Friday 4 December 2009

Lazy



Being lazy is a must not a luxury. We live in this stupid, über-fast world where we need to do things all the time (or in my words - I live in a world of constant list-writing. Today I stayed home to do some marking (yuk!) and since I woke up, I've done nothing: I have talked to d/a on the phone, wrote a card to an upcoming bday girl, sluggishly made coffee and then indulged myself into my guiltiest of pleasures: watching trailers of romantic comedies on apple.com. I love this shit, really. Soon I go to cut my hair and then maybe, just maybe, I might do some work. But you know what? Enough with the pseudo-catholic guilt, you know? Fuck it! I am lazy and loving it.

Thursday 3 December 2009

On the nature of the critic

Η σχέση μας με τον Άλλο αφ΄ ενός προϋποθέτει, αφ΄ ετέρου συνεπάγεται την καλύτερη γνώση του εαυτού μας. Το παραδοξολόγημα του Ουάιλντ υπαινίσσεται, παρόλη την υπερβολή του, κάτι που οι πιο υποψιασμένοι κριτικοί γνωρίζουν καλά: ότι το πραγματικό θέμα μιας κριτικής δεν είναι τόσο το κρινόμενο βιβλίο όσο ο ίδιος ο κριτικός. Με άλλα λόγια, η κριτική είναι μια μορφή αυτοβιογραφίας· η μόνη πολιτισμένη μορφή αυτοβιογραφίας, όπως έλεγε πάλι ο Ουάιλντ, «πιο συναρπαστική από την ιστορία, επειδή ο συγγραφέας εξομολογείται, πιο απολαυστική από τη φιλοσοφία, επειδή το θέμα της είναι συγκεκριμένο και όχι αφηρημένο, πραγματικό και όχι αόριστο».

The gist of the above comment in Greek can be roughly summarised as follows:
The real topic of a criticism (a piece of work with your opinion on a movie, a book or whatever) is not the thing itself - rather it is your own self. In other words, criticism is a form of autobiography.

Reading this, i felt suddenly relieved as I finally understood what i have always been trying to do, when i write: I am trying to understand myself. It always made me feel weird how i started a piece that was supposed to be about a movie and ended up talking about my views on life. I thought i did that because i was a self-centred bad writer, but in the end, it seems that everybody is self-centred. Or perhaps, we are all self-centred but not because we are necessarily bad, but because this is the only way we can be. Perhaps the only topic we will ever be able to discuss in some depth and some sophistication, is ourselves. And perhaps the only reason we do anything in life - the books we read, the things we study, the movies we watch, the people we hang out with - are just means for us to understand ourselves better.