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PARTISAN REVIEW
and an answer (and metaphorical confusion) all in one, took away their
edge.
The problem
cif
writing this essay
At this point I am momentarily stuck, something I must point out in
my helplessness, because increasingly I will be talking about uncertainty,
while this article speaks as if it
knew
something, grading and sorting prob–
lems and the like. This is the internal problem of the article. Its
problahblah. If it were consistent, it would keep silent. But an article is
incapable of this. (Only a poem can keep silent - sometimes) .
The problem offorgetting to forget
They have taken the lid off of us, it is gone, somehow, and we can
now boil over to our heart's delight. Ifwe knew whom we were facing,
though, ifwe had a sense of self and not only a sense of place, it would be
easier. Persons of uncertain status are handling words of uncertain status.
To quote: "The language that a Hungarian, possibly any Central–
European, uses will remain foreign and strange even after translation.
Askew. The system of reference for the ideas are different, while the use
of words is neither leftist, nor liberal, not '68-ish, but god knows. Perhaps
we could call it lyrical. In short, the use of words is mostly either inspired
or uninspired, but it is always highly personal. Flowery speech instead of
facts, metaphors instead of analysis. Furthermore, the personal language
we speak is the product of the past forty years, when we didn't even
know who we were as persons. Because, oh cruel life!, not only did the
fiendish Soviet powers turn increasingly moronic, but so did the people,
which means me, too.
(Nota bene:
Post-Yalta Europe itself became in–
creasingly moronic. From Lisbon to Stockholm, from Bucharest to
London, this continent was a place of blatant madness.)"
The new mutual agreements are biding their time. This is a dramatic
process, sometimes with dramatic personal consequences. For the writer it
is the time of relearning words, of probing, nice and slow and cautious,
what words mean
now.
The global, clear-cut, and therefore triumphant conflict between
authority and art has been replaced by countless minor conflicts. The Iron
Curtain has melted into thin air, while new national frontiers have been
raised with the plaster of centuries-old, raging tempers. An old voice has
appeared, one we had only to read about before, the voice of provincial–
ism, something we did not have to take seriously until now. It was more
than enough for the political system to take us seriously.
Around this part of the world, too much responsibility was meted out
too quickly, and though we were anxious to have this responsibility, this
