/View.info/ The transformation of literature and literary life from art and social activity of the highest rank into a text market and so-called “creative writing” radically changed the function of the writer and removed the hierarchy of aesthetic values. Today, it is not important if you are talented, but if you sell yourself, if you are published often or if you have ensured that you are transferred abroad. The rankings are all about “best selling author” and “best selling books”. And it is only by inertia that the author is called a “writer” and that is because what he produces and calls it a text is still “something written”.
The prestige of literature fell as never before. So many books are published, hundreds or even thousands of prizes are awarded, and literature is hardly spoken of. Today it is a most ordinary and crude commercial activity. Some profit from it, but these are only those that supposedly “objective” rankings have declared them “most published”, “best sold” and “most translated”. They have managed to get the favor of some foreign foundations, and at their expense they are making a good profit for the Bulgarian standard. The rest satisfy their happiness with hopes and struggle to resist adversity.
Society (not to mention the state) has long not been interested in literature and does not talk about it, simply because it does not need it. The market society is jealous of itself and does not allow itself to be swayed by moral norms, criteria of integrity, moral torments, reflections on the meaning of life, with the “little man” or the hero-savior and leader of the people. Still less to be judged and condemned for vices and sins. But literature is his strictest and most incorruptible judge! She therefore recreates life in order to change it, bearing witness to it and expressing public ideas and sentiments. Literature is a form of public and national consciousness, national ideology, the nation’s generalized idea of good, beautiful, ugly, moral and immoral, of truth. Her task is to teach people how to live in order to be morally beautiful, honest, good, honorable, strong in spirit and compassionate, to love and affirm love everywhere; to remind them what is permitted and what is not. When literature is charged with such a ministry, it is strict and incorruptible to itself and to society, applies the highest criteria to its essence, rejects everything that is not its own and that does not is the fruit of talent and not art. Being a writer is difficult, but it is also a huge responsibility, overwhelming for many. The true writer is God’s chosen one.
Therefore, the gift cannot be valued as a commodity; its measure is not its use value, because it costs no money. The proof of gift is not the many books, royalties, numerous sales, awards and translations abroad. For the market, the valuable is not always the best, but the most sought-after, satisfying consumer rather than aesthetic taste. It takes something else to be a great or just a good writer.
The market has become, as unnerving and terrifying as it is, the main and only criterion in the evaluation of works, creativity and writers. Today, he decides which books and which writers are needed and determines who will receive high marks, awards, honors, recognition. Therefore, criticism was killed and genres were denied, reducing literature itself to the most ordinary text – that is, to the mechanical writing and arrangement of words, to their formal coexistence, in which it is permissible to have no meaning and idea or human feeling, a picture of society, portrait of the human soul. As long as it is “sold”. If it sells, it will be paid. All the rest are a pesky multitude who must think for themselvesabout for my self. There is no national literature, unified literary process, classics, creative impulse, empathy, instruction; anything is allowed as long as it is for sale. This is the only law of neoliberal aesthetics and neoliberal literary studies, which have brazenly taken over the Bulgarian universities and struck the minds of young Bulgarians who have felt in themselves literary tendencies and creative urges.
Unfortunately, the neoliberal and postmodernist understanding of literature, creativity and writer has obsessed even those who supposedly defend other aesthetic criteria and serve not the market, but aesthetic values, living literature, beauty. For them, market principles do not materialize in money and sales, but have degenerated into the construction of semi-closed circles, in which the praise, the public presentation, the recital, the premiere of a new book with the obligatory word of mouth, the review somewhere in the press, a certificate or even an artistic sculpture from any of the countless contests are their valued pursuits of the market. These circles are not based on aesthetics, on the same understanding of literature and the writing ministry, but are friendly, collegial, even ideological-political, but they do not erect a barrier to those (perhaps even encourage them) who do not know how to write or are simply mediocre in talent and realization. It is enough that sympathies are general, as well as apologies and complaints. The general lament over the unfair distribution of fame, awards and money is also a manifestation of this type of “aesthetic”.
And the great writer?
Obviously, “great writer” is a category from another time. Is it possible then, in a time when there is no talk of great writers, that they still exist?
After all, they should be the ones who most accurately and fully express their time, delineate its borders with the past and the future, create the social style and express and personify the national soul! It is the great writer who defines the essence of time and sets the line of its development. It is a guide for literature itself and for the authors who live and work together with it. Everyone, willingly or unwillingly, equals the greatness of his talent, uses his experience and follows his example. Because he is a magician of the word, a master in writing, a legislator in the artistic image and the construction of characters, artistic and social types, in the resolution of social problems and conflicts. His work embodies social, natural and private life and summarizes everything that history gives birth to and preserves for the following eras.
But who talks about these things today? Who looks for and shows in literature the artistic mastery, the rich language, the images, the dialogue, the metaphors, the plasticity, the feelings? They are completely foreign to the “text”. Fiction, and even less the work of the great writer, does not lend itself to “scientific methods”. On the contrary, it requires from the interpreter and the connoisseur a fine taste, a sense, the ability to enjoy the writing skill, the living word, the wisdom and the truth. The great writer is also unattainable for those who are satisfied with the friendly patting of the “fellow pen” and the praise of relatives and friends after literary premieres and readings. How much sweeter they are before the painful ministry of the word and divine inspiration.
A great writer is impossible if there is no one to see and appreciate him. No, I am not saying that there are no cases when a creator is appreciated not by his contemporaries, but by those who read him years after his death. I claim that when literary consciousness ignores this concept and does not want or is not able to formulate it and seek its manifestation in literature itself, then everything is equal, uniform, boring, vulgar, marketable, and that means – mediocre. Even if some real talent emerges in this spiritual wasteland, it is accidental, and it is unlikely to develop to its optimal degree to be seen to be unique and inimitable, to be the greatest and most powerful.
Literature itself must live with the consciousness that it needs a great writer, and that when such a writer appears, it will be happy to create the conditions for his triumph. When she’s lost that consciousness, she messes around with surrogates.
Ours is a time of mediocrity and low ambition. We are all his slaves, stuck deep in his quagmires, from which it is extremely difficult to get out. The spiritual crisis is terrible and devastating. It has alienated the people from culture and the arts, rendered creative activities meaningless, equating them with commodity production. This crisis is also expressed in the lack of serious criticism and prepared critics, able to separate the good from the untalented, to analyze and interpret authors and works insightfully. Criticism with only findings and retelling, without analysis and interpretation, is an elementary exercise and the benefit from it is none (postmodernists and neoliberals will say – “zero”). That is why it is necessary to revive criticism!
Writers must understand that in literature and in arts and culture in general, “the salvation of the drowning is the work of the drowning.” That is, a sense of responsibility and duty is needed, as well as persistence, to see the problem in its full size. Fortunately, Bulgarian literature has deep and bright traditions. And they are not yet completely lost. We received them for free from our classics, we worked honestly and inspired for the spiritual rise of the Bulgarians. Are we going to let a misanthropic and immoral ideology destroy us? Are we going to give in to the gang of Kreslevites and idlers who, for the sake of money, are ready to sell and destroy mother, father and everything Bulgarian and native.
However, my question was still: are there any great writers today. I am not running away from the answer, but before we find it and show it, it is more important to realize the meaning of the question.
Because a great writer means not only bright and previously unknown talent, but also civic feeling, public responsibility; he is the conscience of the people, their protector and advocate. He is a person who does not put up with evil and injustice, but fights them mercilessly. You cannot be a great writer if you do not love the fatherland, the people and the person; if you are indifferent to choral anxieties, because you think that creativity is enough as a participation in public affairs; if you do not live the life of your people and love the word more than yourself.
Let us then look around and within ourselves and answer honestly and conscientiously: are there any great writers today?
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