मेघदूत: "नीचैर्गच्छत्युपरि च दशा चक्रनेमिक्रमेण"

समर्थ शिष्या अक्का : "स्वामीच्या कृपाप्रसादे हे सर्व नश्वर आहे असे समजले. पण या नश्वरात तमाशा बहुत आहे."

G C Lichtenberg: “It is as if our languages were confounded: when we want a thought, they bring us a word; when we ask for a word, they give us a dash; and when we expect a dash, there comes a piece of bawdy.”

C. P. Cavafy: "I’d rather look at things than speak about them."

Martin Amis: “Gogol is funny, Tolstoy in his merciless clarity is funny, and Dostoyevsky, funnily enough, is very funny indeed; moreover, the final generation of Russian literature, before it was destroyed by Lenin and Stalin, remained emphatically comic — Bunin, Bely, Bulgakov, Zamyatin. The novel is comic because life is comic (until the inevitable tragedy of the fifth act);...”

सदानंद रेगे: "... पण तुकारामाची गाथा ज्या धुंदीनं आजपर्यंत वाचली जात होती ती धुंदी माझ्याकडे नाहीय. ती मला येऊच शकत नाही याचं कारण स्वभावतःच मी नास्तिक आहे."

".. त्यामुळं आपण त्या दारिद्र्याच्या अनुभवापलीकडे जाऊच शकत नाही. तुम्ही जर अलीकडची सगळी पुस्तके पाहिलीत...तर त्यांच्यामध्ये त्याच्याखेरीज दुसरं काही नाहीच आहे. म्हणजे माणसांच्या नात्यानात्यांतील जी सूक्ष्मता आहे ती क्वचित चितारलेली तुम्हाला दिसेल. कारण हा जो अनुभव आहे... आपले जे अनुभव आहेत ते ढोबळ प्रकारचे आहेत....."

Kenneth Goldsmith: "In 1969 the conceptual artist Douglas Huebler wrote, “The world is full of objects, more or less interesting; I do not wish to add any more.”1 I’ve come to embrace Huebler’s ideas, though it might be retooled as “The world is full of texts, more or less interesting; I do not wish to add any more.” It seems an appropriate response to a new condition in writing today: faced with an unprecedented amount of available text, the problem is not needing to write more of it; instead, we must learn to negotiate the vast quantity that exists. How I make my way through this thicket of information—how I manage it, how I parse it, how I organize and distribute it—is what distinguishes my writing from yours."

Tom Wolfe: "The first line of the doctors’ Hippocratic oath is ‘First, do no harm.’ And I think for the writers it would be: ‘First, entertain.’"

विलास सारंग: "… इ. स. 1000 नंतर ज्या प्रकारची संस्कृती रुढ झाली , त्यामध्ये साधारणत्व व विश्वात्मकता हे गुण प्राय: लुप्त झाले...आपली संस्कृती अकाली विश्वात्मक साधारणतेला मुकली आहे."

Monday, September 03, 2007

Obelix: These Archaeology Professors are Crazy!

Obelix, my most favourite 'Asterix’ character would certainly say this after reading what Asian Age September 3, 2007 reports:

“ "What we have found here proves that the Gauls were much more civilised than we thought," archaeology professor Matthieu Poux, who is heading the dig, told the Sunday Telegraph. "Until now Gauls for the French were people who lived in huts among the trees, frightening people. Parents will threaten to send their children to the Gauls if they did not go to sleep. But we have discovered large buildings and public spaces which prove there were Gauls of considerable social standing," he added.

Making a case for revision of the image of the Gauls in the comic book series, Poux is quoted as saying,"The Asterix albums will need to be completely rewritten, as they are based on the typical image of the Gauls which has been passed down through the centuries, one of a prehistoric man who lives in the forest. " However, there is resistance to the idea of revising the Asterix stories to reflect the new historical findings.”

Who has not been seduced by R K Narayan’s Malgudi,a South Indian village? Well, we all know most Indian villages are hellholes for the poor and the Dalits, far from romantic Malgudi.

Graham Greene created perhaps imaginary Greeneland full of tormented characters.

And finally, Springfield. A O Scott recently (NYT July 27,2007) wrote: ‘I have long been of the opinion that the entire history of American popular culture — maybe even of Western civilization — amounts to little more than a long prelude to “The Simpsons.” ‘. Where is Springfield on the map?

It doesn’t matter.

Asterix literature- perhaps based on fiction- needs no revision. Let us remember that Goscinny and Uderzo never gave "the village we know so well" a name.


Artist: Goscinny and Uderzo
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