... for someone who writes, who has chosen to write, that is to say, for someone who has experienced the jouissance, the joy of writing, there can be no other Vita Nova (or so it seems to me) than the discovery of a new writing practice.
(Preparation... p. 5)
The small town of Gilead, in which two of Marilynne Robinson's three novels are set, is "a dogged little outpost" in Iowa, where her characters live modestly and scorn themselves for staying put. They don't go anywhere, do anything, see anyone besides their neighbours, and the town itself doesn't change - an odd choice of set-up for a novelist, but one that permits her to make a suggestion: that it is people in their kitchens, devastating each other softly and for the most part without intent, that constitutes life at its most indivisible.
"The writer studies literature, not the world. She lives in the world, she cannot miss it. She is careful of what she reads, for that is what she will write. She is careful of what she learns, because that is what she will know."
A.D
But you cant fail to see the close relationship these two both have to nature...
"… I am no scientist. I explore the neighborhood."
I don't see this as a problem, the art that interest me the most is very often connected very close to the everyday life of the writer or artist. Thats one of the reasons for my engagement with artists like Annie Dillard, Thoreau, Montaign, Helle Helle, Tomas Espedal, Sophie Calle and also Mary Kelly - who I will be "visiting" in Stockholm next week.
I do not believe in the idea that the artist is or should be disconnected from the everyday life.En kunstner er et menneske som alle andre, er hun norsk må hun forholde seg til norsk lov. En kunstner er et menneske som få andre, for kunstneren er fri i forhold til sin egen tematikk og metode. En kunstner er ikke hevet over loven, men friheten setter henne i en særstilling som gjør det mulig å utforske og utfordre lovens rammer og begrensinger. Å være maktkonfronterende og å utfordre samfunnets moralske konvensjoner er, og har alltid vært, en av kunstens viktigste oppgaver.
Under overskriften «Går mot Stasi-samfunnet» (Klassekampen torsdag 4. november) bekymrer professor Eivind Tjønneland seg over virkelighetssuget i litteraturen. Han påstår at forfatterne i verdens frieste land mimer et totalitært samfunn fordi de i sine bøker skriver om virkeligheten og om virkelige mennesker. «At man ikke skal kunne gjøre noe uten å risikere å bli publisert i en bok, er ingen tjent med» sier han. Vel – vel. Stasisamfunnet var, så vidt jeg vet, mer kjent for sensur enn for kunstnerisk åpenhet.
Hvis det stemmer at virkeligheten er til stede på en ny måte i samtidslitteraturen kan det være interessant å forske på hvorfor, Tjønnelands moralske indignasjon har imidlertid ingenting med forskning å gjøre. Kunsten kan ikke forholde seg til god takt og tone. Noen ganger er det til og med slik at der er nettopp overtredelsen av loven som gjør et verk kunstnerisk interessant, ikke dermed sagt at man kan gjøre det ustraffet.
Hva er mest stasi-aktig, å gjenskape sin egen subjektive virkelighet på papir, eller å la forskere, redaktører og journalister definere hvilke tema som skal skrives om?
Sigrun Hodne
Litteraturviter, kritiker og skribent
I was loosed on the shore of vastness. There was no continental shelf. I lived on the beach. The brink of the infinite there was too like writing’s solitude. Each sentence hung over an abyssal ocean or sky which held all possibilities – as well as the possibility of nothing. The twilight lingered till dawn. The wide days split life open like an ax.
dogwood |ˈdôgˌwoŏd|
noun
a shrub or small tree of north temperate regions that yields hard timber and is grown for its decorative foliage, red stems, and colorful berries.
ORIGIN so named because the wood was formerly used to make “dogs” (i.e., skewers).
Pulitzer winner Annie Dillard’s second novel, The Maytrees, came out in 2007. She’s written over ten other books, but she says The Maytrees, her first book in eight years, will probably be her last. “I’m tired,” declared the 62-year-old Dillard, who says that she won’t be doing any more touring, public readings, blurb writing, or letter answering. “I worked so hard all my life, and all I want to do now is read. I’m glad to go out on this book,” she says. (The Maytrees tells the story of two married artists in Provincetown, Massachusetts, after World War II.) She did mention one, possibly tongue-in-cheek idea for further work: “To take all my never-used metaphors and just throw them up in the air for other writers to use.” Grab Bag, by Annie Dillard? “I like the title Free-for-All,” she says.
(Dillard has told Publishers Weekly that the first draft of The Maytrees was 1,400 pages long and that she ruthlessly cut the manuscript down section by section, character by character, syllable by syllable, until only 216 pages - nothing superfluous - remained).
