Monday, August 30, 2010
Contemporary Literature
Nicolás Gómez Dávila (1913-1994), Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección (Bogotá: Villegas Editores, 2001), p. 237 (tr. by Stephen at Don Colacho's Aphorisms):
Newer› ‹Older
When one century’s writers can write nothing but boring things, we readers change century.This reminds me of two more of Gómez Dávila's aphorisms, also from Escolios a un Texto Implícito, 2 vols. (Bogotá: Instituto Colombiano de Cultura, 1977), my translation:
All literature is contemporary to the reader who knows how to read. (I, 57)Hat tip: Patrick Kurp, for introducing me to the excellent blog Don Colacho's Aphorisms.
Contemporary literature, in each and every epoch, is the worst enemy of culture. A reader's limited time is wasted in reading a thousand books that blunt his critical sense and damage his literary sensibility. (I, 258)
