(Continued from last Saturday)
The university professor tried to complete the assignment properly and Kišov literary reputation to zero, and thereby indirectly tramples on his way of thinking about politics. With his arrogant gesture of an authorized interpreter, he wants to examine all possible imitations, analogies, similarities of the examined text with other writers, and to, on the basis of comparative literature, crenology (kréne - source) reveals the sources that the writer used during the creation. He cites the case Thomas Mann and a Swedish critic Gunilu Bergsten which has analyzed in detail Doctor Faustus, and pointed out the models that the writer used in the creation of this work. All this leads to the thought Jeremic yes and his seriously critical - scientific research should meet with the approval of the widest audience, insofar as the truth should stand above all interests. This is a brazen accusation wrapped in a wrapper of stylized criticism that Kiš is not only a plagiarist who steals other people's texts, but also a stunningly ignorant man who does not know the fundamental principles of literary science. Jeremić compliments himself on how he, as a great expert in the field of literature, he attacks uncreative individualities, but he does so without insults. In a high style, he belittles the writer to the point of bad taste, maliciously emphasizing that he has a desire to protect himself even from mundane comedy and turns Kiš's name into Kitsch, or alludes to its meaning in Hungarian - Little. What Jeremić wants to oppose is precisely Kiš's personality, his ideas and concepts, his way of writing, or as he himself says: Arrogance, lies, ignorance, creative incompetence and rejection of the right to criticism. In doing so, he tentatively concludes that the writer knows, but is not allowed to admit, that Jeremić's criticism is justified, and that moral truth, which is above all worldly goals, ultimately prevails in the assessment. Tombstones for Boris Davidovich, as a tomb - a symbol for all attacks on creators in all times.
In any case, Jeremic descends to the level of trivializing his personal connections with Kisa, his hopes dashed after the publication of Attic i Psalm 44, dealing with concentration camps in the Nazi period, while the book Garden ash, supposedly reminiscent of Cinnamon shop, Polish writer Bruna SchulzHe writes that the novel Sandstone a book without creative imagination, an introduction to the writer's lack of independence which he showed in Tombs, using non-literary historical material, but also by copying, literally, other people's texts. Simply put, the critic says, Kiš understands creativity as picking through other people's books or skillfully pasting together the collectedIn addition, he belongs to artistic and bon vivant circles, is a proofreader for the Serbo-Croatian language in France, a favorite of the literary and Yugoslav cultural scene, while he (Jeremić) is also a writer who uses facts in matters of literature, not dirty tricks and malicious fabrications.
Jeremić's lofty figure, depicted as floating in an airless space above, is in fact deeply involved in the events of this world. He does not allow Kiš to defend his maxims, because supposedly it is not fitting for a true writer to defend his work, so a critical word addressed to the writer is in principle indefensible. Jeremić will notice that Kiš clumsily uses Rembrandt's picture Anatomy class, and does not distinguish it from another image of this, unlike him, self-made genius: Doctor Tuple's Anatomy Class, which made the famous painter a co-participant in the writer's machination, which he serves before the eyes of a confused readership, his half-truths and untruths. Jeremić was trying to prove that Kiš does not understand the originality in Rembrandt's painting and connects it with wrong, with the aesthetics of the ugly. He states that one of the participants has a scalpel in his hand, or that another is holding a histology textbook, which only appeared in the 19th century, which can be taken as not a flaw in this factual explanation by Jeremić, which is not without foundation.
But what dominates the meta-space of the painting, providing Kiš with a basis for an allegorical understanding of the literary text, is an anatomical cut into the tissue of empty criticism, as a symbol of resistance to those distortions in the human psyche that lead it to challenge great creators.
In this scandalous literary affair, which shook socialist society, Jeremić claims that with his Anatomy class The author wages war on logic, demonstrating many contradictions by taking quotes out of context and showing various manifestations of personal arrogance in the text. In fact, by expressing animosity towards the ideas presented, which deeply hurt him, destroying his preconceived sense of philosophical interpretation. Kiš has therefore been called out for waging war on elementary logic, his statement is full of irrationality and hatred by no means managing to cover up its unoriginality and compilation process (p. 73). Jeremic's thesis that his style is not to belittle anyone's work, and that by his own admission he as well-mannered person in jargon inappropriate for a professor at the University of Belgrade, he declares: So, I never claimed before that I would scalp Kiš, and after reading Anatomy Lesson I wonder: what would I find under his scalp? A little bit of read literature, a lot of confused ideas and a bunch of empty phrases with which he tries to overshadow naive readers and obscure important issues of literary creativity. (p. 73). Typically in Jeremic's manner, who ostensibly renounces harsh assessments, only to then shamelessly attack the writer, completely belittling his literary efforts, poor education, and the willingness to use charlatanism as the only way to mask his mediocrity and dilettantism. Behind the rhetoric of an objective critic, there is a huge amount of odiousness towards the personality of Danilo Kiš, hidden behind phrases about objective judgment and the right to free opinion: It is very difficult to have a serious discussion with Kisha about the problems of literature because he does not have a clear and unified opinion even about what literature is, what its basic goal is, and what its essential role is. Jeremić writes (p. 74). Professorial professionally, Jeremić embarked on a dry demonstration of Kiš's lack of knowledge in understanding the basic purpose of literature, promptly investigating his ignorance of its historical-poetic concepts. He calculated to destroy Kiš's erudite and educational reputation by placing all of them in his own critical mold. numerous examples in which the writer has committed literary errors. In finding stylistic and logical errors, Jeremić draws attention to the fact that Kiš failed literary facts, theses of the Lefists and the Formalists, Shklovsky i Ejhenbauma, because he crossed Borgesov the process of modern narrative strategy and memoir material Karel Štajner, Nadezhda Mandelstam i Roy Medvedeva. In his attempt to obstruct Kiš's literary-poetic approach, Jeremić missed the main theme, not feeling that he was on the threshold of a new epoch in literature. Absorbed by realistic poetics, he disagreed with Kiš's view that a writer belongs to a single language, not a nation, opposing the classical literary-aesthetic program and the emerging spirit of modern literature, the understanding that literature, according to the taste of the new era, is a stronghold of metaphysics, a symbiosis of visions, testimonies, documentary, legends and myths, on which a new type of storytelling is based. In vain he criticizes Kiš for being contradictory, for paradoxically crossing fiction and fact, documentary and imaginary, personal confessions and political culture, but this did not diminish the degree of his originality. Kiš's praise of the essay Michel Foucault o Flaubert, has also been met with condemnation, essentially a misunderstanding of the philosophers that fantasy literature creates from erudition and libraries as the fuel for the text. Of course, in the spirit of Jeremic's aristocratic demeanor, it was not omitted to mention that in Kiš many titles and many names are given incorrectly, which further confirms his belief in the writer's bizarre understanding of the mission of literature. Anatomy class.
In his discussion of literature, Jeremić is a prisoner of the concept known since ancient philosophers, that talent is a gift from heaven, and erudition can encourage talent, but not create it, nor compensate for it. Therefore, it is natural that he finds rational editing, arranging, and magical shuffling of cards in literature unacceptable, because the work is the product of as much epiphany as personal commitment and effort. What offends him is precisely the aesthetic quality of the work, which is not the fruit of divine inspiration, but walks through the labyrinth of literary-historical tradition, by gluing together disparate literary-historical traditions. Referring to the fact that creativity is the achievement of socialist man, Jeremić skips the topic and, as a skilled social jumper, introduces into the game authors who have absolutely nothing to do with socialism: Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Dostoevsky, which his accused allegedly failed.
(Continued in the next issue)
Bonus video:
