[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by pony

dude, idk, idk! he is mine. everyone else can go suck it.

there's a really really nice little book by deleuze and guattari on kafka and how he was writing in prague in german as a jew in the austrian empire and his very very much outsider role (because he didn't write in czech but rather the "foreign" language even though that's what he spoke).

but he owns the xxth century

Originally Posted by pony

i like "it's not where you come from, it's what you adopt as yours."
but idk! can't really make my mind up for this one. on the one hand i think there is nat lit but then again i think there isn't. or "not necessarily" /it doesn't really matter?
my brainz = mashed potatoes rn

i don't mean you personally but what nation-states adopt as the basis of their national discourse. because each nation has its problems, see. some more fun than others.

and if you think about literature as a mode of knowledge, different from the social sciences and the hard sciences, and if you think for example of narrative as mode of knowledge and understanding, then the national literature is the one that grapples with these national problems. doesn't have to be an epic. even lyrical writings will resonate with their times and places.

in latin american in the XX century, it was what sides to take in the capitalist/communist struggle, and n andean nations, it was how to blend andean and western culture. these days, they're just trying to be american.
for early 'merica, it was what to do with independence, and how to grow up and how to justify enslaving negros and killing indians (and some people were against it and that was good).
in the american south, for a long time, it was how to deal with defeat of the war.
in israel, it's the ptsd of the holocaust on the one hand and the constant war and occupation on the other hand
in france, i think these days they are very preoccupied with muslim culture.
in america, it's how to deal with emptiness and meaningless and decay. the minorities here are slightly more interesting because theirs are the problems of identity politics--"who am i, here" (e.g., jhumpa lahiri). for a while before it was vietnam and the 60s. don't know that the new wars have yielded fruit yet except for the spin doctors.
for germans of the past 50 years it seems to have been how to deal with the war and (i love fassbinder, he wasn't a writer but still) the economic changes, now i don't know what (turkish immigrants?)
there's also the whole european integration thing.

i really don't know, i'm rambling at this point, but see, here an example. when i saw the tin drum (i haven't read the book) it was a story about a little kid who refuses to grow up. but in the end he has to because even as a midget he can't avoid it. he gets tainted. roswitha dies (sorry, spoilers). but i can see other things i don't understand very well-- the whole polish/german identity thing, the political parties fingering the mom under the table, and these are german problems, german questions that an educated person can more or less grasp at the distance but you don't get them in your bones no matter how many books you've read. is the tin drum part of your "national literature"? certainly it's not mine. but i can enjoy it a whole lot on many levels because it has "universal" (lol) themes. but yeah, i shouldn't lol. if not universal at least themes that transcend national/european borders.

this is the funny thing-- the other day demonio and i briefly discussed the merits of my darling clementine (a john ford western). i saw one thing and he saw another-- for him it was the whole frontier thing conflated with shakespeare (the undiscovered country, which is, you know, death, but it's also star trek). and he is right, these are the foundational mythologies of the west, and he can see them, and i can see them, but i don't share them because the west wasn't mine to invade, plus i live with the injuns where the white conqueror isn't a hero but a murderer, whereas the people who invaded here 100 years ago very much believed in manifest destiny, and that still continues in some people, though for many that's not the case any more adn they are just quitting in droves.

now i'm not saying there is no such thing as universal/global stuff and that it will be more so the more globalized we are (i like william gibson because he's a good example of going in that direction a bit), and a kind of bauhaus/international style may yet develop again in some arts, but the post-modernity breaks back into the local as a wave of retreat, but then again, etc. still, you can read anything you want, as long as you like it and it speaks to you, but it will speak differently in certain different communities, as long as we have local communities. there's regional literatures. neighborhood literatures. but yes the internet gives space to non-geographically-bound communities. though they are not really binding though, as the internet doesn't necessarily give you (yet) the same life.

eh, i am rambling, i have ancient romans screaming on a big screen and i am too lazy to look for the remote and press mute and its 7am which means i have to go out into the sun and do some manual labor now. but yeah!