RE: #Comparativeliterature: Reality and Dreams
I always wanted to read Ibsen but I haven't yet managed. But I did read many stories by Kafka, including Metamorphosis. The story can be interpreted in so many ways, and therefore always remains relevant. Is it self-discovery? Is it something external that caused him to change? I like to think there's an actual message in there, like Luigi Pirandello's One, no one, and one hundred thousand, a great essay on personal identity I would say. (And everything begins from something as trite as his wife observing that he has a crooked nose. After careful examination in the mirror, he discovers that's true, and wonders how many other things about him might be true that he didn't know, and how other people are seeing him in ways that don't match his self-image, and it all leads to a journey of self-discovery that starts from him thinking he is one, then that he is no one, and finally that he is as many people as he has met in his life, indicated by the fanciful 'one hundred thousand'. You could perhaps say he went from dogmatism to nihilism to pluralism/subjectivism/relativism.)
Film has made much use of the dream device. But the movie I always associate most strongly with it is Mulholland Drive. Lynch is always prone to employing dreams that are not distinguished from reality, but this particular movie stayed with me for some reason; I find it unsettling, more so than more popular fare like Inception.
That's a wonderful essay. Could have use it some years ago when I was writing my comp lit papers :) And I love Lynch--Mulholland Drive has a gossamer quality about it. Sense of reality is undermined throughout the movie.
Kafka, for me, is right up there among the best. My first story was The Hunger Artist, which was "recreational" reading. I recognized instantly he was going for a sort of truth. Only later did I learn he was a big deal, a world-class writer.
Ibsen I discovered while I was researching books on the grotesque (as a device in art and literature). Peer Gynt seemed inspired. It seemed to be one of those pieces that flow effortlessly from an author's creative well (of course, I'm sure there was nothing effortless about it).
I've read Pirandello by not One, no on, and one hundred thousand. It's on my list now.
Thank you for reading my blog and commenting on it. This isn't the sort of subject that grabs most people's interest :)
Oh I'm a fan of literature, not just science. It's only lack of time that prevents me from delving deeper into it.
Someone should compile a list of "effortless" novels. I'm sure they do exist and I suspect we would be surprised by their quality. The only one I can think of right now, though, is not a novel, but it has poetic qualities: Nietzsche's Zarathustra. It took him just 3 months to write it, if I recall, and it's one of the best books ever written.
To arrive at that effortless point, though, he had to go through a lot. It's like the 'overnight success' of the musicians: yes, a single song that they wrote in a week might have been the one that propelled them into the public limelight, but they wouldn't have been able to write it without years of previous toil.
And I agree, Kafka is among the best. But it irritates me sometimes that I can't understand why that is. I can't deconstruct him, so to speak. I don't know what he's doing that makes his writing so good!
For Kafka--I think his writing is deceptively simple. There's no verbal clutter. And I think we all recognize ourselves in the absurd situations. I can't deconstruct him either--that's as far as I get.
To be honest, Nietzsche is not one of my preferred authors. I once had a philosophy professor who advised me that Nietzsche's philosophy was "powerful". Just can't get there. Same thing with Herman Hesse--very popular, especially among Nietzsche enthusiasts, but not for me.
Reading is such a personal thing. We form relationships with the authors, and it's kind of like friends. Sometimes they click and sometimes they don't.
As for effortless--every now and then (less so than in the past) writing flows for me and I don't know why. I guess talented authors can tap that well more regularly. It's a kind of magic and wonderful when it happens