11.22.2003
paul bowles from olivia
i've just recieved permission to pull a paul bowles quote selected by olivia from her blog at myspace...
i've never read bowles myself, but i liked this a lot (and i plan on looking into his writing soon):
You ask what decadence is. I should think in art and literature nothing is decadent but incompetence and commercialism. If I stress the various facets of unhappiness, it is because I believe unhappiness should be studied very carefully; this is certainly no time for anyone to pretend to be happy, or to put his unhappiness away in the dark. (And anyone who is not unhappy now must be a monster, a saint or an idiot.) You must watch your universe as it cracks above your head.
~Paul Bowles. (New York Times, 1952)
i've never read bowles myself, but i liked this a lot (and i plan on looking into his writing soon):
You ask what decadence is. I should think in art and literature nothing is decadent but incompetence and commercialism. If I stress the various facets of unhappiness, it is because I believe unhappiness should be studied very carefully; this is certainly no time for anyone to pretend to be happy, or to put his unhappiness away in the dark. (And anyone who is not unhappy now must be a monster, a saint or an idiot.) You must watch your universe as it cracks above your head.
~Paul Bowles. (New York Times, 1952)
