ionesco on writing...
andre coutin: you do not view yourself as an improtant writer, you do not believe you're creating a magnum opus, yet for you writing is a way of experiencing the wonder of being.
eugene ionesco: to write. to experience the unique sensation of covering a sheet of paper with black signs, words which speak of the wonder of existing and the ability to express it. this is no stylistic exercise, but a birth occurring between nothingness and "thing-ness". to write is to be acutely conscious that the world is simultaneously a hell and a miracle. i discovered this sensation when i was ten or twelve years old. a writer always tries to express the ineffable.
andre coutin: salvation by literature?
eugene ionesco: i said that literature was this superficial, incidental, mediocre thing. yet i continue writing. i write so as to contradict myself. i'm free to express insignificance. books remains as objects, save us from the horror of nothingness. the what's-the-good-of-it-all which today prevents me from living fully doesn't stop my hand from covering sheets of paper with my scribblings.
grand street, issue 65, 1998
Labels: eugene ionesco, literature, writing
2 Comments:
that last sentence of Ionesco's rings particularly true, if bittersweet. as usual, a fine little treausre dug up here.
yeah, he captures a lot of the doubt of doing this as well as that lingering feeling that even with the doubt we do what we do...!
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