[Nettime-bold] Understanding Netochka Nezvanova

[Nmherman@aol.com]

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/stores/detail/-/books/0140444556/reader/6

/104-1654750-8500746

First of all it takes a serious literary standpoint, being in the state of 
what Keats' called "negative capability" in his representative/poetic working 
manifesto of Romanticism.

For me the point is not really what Keats wrote but what "negative 
capability" means about creativity and generalism.  My theoretical method so 
to speak is exotericism.  It's a planned choice-preference that I didn't 
invent, is not a figment of my extrapolation.

Exoteric is the opposite of esoteric, and means essentially "knowledge that 
tends to be known by many rather than tending to be known by few is better, 
other things being equal."

NN is saying something very serious and literary when she says "romanticism 
is one colonial disease."  It's a very apt statement.  A simply stated 
metaphor using a felicity of phrasing--the classic New Critical attribute of 
two gentlemen Shakespeare and Keats--indicates the person is taking negative c
apability seriously, which in my opinion is one aspect of a very good writer. 
 Most quid pro quo a topic at least in a writer's daily thoughts.  Agree or 
disagree?  Positive or negative?  In any event I didn't get any illumination 
or new news from the Salon piece.  

Also it is interesting to note the book "War and Peace" these days.  Anyone 
here actually read it?  Do you think about it these days, or leave that to 
the experts?  The novel is fun to read and good to have read.  When Norman 
Mailer went to study writing, a Swiss instructor made him hand-copy every 
word of W&P for like six months.)  Tolstoy's fabulistic novel has whole 
sections about the war--noticeably absent of moral blame--interspersed with 
sections about how history is more or less a force of God, not individuals.  
He later of course became a primitivist of sorts and asked that all his books 
be burned.

Or, advertisers act smarter than you and teachers act dumber?

On a separate note, I should say I was more struck by the fact that nn was in 
"Salon" whatever that is, a fancy magazine, than what was written by the 
reporter and in reply by nn.  I was once a receptionist at a bank and got an 
autograph from another woman on the top 25 list 2000, sort of as personal 
research on celebrity.  So, "celebrity is weird" is one major topic I thought 
about when I read the Salon article.

Also all the acrimony is weird, so to speak, and I don't just mean over who 
gets to wear the fancy dresses and all.

Max Herman
www.weatesand.net
Proof I'm an Artist in My Own Right at http://66.39.32.223/fulfillment/
Free Hype Slogan for Nike:  "Creativity is at the center of a basketball."

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