Okay, probably too early for Wodehouse
Spotted on somebody's post and catching at me: apparently Kafka once said something to the effect that I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound or stab us. If the book we're reading doesn't wake us up with a blow to the head, what are we reading for?.... A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us.
Which would be a perfectly reasonable thing to say - there is a place for books like that - except:
a) for that 'only', which immediately, in the light of recent posts, aligns him rather too closely with the egregious Jonathan 'reading is not, ever, meant to be FUN' Jones.
and
b) the assumption that only some kind of literary violence will break up the internal frozen sea or bring this moment of revelation. As I have heretofore remarked: Generally I think that the benefits of comfort and what Stella Gibbons defined as 'the Gentle Powers', in Westwood - at one point a character suggests 'Pity, Affection, Time, Beauty, Laughter' are among these but not the complete list - are seriously underestimated.
Is there not something a tad Mybugian, a bit urgently phallic, a thought macho, about the demand for wounds, stabs, blows, axes rather, than, maybe, gentle persuasion or the coming of the spring thaw?
I suspect that the dates don't work for telling Franz to lighten up and read some Wodehouse, let alone Pratchett, but it is a sentiment statements like this move me to. This entry was originally posted at http://oursin.dreamwidth.org/2334961.html. Please comment there using OpenID. View
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