Even writers don't like literature!

[Marc Joan]

In reading 'The Aleph', by Jorge Luis Borges, I found this:

"So witless did these ideas strike me as being, so sweeping and pompous the way they were expressed, that I associated them immediately with literature."

Lol! How true! And then, later [ibid.]:

"Perhaps the gods would not deny me the discovery of an equivalent image, but then this report would be polluted with literature, with falseness."

Think Georgy Borgy was feeling a little jaded when he wrote that particular story!

 

[Eva Ulian]

A good measure to use when deciding if literature is good, is if they have made a film out of it. If not, doubtful it has any images one can revel in.

 

[E G Logan]

In reading 'The Aleph', by Jorge Luis Borges, I found this:

"So witless did these ideas strike me as being, so sweeping and pompous the way they were expressed, that I associated them immediately with literature."

Lol! How true! And then, later [ibid.]:

"Perhaps the gods would not deny me the discovery of an equivalent image, but then this report would be polluted with literature, with falseness."

Think Georgy Borgy was feeling a little jaded when he wrote that particular story!

Maybe he'd just had a rejection saying his submission wasn't literary enough!

 

[Der Jimmelwriter]

This is a real bragging point for Latin Americans, though. See the Marquez interview with The Paris Review in which he talks about eradicating the literary from his writing before he could write 100 Years... and Bolano talking in the rudest terms in 2666 about literature and literary people. I think there's another Borges story - can't remember the name - about a dinner party in Buenos Aires where someone starts by confessing they haven't read the latest edition of some literary journal from Paris ... it ends by everyone admitting they've never read the Bible, or Shakespeare. Something like that.

A well-know reviewer was (rightly, imo) pilloried in the Guardian comments section a few years ago for always making references to the most obscure writers possible in their reviews. You know the kind of thing: you might think Rushdie is like Ballard. But that's only because you don't know the work of Rossyin Doitchkov, the fabulous Bulgarian writer of short fiction first published in Instanbul in 1864... etc...

 

[Marc Joan]

Rossyin Doitchkov??! OMG, I love him. But [ahem], I think you''ll find his very first works appeared in the Progressive Journal of Words and Their Arrangements, edited by Max Ernst, and published from a garret in Svalbard in 1859. Just saying.

 

[Der Jimmelwriter]

Rossyin Doitchkov??! OMG, I love him. But [ahem], I think you''ll find his very first works appeared in the Progressive Journal of Words and Their Arrangements, edited by Max Ernst, and published from a garret in Svalbard in 1859. Just saying.

I stand corrected, and duly humbled at your intimate knowledge of Doitchkov and his work. PS reminds me of Beckett's invention of "Concentrism", the art movement that didn't exist - he successfully lectured his students in Paris on the movement to demonstrate what "bolleaux" the academic approach can sometimes be....

 

[Marc Joan]

Les bolleaux, Ils sont de plus en plus nombreuses. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Maybe.

 

[Der Jimmelwriter]

Les bolleaux, Ils sont de plus en plus nombreuses. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Maybe.

Please see the debate about CW courses elsewhere on this forum to which I've added my tuppence. My recent experience of reading with CW professors suggests perhaps not. Biochemistry is much more fun, methinks!

 

[Marc Joan]

Please see the debate about CW courses elsewhere on this forum to which I've added my tuppence. My recent experience of reading with CW professors suggests perhaps not. Biochemistry is much more fun, methinks!

Are you a biochemist?

 

[Der Jimmelwriter]

Are you a biochemist?

sadly not, though for reasons too complex to explain I do have an invention disclosure related to agonists/precursors for endometreosis. But I saw that you are one from your website - bravo! Holub was as well, among a host of others - it's a great profession, I think.

 

[Marc Joan]

Impressive! I hope you don't have to bear the costs of patent maintenance yourself?
I'm more of a molecular biologist than a biochemist, tbh. Too many sums in biochemistry for my liking!
Last time I looked at endometriosis, there were few drug options; don't know what the situation is today?

 

[Der Jimmelwriter]

Impressive! I hope you don't have to bear the costs of patent maintenance yourself?
I'm more of a molecular biologist than a biochemist, tbh. Too many sums in biochemistry for my liking!
Last time I looked at endometriosis, there were few drug options; don't know what the situation is today?

The institution is keeping it up at the moment; one of the reasons we haven't exploited it is the % the institution wants from any commercial exploitation (95% or something; we heard that and didn't bother to negotiate). Very few drug options, yes: this is a naturally-occuring compound that has anti-inflammatory effect against interleukin-8 and prostoglandin-3 (I think) in a lab culture of the endometrial lining. We got positive signs from lab and prepared an n=60 study at five UK centres, and then the institution came in for their pound of flesh, so we've parked it.

 

[Marc Joan]

Yup, that's how to stifle innovation and entrepreneurialism. Seen it all before. They need a cut of course -- but a fair cut, please.

 

[Katie-Ellen]

Such misery for those women.