Still muttering away to myself on this, in one of those spins of narrative
the mind threads, but one of the reasons I like to mention Celan and the
Vallejo of 'Trilce' as sort of Arnoldian 'touchstones' of the
near-contemporary is that their poems entail a radical doubt, of more or
less everything, yet they do not depress. Somewhere a voice remains.
It might be a voice that lies to itself, after all, perhaps that's all we
can really do, but the voice survives, the voice persists. Yet one does not
identify it with any necessary truths whatsoever. Except for its being
there.
I'm reminded of Beckett's narrators in the trilogy here. Though too I think
of the Monty Python travesty 'The Meaning of Life' which I saw again the
other day, if you recall there is a moment where the Answer is announced: it
basically involves saying we should be kind to one another and then the
scrap of paper is thrown away.
I think I agree with that.
Best
Dave
David Bircumshaw
Leicester, England
Home Page
A Chide's Alphabet
Painting Without Numbers
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/index.htm
|