Saturday
Feb092013
Ducks in Hebron, more from Shklovsky
b.
“If one can say that imagination is better than reality, art is even better because it’s the dream of every structure’s collapse and at the same time the dream of the construction of new structures.”
—from Serena Vitale, Shklovsky: Witness to an Era
Reader Comments (2)
Ben...until today I'd never heard of you. But a friend happened to give me The Nation Feb 25 and I read your article...not exactly typical for that mag...(I guess I'm wrong). Anyway, YOU are brilliant..."the crust that the world of things deposits on our sense...." And Shklovsky's "No more of the real world impinge upon a work of art than the reality of India impinges upon the game of chess" Ha! And your "literary change based on rupture rather than influence and inheritance" OMG...and somewhere you say or he says "We don't see...we recognize". Ain't that the truth. I phoned an author friend of mine, whose writing is so brilliantly odd you feel like columbus discovering a new world, and began reading your article (selectively) aloud to him.
I'm not a writer as such, I'm a screenwriter...so I begin and end with the 'crusts', and that's where subtext is most needed...hooray for that. Scripts are all about structure and plot...I'm more about something people want to watch, however I can get there. Anyway, I'm your biggest fan, and plan on purchasing your novels. Again...a most brilliant article. I was hoping there would be a reference to Bakhtin, they were contemporaries. Bakhtin is all about Dialogue...conversation...as a way into the soul. That's what screenwriters have...that opportunity for purposeful dialog, entertaining, of course.
Thank you, Ginia!