Sunday, July 26, 2015

Admiration, reflection, comparison with other works—the things that perpetuate a book are the very things that flatten or equalize it

--- Maurice Blanchot, quoted by Ammiel Alcalay in Perplexity Index (1986), a review of Golden Doves with Silver Dots by José Faur (1986), collected in Alcalay's Memories of Our Future: Selected Essays 1982-1999 (2001)

Quote in context
Maurice Blanchot has written of “exchanging a few emotional words” with Georges Bataille after “being convinced (over-whelmed to the point of silence) at what was unique” about one of Bataille’s works: “I spoke not in the way you talk to an author about a book of his you admire, but in order to make him understand that such an encounter was enough for my entire life, just as the fact of having written the book should have been enough for his.” But Blanchot goes on to say: “Admiration, reflection, comparison with other works—the things that perpetuate a book are the very things that flatten or equalize it.” Herein, it seems to me, lies the raw, even aching problematic occupying the margins of Faur’s remarkable work.”

Friday, July 10, 2015

All Southern literature can be summed up in these words: ‘On the night the hogs ate Willie, Mama died when she heard what Daddy did to Sister.’

--- Pat Conroy reporting his mother's saying, quoted in Why Southern writers still captivate, 55 years after 'To Kill a Mockingbird', Christian Science Monitor, July 5, 2015

Quote in context:

In fact, for many contemporary writers, the old traditions of the South have become burdensome clichés. Pat Conroy, author of “The Prince of Tides,” joked in 1985 that his mother, “Southern to the bone,” once told him, “All Southern literature can be summed up in these words: ‘On the night the hogs ate Willie, Mama died when she heard what Daddy did to Sister.’