Thickness of the Word
Literature as an experience of both reflection & possibility
Teódulo López Meléndez is a Venezuelan author. Based in Caracas, he has written numerous books and countless articles exploring universal themes of identity, communication, and possibility. Here is a sample, translated into English and shared on Medium…
Literature, instead of a mirror reflecting the world, is more akin to an oracle projecting prophesies depicting how the world could be.
That’s not to criticize realism, or writers seeking to provide a clear vision of the world, but to expose writing that’s devoid of fantasy, absurdity, and prophecy.
Literature must be, like philosophy, a catharsis of the clash between what is, and what should be. Rather than justify radicalism, we proclaim that if writing conforms to conventional norms, then it’s not literature.
Literature evolves, with depictions of reality that become a metaphor for society. The bankruptcy of a nation is one such social metaphor. Reality being proclaimed superior to fantasy in Latin America is a damaging fallacy to the country, and to the word.
The word is devalued, it has lost its openness. The word as something risky has been abandoned. The word became tejné — the triggering of a memory that appears to be knowledge — a technique for merely creating an image.
Technology and the word have been hurled against each other. The former is the future, and the latter is made useless. The helplessness of the word leads to narrow thinking. I think we are reaching a state of memory loss, and without memory, we also lose language.
A reality of the market place is culture as a business. The technical primacy of science and technology have robbed us of literature. Writing must regain its ability to predict. It can and should describe humanity’s current problems, but also those to come. Literature, by design, must be prophetic. We must anticipate, intuit, glimpse, and even speculate.
Literature is, essentially, a question. The motivation for our writing is our dissatisfaction with the world’s status quo. Writing that is dedicated to supporting, protecting, and sustaining the predominant orthodox ideas in the world that produce it reeks of suspicion. Literature must ask and question. The writer is a chronic non-conformist.
The various types of literature throughout the human race are intertwined in the evolution of various cultures, and their interaction with each other. Literature invents, and shows man possibilities for the future. Pure realism, without imagination and projection, falls flat.
Literature must describe the world, but also depict the complexities of its intelligent inhabitant. Literature must intrude into human nature without being corrupted. Literature is a habitat for experiences and counter-experiences.
Recomposing the word necessitates listening to it beyond the human need for mere communication, listening to it from the inside. We must reveal (aletheia) the word, and restore its “thickness” of meaning and possibilities.
Visit his “A LA CUERVO” blog for more writing.
