I’m only on page 23, but I already love The Picture of Dorian Gray (by Oscar Wilde), starting from the preface. I enjoy this paragraph so much that I’ve read it three times already. It’s the first one in Chapter 3 of the unabridged edition:
In these words of George Orwell, from his 1940 essay “The Lion and the Unicorn”, how I feel about a lot of people; most notably one outgoing President, but more suitably, another that almost was:
One thing that has always shown that the English ruling class are morally fairly sound, is that in time of war they are ready enough to get themselves killed. Several dukes, earls and whatnots were killed in the recent campaign in Flanders. That could not happen if these people were cynical scoundrels that they are sometimes declared to be. It is important not to misunderstand their motives, or one cannot predict their actions. What is to be expected of them is not treachery, or physical cowardice, but stupidity, unconscious sabotage, an infallible instinct for doing the wrong thing. They are not wicked, or not altogether wicked; they are merely unteachable. Only when their money and power are gone will the younger among them begin to grasp what century they are living in.
But really, you should continue for a little bit of George Orwell hilarity on socialism and bombs:
Of the several noteworthy gatherings hosted this year by New York Public Library’s Live from the NYPL series, the last one I attended was Zadie Smith’s lecture on “Speaking in Tongues”. Poking right away into the nature of lectures and how a novelist is faced with “tonal challenges” when attempting to deliver one, she rolled her premise out: whereas a speech demands a singular true voice, a novelist–whose area of expertise is the imagined, after all–speaks his truth in a diffused voice filled with multiple personalities. But is this ability to be many-voiced, moving from one register to another, also useful for citizens and Presidents, and not just novelists?
I will avoid paraphrasing Zizek wherever possible, since there’s no way that won’t involve butchering of words, so I resort, inevitably, to a somewhat trashier retelling, which begins with one of my favorite feminist columnists, Katha Pollit, seated right in front of me–only I realized much later that it was she, and that she was married to Steven Lukes, who was there to promote his “Big Ideas / Small Books” title Moral Relativism, as was Slavoj Zizek to promote his “Big Ideas / Small Books” title Violence.
Continued after the jump.
If you’re in the mood to judge, Slavoj Zizek can be cut and diced in a million ways, like why the hell would he get his hands dirty in corporate advertising while waving a big, red, bleeding Communist flag, though I actually find this mingling of boundaries pretty sweet. And though you may or may not agree with the stuff that comes out of the mouth of this vociferous modern-day philosopher from Slovenia, he sure as hell is fascinating, and in that arena he’s got very little competition, especially from his peers. In short, the world is a better place when a man with a brain on fire decides to devote a documentary to the theme, The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema.
Continue reading about the event after the jump.
The book jacket of his newest, The Enchantress of Florence, describes Salman Rushdie as “one of the world’s most important living writers”. When these words were used to introduce him yesterday, the grinning author shook with the whole of his laughing belly. Though known to be “arrogant”, a word often used interchangeably with “outspoken”, he’s had a jovial air about him every time I’ve seen him (having just finished reading Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita, I’m reminded of Behemoth the cat). I’ve also heard the phrase “show off” when his work is spoken of unfavorably, but I really think he writes glorious books only because he can hardly contain himself.
Continued, and photos after the jump.
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