Sunday, 16 November 2008

കാഫ്ക, ദ ബ്ലോഗ്ഗര്‍

KAFKA, THE BLOGGER
(By Karunakaran)
Gilles Deleuze once argued that “it's not men, but animals, who know how to die” - a cat seeks a corner to die in, a territory for death. He further went and said that “Writer pushes language to the limit of the cry, of the chant, and a writer is responsible for writing "for", in the place of, animals that die, even by doing philosophy”.
He said: one is the border that separates thought from the non-thought.
Oh, no, I am not a trained ‘philosopher’, though I love to read them. But the madness in imagining, which a writer experiences, is a kind of securing a territory. A writer dies in his writing, looking for a territory of his own - like a cat seeking a corner to die.
So far I have not talked to a cat. If ‘he’ or ‘she’ comes on my way, I get terrified. I get confused of a space I am sharing with ‘other animal’.
The territory of death could explain in writing, as Kafka does. A trail of life in an argument set in an uncertain period of a certain court is a life explained in death. Kafka was searching for a territory. The stories of his could read in a metro, too.
The metro you live have a few ‘men’ from the village you left long before. I use to see ‘them’ in fiction. The “village” is a kind of memory, one wants to be in peace with. I won’t forget the rude structure of a village in feudal period. Seeking peace is also a kind of death: a corner to die in.
A blogger may not be a writer. But a writer, of course is a blogger: he, too, seeks a corner to die in. Thus the blogger’s pray goes like this: This is my blog. I do not put my fiction there. I do not publish my poems there. The memories, too, I won’t. My blog is a place I share with an animal I found in writing.
The blog is a territory a metro could imagine. A lonely place in a packed suburban train is a blog you experience in a metro life.
Kafka was a blogger. The concern he expressed on ‘the human kind’ was not about ‘the existential stories’ of men just after the WW2. It was about the ‘corner’ one feel ‘free’ in a crowded ‘train’. Or he stood for it. ‘For’ is a word for ‘blog’ too.
So the storms that pass through a blog can come from a cup, can be from a coup too. The change of a government you ask can have a place in a blog. Like the beauty you argue for your underwear. However, the death you experience in writing is to be expressed. As, Mr. K, done in a century he lived. And, that was the ‘corner’ where you found the other ‘K’. Where, a cat died his honored death.

1 comment:

Devadas V.M. said...

It is a nice thought even though politically I won't agree to that.

I can never agree to the statement that "writer dies in writing". Yup, I know that Roland Barthes wrote about that in his famous
article "the author is dead" [Which Darrida inherited later].

I wana consider writing as an entity, scientifically representing as a "Thermodynamic closed system/entity", both in micro and macro level. [But don't think that I am representing the process of writing-reading as War of Mahabaratha, in which Krishna(writer) leads the war using Warriors (characters) like Arjuna,Abimanyu & Weapons (Literature/structure) like Bhrahmasthra, Vaijayanthi-spear etc. and Sanjaya (criticizer) explains that to Dritharashtra (reader) ]

For me the author is still not dead (or in the search for a corner to die) but he is simply making his own exercise of "Escape Mechanism" to keep him / her (oh! have to consider feminists too) away from the corner of death.

In the "lonely place in a packed suburban train", interaction has different meaning/representation, right?
But a guy(writer) who is just ignoring the crowd, and simply looking at the hanging hand rests, which make the feeling of handcuffs, which reminds him about his "Crime & Punishments"... What about him? He should be Kafka or not?

But I do agree with the "animal" part in the following text. :)
"Ente Rashtreeyam Boumikamaanu" - Maythil

:)

* What is the difference between Author and Writer?