[lit-ideas] Re: portraits of angry Jesus
- From: David Ritchie <ritchierd@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 18:34:54 -0800
on 3/10/05 1:08 PM, Eric Yost at eyost1132@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> Eric,
> Where's the rest of it?
> Carol
> _______
>
> It's mouldering in my desk drawer. Strange how old writing looks so
> alien, all the weird word choices and stratagems, stuff you'd do
> differently eight years later, things you thought were cute at the time
> but now seem labored.
The danger with old writing chiefly arises when one comes too close.
Unpublished writing is in one sense distinctly superior to Literature.
Literature, out there rubbing shoulders with the public, getting chips
knocked off it by persons armed with stones, sticks and theories, is bound
to suffer signs of age. Unpublished writing, residing comfortably in the
memory of the writer, only gets better and better.
Earlier this week I dug out a lecture that, over years, has received little
attention from me or anyone else-- the passing swipe of chamois in casual
conversation, a moment or two in the reflected light of passing distant and
mighty planets. But in my mind, not only was it a very good lecture; by
some magic process, it had also grown into a synthesis of all the stuff I've
learned about the subject since giving that lecture.
Trotting onto the stage at a new audition it turned out, in fact, to be...
just what it was.
David Ritchie
Portland, Oregon
intrigued by today's newspaper article about K.I. Helphand, U of O Professor
of Landscape History, Literature and Theory
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