[Open: Frobisher] To write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric. - Theodore Adorno
After he was told, Robert Frobisher spent quite a bit of time thinking, digesting the news of the future from which he had extracted himself voluntarily.
Later, he had gone to the library and looked for history books, antiquated newspapers, anything to confirm what Justin had told him. Ayrs was right. Ayrs, really, had foreseen it.
And to think of Jocasta, of Eva. Of course that whole family had treated him like an object, but nobody deserved what would have befallen the husband of a Jew, the daughter of a Jew. Zedelgheim was on the way to France. Of course they might have evacuated in time, but the pretentious old fart might not have been physically able to do so.
There was of course no way to know, but those questions were dwarfed by the greater ones, those about the nature of man. Those about good, and evil. About conventions. He'd always thought boundaries were man-made fictions, created to curb-stomp instincts, desires and impulses, but he'd never thought of those as destructive. Not even after his own suicide, when he was in limbo. Killing oneself is one thing. Killing another is, well, another - and while he always felt justified in pulling the trigger on Ayrs... it seemed to him that the Holocaust went well beyond the isolated impulse to defend oneself.
He could not fathom the hatred of it, the systematic aspects of this utter, malignant destruction. So for the past month, Robert Frobisher had not been composing. Or rather: he had been composing with this new development. He keeps on thinking about Adorno' Prisms.
"To write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric. And this corrodes even the knowledge of why it has become impossible to write poetry today. Absolute reification, which presupposed intellectual progress as one of its elements, is now preparing to absorb the mind entirely. Critical intelligence cannot be equal to this challenge as long as it confines itself to self-satisfied contemplation."
Now here he is, in the ballroom, trying something new. It's dark. It's sad. It is filled with self-loathing, solitude and despair.
It is a funerary oratorio, for the dead of Frobisher's future past.
Open post, anyone welcome, but be warned, Frobisher will want to discuss this heavy stuff. For those who are curious about Adorno, here is a link to an interesting (and accessible) essay on the topic. :-)
Later, he had gone to the library and looked for history books, antiquated newspapers, anything to confirm what Justin had told him. Ayrs was right. Ayrs, really, had foreseen it.
And to think of Jocasta, of Eva. Of course that whole family had treated him like an object, but nobody deserved what would have befallen the husband of a Jew, the daughter of a Jew. Zedelgheim was on the way to France. Of course they might have evacuated in time, but the pretentious old fart might not have been physically able to do so.
There was of course no way to know, but those questions were dwarfed by the greater ones, those about the nature of man. Those about good, and evil. About conventions. He'd always thought boundaries were man-made fictions, created to curb-stomp instincts, desires and impulses, but he'd never thought of those as destructive. Not even after his own suicide, when he was in limbo. Killing oneself is one thing. Killing another is, well, another - and while he always felt justified in pulling the trigger on Ayrs... it seemed to him that the Holocaust went well beyond the isolated impulse to defend oneself.
He could not fathom the hatred of it, the systematic aspects of this utter, malignant destruction. So for the past month, Robert Frobisher had not been composing. Or rather: he had been composing with this new development. He keeps on thinking about Adorno' Prisms.
"To write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric. And this corrodes even the knowledge of why it has become impossible to write poetry today. Absolute reification, which presupposed intellectual progress as one of its elements, is now preparing to absorb the mind entirely. Critical intelligence cannot be equal to this challenge as long as it confines itself to self-satisfied contemplation."
Now here he is, in the ballroom, trying something new. It's dark. It's sad. It is filled with self-loathing, solitude and despair.
It is a funerary oratorio, for the dead of Frobisher's future past.
Open post, anyone welcome, but be warned, Frobisher will want to discuss this heavy stuff. For those who are curious about Adorno, here is a link to an interesting (and accessible) essay on the topic. :-)