“Stroncature”, the twilight of publishing: a literary Babylon that censors and purifies
Those who follow Atlas in the hope of finding, sooner or later, a slating must resign. The column has a precise philosophy: to speak only of what it deems worthy, the rest is silence and oblivion.
Davide Brullo explains it very well in his collection of " Stroncature " published for Gog Edizioni :
“To crush another is, first of all, to turn the sickle against one's body – to quarter oneself. What is reproached to the writing of the other, to the point of derision, is a ruthless analysis of one's own defects: the other is the mirror of one's own shortcomings ”.
The writer respects the pact with the reader to the point that, at the end of the volume, " Davide Brullo crushes Davide Brullo " without sparing himself:
“Brullo is, at the same time, a journalist and a teacher, a poet and novelist, a translator and author of texts for the theater. None of these many, too many activities has given him glory, Brullo is a bit of everything and a bit of nothing, and this is a bit too much for a reader's patience. "
This is just one of the golden rules of the good puncher, in the first pages there are others 1. A puncher must be free, without noble godparents and fathers. 2. A puncher must have a thorough knowledge of the work in question, reporting its passages. 3. A tormentor must crush those who are higher than him, the tormenting is an unequal struggle between David and Goliath.
Journalism is full of Davide who fight with clubs and poor of those who do it at the tip of foil. Davide Brullo advances in bursts of Gatling , the historic machine gun of the American Civil War, hitting us with sharp bullets and leaving us gasping in a lake of laughter. Cruel, provocative, disrespectful, the director of Pangea accompanies us along a hundred pages that devour each other like olives. Comma after comma, the reader is assailed by a sweet aftertaste of demolition, mortification and humiliation.
The volume is not just a sop for those who want to see the idols of Italian "culture" collapse. Brullo packs a bitter reflection on the world of publishing near twilight. The writers are proud, onanistic and self-centered. This is how literature dies: under “Super Editor” spoiled and literary prizes more similar to group psychotherapeutic sessions. A literary Babylon that attacks, censors and purges. We see it in those black rigaccias that according to Alessandro D'Avenia's lawyer would cover personal attacks or in the angry letter of Antonio Scurati.
Brullo's ruthlessness opens a glimmer of hope. It makes us understand what literature should not be, but sips here and there little notions to make us understand what it should be:
Writing, we know, is not an “immediate” gesture, but a strategic one, the construction of a capital or the provision of an army is not improvised.
Repulsion is the yardstick of great writing […] reading is a dance: first you step on the writer's feet, then you understand his rhythm, his seduction .
Great writing is imperial, merciless, absolute: it demands the reader's obedience.
The post “Stroncature”, the twilight of publishing: a literary Babylon that censors and purifies appeared first on Atlantico Quotidiano .
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Atlantico Quotidiano at the URL http://www.atlanticoquotidiano.it/recensioni/stroncature-il-crepuscolo-delleditoria-una-babilonia-letteraria-che-censura-ed-epura/ on Sat, 05 Dec 2020 05:02:00 +0000.