Friday, December 21, 2007

Happy Holidays

I'm probably going to be out of commission here for a few days, so have a safe, happy holiday weekend, however you choose to spend it.

In the meantime, check out the Books of the Year 2007 symposium over at Mark Thwaite's excellent Ready Steady Book site, which includes contributions from several writers and bloggers, including yours truly.

Also, just because we could use more awesomeness in the world and because I love you, here is a clip of the wonderful dance sequence from Godard's Bande à part (aka, Band of Outsiders) (which I mentioned in my recent movie roundup post):

1 comment:

Kubla Khan said...

Hi...
discovered your blog by chance.
i read with interest your posts on Appelfeld. let me say that I haven't read him at all. yet, I feel that it w'd not really matter. the israeli discourse, the position of its intellectuals, writers is one where they have won on all fronts....even in language. this is lamentable indeed. you write of your ignorance of palestine etc till recently.....nakba...a word not easily given to translation means more than catastrophe....it signifies annihilation....a destruction of whjhat was palestine into ghettos now.....as you might know.
I like literatures that take sides more than people that do, wrote Camus (he was against Algerian independence). in that sense, Appelfeld's position is honest, here he takes a stance, maybe morally and aesthetically wrong.....but that is the position of all major European writers regarding colonialism. what say of Conrad, Dickens and Flaubert on empire? isn't it the same thing really?
A writer must participate, even silence is politics.thats why there is a dearth of good writers in the English world....all great writing nowadays and in the last 3 decades is latin american, where even the most brilliant like Cortazar, Borges and now Bolano have ignored the plight of indigenous people.
the palestinian issue is strange....now they must prove there was a palestine! like jews proving there was a holocaust!
pure poetic or aesthetic sense in literature is not enough.....it must take sides.....and taking a wrong or right one differentiates a minor from a great writer. Hence, Appelfeld stays a minor one.
anyway, great blog....nice writing, quite prolific. Accept my congrats and seasons greetings!