Kundera: 'The Curtain'/ ΄Το Πεπλο'

Ενα βιβλιο που εκφραζει με μια σπανια διαυγεια τη σημασια του ευρωπαικου διαφωτισμου! (και κανει τον αδερφικο φιλο να ωρυεται με το αμιμητο: "Aντι να μας μαθαιναν Κουντερα και Ευρωπαικη λογοτεχνια στο σχολειο, διαβαζαμε για εκθεση τον... Παπανουτσο!"
Απο τον αγαπημενο Μιλαν, κομματια που αγαπησα διαβαζοντας "Το Πεπλο". (εξαιτιας του οποιου βουτηξα στο Ferdydurke, του Gombrowicz).

Απολαυστε! (και συγνωμη για την απουσια μεταφρασης, αλλα πλεον την αγγλικην καλως η κακως οι περισσοτεροι τη χειριζονται ανετα.)


1.Περι ανθρωπινης φυσης και δραματος.

"Are great dramatic actions really the best clue to understanding human nature? Are they not, rather, a barrier that hides life as it truly is? Isn't insignificance actually one of our greatest problems? Isn't that our fate?"

2.Περι αντοχων...

"What will ultimately remain of Europe is not its repetitive history, which in itself represents no value. The only thing that has some chance of enduring is the history of its arts."

3.Περι ψυχοσυνθεσης μικρων εθνων.

"What distinguishes the small nations from the large is not the quantitative criterion of the number of their inhabitants; it is something deeper: for them , their existence is not a self evident certainty but always a question, a wager, a risk; they are on the defensive against History, that force that is bigger than they, that does not take them into consideration, that does not even notice them. (It is only by opposing History as such that we can oppose today's history, "Witold Gombrowicz wrote.)"

4.Περι επαρχιωτισμου.

"How to define provincialism? As the inability (or the refusal) to see one's own culture in the large context."

5.Περι στραγγαλισμου.

"A nation's possessiveness toward its artists works as a small-context terrorism, reducing the whole meaning of a work to the role it plays in the homeland."

6.Περι ουσιαστικης αντιστασης.

"To my mind there is nothing more admirable in the Europe of the second half of the twentieth century than the golden chain of revolts that, over forty years, eroded the empire of the East, made it ungovernable, and tolled the death knell of its reign."

7.Περι μυθολογιας παν-σλαβισμου.

"...while there is a linguistic unity among the Slavic nations, there is no Slavic culture, no Slavic world; that the history of the Czechs, like that of the Poles, the Slovaks, the Croats or the Slovenes (and of course of the Hungarians, who are not at all Slavic) is entirely Western: Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque; close contact with the Germanic world; struggle of catholicism against reformation...

8.Περι κιτς.

"...People who experienced the secular tyranny of kitsch feel particular irritation at the rosy veil thrown over reality, at the modest exhibition of hearts forever deeply moved, at the "bread drenched in perfume" Musil speaks of; kitsch long ago became a very precise concept in Central Europe, where it stands as the supreme aesthetic evil."

9.Περι μοντερνισμου.

"...for Gombrowicz modernisn meant: through new discoveries, advancing along the inherited path. As long as that is still possible. As long as the inherited path still exists."

10.Περι αξιας του μυθιστορηματος.

"In The Exterminating Angel, Ernesto Sabato says explicitly that in the modern world, abandoned by philosophy and splintered by hundreds of scientific specialties, the novel remains to us the last observatory from which we can embrace human life as a whole."