The twenty-first century is the age of disbelief in the word. Almost for the first time in history, the instrument of language is not generally considered as an instrument of reason that allows us to assess and transmit experience in as precise a way as possible. Ambiguity, uncertainty, approximation have always been features of our language, but in spite of these frailties (which poets convert in strengths) we have been able to come up with crutches to uphold sense and meaning, such as tone and grammar and countless rhetorical devices, and these have worked more or less effectively up to now. But today, public discourse seems to rely almost exclusively on the conveyance of emotion, and incoherence is seen not as weakness of thought but as proof of authenticity, of something that comes not from the cold workings of a rational mind but something sincere, gushing forth “from the gut”. A tweet or a commercial slogan carry today more weight than a carefully-pondered essay. In this climate of unreason, the intellectual act loses its ancestral prestige and, as we know all too well, fake news and public lies are allowed to prevail. Intellectuals are depicted by those in power as “enemies of the people” set against the ordinary citizen whom they are accused of despising. It is therefore more urgent and more important that, amidst these accusations of negligence and superciliousness, reasonable voices, voices like that of Rodolfo Walsh in the past, steadfastly bear witness. There are no excuses for intellectual indecision." [Read more here]
If you have not read Alberto Manguel, you're in for a treat. His literary output is prodigious - click here - and I'm slowly adding his books, one or two at a time, to my library. I've just ordered "The City of Words" and "A Reading Library", books which point me to other books I want to read.
Heraclitus's bon mot about time applies equally well to my reading: "You never dip into the same book twice." What remains invariable is the pleasure of reading, of holding a book in my hands and suddenly feeling that particular sense of wonder, recognition, chill or warmth that for no discernible reason a certain string of words sometimes evokes.
P.S. Did I really write "one or two at a time"? Make that "one or two or three" because I've just now also ordered "Into the Looking Glass Wood".
