Još jedna rasprava koju sam imao s dragom na moru me potakla na razmišljanje. Naime, za kojeg pisca danas možete reći da je zaista klasik (ograničit ću se na hrvatsku književnost sad)? Naravno, proces afirmacije knjige i književnika kao klasika zahtjeva određeno vrijeme - i uvijek treba uzeti u obzir da možda čovjek ne može reći zaista za svog suvremenika da je 'klasik'. To će povijest prosuditi. No, ono što boli u tome svemu je danas eksponirana, McDonalds književnost. Romani pisani da se koriste kao toaletni papir, u intelektualnom a možda i praktičnom smislu. Usred svog tog književnog dreka, da li ćemo ikad više moći vidjeti ili stvoriti pravu književnost?
Opet sam pod utjecajem Zerzana, naravno. Naime, taj, po mojoj procjeni, ogorčeni anarhoprimitivist prezire postmodernizam; i sve njegove ispljuvke - bilo to literarne ili u drugim vidovima umjetnosti. On umjetnost prezire i prije postmodernizma - u redu, možda je prezir presnažna riječ; ali ju vidi više kao Platon (sjena sjene prave Istine) nego kao neki mondeni intelektualac opčinjen tim vidom civilizacijske tekovine - no sve nakon postmodernizma Zerzan prikazuje kao zadnjim trzajima i ne tako spektakularnom smrću Umjetnosti; ili umjetnosti, kako god vam paše. Zerzanove riječi:
"U izmorenome, malaksalom vremenu u kojem govoriti znači ne reći ništa, umjetnost je svakako ništavna. Prije nešto više od stotinu godina, Baudelaire je pokušao obraniti časnu ulogu pjesnika u društvu lišenom časti. Stanje o kojem je govorio pjesnik, danas je i više nego očito, dok su utješnost kao i sam položaj bezvremene umjetnosti razotkriveni u punoći vlastite ništavnosti." Anarhoprimitivizam protiv civilizacije, John Zerzan, str. 68.
Prema Zerzanu, umjetnost predstavlja bijeg 'civiliziranog čovjeka' iz civilizacijskog distopijskog užasa:
"Budući da je naš odnos prema prirodi i životu manjkav i lišen vlastite izvornosti, umjetnost služi samo kao nadomjestak i svojevrsno olakšanje." Anarhoprimitivizam protiv civilizacije, John Zerzan, str. 63.
Nekad, prije, kada civilizacija nije bila toliko difuzna i isprepletena, taj bijeg je poprimao dobro poznate i cijenjene - ne od strane Zerzana, naravno - oblike (francuski, ruski realizam, larpurlartizam, ekspresionizam, romantizam...), no danas; u današnjem društvu novca, brzine, povezanosti, slobodnog toka informacija (slobodnog, pih!) - umjetnost poprima oblik postmodernističke abominacije - na početku dekonstrukcije značenja i smrti smisla, a danas masovne produkcije 'estetike'. Ukratko - dreka koji nam se servira danas.
Ova svojevrsna analiza je moj dodatak, unutar Zerzanovih okvira, i ne nužno nešto s čim bi se autor složio. No, čini mi se da unutar modela i uloge civilizacije koji je Zerzan predložio, gdje umjetnost u neku ruku predstavlja sponu između onog otuđenog civilizacijom i onog prirodnog; današnja 'umjetnost', u slučaju ove rasprave, književnost je jasan rezultat civilizacijskog otuđenja. Danas nas civilizacija na toliko načina udaljava od nas samih, na tako divljački i nesuptilan način, bez krinki i bez takta - da je i umjetnost postala takva. Divlja. Nesuptilna. Bez takta. Smeće.
Prije godinu dana, vozio sam se ujutro u tramvaju na posao. Bilo je nešto poslije pola šest ujutro. Nova sedamnaestica, sjedim i pokušavam zadržati oči otvorene. Preko puta mene sjedi podeblja žena, krivih zubi i masne kose; onako, arhetipna 'radnica' koja ide u pola šest na posao. I čita 'Golu istinu' Nives Celzijus. Naime, za strance (i Hrvate koji nisu čuli tu medijsku buku prošle godine), Nives Celzijus Drpić je naša poznata Victoria Beckham, žena poznatog hrvatskog nogometaša - i od nedavno autorica bestseler romana (bestseler, prije par godina nisam ni shvatio implikaciju te riječi, već sam mislio da ona automatski znači dobar roman; onda mi je palo na pamet da to prevedem s engleskom. Nije najbolji. Samo najviše novaca donosi) - i tako čita ta naizgled jednostavna ženica 'Golu istinu', ispunjenu Nivesinim avanturističkim životom - orgijama sa nogometnim momčadima, seksualnim zlostavljanjem koje je trpila pod rukama svog oca; ukratko, sav šljam i sve žuto pretočeno u roman, jeftina pornografija za um. Zainteresiran pogled, oči lete s retka na novi red unatoč ranom satu.
Na to upada neki odrpani, postariji čovjek unutra. Iskreno, ne sjećam se kako je izgledao. Samo znam da je bio odrpan. Znam da je imao prosijedu kosu. I uglavnom, započinje on svoj govor. Ljudi okreću glave od luđaka napornog, uzdišu proklinjući i misleći zašto su morali baš u taj tramvaj danas ujutro ući. Čovjek govori o današnjem trulom društvu, o smrti morala, o nečudoređu Crkve (naravno!), na momente citira Nietzschea, Kanta, velika imena i velike riječi...a moja heroina preko puta požudno guta riječi Nives Celzijus. Drpa Drpićku (ili
Dr. Pičku?) s papira. I tako - došlo je vrijeme kada luđaci čitaju Nietzschea i Kanta, a normalni ljudi opuštaju svoj um uz golu istinu. Ili je to vrijeme uvijek bilo tu, samo to ne izgleda tako kroz povećalo povijest, gdje su sve Nives Celzijus, Dan Brownovi, Modni Mačci nestali u sjeni imena koja je književnost i civilizacija zapamtila? Samo se nadam da nam današnju umjetnost neće Drpiti sjaj neona i zasranih
fontana...ovaj, školjki.
***
Literature, or the death of it under the dazzle of neon and postmodern crap (sorry, I couldn't fit the English heading next to the Croatian one, it was too long)
One more discussion I had with my love while on vacation got me thinking. To pose a question, for which writer today you can say that he's truly a classic (I'll limit myself to Croatian literature for now)? Of course, the process of affirmation of a book and its writer as a classic demands a certain amount of time - and we should take under consideration the fact that a person can't really say for his contemporary that he's a 'classic'. History will make that judgment. But, the thing that hurts in all of that is today's famous, McDonald's literature. Novels written to be used as toilet paper, in an intellectual and maybe even in the practical sense. Amidst all that literary crap, will we ever again be able to see or create real literature?
I'm again, of course, under the influence of Zerzan. In explanation, that, by my opinion, bitter anarcho-primitivist despises postmodernism, and all its spittle - be it literary or in other mediums of art. He despises art even before postmodernism - OK, maybe despise is too strong of a word, but he sees it more like Plato (the shadow of the shadow of Truth) than like a modern intellectual bewitched by this achievement of civilization - but everything after postmodernism Zerzan presents as the last twitch in the not so spectacular death of Art, or art, however you like it. Zerzan says:
"In the exhausted, feeble times in which to talk means to say nothing, art is most assuredly nothingness. A bit more than a hundred years ago, Baudelaire tried to defend the honorable role of a poet in a society devoid of honor. The state of which the poet spoke is more than evident today, while the consolation as is the position of a timeless art uncovered in the fullness of its nothingness." Against Civilization: Readings and Reflections, John Zerzan, p. 68 of the Croatian translation of his work; translated from Croatian back to English by me
According to Zerzan, art represents an escape of the 'civilized man' from dystopic horror of civilization:
"Since our relationship with nature and life is defective and robbed of its authenticity, art serves only as a substitute and a form of relief." Against Civilization: Readings and Reflections, John Zerzan, p. 63 of the Croatian translation of his work; translated from Croatian back to English by me
Once, before, when the civilization wasn't so diffused and intertwined, that escape took the well known and valued - not by Zerzan, for sure - forms (French, Russian realism, larpurlartism, expressionism, romanticism...) but today, in today's society of money, speed, connections, free flow of information (free, yea right!) - art takes the shape of a post modern abomination - in the beginning the deconstruction of significance and death of meaning, and today the mass production of 'estheticisim'. In short - the crap that is being served today.
This analysis of some sort is my addendum, inside the ideas proposed by Zerzan, and not necessarily something with which the author would agree. But, it seems to me that within the model and role of civilization proposed by Zerzan, where art in a way represents a connection between that what was alienated by civilization and that what is natural; today's 'art', in case of this discussion, literature is a clear result of alienation by civilization. Today the society alienates us from ourselves in so many ways, in such a bewildered and unsubtle way, tactlessly and without masks - that the art transformed into that. Something wild. Unsubtle. Tactless. Trash.
A year ago, I was sitting in a tram while going to work in the morning. It was somewhere between half past five and six in the morning. The new seventeen (our trams are numbered, and the one going from my neighborhood to the city center is seventeen), I'm sitting and trying to keep my eyes open. Across from my seat sits a fatty woman, with uneven teeth and oily hair, archetypal 'worker' who goes to work at half past five in the morning. And she's reading 'The Naked Truth' by Nives Celsius. To explain, for foreigners (and Croatians who managed to miss the media ruckus around it last year), Nives Celsius Drpić is our famous Victoria Beckham, the wife of a well known Croatian football player - and the fresh author of a bestselling novel (bestseller, a couple of years ago I didn't consider the implications of that word, but took its meaning automatically as a good novel; then it occurred to me to translate it from English to Croatian. It's not a good novel. It's the one that earns the most money) - and so that seemingly simple woman reads 'The Naked Truth', filled with Nives' adventurous life; orgies with football teams, sexual harrasment by her father, in short, all the scum and all that is yellow formed into a novel, cheap pornography for the mind. An interested look in her eyes, them flying from line to line despite the early hour.
All of the sudden a rugged, older man enters the tram. To tell you the truth, I don't remember how he looked. I remember he looked dirty. And that he had quite the number of grays in his hair. And so, he starts his speech. People turn their faces away from the draining lunatic, heave while cursing and thinking why did they have to get onto this tram right in the morning. The man talks about today's rotten society, about the death of morals, about the filths of the Church (of course!), at moments cites Nietzsche, Kant, big names and big words...and my heroine sitting across from me passionately swallows the words of Nives Celsius. Steals Miss Drpić (or Dr. Cunt) from the paper*. And so - a time has arrived when lunatics read Nietzsche or Kant, and normal people relax their mind with naked truth. Or was that time always here, but it doesn't seem like that through the lens of history, where the Nives Celsiuses, Dan Browns, Fashion Cats** disappeared in the shadow of names which literature and civilization remembered? I only hope that today's art won't be Stolen*** the dazzle of neon and shitted fountains...I mean, urinals.
PS
I apologize for not being able to find Zerzan's English texts and translating them back to English from Croatian, for I must assuredly didn't do a favor to his text or thoughts!
*Nives Celsius took the surname of her husband, Drpić, when they married. Drpati, in Croatian, can mean to steal or to touch someone against their wish in a sexual way; so that whole sentence is a play of words which can't be translated; also, Dr. Cunt comes from the accusative form of her surname, Drpićku. If you seperate the Dr from pićku, you get Dr. Pička which in Croatian means Dr. Cunt
**Fashion Cat is another local celebrity, ahem, who published his 'novel'
***won't be Stolen or in Croatian 'neće Drpiti', another allusion to the famous Croatian award winning novelist, Nives Celsius Drpić
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