Tuesday, May 25, 2004

Where had it all started?

Here, of course...



Natalia, in a new post, debates on an old question with a young eye:



What is the common denominator to link Poland, Germany and Israel?

Unlike the Polish Vice-Minister, I do remember that one Bible is the book all three swear by.



Not that it helped much in the past.

Note that it might do so one day, at least in spirit.



Actually, I'm very happy that my writing is in Hebrew. I notice frequently how much it is influenced by the language of the Bible. Not word by word, as the Bible's Hebrew is much more elevated, compared with our modern one.

In spirit.



I believe it was T.S. Eliot who said that in poetry one word should do the job of ten.

My goal is much more ambitious, I would like, so it seems upon reading, to have one word do the job of a thousand.



Not that difficult, since there are not only many layers, but also those three-lettered verbs carrying a thousand associations, allusions, symbols.

A most sensual language, or so I experience it, so is my love for it.



A few years ago, at the Ledig writers colony in upper New York State, I expressed this pride of mine to some German colony-fellows and they couldn't agree less:

"German is the richest language!"



Well, I don't know much German, but I do know it is a language in which every word and every sentence competes with the others, which one is the longest...

Excuse me, this is not my idea of richness...

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