[ SECRET POST #2615 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2615 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 074 secrets from Secret Submission Post #374.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[dreemyweird]

I get the sentiment, actually, and share it to some extent. I had once taken a course on Russian literature, though I had already known the subject very well. And the teacher was positively obsessed with the sufferings of the writers. I was seething with anger whenever she brought up the literature of the twentieth century, because I knew that in truth there was much more to these people (Mandelstam and Blok in particular) than their misery, but she insisted on talking about this misery only. I used to joke that "I don't know what writer we are going to study next, but I already know that he suffered a lot and died a horrible death".

So, to be fair, it really is a pervasive attitude typical of the Russian school of literary criticism. (That teacher is by no means the only one). But admittedly, it has a lot to do with the history of the twentieth century. Like, there isn't much to be cheerful about, especially considering the fact that almost every writer was treated abominably and suffered a lot. Mandelstam did die in a concentration camp, half-mad and starved, having exchanged his only coat for a kilogram of sugar which was then promptly stolen from him. Blok did die of starvation.

And it does exist outside of Russia, too, and I do dislike it. But it is also true that many people do write because they are unhappy; and that happiness may actually reduce one's productivity.

I guess Ginzburg's saying should be paraphrased as "for some people, art is condensed unhappiness".

[intrigueing]

Yeah IA with that, especially in the context you talk about. And I think it's absolutely (and powerfully) true. Just not the universal truth.