Literature? What's in it?

photo by sean, © 2009

Introduction by Sean@iNoodle.com:

The below popped into my inbox this morning from Eric Larsen, prize-winning novelist, non-fiction author, critic, retired English professor, and topnotch friend and correspondent.

And here's a related post which Rebecca published on our Mindful Living Guide site earlier today. The topic and the post itself are inspired by Anne Frank: Why writing ( ... and literature) matters!

*****

by Eric Larsen
February 13, 2009

Dear Readers, Reviewers, Editors, Publicists, Fellow Writers, Patriots, Friends,

Here for your perusal is a piece that will doubtless seem purely literary, lacking any element, content, or implication whatsoever that might touch on today's politics. In short, by clicking here, you'll find a short story that I published in 1971, again in 1975, and that then, I thought, had for the next thirty-five years slept in the same unmarked grave where it would surely fade away to dust.

But if you do decide to go inside and have a look, you'll find that the story has been resurrected. A Professor of English by the name of Elizabeth Hodges has given it new life by introducing it to her students who, in turn, have sent me questions, twenty-one in all, that they found themselves interested in hearing the answers to.

Inside, you'll find everything: The story, the questions, the answers – and then something more.

The "something more" will be my "conclusion," in which I announce that I'm signing off on political writing – for now, maybe, maybe for good. I'm returning to literary writing. But I'm doing it with a very, very serious project in mind.

I'm proposing that this piece – containing the little story "Feast" along with Elizabeth Hodges' students' questions and my answers – I'm proposing that it take its place as the first in a series. This series will make a strenuous effort to answer this question: "Can the Literary Life Still Exist in a Post-1984 Nation?"

Our own poor and dying nation is without the least hint of any doubt whatsoever a "post-1984" nation. I've spent the last two and a half years or more hammering at the door of 9/11 truth, thinking all along that exposure of the truth of what really happened on that day would be a powerful tonic in helping set the U.S. back, say, to 1948 instead of 1984, at least insofar as truth versus lies in the governance and freedoms of its people might be concerned. Now, I'm not so sure. I myself know more than perfectly well what really happened on 9/11, as do many, many others. And yet, not even on the basis of that knowledge will the nation act. Even with the truth evident and obvious and plainly placed in front of it, the nation either will not or can not act in meaningful response to that truth.

So I'm not going to bang on that door any longer, at least not for now, but I'm going to propose another approach. As I've said elsewhere many more times than once, any nation that lacks a genuine, living cultural life is by default and by necessity a dead nation. The question now is whether ours is dead or not dead. If it is in actuality dead, then we, too, are all dead along with it, every one of us, looking forward to a future of noting more than hollowness and ruin.

On the other hand, do you think it's remotely conceivable that I could prove that there still is – say – a LITERARY LIFE inside the United States, a life that a person could LIVE and that many, many others could live WITHIN?

My proposal is this: I'm going to set about, however vastly against the odds, trying to prove exactly that. If I can do it, maybe there's hope for us, for our children, for our nation, for our future. If I can't? If I can't, we're goners, all of us.

Stay tuned. Pray fervently, daily, hourly.

With my hopes and every best wish,

Eric Larsen