TSVETAN TODOROV
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Philip Roth observes that many people in the West secretly envy the
persecutions suffered by writers in the East , "It's as though without
an authoritative environment , imaginative possibilities are curtailed
and one's literary seriousness is open to question ." And he goes on to
say, "There is , however, a looming American menace that evokes its
own forms of deprivation and suffering, and that's the creeping
trivialization of everything in a society where freedom of expression
is anything but compressed."
For his part Kasimierz Brandys, a Polish writer living in Paris ,
declares , "Oppression maddens, but freedom stupefies ."
What is the point of these quips? Does freedom of expression
have some secret defect? Even leaving aside the inducement-repre–
sented by all prohibition - to express oneself by metaphor and alle–
gory, by insinuation and allusion (persecution refines the art of writ–
ing) , the gist is perfectly obvious. In Western democracies, writers
are , of course, free to write what they want - but it's not clear that
this fact should provoke unreserved jubilation : it is only the result of
the lack of interest of the society in its writers . The individual has at–
tained his autonomy ; but the reverse side of this attainment is that
he means nothing to his society , that it has no need of him; he can
say what he likes, but no one listens . In communist countries , on the
other hand, the very existence of censorship proves that what writers
say counts ; furthermore, they enjoy an enviable popularity (the
comparison of the number of copies sold of a book of poetry should
suffice to dampen the spirits of the Western poet most enthusiastic
about freedom) .
In fact , things are a bit more complicated . In Eastern coun–
tries , the writer can choose between three roles, with infinite num–
bers of intermediary positions between them. There is, in the first
place , the official role. The relationship between the State and the
writer is in this case very strong, but it is imposed by the State. The
latter gives a great deal (writers are privileged; they earn inflated
honoraria; they benefit from protected sinecures and special vaca–
tion retreats ; statesmen cultivate their friendship and respect their
advice), but it also demands much in return (the obligation, not only
not to say what one must not, but-which is worse-to say what one
must). The second role is that of dissidence; here again the bond to
the surrounding world is very strong, except that the writer allies
himself no longer with the State but with the invisible and yet per–
fectly real civil society.
If
he has no official rewards, he has the sensa–
tion , how vastly consoling, of having become the voice of the people .
