so today, for a moment, i felt how Marlow in Heart of Darkness felt about lies ['there is a taint of mortality in lies']. i was reading the Newsweek article about Pinter:

'The TV news report last Thursday announcing that renowned British playwright and poet Harold Pinter had died was surprising only to the few who did not know he had been diagnosed with cancer in 2002.'

i got a shock, and for some reason felt a great sense of sadness. and anger - Cancer! The Killer which our bodies can't fight, that makes our bodies its home despite resistance. such futility! such powerlessness! is it not sad? also, it would have been Immensely Ironic, had he received the nobel prize after he died, i thought at first. and then i realized, 'he can't receive it after he dies, can he?' anyway, i felt intensely sad [like the world was pulled out from underneath my feet!] and i don't know why. then, i read on:

'The corrected version, following a painful pause that could only be described as Pinteresque, was more of a shock: he hadn't died, he'd simply been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Until the announcement, Pinter's name had barely figured on this year's list of possible candidates. Theatregoers on his home turf in London would scarcely have known that he had celebrated his 75th birthday just a few days earlier. The occasion was marked by a single radio play on the BBC, a snub that typifies British attitudes toward the controversial author.'

it is rather sad, if the British truly don't appreciate Pinter. i mean, heck, even i appreciate what people like Ivan Heng and Eric Khoo [not to mention countless other poets such as Alfian Sa'at and Alvin Pang] are doing for the arts in Singapore [and they're no where near Pinter's stature].

i am still upset by the fact that Pinter has cancer.

'Earlier in the week, Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Both choices were perceived as criticisms of American foreign policy. "Pinter is just about the biggest and sharpest stick with which the Nobel committee can poke America in the eye," commented The Times of London, nothing his impassioned antiwar stance. Standing on the steps of his London home to speak to reporters after the announcement, Pinter declared, "Iraq is just a symbol of the attitude of Western democracies to the rest of the world," adding that he might use his acceptance speech to "address the state of the world."'

i'm not really sure how i feel about this. in a way, i do feel sad that the Nobel Prize committee have political agendas but i suppose nothing is ever free of political sentiment [look at Emmys, Grammys, Oscars etc]. it just seems rather sad and degrading to offer a playwright an award not purely based on the quality of his work but rather due to his political leanings. at the same time, my respect for Pinter has increased a whole deal. while i am usually of the belief that Art is Art regardless of the Creator - i think generally, the fact that we know who was behind the work [and i mean know in the sense that we know their backgrounds, etc] will inevitably taint our reaction to the work. for example, i may love Winston Churchill's writing and think it is really eloquent, but i detest the fact that he needed war in order to sustain his leadership and hence don't have much respect for him. my liking of a work and my respect of the person who created it is mutually exclusive i suppose - my liking of a work doesn't cause my respect for the person, but merely an Admiration of his brilliance/perceptiveness etc. two of which are different reactions, at least in my mind.

then again - where do we draw the line? do we condone great works of Art as Great Works even when the Creator is a scoundrel? will this encourage amorality - the attitude of, 'oh he was a terrible person but his poetry was beautiful and that's all that matters'. can a morally hollow person truly produce beautiful work? sometimes i doubt it. art is a manifestation of oneself and an expression of one's deepest desires/views/dreams and even, dare i say, SOUL. if one has a morally bankrupt SOUL [by morally bankrupt i would mean one who condones killing, rape, etc. let's not complicate it by getting into the grey areas], how can one's art be beautiful? by beautiful i do not mean aesthetically pleasing - plenty of the works we see today use grotesque and violent means to convey moral ideals [Requiem For A Dream - the film maker uses drugs, sex and eating disorders to convey something greater and inexplicably MORAL]. hence, if immoral themes and images are used as tools with which the Creator conveys an essentially moral message - is there even a moral issue? i am inclined to think not. it's all a question about whether the means justify the ends - and while its hard to determine in black and white, i find myself believing that often, when it comes to art, the means DO justify the ends. yet, many other instances do prove me wrong, as well [and i know that yet more will].

so what is the purpose of art? should the purpose of art be in general [in the BIGGER PICTURE] to convey moral values? i am also inclined to believe so. art is meant to enrich one's soul with beauty, insights on how to make one's life more beautiful, to educate, to make one REALIZE i must not Be Like THIS [whatever THIS may be, because often we do not lead our lives the way it SHOULD be].

a lot of the time, artists use objects of ugliness, the ugliness of human nature, the ugliness of life and generally UGLINESS to create BEAUTY and convey BEAUTY to the reader/audience/viewer. and that is what is so amazing! Heart of Darkness, for example. the whole book is bleak, dark and a continuous expose of the Darkness Within Man but it is BEAUTIFUL! it is a BEAUTIFUL work by Conrad! it is what is Conrad DOESN'T WRITE that makes us realize we HAVE to be better people, we HAVE to love more, we HAVE to give more, we HAVE to make life beautiful and NOT be overcome by the Heart of Darkness. and that is just incredible. it is just so heartstoppingly fantastic that we are more often than not using ugliness to create beauty. oh my goodness it is so ... wonderful. i feel so overwhelmed by how beautiful this is, how wonderful it is.

the meaning of life is so often in the things we do not say.

beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.

+ posted by M @ 9:57 PM