012 – http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2012/feb/07/political-message-nietzsche-god-is-dead?fb=native&CMP=FBCNETTXT9038): we should distrust the God of Reason and with him, all the Enlightenment. We need a deeper, more complex (even more ambiguous) atheism!
Nietzsche's will to power:
What I am striving to express is this strength itself, more as a thing apart from his physical semblance. It was a strength we are wont to associate with things primitive, with wild animals, and the creatures we imagine our tree-dwelling prototypes to have been—a strength savage, ferocious, alive in itself, the essence of life in that it is the potency of motion, the elemental stuff itself out of which the many forms of life have been moulded; in short, that which writhes in the body of a snake when the head is cut off, and the snake, as a snake, is dead ...
Schopenhauer's will to live:
Without moving and being part of the yeast there would be no hopelessness. But,—and there it is,—we want to live and move, though we have no reason to, because it happens that it is the nature of life to live and move, to want to live and move. If it were not for this, life would be dead. It is because of this life that is in you that you dream of your immortality. The life that is in you is alive and wants to go on being alive for ever. Bah! An eternity of piggishness!
The description of the excesses of the statal machine which distinguishes itself through the cruelty and injustice of its punishments clearly foresees the advent of communism. The anatomy of Nekhlyudov's enlightenment reminds me on The Death of Ivan Ilych . Heidegger should have used it extensively to shed more light on the condition of the “they-self”. An important part of Tolstoy's book deals with the distinction between the animal and spiritual aspect of the human nature. Although that since 1899 the cultural code has changed and in today's world the animal and the spirit peacefully coexist (Mr. Hyde is no longer our enemy, he became a marketing tool that helps us sell ourselves more efficiently), no longer being disociated (the animal is spiritual, the spirit - animalic), I apreciate Tolstoy's quest for authenticity and his taste for existential drama; apparently a century ago people still believed in something.
(2nd read: August 2012)
To keep in mind:
“Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscrib'd
In one self place; for where we are is hell,
And where hell is, there must we ever be.”
Unfair but funny portrait of Heidegger. The endless monologue of a bitter misanthrope. Absurd and ironic ending.
I didn't know Beckett was a genius as a theorist. A very Schopenhauerian study (also influenced by Descartes in its structure and vigorous deductive technique) and an amazing way to see Proust with new lens. In his later writing career, Beckett, like all great creators, has a sort of epistemological and ontological modesty and moderation (meaning he could be understood at different levels: he has a superficial face you can admire, even if you hadn't understood him completely – and a deeper persona, you can grasp only after careful study). Like Balzac or Hugo, you can catch a glimpse of his genius even if you don't get him completely. But in this study on Proust, written when he was 24, Beckett shows no trace of “universalist” generalized wise modesty, he writes with cynism, sheer brilliance and aggressiveness like a bloodhound. It's so intense that I've almost highlighted the whole book and my extensive notes would look like Borges's map. And one should compare him to Ionesco, his rival and co-creator of the absurd theater, who also, in his Romanian-written essays, was equally brilliant, surreal and aggressive as a theoretician (e.g. see Ionesco's “No”, where he demolishes some of the best Romanian writers of the day, the same way he destroys Hugo in “Ego”). I was amazed by Beckett's highly coherent and explosive writing and I wonder, considering his level, if he ever blew up a literary genre. I mean I apreciate Joyce both as a poet and dramatist but his creations in those genres are distinctly minor. But Beckett was a titan as playwright and novelist and also a major, I venture to say, philosopher.
Comparable to Whatever but not as forceful. No action but that's certainly the author's intention (nihilism goes against action). I had the feeling that most of the characters are nameless and contingent (devoid of necessity), resembling automatons with no passion, desire or will.
Platon + Beckett. Mi-au plăcut “Orașele și morții”. Melancolii oarecum “inesențiale”.
A wonderful book about a journey in hell or a manual of how to face your “noche obscura”. The contrast between nihilism and emerging existentialism and the dialectical harmony between Continental philosophy (mostly Plato, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche) and Indian wisdom is superb. I almost feel skeptical towards the novels written today (which I usually enjoy) after reading this 1927 manifesto about the destruction and resurrection of Atman.
Either I am becoming a radical atheist, or the book is weaker (more tedious and way too sentimental) than Scorsese's movie. Although I am a fan of Kazantzakis and I salute a Nietzschean Jesus, there was something fundamentally wrong about this book. Right now I can't really be sure where the evil lies: my perception or the crude reality. I believe that the novel is somehow dated: a Heretical reading of the gospels, a Gnostic interpretation of the Christian myth would be much darker and deeper in our Zeitgeist than in the 1950's. For example I found Saramago's version more interesting. However, it is an essential reading for all those who want to explore so to say religion beyond religion. The reaction of the Greek Orthodox Church who excommunicated Kazantzakis mainly for conceiving an alternate Jesus, is, simply put, dumb. From the perspective of film philosophy, the book's final chapters are similar to Matrix.
Although being a major fan of both Carriere and Eco, I found their tone too nostalgic and reactionary. I expected to hear more about ebook readers & “digital cosmology”. Perhaps if the late Baudrillard and Zizek had met and started to talk about books, the rhythm and content of the discussion would have been much more spectacular.
