Can I talk about books and poetry?
heh. i have been on a reading spree. both in print and online. as i am just sitting alone at home, i thought i would use this blog as my sounding board. how about this:
" [...] This argument keeps cropping up every once in a while: that Heart of Darkness is obsolete because its views on race are retrograde. In my opinion, reading the text with a historical eye is a very useful exercise in how imperialism needs ethnocentrism in order to succeed. Conrad rejected the former, but not the latter--a stance that one can see today as well. I think that the book is as relevant today as it was in 1899. Our culture has a different focus now (the Middle East instead of the Congo) and uses different language ("sand-nigger" instead of "nigger"), but the mission civilisatrice is still there, and there are plenty of Marlowes and Kurtzes around. This is a book, I, for one, would continue to teach."
i am quoting laila lalami, a moroccan writer, from her literary blog.
and this is a poem by marigo alexopoulou called Chinese Woman's Spirit:
You are pallid,
you are losing blood and life.
You stop a cab.
The driver peers into his rearview mirror.
You are not there.
You leave a sword on the back seat
in lieu of the fare.
You become a trickle of holy water,
a yellow aircraft,
a toy train.
You remove the mask,
your pallid dream.
You serve breakfast to Kung Jiang
with his long, aged fingers.
You write love letters
in Minoan script
and leave them on the kitchen table.
(translated from the greek by peter constantine)
" [...] This argument keeps cropping up every once in a while: that Heart of Darkness is obsolete because its views on race are retrograde. In my opinion, reading the text with a historical eye is a very useful exercise in how imperialism needs ethnocentrism in order to succeed. Conrad rejected the former, but not the latter--a stance that one can see today as well. I think that the book is as relevant today as it was in 1899. Our culture has a different focus now (the Middle East instead of the Congo) and uses different language ("sand-nigger" instead of "nigger"), but the mission civilisatrice is still there, and there are plenty of Marlowes and Kurtzes around. This is a book, I, for one, would continue to teach."
i am quoting laila lalami, a moroccan writer, from her literary blog.
and this is a poem by marigo alexopoulou called Chinese Woman's Spirit:
You are pallid,
you are losing blood and life.
You stop a cab.
The driver peers into his rearview mirror.
You are not there.
You leave a sword on the back seat
in lieu of the fare.
You become a trickle of holy water,
a yellow aircraft,
a toy train.
You remove the mask,
your pallid dream.
You serve breakfast to Kung Jiang
with his long, aged fingers.
You write love letters
in Minoan script
and leave them on the kitchen table.
(translated from the greek by peter constantine)
posted by Swar Thounaojam at 6:50 pm
1 Comments:
yup. heart of darkness is one of my favourite novels. strangely enough though, every time i watch 'apocalypse now' i fall into a dull thudding semi-sleep-haze.
i think an even more interesting viewpoint beyond historical excavation and re-contexting of the novel, is a mildly formalist reading of the text. the way it is organised, the dense symoblism that permeates the story, its warped version of the quest-journey-descent into depths form and so on... Reading Conrad with the baggage of culture or expectations of consistent psychological representation kinda messes it up for me. imho - its a banged up story full of ancient symbols.
what i do like in the flick however, is the completly mind bending scene of the helos attacking a village with wagner's ride of the valkyrie as the background score. yaugh!
and i think heart of darkness is close to any writers sentiments after reading back his first draft - the horror the horror!
:-)
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