questions

Thursday, September 11, 2008
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ENCOUNTERS WITH WRITERS
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He was a veteran of World War II and the best-selling author of a battle, which was made into a TV documentary. I no longer remember how we met but I remember him saying there are 42 (may have been 44) ways in which a publisher can screw a writer. I remember that because around the same time I read another writer, an attractive blonde, who said, “Just when you think you have been screwed every possible way, you run into a publisher who has read the KAMA SUTRA.”
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“I write constantly, I write non-stop,” another writer told me. “I may be talking to you now but on another level I am writing. I write more than I read. I hope you do too.” No, I don't. I may write or rewrite for 30 or 45 minutes every morning but the rest of the time I read.
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For three decades he was one of our most popular writers in the Diaspora and he was popular with everyone, including bosses, bishops, and benefactors (who subsidized the publication of his books). He wrote mostly fiction and he disapproved of my increasingly critical stance. So much so that he left my last letters unanswered. When he died, he is quoted as having said, “I die alone and friendless.”
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After reading some of my commentaries and book reviews, Saroyan asked me if I do any “creative” writing, meaning fiction. I sent him my most recent novella published in an American literary periodical but never heard from him again. Another writer who knew him well, once said to me: “Saroyan cares only for Saroyan.” That's the way it is with all established writers. They view the work of other writers as deviations from their own. Faulkner didn't like Hemingway, and vice versa. Nabokov was contemptuous of Mann and Sartre. But then, Nabokov didn't care for many other writers, including Dostoevsky. Dostoevsky himself loathed Turgenev, and whenever Turgenev saw anything that was morbid, strange, and repellent, he would say, “C'est du Dostoevsky.” Another great writer who didn't care for Dostoevsky was Tolstoy, but it is said that the last book he read, or did not finish reading, was THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV.
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Friday, September 12, 2008
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LIMITATIONS
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Since I have spent most of my life in the company of books, I don't mind admitting that I know very little or nothing about life, reality, and the world at large. As a result, I have many more doubts than certainties. But one of the very few certainties I feel qualified to profess is that we are not a race apart. We should be judged as human beings and not as Armenians, whatever that may mean to our chauvinists and holier-than-thou charlatans. I refuse to be taken in by academics and pundits who expect me to believe that, since they know more about our history and culture, ordinary standards do not apply to us. Neither am I easily taken in by ayatollahs, popes, bishops, and the verbiage of so-called charismatic politicians. To those who quote Holy Books and speak in the name of the Almighty, I say: Only if you reach a consensus among yourselves, may I consider listening to what you have to say. Until then I question your authority to hang a label on me as a heretic, an infidel, or an atheist. If I am an atheist, it's because I am against all theists who speak in the name of God and do the Devil's work. And to those who speak in the name of patriotism, I say: If your patriotism justifies the murder of innocent civilians, the hangman's rope is too good for you.
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Saturday, September 13, 2008
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BURNING QUESTIONS
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Was Jesus the son of God, a prophet, or a blasphemer?
This is not exactly a burning question for me. As far as I can remember, I have not wasted a single moment of my adult life worrying over it.
The burning question for me is how can Christian, Muslim, and Jewish religious leaders go on brainwashing and propagandizing entire continents and get away with it? How can reasonable men allow themselves to be manipulated to the point of killing and dying with the unshakable conviction that they will be rewarded in an afterlife? How can decent and law-abiding citizens surrender their minds and souls to these charlatans who are no better than moral morons or intellectual midgets, and probably both, simply because they quote from a so-called Holy Book which they say it's the Word of God?
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