Writers

[arabaliozian]

FASCINATING WRITERS
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There are writers that I love to read, and
writers, like Dostoevsky and Simenon, that become
obsessions.
*
SIMENON
**************
There are two things that fascinate me about
Simenon: his profoundly human and universally
accessible fictional characters, and the fact
that he could write a book in a week. No one
knows how many books he has written – some say
500, others 650 – because he wrote under several
pseudonyms. His books may be divided into three
distinct categories: detective stories (also
known as “maigrets”), straight novels (also known
as “simenons”), and autobiographical narratives
and diaries, not all of which are available in
English.
*
DOSTOEVSKY
************************
What I find fascinating about Dostoevsky’s
fiction is the clash of contradictory characters
and the ensuing fireworks. I began reading him as
a teenager and by the time I was twenty I had
read all his major works in Italian and Greek
translations. Though I have tried to reread him
in English I have never gone beyond page 3. I
prefer to read studies of his life and work, of
which there is a steady stream. Generally
speaking, I find biographies of the major
Russians (Pushkin, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Turgenev)
more absorbing than their fiction.
*
MANN AND TOYNBEE
*********************************
Two other writers who became obsessions that
lasted several years are Thomas Mann and Arnold
J. Toynbee. What I value about them both is their
thoroughly anti-establishment stance – though
they were themselves products of the
establishment. But this is true of all authentic
thinkers, from Plato to Bertrand Russell.
*
ZARIAN
*****************
Among Armenians, the writer that has fascinated
me the most is Gostan Zarian, but unlike the
great Russians, so far he has had no biographer,
which is a pity since his life on three
continents and encounters with many major figures
in world literature fully deserves several
voluminous studies.
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[arabaliozian]

Re: Writers

Lord Halifax: "The best [political] party is but akind of conspiracy against the rest of thenation."

[arabaliozian]

Re: Writers

http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?an=ara+baliozian&sts=t

[arabaliozian]

Re: Writers

LA COMMEDIA E FINITA

*********************************

The incomprehensible thing about our writers

in the Ottoman Empire and the Soviet Union is that

none of them was systematically brainwashed

into believing they lived among friends

and no harm would come to them;

in the same way that most Armenians today

(at least those who care to identify themselves as such)

believe we owe our survival

to our dividers and grave-diggers.

*

And speaking of “survival:”

We may go on “surviving” for another

thousand years but only as skeletons,

or in Toynbee’s apt word, as “fossils.”

*

My question is: Does dying the death

of a thousand self-inflicted cuts

qualify as survival?

#

[arabaliozian]

Re: Writers

ON WARS & MASSACRES
*************************************
The Genocide generation understood nothing.
The post-Genocide generations understand even less.
*
In a friendless world you don’t have to go
out of your way to make enemies.
*
To live in an anti-intellectual environment
means to be at the mercy of men
who know nothing and care even less
about the nature and function of ideas.
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: Writers

COMMENTS
*******************************
The beauty about the truth is that
once exposed to the sunlight,
it cannot be thrust back into darkness.
*
The truth is not a fixed place
but a traffic sign.
*
There is more truth
in what others say about you
than in what you say about yourself.
*
You want to know more about a nation?
Study its propaganda
and believe the opposite of what it says.
*
You can kill the truth but you cannot bury it.
If you bury it, it will rise on the third day.
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: Writers

Intolerance of dissent is a sure symptom of the fact that
the foundations of the power structure are so flimsy
that a single wrong word may precipitate its collapse.
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: Writers

What is Literature?
******************************************
How often we have heard it said that writers like Arlen, Adamov, Berberova, Troyat, and Saroyan do not belong to Armenian literature because their medium was not Armenian.
Ah! the pleasures of passing judgment on one's betters.
The power of sitting on a podium, looking down at the accused below, and saying "You are not one of us."
*
How many times I have myself been told by our literary pundits and defenders of the faith:
"You, my friend, don't belong to Armenian literature because you write in English" -- as if they were depriving me of a rare privilege; as if being just a writer were not a difficult enough task;
and as if producing unreadable trash in Armenian were more important than writing an honest line in English or any other language for that matter. …
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: Writers

VICTIMS AS VICTIMIZERS
************************************
Armenians as victims: I will let more competent
and qualified men than myself to deal with that
aspect of our history and identity. Armenians as
victimizers: that’s what I propose to explore
here.
*
If you are one of those brainwashed dupes who
believe, since Armenians can do no wrong, they
cannot victimize anyone, allow me to quote two
well-known and highly respected sources who
cannot be said to be dissidents or
anti-establishment critics because, in addition
to being members of a political party, they were
on friendly terms with a good number of
establishment figures in both the Homeland and
the Diaspora, among them several bosses, bishops,
and benefactors.
*
Antranik Zaroukian (1912-1989), poet, novelist,
critic, editor: “They speak of the cross and nail
us to it again as they speak.”
*
Hagop Garabents (1925-1996), novelist, short
story writer, essayist, and Voice of America
broadcaster: “Once upon a time we fought and shed
our blood for freedom. We are now afraid of free
speech.”
*
In our context, to be afraid of free speech
means, anyone who dares to deal honestly and
objectively with facts is ruthlessly silenced and
alienated on grounds of anti-Armenianism.
To those who say, at least we don’t victimize
others, only ourselves, I say, that’s because the
weak cannot victimize the mighty; the weak can
victimize only those who are weaker; in the same
way that capitalists do not exploit fellow
capitalists, only workers.
*
Before I rest my case, allow me to quote
Zaroukian again: “What kind of people are we?
What kind of leadership is this? Instead of
compassion, mutual contempt; instead of reason,
blind instinct; instead of common sense,
fanaticism.”
*
Contempt, blind instinct, fanaticism: that sounds
to me less like Armenianism and more like
Ottomanism.
And now, listen to one of those silenced and
alienated writers speaking:
Stepan Voskanian (1825-1901): “For thirty-five
years I did not write a single line in Armenian.
I was treated so shabbily by my fellow Armenians
that I could not help hating everything that I
held dear as a young man; and since I was starved
by my own countrymen, I had to write in French in
order to survive.”
Next time you lament our victims, I suggest you
remember all our victims, not just a fraction of
them.
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: Writers

So many first-class literary works
have been rejected by publishers
or ignored by the public that
one is tempted to define writing
as composing music for the deaf.
#