Hello
Gentle Reader
“And
When We Do, We Make Fools Of Ourselves.”
One
again Gentle Reader, there is Thursday on the calendar, and there is once again
the urge to speak – or in this case write; if only to fill the silent void and
in the process make a fool of myself. Nonetheless stating nothing, becomes unbearable
and the oppression of silence looms overhead, and becomes a noise in itself; a
scream that pounds within the confines of the skull, but unable to see fruition
in some unintelligible audible sound, because the tongue is twisted. So scream;
if only silently.
Well
Gentle Reader, it is done. Nobel Week finds itself wrapping up in Stockholm. Praise
has been given; lectures delivered. The medals are doled out; diploma’s received.
Once again faith is restored in humanity. The individuals awarded, were awarded
for their achievements, their life time of work: that being innovative or
creative; all for the betterment of mankind. And yet what dire straits mankind
find itself, in now. Terrorism, bombing, invasions – talks of war! Joy is
fleeting; but anger and hatred? They are ruthless, relentless and unending in a
cycle that breeds itself in numerous incarnates.
This
year’s Nobel Laureate in Literature Svetlana Alexievich has made a career of
exploring these deplorable and dark situations, and chronicles the plight and survival
of the human soul within these situations: war, mass murder, disaster/catastrophe,
economic scarcity. Alexievich has recorded the Soviet individual and the
post-soviet individual. The reality: grim. The results: grim. The potential:
great – with hesitation. As Alexievich has stated in her Nobel Lecture titled: “On
the Battle Lost,”
[
In reference to Russia, and the current state of Eastern Europe; and in a
larger scale the world ]
“The
question was posed: what kind of country should we have? A strong country, or a
worthy one where people can live decently? We chose the former – a strong
country. Once again we are living in an era of power.”
There
were some slight reservations, when it was announced that Svetlana Alexievich
became this year’s Nobel Laureate in Literature. Journalism is considered more
of a profession, then a literary endeavour. The form itself requires complete
objectivity; and yet Alexievich has done away with the cool chronicling, and
instead has become a recorder of human hardship, as well as a cartographer of
the human soul in its darkest nights, its bleakest presents, and its dire
futures. Her heart has always been placed in her subject matter. Often mapping
the Soviet individual’s attempts at coming to terms with its past, and now its
present, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and the results as she lied
out in the above quote, are profoundly disappointing. Alexievich has stated
herself, it is not the difficulties in which we endure that make her sad, it is
our inability to learn from this suffering, and our advertent or inadvertent
desire to repeat it, over and over again.
Though
her work may not be defined as being strictly literary, by all literature
definitions (prose, poetry, or drama) Svetlana Alexievich does fit the will
when it states, that the award should go to a writer who: “in the field of
literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction.” Though Alexievich
is not a writer of ideology, she certainly gets to the point when discussing
ideals, and their effects on societies and civilisations, as she listens to the
stories of many witnesses of history, and attempts to understand why we
continue to make the same mistakes, over and over again.
Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take
Care
And
As Always
Stay
Well Read
M.
Mary
Congratulations
again to you Svetlana Alexievich.
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