Friday, February 15, 2008

Chekhov and Sigur Ros

I think I may have fallen in love today. With Chekhov. Anton Chekhov, that is. I mean, listen to this,
"My goal in life is to kill two birds with one stone: to paint life in its true aspects, and to show how far this life falls short of the ideal life. I don;t know what this ideal life is, just as it is unknown to all of us. ... The truth is the absolute freedom of man, freedom from oppression, from ignorance, etc."

He is known for his ability to create a wonder and awe for commonplace things in life by making the reader take notice of them. He is also known for asking questions which he never answers. Also, I've found that he commonly creates feelings of deep compassion by being a complete bystander to his own writing. The way he writes about commonplace russian life is beautiful.

Well, I like him. I have to admit, I did not like the style in which Dostoevsky wrote the Idiot. It gave the feel more of a play than anything (in my humble opinion; but who am I to critique the masterful author?) And all his women were silly and emotional and wishy washy. In my opinion.

Anyhow. I'm listening to Sigur Ros right now. They're Icelandic. They made a movie called Heima that consists of several concerts they had in Iceland in little towns in the country: outdoors and indoors and in all the beautiful places you can imagine. It's amazing. Definately recommend it. It's a work of art, really.

It snowed more today. Tomorrow the high is 51. That, is Flagstaff for you.

Well, I'm going to get better acquainted with Chekhov. Peace.

1 comment:

mmichele said...

One of my favourite quotes is from Chekhov: Any idiot can face a crisis. It's the day to day living that wears us out.