Sunday, December 28, 2003
A brief of a monologue, that was pronounced time and time again during the last century or so:
I don't want to be an intellectual. What's the use to be a highbrow? To try and impress people for my so-called knowledge? That's just a vanity. I've passed through university. I have seen the abyss of books they suggested. How many books do I have to read? I'm overwhelmed by that huge library, that is not but a drop of the ocean of books there is out there. Intellectuals don't actually read those books, they just read the brief account they find in the back cover, and use that to comment the book in front of the others, who didn't read those books either. "Did you read Proust?" "Of course I did". I don't want to be part of those contests. In cinema, well, you could be able to see all the important movies out there: it's such a young art. But literature? It's just too much: critics, novels, poems, writers, writers on writers, it's just too much. I get dizzy when I look down to that abyss. It's no longer possible to read all of the important books, for a human being, and if you can't read all the important books, you better don't read a single one, just to avoid being asked for the others you didn't read. No, I don't want to be an intellectual.
I don't want to be an intellectual. What's the use to be a highbrow? To try and impress people for my so-called knowledge? That's just a vanity. I've passed through university. I have seen the abyss of books they suggested. How many books do I have to read? I'm overwhelmed by that huge library, that is not but a drop of the ocean of books there is out there. Intellectuals don't actually read those books, they just read the brief account they find in the back cover, and use that to comment the book in front of the others, who didn't read those books either. "Did you read Proust?" "Of course I did". I don't want to be part of those contests. In cinema, well, you could be able to see all the important movies out there: it's such a young art. But literature? It's just too much: critics, novels, poems, writers, writers on writers, it's just too much. I get dizzy when I look down to that abyss. It's no longer possible to read all of the important books, for a human being, and if you can't read all the important books, you better don't read a single one, just to avoid being asked for the others you didn't read. No, I don't want to be an intellectual.
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