Thursday, August 10, 2006
*****************************************
It never fails. Whenever I run out of things to say, one of my gentle readers takes it upon himself to inform me that, compared to our literary giants of the past (there follows a short list of familiar names), I am a hopeless mediocrity that will never amount to anything.
Some poets are inspired by beautiful landscapes, sunsets, and faces. I am stimulated by ugly Armenians, and the uglier the Armenian the more intense and long-lasting the stimulation.
Anyone who knows anything about literature also knows that debunking writers is an integral part of literary life. All writers from Plato to Sartre have been debunked not only by faceless and anonymous kibitzers but also by their peers. What has been the damage on their reputation? Nothing, nada, zero, vochinch!
Consider Tolstoy’s ferocious demolition job on Shakespeare, Turgenev’s on Dostoevsky (and vice versa), Nabokov’s on Thomas Mann, Faulkner, and Sartre, Canetti’s on T.S. Eliot; and closer to home, Zarian’s on Charents, and Oshagan’s on Zarian. Solzhenitsyn himself has been referred to as a “hooligan,” a “nitwit,” and a “goddamn horse’s ass” – for more choice abusive terms, see David Remnick’s REPORTING: WRITINGS FROM THE NEW YORKER (New York, 2006).
But all that is irrelevant, because my intention here is not to produce great literature but to be an honest and objective witness. I don’t ask for anyone’s admiration. As for trust, I am fully aware of the fact that I shall never have the trust of our commissars and all their crypto- and neo- variants, the very same species that betrayed, exiled, starved, and sometimes even tortured and shot the very same literary giants they now pretend to admire. Why should I be surprised if in their eyes I am the lowest form of animal life? I wear their venom as a badge of honor.
#
Friday, August 11, 2006
**********************************************
Men have invented many strategies to avoid facing facts, especially when the facts are against them. When I was subservient, I called it respect for authority; and when they massacre, they say they are following orders.
*
If you make it your business to expose crooks and liars, liars and crooks will conspire against you, and by the time they are through, you will be the liar, the crook, and the pervert.
*
An honest man is a permanent insult to deceivers.
*
Because we come from a long line of victims, we hate to lose the opportunity of victimizing others, even when they happen to be the weakest and most defenseless among us; and who could be weaker and more defenseless than a minor scribbler who is foolish enough not to learn from history by resigning himself to the fact that Armenians may praise dead writers but they don’t give a damn about living ones; they may even think a writer becomes a writer only after he is dead and buried — preferably in the hands of a foreign butcher like Talaat or Stalin.
*
Because czarist Russia persecuted its great writers it dug its own grave; and because Bolshevik Russia did the same, it was consigned to the dustbin of history. Writers are like canaries in a mine. We ignore their fate at our peril.
*
Do you know what’s the most widely held view of Armenians by Armenians? Sure you do. But in case you have forgotten, allow me to remind you: “Mart bidi ch’ellank!” Freely translated: We will never acquire the status of human beings. Or, we may survive as Americans, Russians, perhaps even as Turks, but as Armenians we might as well be subhumans on our way to the devil.
#
Saturday, August 12, 2006
*********************************************
It has been said that the best way to get rid of a fellow is to tell him something for his own good.
*
The goal of education is to make you a better person not a wealthier man. Tell that to our Levantine academics.
*
An Armenian who doesn’t know what he is talking about will assume you know even less.
*
My aim is not to be original or to advance new theories, but to paraphrase and emphasize views that were formulated long before I was born not only by odar writers but also our own. But since in the eyes of our anti-intellectual philistines literature is a worthless commodity, it follows writers are nobodies whose sole aim in life is to make nuisances of themselves.
*
I look forward to the day when I will see the light and fall silent. In the meantime I console myself by wondering how many leopard spots did Shakespeare change?
*
After writing an unreadable book one of our Levantine wheeler-dealers wanted to know all about copyright laws. He didn’t want anyone stealing from the fruits of his intellectual labor, he explained; and he didn’t believe me when I told him he had nothing to worry about on that score.
#