Literature and Identity Politics

“When the poet and mystic Rumi met his spiritual companion Shams-i Tabrizi, one of the first things the latter did was to toss Rumi’s books into water and watch the letters dissolve the Sufis(?) say: ‘knowledge that takes you not beyond yourself, is far worse than ignorance’” – Elif Shafak

Come, let us all be friends for once
Let us make life easy on us,
Let us be lovers and loved ones,
The earth shall be left to no one.

Excerpts from the Turkish scholar, Talat Halman's "Yunus Emre and His Mystical Poetry" (copied here)

over at ted.com and on this video, there were a lot of dramus, but this is not your ordinary youtube dramu.. These are 100-200 word dramus heavy on cerebral fuel and politics. Now that’s dramu. I just get dizzy going about it, but at least they seem to have quality control which is nice.

Anywhoo, Ms. Elif Shafak really did me a great favour by reminding me not to personalize fiction and not to find the author in it, not that I want to find the author in a piece of work (I usually ignore the artist’s history and all other things). When I usually look at an artwork whether it be a literary piece or not, I neither look at the artist’s history nor his/her personal take on the work. Yes, it means something, but are you sure it’ll mean the same thing to another? Should you leave it at that, or would you rather explain yourself?

I usually don’t explain my work until someone asks a question (then I’ll send a personal note to them), but as far as thinking about it: Can you really separate yourself from your work?