O, how very Tiresian, very T.S. Eliot, lunging through the wasteland of modernity
O, how very Orwellian, political in its depiction of this reality,
O, how very Gatsbian, so full of metaphor and symbolism – the eyes! the valley of
ashes! o, how sad those poor people are under the eyes of the wealthy—
(but let’s not forget to look at the bigger picture, the context we are speaking in),
O, how Homeric of you! How very epic and awesome (in their literal definitions, of course, versus the colloquial),
O, how very Husserl-, Kierkegaard-, Kafka-esque, about the emptiness and meaninglessness of our
daily lives – especially regarding the mundanity! –
(but one might also consider it from another perspective, a Camus-, Nietzsch-, or Sartr-ian one, perhaps),
O, how so very Thoreauvian, in every sense of the word, like the striking of balance between the isolative nature of industrialization and the need to write – did you know he went frequently to his mother’s house? –
O, how so very Dada, the juxtapositions of tradition and progress, of the interior and exterior, of greed and magnanimity, of performance and authenticity – remember our fruitless search! – perhaps even of life and death itself!
(but let’s not get too ahead of ourselves; the aestheticists would remind us this is just a piece of art),
O, how he writes is like a sword, or dagger, slicing through our perceptions of both his time and ours,
O, how he writes reminds me of the point of of art, which is its conversation with freedom, produced out of genuine experience – consider the jazz of it! consider the liberty! –
O, how he writes brings to mind how he writes in his other book I read, his slightly-less-famous book
– I can’t quite remember the specifics, I read it so long ago –
(but do not allow my unremembering to prevent you from believing I know him, this long-dead author, so very well)
Now, one could ask, how might this change if the roles were reversed?
Now, one would ask, what are the questions he, and we, are not asking – the jazz! the liberty!
Now, one should ask, who is the “you” to whom I write?
-W. Sussbauer
