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Re: politics
TWO MEN OF INTEGRITY
************************************
Thomas Bernhard was an Austrian writer who hated
his fellow Austrians with a passion. No other
writer has been as relentless as he in his
excoriations of his fellow countrymen. Our Raffi
too was very critical of Armenians but in his
fiction he also created a good number of heroes
and noble specimens of humanity. Baronian, Odian,
and Massikian couched their attacks in humor and
satire. Zarian’s trajectory from great
expectations to despair and disgust was gradual
and he was careful to confide his denunciations
in his correspondence with friends, diaries and
notebooks that were published only posthumously.
Thomas Bernhard’s hatred seems to have been born
in his cradle and continued all the way to his
grave at the age of 58. But since he was widely
translated and admired throughout the world, the
Austrians had little choice but to award him a
prestigious literary prize in the hope of that
flattery may mollify him. It had the opposite
effect. In his acceptance speech Bernhard
delivered such a scathing attack on Austrian
double-talk, mediocrity, intolerance, and fascism
that the Austrian Minister of Culture and half of
the audience walked out on him. I dare you not to
love and admire such a man!
*
When a prominent Soviet official died, a good
number of Soviet personalities in the arts, among
them Shostakovich, were invited to deliver
eulogies. As it was to be expected, all the
brown-nosers emphasized the positive and ignored
the negative in the deceased, all except
Shostakovich who chose to emphasize only the
negative by exposing the man’s dishonesty and
opportunism. Which is why, ever since I read
this, I have had a soft spot for Shostakovich,
whose music I also love not because it is
elegant, refined, deep, intricate, or noble but
because it has a propulsive and sometimes
gut-wrenching forward drive.
#
TWO MEN OF INTEGRITY
************************************
Thomas Bernhard was an Austrian writer who hated
his fellow Austrians with a passion. No other
writer has been as relentless as he in his
excoriations of his fellow countrymen. Our Raffi
too was very critical of Armenians but in his
fiction he also created a good number of heroes
and noble specimens of humanity. Baronian, Odian,
and Massikian couched their attacks in humor and
satire. Zarian’s trajectory from great
expectations to despair and disgust was gradual
and he was careful to confide his denunciations
in his correspondence with friends, diaries and
notebooks that were published only posthumously.
Thomas Bernhard’s hatred seems to have been born
in his cradle and continued all the way to his
grave at the age of 58. But since he was widely
translated and admired throughout the world, the
Austrians had little choice but to award him a
prestigious literary prize in the hope of that
flattery may mollify him. It had the opposite
effect. In his acceptance speech Bernhard
delivered such a scathing attack on Austrian
double-talk, mediocrity, intolerance, and fascism
that the Austrian Minister of Culture and half of
the audience walked out on him. I dare you not to
love and admire such a man!
*
When a prominent Soviet official died, a good
number of Soviet personalities in the arts, among
them Shostakovich, were invited to deliver
eulogies. As it was to be expected, all the
brown-nosers emphasized the positive and ignored
the negative in the deceased, all except
Shostakovich who chose to emphasize only the
negative by exposing the man’s dishonesty and
opportunism. Which is why, ever since I read
this, I have had a soft spot for Shostakovich,
whose music I also love not because it is
elegant, refined, deep, intricate, or noble but
because it has a propulsive and sometimes
gut-wrenching forward drive.
#
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