tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-210336912011-12-14T19:10:51.454-08:00<strong>How can I ever speak without quoting an author?</strong>Ground Zerohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01592213309781016010noreply@blogger.comBlogger201100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21033691.post-31061552227515095552010-01-02T17:39:00.000-08:002010-06-12T00:49:04.828-07:00

I am currently reading an article by Martin Heidegger, entitled 'The Origin of the Work of Art'. Heidegger begins his discussion with three prevalent interpretations of 'thingness of things'. He also classifies his own quest for the 'thingness of things' into three categories, the thingness of mere things, the thingness of an equipment and the thingness of a work (of art).Under the three

Ground Zerohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01592213309781016010noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21033691.post-54821912174858240072008-08-08T20:48:00.000-07:002008-08-08T20:51:03.267-07:00

Kafka might be the writer who is the most sensitive about the concept of interpretation. He interprets his own story, allows characters to interpret their destiny, invite readers to interpret his story by being themselves to be part of an interpretation. Consider his story, Before the Law: Kafka sketched the fate of the man from the country side at the gate of law only to invite a different

Ground Zerohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01592213309781016010noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21033691.post-15765805727367813222008-08-07T20:44:00.000-07:002008-08-07T20:47:55.006-07:00

Read a few Selected Stories by Akbar Kakkattil (Olive Publishers). I started exploring the works of this author after reading “Aaraam Kaalam” (the problem of translating this title to English is discussed elsewhere in this article), which appeared in “100 years, 100 stories” published by DC Books. Like many other Malayalam writers Kakkattil is also a story-teller of country side. But many of his

Ground Zerohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01592213309781016010noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21033691.post-71456951733472339592008-08-07T20:41:00.000-07:002008-08-07T20:44:20.448-07:00

After a gap of sixteen years, I re-read C.V. Raman Pillai's Dharmaraja and was amazed to see that my mother tongue can be used so successfully to give shape to legendary works like this. I admit that many words in the novel went above my head. It would also have been difficult to follow the work completely without the help of those endnotes provided for each chapter (Many thanks to DC Books to

Ground Zerohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01592213309781016010noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21033691.post-52344908214350993872008-07-29T04:04:00.000-07:002008-07-29T04:06:42.494-07:00

Completed reading UA Khader's “Thrikkottur Peruma” (The fame of Thrikkottur). Thrikkottur, in the work, is a village in northern Kerala. I'm not sure whether the name is imaginary. However, the characters and the events appear real in every sense. With old tales from countryside (Pazhamkathakal in Malayalam) Khader weaves his 'Thrikkottur Peruma', which won the Kerala Sahitya Academy Award in

Ground Zerohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01592213309781016010noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21033691.post-82474509742555319622008-07-29T04:02:00.000-07:002008-07-29T04:03:56.647-07:00

“Ayalkkar” (neighbors) is an award-winning novel of P. Kesavadev, one of the prolific writers of 20th century Kerala. In the “introduction” to this book, the author contemplates on the social progress to which Kerala was slowly waking up in the beginning of twentieth century. His analyses of these developments often give birth to his literary works, as what happened in this book too, the author

Ground Zerohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01592213309781016010noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21033691.post-63193634341202488812008-03-05T19:40:00.000-08:002008-03-05T19:45:37.538-08:00

Yesterday, I read two stories in Malayalam - "Neyppayasam" (Rice Pudding) of Madhavikkutty (Kamala Das) and "Janmadhinam" (Birthday) of Basheer. While Madhavikkutty was trying to create a plot for her story in which she cautiously found her way till the end, Basheer, on the other hand, was allowing the reader to fill the gap in his narrative (like he says in the story, during the midnight after

Ground Zerohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01592213309781016010noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21033691.post-31739416352242872212007-03-10T04:03:00.000-08:002007-03-10T04:04:19.608-08:00

I have completed a few chapters of 'My Name is Red' and have started developing some serious reservations regarding the narrative strategy of the book. Pamuk, in my opinion, has violated the basic rule of 'being' and its representation. Is it philosophically, religiously, ethically, juridically or at any stretch of imagination possible for a single individual to give multiple first person

Ground Zerohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01592213309781016010noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21033691.post-47852362619820873552007-03-08T04:40:00.000-08:002007-03-08T04:41:20.429-08:00

Let this sentence be pushed to the middle of this description, this deceitful, vague opening, let it be ignored, overlooked or forgotten. Rather than the author’s self being labelled as an immature literary object around which his/her story is destined to revolve, better diffuse it to the already present; allow it to meld in the crowd.Notwithstanding the sanctity bestowed to a story’s lead or

Ground Zerohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01592213309781016010noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21033691.post-1157626431544743512006-09-07T03:44:00.000-07:002006-09-07T04:38:24.123-07:00

Recently, when I was contemplating on Kafka's 'Before the Law' two things striked me. Two important dimensions that the story lacked. Firstly, the man from the countryside always live in the present. Contrary to what we expect from a suppressed soul, the man from the country side does not have a fantasy at no time in his life. This is absurd and unrealistic. A suppressed soul is very likely to

Ground Zerohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01592213309781016010noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21033691.post-1152608686036462292006-07-11T02:04:00.000-07:002006-12-20T16:22:36.384-08:00

Sono a Perugia.I am here in Perugia from June 29th onwards. This is the first time I am away from my country. I had many illusions about flying, and naturally had high esteem for it. I may not have many things to say about the beauty and antiquity of Italy, the country in which I am planning to stay for the next three months. Nor did I find anything exciting about the huge gathering at Centro di

Ground Zerohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01592213309781016010noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21033691.post-1142779789465483222006-03-19T06:38:00.000-08:002006-03-19T06:49:49.506-08:00

Last week I got a taste of Calvino in original. It was during the 12th hour preparation for Italian language exam when I got three stories by Calvino in Marcovaldo series. I had to study a story by Pirandello (La Patente) and Sciascia (Giufa) as well.It seems giallo stories are very popular in Italian. We had a whole lot of them for our exam. Ironically in the grammar paper we had to create a

Ground Zerohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01592213309781016010noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21033691.post-1138013001797960552006-01-23T02:38:00.000-08:002007-07-04T06:11:46.483-07:00

Kafka's A hunger artist ends with the description of a panther put in a cage in substitute of the hunger artist. The author says that each and every muscle and movement of the beast was proclaiming the freedom it enjoyed. "The food he (the panther) liked was brought to him without hesitation by the attendants; he seemed not even to miss his freedom; his noble body, furnished almost to the

Ground Zerohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01592213309781016010noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21033691.post-1137394249632429792006-01-15T22:50:00.000-08:002007-07-04T06:06:50.710-07:00

I have always failed when I try put in words the meaning of two sentences from 'The Trial.' Perhaps I do not want the world to know what I feel about these sentences, or perhaps I have never met anyone who shares the same feelings with these sentences:'There is always an attraction between the law and the guilt.''An accused person is always attractive such that he can be easily identified even in

Ground Zerohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01592213309781016010noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21033691.post-1137394201738586202006-01-15T22:49:00.000-08:002007-07-04T06:06:00.834-07:00

I haven't read many of Marquez's work. Marquez's talent is better displayed in his works that are closer to 'Magical Realism'. However the objective of this post is to challenge the Magical Aspect of Marquez's writing; but from a different angle. By the end of this post you will see why 'Magical Realism' is a wrongly understood term to denote the insights of Marquez.It should be a matter of

Ground Zerohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01592213309781016010noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21033691.post-1137393740915414782006-01-15T22:41:00.000-08:002007-07-04T06:11:18.981-07:00

What is new with Blanchot’s writings? One of his important writings on which we can initiate this discussion is his short narrative, La folie du jour. I have read it in English, a translation by Lydia Davis. “Can such a story be narrated anywhere else other than in writing?” – this was my immediate response. Before reading it in full I had read a paper by Derrida in Acts of Literatrue. The paper

Ground Zerohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01592213309781016010noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21033691.post-1137393564406215762006-01-15T22:37:00.002-08:002007-07-04T06:04:16.074-07:00

Imaginary animals are very common in Kafka’s writings. Recall his famous stories Metamorphosis, Cares of a Family Man, Blumfeld: An Elderly Bachelor etc. I used to tell my friends, “Probably Kafka had been experiencing himself as an imaginary animal at times; like a gigantic insect, or like Odradek, an animal which is very insignificant in a familial context." For Kafka, an animal is always

Ground Zerohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01592213309781016010noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21033691.post-1137393458876298082006-01-15T22:37:00.000-08:002007-07-04T06:05:15.633-07:00

Let me present some of the problems in which I am interested: What was the nature of writing before the emergence of the 'phonetic alphabet' (I've seen McLuhan using this term for the first time)? With the emergence of the 'phonetic alphabet' has language undergone any major change in the mediational role it is supposed to play in communication? If you say that even after the emergence of the '

Ground Zerohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01592213309781016010noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21033691.post-1137393432139457912006-01-15T22:36:00.000-08:002007-07-04T06:05:35.021-07:00

At what point can I begin a discussion on writing? Will it be the same starting point for a discussion on 'author'? Can the term 'author' ascribe the complete 'authorial function' of writing a novel, or any other book to a single self (or to two, three persons in case of co-authored books)? To begin with, let's listen to what Jorge Luis Borges, the famous Argentinian author, has to say about the

Ground Zerohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01592213309781016010noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21033691.post-1137392405439644332006-01-15T22:19:00.000-08:002006-01-15T22:20:05.446-08:00

How can I ever speak without quoting an author? Understand my dilemma...

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