Dedica Festival, Episode One

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Sorry for this belated post, but a teacher’s life is not so "calm" (or should I write "relaxed") as most people seem to think here in Italy.  It is a sort of rollercoaster (at least for those who work!).  Let’s try to catch up with some of the most salient points I tried to take note of during Paul Auster’s stay in Pordenone.  As I pointed out on different occasions in this blog, all the points I raise are highly subjective thus I am open to debate and constructive exchange of opinions. 

Since some of you did not attend all the meetings and/or performances, I will jot down some food for thought and you are kindly requested to develop at least one of the points I am going to put forward.

The following will be our last posts on Paul Auster, but if you wish you can suggest ways of keeping this blog going.  I will post your critical review and creative writing pieces, since I really think you did a wonderful job.  Some of you asked me not to share them and this is the reason why you won’t find all your classmates’ critical reviews.

So, let’s start with the first food for thought input.  The notes you will find may appear chaotic to you.  Bear in mind they are the result of me scribbling down during the events I attended.  

Please write your considerations on one of the quotations in italics.

What do Paul Auster’s words make you think of?

 

21st March 16.30 Dedica a Paul Auster, conversazione con Paul Auster e Antonio Monda, con video-Dedica di Wim Wenders.

 

It was worth queuing outside the theatre for two hours and a half!  I saw some of you and I met some interesting people, as it always happens on such “uplifting” occasions as Dedica or Pordenonelegge.  It is nice getting to talk to people you saw the year before. You end up opening up with people you barely know, you share values and interests you may not share with people you meet every day.  Bearing in mind Paul Auster’s creed (our lives are ruled by chance and coincidence) during the literary festival I savoured even more the pleasure of talking to people, exchanging glances and smiles.  As Auster would put it: what a pleasure bumping into people you don’t know, but are part of the texture of your life and enhance your existence.  I must say that Dedica offered me the ground for both professional and personal growth.  For this reason I want to thank Claudio Cattaruzza: without him we would not have Dedica, without him I would not have had the chance to meet Anita Desai, Amos Oz, Nadine Gordimer and Paul Auster (just to mention the festivals I have been inolved in).

 

I was so moved when I saw Paul Auster enter the stage.  I could associate all the books I had read with a real person, not just a photo or video.  What an opportunity, what a great and mesmerizing opportunity.  Students in Pordenone are used to seeing writers in the flesh, but the idea of working with one made my head swirl with emotion (a sort of swoon, so to say).  How would I have responded to such great opportunities at my students’ age?  Guys, you are lucky!

chi ti legge ti ama 

foto (chi ti legge ti ama)  di Valerio Fiandra: http://www.flickr.com/photos/baotzebao/page7/

 

To cut it short, when I saw him I felt the urge of reading the other books by him I had bought and not yet had the time to read.  The love for reading was surging inside me. 

 

Do you think the language of media is destroying or negatively affecting the language of literature?

Paul Auster disagrees with this.  He thinks people need stories, not just TV.  Bedtime stories are important.  It’s a fundamental element in the growth of a human being.  There is hunger for stories, they help make sense of the world. Books can’t hurt you, they won’t blow up in your hands.  You can live through anger, fears, in the protected environment of narration.  The reader knows this.  One person reading a book written by another person: two people meeting in absolute intimacy.

 

I loved Paul Auster when he uttered these (approximately!) words.  I do believe that children love listening to stories, but I do not agree that only those children who were lucky enough to be told stories by their parents become good readers.  The kind of intimacy that is created between reader and writer through a book is total and at the same time so mysterious.  This explains why it is difficult to put it into words.  If it were not for books I think my life would be half pleasant.  Should I use a metaphor, to describe my passion for reading (a passion that unfortunately I cannot always foster as much as I would love to), I would say that a life without books is like a barren field, a mind without books is like a minefield, a body without books is bound in a dark damp cell, a soul without books has not say, it has not voice.  Reading empowers you with greater sensitivity and sensibility, it endows your mind and your body with the wings of understanding. 

If you were asked to write a slogan for reading, what would you write? 

Visit the bus slogan generator website, create your slogan and paste it if you can.  If you can’t, send it to me via e-mail and I will post it.

http://ruletheweb.co.uk/b3ta/bus/?s1=ESTO+ES+BROOKLYN%21+NO+EXISTE&s2=DEJA+DE+PREOCUPARTE&s3=Y+DISFRUTA+LA+VIDA

 

Mine is:

 bus

Paul Auster says that writing is not an act of free choice, it is an act of survival.  You don’t choose to become a writer, you are chosen.  This is true for any artist.  You have a passionate need to do.  You are cursed with this illness.  Those for whom the world is not enough are philosophers, poets, readers of books.

If you want to listen to his words, watch the short video clip posted on http://www.dedicafestival.it/spip.php?article263

 

Paul Auster expressed some worries about the American reading public.  They are isolated.  Only 3% of the books published in the USA are translations.  There’s a lack of curiosity and he finds this upsetting.  Culture has closed too much and this worries him.  People are not curious to learn things about the rest of the world.  Unfortunately this is also caused by the fact that the learning of foreign languages is not promoted by the American educational system.  He mentions a survey carried out in his country and the fact that a man (who epitomises somehow the typical American) when asked about the issue of not teaching foreign languages in American schools candidly stated: “If English was good enough for Jesus, that’s good enough for me”.  (Of course the audience at Teatro Verdi all laughed.  Mine was more a sort of sneer).

Paul Auster concludes by saying that the reading public seems to be less interested in what happens overseas or abroad because the USA are so big and so isolated geographically. 

I thought about Auster’s observation about Americans not learning foreign languages and I wondered: how far foreign languages are promoted in our country.  A dear friend of mine (she is Greek and she teaches English) told me that at the age of 17 all her students sit and pass the Proficiency exam.  How is it possible that in Italy most students at a Liceo do not go beyond the First Certificate level (B2)? Language is culture, culture is literature.  So in literature we find language and culture.  We should then be able to achieve higher levels, but we don’t, why?  Help, help.  Do you have any explanations? 

 

Paul

For those who are interested in American literature and love reading, I want to let you have the list of American authors Paul Auster suggested reading:

Philip Roth

Rick Moody

David Foster Wallace (unfortunately he committed suicide a short time ago)

Richard Powers

Siri Hustvedt (Auster’s wife)

Raymond Carter

 

Paul Auster pointed out that as a writer he wants people to have emotions, otherwise they wouldn’t be alive.  Indifference is the most hurtful thing, it is humiliating for a writer (I would add it is humiliating for any human being!).  He wants to confront human beings in an original way, that is why he uses different levels of narration.  If the writer is gripped, the reader is too.

 

Last but not least:

Invisible (2009) is Auster’s latest novel.  Looking forward to its publication!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Auster

15 Replies to “Dedica Festival, Episode One”

  1. Guarino Ilaria

    I believe that the experience of Dedica Project has been invaluable because rarely happens in life to meet personalities such as Paul Auster and have the opportunity not only to see but also to listen,talk and exchange ideas.Dedica allowed us not only to know the author but also to become part of a “cultural environment” which not all students have the possibility of part take and in which they have not had the chance to test their abilities as students and changelling themselves as “human being”.

    Concerning the quotation i would like to focus the attention on the very first bar where he claim that “it is a pleasure bumping into people we don t know…”I totally agree with this thought because I believe there is nothing more extraordinary to stumble across people that until that very moment we considered like an “alien” to our life. It is quiete strange if we think about this but i think that this is one of the great thing of our life. We are lucky because every person we encounter in our lives helps us to grow in every aspect of our personality and form every point of view and enrich and open our frame of mind. As often Paul Auster said a book is also a place in which people can meet with both the writer himself or with other readers. Obviously is a metaphisycal encounter(so to say) but there, we all can exchange our existence.

    The other quotation i would like to focus is the one in which Paul Auster takls about writing. If i am not mistaken Auster uttered these words during the interview to “Teatro Verdi” and i was in some way “surprised” because it is unusual answer but makes us understand how Paul Auster as writer plays this “role”. From his words I understood the great responsibility but at the same time the great gift that brings with him the artist.An artist has a mission that involve himself phisically and psicologically speaking. The image that first come to my mind reading this quotation was a kind of angel lighting up a man and gives him an empty book and a pen by recommending him to write works of which everyone should rejoice. And so, for philosopher, writers,poets and artists in general the world is not enough because they are led to explore and to imagine things beyond the “real” worls.

    To resume the last quotation i belive that emotions that Auster transmits are,in some of his books, undoubtely of anguish and fear. I do not know what he wants to say when he claims that he wants “to comfort the human beings in an original way” but surely the description that he mades of certain situation, even if they are unreal,are not so comforting but at least make us feel not alone.

    Concerning the question about the media i think that television, cinema and great means of broadcasting are not destroying the language of literature but surely they change it. We can think about the brand new dictionary that step by step are introducing words belonging to computers, financial or stock market field or even foreign words. So i do not think that the language of literature will be destroy because i think that literature will never die but there is no doubt that language is going to develope and raise even more quickly.

  2. I find the quotation on “bumping into people you don’t know” very interesting because it’s a common feeling. It’s true, I like meeting new people, it is a way of comparing and confronting thoughts and ideas. This is positive because you find always new points of view and new ways of reasoning. By the way, “you also grow as a thinker”, it is a simple but extraordinary process!

    On what he says about reading and media I don’t totally agree, I don’t think that the language of media is killing language of literature, language is just evolving, the means of language are evolving, I think language is one, it is the same, because also through media can be made literature, so one thing doesn’t exclude the other, but they mutually complete themselves. I don’t share also his opinion on bedtime reading, in my opinion it’s not essential for the “growth of a human being”, I think the important thing is that a child should start reading pretty soon by a book himself, so that he can start making his own ideas and his own considerations. Indeed I agree with his view of writer and reader, it is true that between them, through the act of reading, begins a process that unite them indissolubly, it is a feeling which I personally felt.

    Then Paul Auster mentions the fact of the little “foreign reading” in the USA, I think this fact is daunting for both writers, who can’t hit the American market, and readers, who can’t share their literature with them. I don’t think that Americans see this as a problem, and maybe this is also why (I think) it is not a solvable problem, they are always been and they will remain an “isolated island”.

  3. Meeting new people is always an exciting moment, it gives you the opportunity for growing up as a person and human being. This exchange of thoughts and opinions between persons is necessary, especially for a growth of the mind, that is no more closed in its opinions and takes this occasion as a food for thought. I would say, the exchange is something important in every human being’s life, because if there were no debate, it would be a crystallization of the mind; no more social, economic, political and cultural development means ”death of mankind and degradation of the world”. So, I completely agree with Mr Auster’s words. Every time we meet new people, we start talking with them, they immediately become part of our life, under the shape of their thoughts, they are entering in our mind, in our life, and they start mixing with the personal meditations of a person, giving birth to new (and sometimes better!) thoughts.

    I’m not very keen on saying that the language of media is destroying or negatively affecting the language of literature. On one hand, there are writers, who write books only for putting themselves to the test and with the only purpose of entertaining readers. I would say, this kind of books are negatively affected by media and consumerism, their style, their language and even their plot are extremely simple, poor and banal. On the other hand, there are books that seem to be the result of an accurate language search and of a depth choice of the theme. So, media, partly, influence the language of literature. Good books are important for us, they are ”fundamental element in the growth of a human being”, they increase our skill of thinking and consequently, they influence our way of speaking. Sometimes I wonder if the writers, who write foolish books, know that writing a book has consequences on the reader, so why they continue filling people’s head with this kind of stories, that are everything but useful!!??

    In the end I would like to say that I listened the quotation of Mr Auster, that is even here reported; the one, in which he says he was worried about the American reading public. I agree with him according to the lack of curiosity of learning things about the rest of the world. I do not think it is because of the learning of foreign languages, they are beautiful in all of their aspects, they have always attracted lots of people (maybe I’m on this side!). I would say that the cause of this lack of curiosity is maybe because everyday people are underpressed by their life (job, school, family,..) and so they lose the interest of reading a foreign book or a newspaper.

    Carla Cipolla

  4. I agree with Paul Auster’s quotation because I think that it is useful to know people who you have never seen before, and confront with them to know what they think about your books, for example (in this case I refer to Auster’s situation but when I know people I am happy because I learn new things that are useful in this life and that maybe I can teach to somebody else). I do not know if I am expressing myself in a good way but I just want to add that also a knowledge of one day, can enhance our existence.

    I do not think that the language of media is destroying the language of literature, instead I think that television, or newspapers, magazines, etc., does not prompt people to buy or to read books. Most of the time it happens to me that I see a film inspired by a book and then I read the book ( this is not always correct because watching a film is different from the pleasure of reading books ), I am always asked to myself: why does not exist an advertising on the tv about books? I do not the answer but I am curious knowing it! Well, I was saying, read is important because it enhances your life and I do not think that there is this kind of destruction of the language of literature, the only problem is that there is not an interest on knowledge, half fault is of the system but the other is of people. I can be wrong for most of my friends but, I do not want to disagree in everything with Paul Auster, I do not think that a writer does not choose to become a writer but he is chosen. Does Paul Auster say these things because he is stalked by randomness or is there another reason that pushes him to say these things? According to his quotation, also a teacher, an engineer, a plumber, a doctor and so on, become what they are only because they are chosen to do that specific job, how can it be possible?!! If he refers only to writes, I disagree in any case because it will mean that they are different from us. I believe only in some forms of randomness but I totally disagree with Paul Auster’s quotation, if I would become a rich girl, it would be because I wanted to be rich and not only for randomness.

    First of all the mainly fault is of the students, if they do not achieve high levels but then the fault is also of teachers. In my case for example, I do not want to continue the school, I regret of choosing this course, it is my fault because I am too tired and I think these things but also teachers do not prompt me to continue.. I think this since 2 years and I have not change my mind. I am wrong and I know because I must continue because I want it and I must not change my thoughts because of one or two teachers that does not see my qualities but perhaps it happened. If a person tells me every single day that I am stupid, how can I think that I am not stupid and that I am smart? It is a bad thing to accuse always the others when things do not appear as we want, and in fact I do not accuse the others in everything because I know that I am wrong on one hand, but perhaps I have done my decision. I think that this is not the answer that you want to hear but I feel to say them.

    I want to write this in the bus:

    Reading feeds the brain. Do not stop to eat!!!

    Santarossa barbara

  5. In my opinion the language of the mass media negatively affects the language of literature. The mass media, apart from having the power of brainwashing us by forging our mind, and of manipulating the news, they tend to impoverish the language as they use a small/poor range of words that on one hand are comprehensible to all and on the other hand catch our attention. The impact the mass media have on the language is not always openly visible, a part from the use of words that come from the Internet, but I think the most important aspect is that their use of language influences in a subtile way our relationship with literature. I think that some people don’t read certain books for the fact that they don’t always feel like concentrating on a book where the language is more complicated and tough, they actually feel the difference and this upsets them (I’m not talking about reading classic books). I think the language used by the mass media has lowered the cultural level of our society and in this way it influences literature.

    Chiara Pinardi

  6. I totally agree with what Paul Auster claims, meeting new people is always something special, when you meet someone you give him part of you…you open yourself to other people who you did not know before. You share with them ideas, thoughts and points of view…by doing this you grow as a person and your soul gets always more rich as before, you learn always something useful to have a different look to the world and you broaden your knowledges.

    If you withdraw in yourself without taking advantages from other people’s experiences you will be always the same and alone…you will never improve yourself.

    A Saying affirms: “ the world is fine because it is various”…and it is right! There are lots of people with different ideas and interests and it is very important to try to share our own with the others.

    Thanks to Dedica I met a famous writer that sincerely I did not know before. This project was just great, I learnt lots of new things and in lots of Paul Auster’s words and statements I noticed a great similarity with my way of thinking. The hard work we have done on him was really useful and I think it has been an experience not to undervalue.

    As regards the language of media, I do not think it is destroying or negatively affecting the language of literature. In my opinion literature has still a big value…it conveys feelings, culture and above all it makes you imagine. Literature is a big resource and it is one of the most beautiful parts of our history. My slogan for reading would be: “ Literature is tradition…Let’s try to keep it alive by reading! “.

    Reading prods our feelings and it is really important for our imagination…when we read something that we like, we are so involved that we start to make up films in our mind and all this is possible thanks to imagination….without it we would be lost!

    New technologies and media are increasing always more their power over people, they are trying to attract large audiences but the most intelligent people know that literature hold supremacy!

    Marson Chiara

  7. Most of the people in the world prefer watching TV rather than reading a book. As Mr. Paul Auster said,there is a lack of curiosity and culture has closed to much. People are not so curious to learn things about the rest of the world and I find it so pathetic and sad.

    I think that the language of media is negatively affecting the language of literature.

    Literature has to be used as a powerful tool, but mass-media are manipulating all the knowledge and all the news. They brainwash us by forging our mind in culture.

    In my opinion people do not read simply because they don’ t have time to spent on it. At evening, for example they are tired from the workday and they prefer watching TV or they are busy from other things.

    My slogan for reading is: “Relax, take it easy. Go on the sofa and read!!” Read a book help us to open our mind, our imagination and our feelings!

    GIULIA MARZIO

  8. I don’t think the language of media is negatively affecting literature. I think just the opposite: if I were a writer, and I thought that media were destroying my world, well, I would try to write even better, to show people what is real literature. If there were really good writers, the gap between art and media would be evident. There are so many books available today, writing a book seems to be the last fashion among famous people, singers, footballers, showgirls: and these masterpieces often become bestsellers! I can’t explain why, but that’s a matter of fact. Of course we could be so used to listening, to watching foolish things that we are somehow poisoned by this sort of communication; but I wonder: are there today original novelists, are there artists of literature? I pose this question because I think that most of Italian people are well-educated, that’s not the case suggested by Auster. Here there are lots of translated novels, and they are usually more successful than Italian novels, maybe they are even overrated. Auster’s presence in Pordenone was important because it cast light on his work, which belongs to high-level literature, as the critics say. And the different interviews and events were crowded but I think reading ( and creating) good literature is going to become an unusual habit. A slogan for reading? “read a book: stop the time and fly away”

    federica zille

  9. Eugenia

    I think the language of media will never negatively influence literature. Media and literature are two different thinks and there is no reason of one affecting the other. Each one is fundamental. In my case, I am in love with books and I think they grow you more sensitive and more open-minded. Stories are important, and the love of listening and telling them even more. Books can be a way of exploring new worlds, new times and spaces; a way of escaping from our difficult reality to jump in a better one. Books empower even you imagination. They are a good exercise for children.

    It is frightening that only 3% of the books in the USA are translations. With this percentage it emerges the huge amount of ignorance that is invading and destroying peoples’ lives. The USA always thought to be the centre of the world in every domains of American’s life, and it is difficult for them to recognize the power and the importance of other countries.

    What about Italy? I think the fact that most students in Liceo do not go beyond the First Certificate is due to the diminishing interest in young students but also to unprepared and lazy teachers (I think there are a lot, as for the students).

  10. It has been discussed enough about how media are affecting culture and everyday life; it has been consumed lots of ink and tons of paper. It is useless to continue to talk about it over and over again, it is inevitably a fact: mass media have changed mental, intellectual and vital habits of all of us, and even more the management of power. This is sure, you can not have a debate on how to restore a world, so to say, more human. No, the debate is another. The preservation of that humanity, the ability to understand the rules of world and men, saving, in this way, that little of “human”, that has remained in a world dominated by mass media. It is really a scientific and philosophical debate as well as sociological, that goes beyond dreaming remembrances and idealistic regrets; the practicality of countermeasures against digital and virtual, as well as the response, human and slow, to the supersonic speed of telecommunications are more than ever practical and urgent questions, precisely because of the chilling and continually renewed superiority of the artificial entities and the devastating bytes.

    Perhaps looking to the future we see how really the written word will be reduced as in some science fiction “B-movies” of the ’50s: oppressive worlds, where the word “culture” is only an ephemeral entity with a doubtful meaning. Worlds where the books are confined in cellars where they lie thousands of years, reduced to heaps of paper ready to vanish in the first hands that touch them, eaten, devoured, consumed by time and indifference. Here the debate begins to prepare the ground for its development. What you think, what you imagine, what you try to reflect about in some way or shape in mind is replaced with floating, dazzling images that run on screens that annihilates the individual men and become the modern Totem, adored in every private home. Someone has the courage to oppose to this powerful anabolic, anaesthetic kaleidoscope, this roller coaster of colours, images and messages, to gain its independence, not to succumb to the flattery and the brain-neural spiral of telematic information. It does that with a book, with a photocopy, with an hand-written piece of paper, or -as Auster- with a sheet mixed up with the ink of an old typewriter. Something that, as the writer says, that could be read to children before sleeping, turning off the and stereotypical images of the cartoons. Read and understand, understand and read infinitely until you can say that you have understood something, realize something; take a book, consume it, read it and feel it as yours, contrasting the digital kaleidoscope with a rainbow of colours and images. And you realize immediately where the difference lies. Where the colour of stories is, on the posters, electric blue, where red is a vivid and powerful colour, the colour of imagination is a continuous becoming, a indistinct matter, unique and perfect that changes, a prism with infinite angles and shapes, that changes whenever you want, Your Thing, not of the world, which once in your life is not going to end up in the web, shared by “friends” of Facebook. It’s yours, real, our absolute private property.

    And culture? The culture comes when we read. Reading opens for us worlds, cultures and realities that are often true, really existing, and so you want to study languages, to travel, to understand how the world really is; and you realize that the world is not that monotonous and restricted thing that everyone sees coming out home to go to work, exhausted and disillusioned of the wonders of Real. If Paul Auster has chosen writing to survive, he has made a wonderful and courageous choice, because with him the whole humanity survives. It must be understood, that even in the time of the immortality of Modern Man, writing is the definition of a masterly story of Raymond Carver: “A small, good thing”. Perhaps it is the most suitable slogan.

    Raggiotto Francesco

  11. When you start to read a book you can live a “second life”, fantasize on facts that never happened or that reminds you particularly moment of your life. Reading it is not only a way out from the world, but it is also a way to analyze it in its deep aspects. Through the process of reading we come to know the style of a person, what he is interested in, what influenced most his life, and in which piece of the imagination he finds gratifying to escape. Knowing our mental process can push us into a deeper analysis of our nature and incomprehensible beliefs .That’s the most evident form of “bumping into the life of somebody” who maybe will never know you personally. It’s fascinating how we are chained one to the other: our acts can completely change the life of someone we do not know in a so radically way, that we would be astonished by knowing the course that we all do. If all was determined ,life would not be so interesting. As books and journals are important, also television is ,if it is well-used, a way to understand the world and the dynamics which push people to corrupt information. We have to imagine and see: Einstein always did mental experiments to determine the theory, but it’s also important to be attached at what is really happening. In literature our imagination could go over the concreteness and sometimes it’s useful to recover ourselves in “another world”, but we cannot be completely detached from concrete things to appreciate literature and its consequences .

    English people does not fell necessary to speak another language because the international language is English,and they prefer to do not force themselves to do something which could be not useful for them. We have not to know foreign languages only for affairs, but to know how the world really goes. I have a greek friends who lives near the seas who wants to go abroad because tired of the restrict Greek world .She wants to discover new country and meet new people since the mastery of another language does not only mean business ,but fun and culture. In Greece there is also meritocracy ,and the sholar system is more centered on checking how people are prepared in a more subjective way.They have exams every year (besides tests) which confirm if they have the essential background to go a step on.

    Indifference is the worst threat of our times: also if we think that world is only chaos and sufferance we believe in something. Indifference lead some people to be more powerful than others, but I hope it will never exists. Nobody does not believe in something.

    Perin Marco

  12. When you start to read a book you can live a “second life”, fantasize on facts that never happened or that reminds you particularly moment of your life. Reading it is not only a way out from the world, but it is also a way to analyze it in its deep aspects. Through the process of reading we come to know the style of a person, what he is interested in, what influenced most his life, and in which piece of the imagination he finds gratifying to escape. Knowing our mental process can push us into a deeper analysis of our nature and incomprehensible beliefs .That’s the most evident form of “bumping into the life of somebody” who maybe will never know you personally. It’s fascinating how we are chained one to the other: our acts can completely change the life of someone we do not know in a so radically way, that we would be astonished by knowing the course that we all do. If all was determined ,life would not be so interesting. As books and journals are important, also television is ,if it is well-used, a way to understand the world and the dynamics which push people to corrupt information. We have to imagine and see: Einstein always did mental experiments to determine the theory, but it’s also important to be attached at what is really happening. In literature our imagination could go over the concreteness and sometimes it’s useful to recover ourselves in “another world”, but we cannot be completely detached from concrete things to appreciate literature and its consequences .

    English people does not fell necessary to speak another language because the international language is English,and they prefer to do not force themselves to do something which could be not useful for them. We have not to know foreign languages only for affairs, but to know how the world really goes. I have a greek friends who lives near the seas who wants to go abroad because tired of the restrict Greek world .She wants to discover new country and meet new people since the mastery of another language does not only mean business ,but fun and culture. In Greece there is also meritocracy ,and the sholar system is more centered on checking how people are prepared in a more subjective way.They have exams every year (besides tests) which confirm if they have the essential background to go a step on.

    Indifference is the worst threat of our times: also if we think that world is only chaos and sufferance we believe in something. Indifference lead some people to be more powerful than others, but I hope it will never exists. Nobody does not believe in something.

    Perin Marco

  13. Meeting new people could be a chance to share your views on things, a chance to listen to the other’s opinions and thoughts, and this is doubtless vital for a writer (you could came across people who would be the protagonist of your next novel!). In Paul Auster’s novels a chance meeting or a chance phone call often changes the course of a life, and this is just the sort of thing that happens to Paul Auster, too. With his belief that a single moment can irrevocably change a life, I believe that he is particularly prone in meeting new people (also if it could be sometimes the most nerve-wracking thing!). Anyway, his lesson is clear: things are changing in our lives yet again; we have to suffer, we have to have people die on us, we have to fall in love, and this is necessary, unavoidable, because we are all threads in the “texture of life”, we are all clinched to each other, tightly and fatally.

    It is undeniable that media are affecting and changing the language of literature, and this will happen increasingly. The ‘Texting Language” of the 21th century is much different from the “classic” language: misspellings, abbreviations, and acronyms are thrown into text messages and e-mails very often. In the case of many young people, texting is something done oftener than regular writing, for school or for pleasure. So, that leads all of the misspellings, grammatical errors, and slang words (who made up the word “slang” anyway?) to seep into a young person’s daily vocabulary. The media are a big driver of the “word evolution”: new words happen (or “evolve”, if you like), and they derive from the internationalization process that Internet and the televisions are bearing.

    Maybe the evolution of words and language is very similar to the evolution of life: in life, genetic mutations occur. Sometimes those mutations are actually better than the status quo and eventually become the norm, but most mutations die out. The same happens with language: only a very small number of language mutations survive for any length of time. Probably this is just a “period of mutations”, dictated by the arrival of the new technologies. A slogan for reading: if you are not able to read, you risk to see “Titanic” twice.

    Alessandro Piccin

  14. As everything in the world, literature is in perpetual changement and so i think it is obvious that there are some things that influenced the choose of this changement. In my opinion media cannot influenced literature because they are based on things that forgive the ideas and the pleasures that human beings have in a determinated period so, if there is something that influenced literature,it is the mind of the people.For example, the new kind of writing with abbreviations, numbers,ecc. are not a creation of media but just an expression of young people that is the mirror of the society where they live. literature changed with the changhing of people but at the same time it remains in a book that nobody can cacelled.For this reason i think that it is not a problem if literature changed with the changing of people’s mind and although sometimes media used their power to do propaganda,literature is something strongest and i am sure that will not influenced.

    luca

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