![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
Christian Bok and Cold War Nostalgia
Eunoia, by Christian Bok was posted on ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
greatpoets today.
Relentless, the rebel peddles these theses, even when vexed peers deem the new precepts ‘mere dreck’. The plebes resent newer verse; nevertheless, the rebel perseveres, never deterred, never dejected; heedless, even when hecklers heckle the vehement speeches. We feel perplexed whenever we see these exerpted sentences. We sneer when we detect the clever scheme – the emergent repetend: the letter E. We jeer; we jest. We express resentment. We detest these depthless pretenses – these present-tense verbs expressed pell-mell. We prefer genteel speech, where sense redeems senselessness.
It's an interesting piece, one I've never read before. I try as much as possible to avoid Bok. The deal is, I studied modern Canadian fiction under him, and he made a vast array of brilliant works unreadable, by virtue of his blinding pretension. I still can't make it through the first chapter of Mauve Desert without cringing, and By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept is staring at me from my bookshelf, as I type this. My seminar leader, a friend of his, refused to meet with me regarding course work, after I confessed to taking the course in order to fulfill a degree requirement, and all but drove me out of the class. It was one of my worst experiences with the post-secondary education system. Somehow I can't get past my distaste for the man, to see the work for itself.
***
Have you seen today's utterly ridic Writer's Block Question?
It’s the Day of German Unity, marking the 1990 reunification of East and West Germany. In our current period of global instability, do you ever feel nostalgic for the seeming simplicity of the Cold War?
I'm extremely pleased with all the boggling going on in the responses.
Quoting![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
filbypott for truth: This is one of the most insultingly stupid things I've read all day, and I've read defenses of Sarah Palin. Whoever wrote this should be ashamed.
psychox says: Yes. I often long for an era when the planet was constantly two steps away from nuclear annihilation. . . . I'm...going to pretend I didn't see this question.
Actually, I'm going to pretend that by "simplicity," the prompt is referring to the balance of power between two nation-states deadlocked by the concept of mutually-assured-destruction. And I'm going to presume that "global instability" is referring to the dangers of living in a world dominated by the one superpower that emerged triumphant after the Cold War to become the world hegemony.
If I can't convince myself of that, I'm going to pretend this prompt never happened.
Me too, dude. Me too.
greatpoets today. Relentless, the rebel peddles these theses, even when vexed peers deem the new precepts ‘mere dreck’. The plebes resent newer verse; nevertheless, the rebel perseveres, never deterred, never dejected; heedless, even when hecklers heckle the vehement speeches. We feel perplexed whenever we see these exerpted sentences. We sneer when we detect the clever scheme – the emergent repetend: the letter E. We jeer; we jest. We express resentment. We detest these depthless pretenses – these present-tense verbs expressed pell-mell. We prefer genteel speech, where sense redeems senselessness.
It's an interesting piece, one I've never read before. I try as much as possible to avoid Bok. The deal is, I studied modern Canadian fiction under him, and he made a vast array of brilliant works unreadable, by virtue of his blinding pretension. I still can't make it through the first chapter of Mauve Desert without cringing, and By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept is staring at me from my bookshelf, as I type this. My seminar leader, a friend of his, refused to meet with me regarding course work, after I confessed to taking the course in order to fulfill a degree requirement, and all but drove me out of the class. It was one of my worst experiences with the post-secondary education system. Somehow I can't get past my distaste for the man, to see the work for itself.
***
Have you seen today's utterly ridic Writer's Block Question?
It’s the Day of German Unity, marking the 1990 reunification of East and West Germany. In our current period of global instability, do you ever feel nostalgic for the seeming simplicity of the Cold War?
I'm extremely pleased with all the boggling going on in the responses.
Quoting
filbypott for truth: This is one of the most insultingly stupid things I've read all day, and I've read defenses of Sarah Palin. Whoever wrote this should be ashamed.psychox says: Yes. I often long for an era when the planet was constantly two steps away from nuclear annihilation. . . . I'm...going to pretend I didn't see this question.Actually, I'm going to pretend that by "simplicity," the prompt is referring to the balance of power between two nation-states deadlocked by the concept of mutually-assured-destruction. And I'm going to presume that "global instability" is referring to the dangers of living in a world dominated by the one superpower that emerged triumphant after the Cold War to become the world hegemony.
If I can't convince myself of that, I'm going to pretend this prompt never happened.
Me too, dude. Me too.