"Beauty is terror. Whatever we call beautiful, we quiver before it."
I'm reading 'The Secret History' by Donna Tartt. I was told about it last year by someone who was shocked that I had never read it and insisted that you can't be a classicist if you haven't read it. Well, that was probably an exaggeration, but then I haven't finished the book yet so I don't feel I can judge that yet!
Anyway, the book is supposed to be one of these modern classics, about a group of eccentric classics students in America who murder someone (the first sentence of the prologue tells you who, so I'm not spoiling anything). The quotation above is from the narrator's description of the first lecture he attends in the tiny, elitist Greek class run by just one eccentric professor (Pgs.40-47). He is talking about the Greek idea of beauty, how they found it both terrifying and beautiful to completely lose control of themselves, such as in the madness of the Dionysiac ritual: 'To sing, to scream, to dance barefoot in the woods in the dead of night, with no more awareness of mortality than an animal!' I think that is still true of people today to some extent; people like to lose themselves in their work or music or even alcohol or whatever. Obviously not the screaming in the woods part, though, that way leads to insanity and men in white coats.
He also says, 'Beauty is rarely soft or consolatory. Quite the contrary. Genuine beauty is always quite alarming.'
True beauty should be that way. There is such a difference between prettiness and beauty. It's like the difference between a song or a painting or a piece of writing or film that just looks or sounds good and one that brings tears to your eyes or takes your breath away or makes you grin like an idiot. And I don't mean depressing, sad tears (or emo if you want to call it that). I mean happy tears because for that moment you forget who you are and all you can see is that one thing that took your breath away. That is what I would call true beauty.
Sorry to go all deep there, but that is why I can't understand it when someone says that they don't have any particular favourite music, film or anything else or they have never truly loved a song. You don't know what you are missing.
Anyway, the book is supposed to be one of these modern classics, about a group of eccentric classics students in America who murder someone (the first sentence of the prologue tells you who, so I'm not spoiling anything). The quotation above is from the narrator's description of the first lecture he attends in the tiny, elitist Greek class run by just one eccentric professor (Pgs.40-47). He is talking about the Greek idea of beauty, how they found it both terrifying and beautiful to completely lose control of themselves, such as in the madness of the Dionysiac ritual: 'To sing, to scream, to dance barefoot in the woods in the dead of night, with no more awareness of mortality than an animal!' I think that is still true of people today to some extent; people like to lose themselves in their work or music or even alcohol or whatever. Obviously not the screaming in the woods part, though, that way leads to insanity and men in white coats.
He also says, 'Beauty is rarely soft or consolatory. Quite the contrary. Genuine beauty is always quite alarming.'
True beauty should be that way. There is such a difference between prettiness and beauty. It's like the difference between a song or a painting or a piece of writing or film that just looks or sounds good and one that brings tears to your eyes or takes your breath away or makes you grin like an idiot. And I don't mean depressing, sad tears (or emo if you want to call it that). I mean happy tears because for that moment you forget who you are and all you can see is that one thing that took your breath away. That is what I would call true beauty.
Sorry to go all deep there, but that is why I can't understand it when someone says that they don't have any particular favourite music, film or anything else or they have never truly loved a song. You don't know what you are missing.