1. Of Beauty and Consolation


In a most passionate tone George Steiner elaborates about memory in an interview done for the dutch documentary series "Of Beauty and Consolation". Born as a jew, he is especialy sensitive to the idea that memory is the ultimate salvation of Mankind against tirany. No chains could hold a free mind flying with the richenesses of the human spirit conquests. The problem is that we no longer foster the heritage of Mankind and have no longer a common grammar of western civilization. So, we conclude that our societies are now much weaker vis-à-vis tirany than before. 

This brilliant and fascinating cultivated man speakes about the quest for knowledge, his insatiable curiosity since childhood, trying to understand everything and making encyplopedias's-like lists of things. What remains of this conversation is an inspirational way of looking to things, a wisdom that comes from the taste of reading good books; an enlightment of life in general. He presents this painting of the "Reader" and reflects on it: that concentration on reading is for him foundational of our civilization. 

As to what accounts for Wole Soyinka, the beauty of some women was something that really marked his life from very early stand. Once again for him, like for George Steiner, consolation comes from memory: in his time of arrest as nigerian oppositionist, he recalled on his mind music, films and plays from theatre. One day - he recounts, while he was in his cell of confinement - a collective ethnical music was sang by other prisoners (that was according to him a “collective resolution” that touched him deeply). But for him personally what gives him the utmost consolation is getting into the nature and disappearing completely for hours: he then finds peace and feels at home. 


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