Thursday, February 07, 2013 *************************************** NAMING NAMES ***************************** Q: You never name names. Why? A: In our environment naming names doesn’t work. Q: What do you mean it doesn’t work? A: Last time someone named names he was taken to court, his sources evaporated, he was found guilty, he suffered a stroke, and shortly thereafter he died. Q: His sources evaporated, how? A: They refused to testify in court. Q: Why? A: Obviously they didn’t want to lose their only source of financial support. Q: I see. A: That’s the way it has always been in our environment: those in power and the establishment in general have been invulnerable. This was true even in the Ottoman Empire and the Soviet Union. Even on the eve of the Genocide there were Armenians – and I don’t mean dupes -- who worked for the Ottoman and Soviet administrations, which means they supported the Sultan and the Young Turks. Krikor Zohrab, an eminent lawyer, diplomat, and intellectual leader was one of them – he was a close friend and supporter of Talaat who had him murdered in cold blood. I am myself personally acquainted with writers who make a comfortable living as secretaries of bishops. Do you think they will even consider testifying against their only source of income and start looking for another job? Who would hire them? Armenian writers are not exactly in great demand in today’s marketplace. But all that is theory. In reality it has never happened. We don’t have a system or cultural environment that supports individuals who place truth or principle above self-interest. And we have always had ruthless manipulators willing to take advantage of this situation. # Friday, February 08, 2013 *************************************** ON READING ************************** Q: What are some of the books you have reread more than twice? A: Lesley Blanch’s SABRES OF PARADISE, Toynbee’s RECONSIDERATIONS (volume xii of his STUDY OF HISTORY), and Sartre’s WORDS. Q: A strange trio. A: I forgot Nabokov’s LOLITA, and of course Zarian whom I have translated into English, and to translate a book is equivalent to rereading it ten times if not more. There may be others but these are the ones that come readily to mind at the moment. Q: What is it about Zarian that fascinates you? A: His daring and uncanny ability to say what you almost think…and his unique grasp of reality. Q: What about books that have changed your worldview? A: Dostoevsky’s IDIOT, Turgenev’s FATHERS AND SONS, and Suzuki’s INTRODUCTION TO ZEN BUDDHISM, all of which I read as a teenager -- and Plato’s DIALOGUES. Also Shaw’s plays, or rather their prefaces which are longer than the plays themselves. And Thomas Mann’s MAGIC MOUNTAIN. Q: Do you have a favorite genre? A: All of them – fiction, essays, biographies, memoirs, diaries, conversations, crime novels, encyclopedias… everything but poetry. I don’t remember to have ever read a collection of verse from beginning to end. Isolated poems now and then, here and there, but Milton, Dante, and T.S. Eliot, no! As for Pushkin: I might as well be deaf, dumb, and blind. I have always suspected that in poetry manner is more important than substance. Q: Do you think Armenians read enough? A: Somewhere Zarian says that what Armenians preferred to read at the turn of the century in Istanbul were best-sellers like Zevaco and Eugene Sue – whom no one reads these days. I know Armenians who love books for purely cosmetic reasons, to make an impression on visitors. I am beginning to suspect an Armenians’ greatest enemy is neither the Turk nor his fellow Armenian but the written word. # Saturday, February 09, 2013 ************************************** FROM CRADLE TO GRAVE ********************************** Gandhi once said you can evaluate a civilization by the manner in which it treats its animals – and, I would add, its writers. If you make a list of our writers you will be astonished to discover an astonishing number of them were either silenced, ignored and exiled or betrayed to the authorities, murdered and committed suicide. * Armenia has been called “the cradle of civilization” by an Irish academic who enjoyed the financial support of the Gulbenkian Foundation, the wealthiest foundation in the world, it has been said. But it would be even more accurate to call it its grave. * And speaking of Gulbenkian: Why did he leave only 7% of his wealth to Armenians? Did he know something we don’t know? Did he guess that if he were to leave all his wealth to Armenians, 93% of it would end up in the wrong pockets? I am not casting aspersions, just asking question and searching for answers. #