Subject: Re: A Perfect Day for German Poetry
From: Scottie Bowman (rbowman@indigo.ie)
Date: Mon Nov 12 2001 - 04:07:53 GMT
'... With each encounter with truth one draws nearer to reaching
communion with it, more so than those in unreal, half-artistic careers--
by pretending proximity to are, they actually deny and attack
the existence of all art. All those in the field of journalism and
nearly all the critics do it, as well as three-fourths of those engaged
in literature or who wish to call it that ...'
Lo,
'... the time of the singing birds is come & the voice of the prig
is heard in our land ...' (Though not, in this translation, a very
euphonious one.)
Evidently Rilke & Franzen belong in each other's fastidious arms.
I prefer the view of writers as gypsies - unconstrained by principle,
supporting each other in their spoliation of a gullible public,
ever on the lookout for the fuzz & gobbling up every likely trick,
whether an endorsement by Oprah or (as I myself once had the honour
to enjoy) a Good Housekeeping Book of the Month.
I should, therefore, keep quiet about the late Ken Kesey whose
stuff I couldn't bring myself to read. But, autre jours, autres
chapeaux, I have him forever in my sights as the source of
the Cuckoo's Nest. That fucking film killed at least a hundred
times more people than Bin Laden.
By demonising ECT &, indeed psychiatry in general, it pushed
one of the really effective treatments for dying people out of reach
for about ten years. During that interim I can't tell you the number
of times I had to accept the refusal of patients or their relatives for
consent to something that would have restored them to something
like contentment & averted the self destruction that eventually overtook
them.
And all for the sake of a couple of easy laughs at the expense
of a profession that we all long ago knew to be by its very nature
a caricature.
Scottie B.
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