I don\u2019t know if I\u2019m suffering from writers\u2019 block but it\u2019s the first time since I started this blog back in 2010 that I feel I might be exhausting my topics. I\u2019ve been trying to write something for the last four days, and I have finally decided to clear my schedule and force myself to write. Here we go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This blockage is not something of a personal nature, I\u2019m not depressed. I just feel overwhelmed by how the erratic (or purposedly evil\u2026) behaviour of US President Donald Trump is altering the world. Someone asked on BlueSky a couple of days ago whether anyone is working out the mental cost of facing daily life, pretending that this is normality, when it is not. Trump\u2019s announcement on Tuesday that on that evening an important civilization would die (meaning Iran, perhaps the USA\u2026) could be simply braggadocio or a direct nuclear threat. It has so far melted into yet more TACO (in)action, but the war is still raging, with Israel massacring poor Palestinian and Lebanese people and the Iranians fearing the worst despite the announced ceasefire (not that they are behaving well, either). Trump\u2019s palpable humiliation might in the end have worse effects than a nuclear weapon, and we need to see how the Iranians\u2019 totally illegal intention to charge a fee to cross the Hormuz Strait affects international trading. In a way, and hoping nobody else dies or loses their homes, a good jolt might be what the world needs, to end that absurd dependence on fossil fuels, yet this will have a high cost for all involved, with much loss of life and a general increase in poverty for millions of us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In these circumstances, I just don\u2019t feel inclined to write about literature, though at least I have kept my daily recommendation of a book on BlueSky. I returned to class yesterday after the Easter break and told my students that I was tempted to replace my lecture on autobiography and memoirs with a collective conversation on the current events. They were not interested. In part that was a relief because in times of stress it helps to be able to focus on work. So, I spoke, as scheduled, about women\u2019s autobiographies in the 20th<\/sup> century (following a book by Linda Anderson) and introduced, as I do every session, three pre-21st<\/sup> century autobiographies or memoirs. Looking at the lives of persons of the recent past teaches the lesson that all passes, even the worst experiences, which seems optimistic. The downside is that as events unfold, they seem to do that very slowly and with much suffering and stress. And these days worse and worse seems to be piling up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Someone asked, also on BlueSky, to which I have become hopelessly addicted because of the presence of many US progressist persons protesting the actions of their government, whether the USA can recover its lost prestige, fearing that Trump might actually bomb Iran with a nuclear device. I expected that to happen anytime in Ukraine, but even Putin seems wary of breaking that absolute taboo (or is it?). The White House hurried to say that the President did not intend to use nuclear weapons, but his threat to wipe out Iran implied some form of mass destruction (what supposedly Iran was about to unleash against Israel). I posted that the USA\u2019s prestige and popularity was not affected by the damage done to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but that dropping a third nuclear bomb would be unforgivable and would turn the nation into a pariah. I stand by my words.<\/p>\n\n\n\n All this situation begs the question of how, beyond politics, we can respond to US culture from abroad, and, specifically, from Europe. Being an English Studies specialist these days is, to say the least, quite rocky. I\u2019m more inclined to the UK than to the USA, although my academic work is more focused (I think) on the latter. The post-Brexit UK has fallen into a process of fast decadence that has left me reeling. I watch the spectacle of Labour\u2019s dissolution into an incoherent mess with greater and greater perplexity, wondering what will come of it. A return to the EU? The unthinkable rise of Nigel Farage as the next PM? I used to admire very much the UK, but, frankly, not so much now (though Scotland still offers much hope and so does Polanski\u2019s Green Party).<\/p>\n\n\n\n In this rather bleak atmosphere, what kind of culture can thrive in Britain? And in the USA? More middle-class novels about narcissistic people with first-world problems? More morbid true crime? More masochistic dark romance and romantasy? Will writers have the courage to finally address serious social themes? And I think I mean white writers, for racialized writers tend to address social themes all the time, like migration, or being a refugee, or a war victim. You might think that the question of what culture will emerge from our deeply stupid, dangerous times is a secondary concern in comparison to the loss of human rights or the international order, and the ruin of so many lives lost to war, genocide, rampant billionarism and so on. Yet, culture matters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To cite an example, Bruce Springsteen has presented his new US tour \u2018Land of Hope and Dreams\u2019 as an activity aimed at protesting against the loss of democracy under Trump. But he seems to be an exception rather than the rule. The last No Kings protests gave us a beautiful image of Jane Fonda and Joan Baez together, but these are the 2020s and not the 1970s when they protested against the Vietnam War. The image that was needed was, rather, one of Taylor Swift and Beyonc\u00e9 together. Javier Bardem carried to the Oscars ceremony the same No a la Guerra badge he carried to the Goyas in 2003, to protest against the Iraq war, and he was applauded for that. He has become, however, just a tokenistic presence in a totally complicit Hollywood, which is basically doing nothing to reject Donald Trump. Susan Sarandon is still out of a job because she dared defend Palestine, a position we consider pure common sense in Europe (as she could see in the Goya gala that honoured her). I\u2019ve been speaking of musicians and actors, and I\u2019m leaving aside writers because I truly have no idea what\u2019s going on with them. The new novels I see announced either in the UK or the USA have nothing to do with the circumstances, though my hope is that the fiction about the new horrors we\u2019re seeing these days is being written.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019ve invited my students to use part of our class time (15-20 minutes) to write short autobiographical texts of about 300 words, from a list I drew up based on similar examples. They can prepare or complete the texts at home, and replace my topics with their own choices. I\u2019m mentioning this because they appear to enjoy this activity and perhaps what we need now more than ever is giving tools to people so that they can express themselves and leave a testimonial of the current times. You might say that social media already fulfil that function, though, of course a typical post is too short to carry much weight, and we know how full of hatred some networks are. Perhaps this is why blogs have returned, transformed into the quite popular Substack newsletters. Perhaps current fiction (novels, films, TV, comics, even videogames) will become superfluous if it\u2019s not already dead. We all know that it\u2019s harder and harder to come across truly significant stories and it has been so for a while. We\u2019re clutching at straws, which might explain the acclaim with which the rather silly movie Project Hail Mary<\/em> has been met, and I speak as an SF fan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I need to finish breaking my writer\u2019s block today with a final paragraph. I do hope that these last two posts are just a temporary departure from my habitual writing, and that soon I\u2019ll get back to discussing what\u2019s closer to me. I mean, I\u2019m working on my classes and my books, but I just did not feel today like writing about what occupies me: secondary characters, production design in films, sons\u2019 memoirs about fathers, or even Kylie Minogue (more about her soon!). This blog is supposed to keep me sane so that I can go on writing about my niche interests and this is what I\u2019m using it for today, It\u2019s a form of autobiographical therapy, and I invite everyone to do the same: write as rationally as possibly to curb down the rampant stupidity that is threatening to end not just one civilization in the Middle East but the very idea of human civilization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I ask culture creators (by no means the same as content creators!) to contribute to saving us from that end. From what I\u2019m seeing these days, political cartoonists are becoming the avantgarde we need to follow. Perhaps only satire can help us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n More next week, and better, I hope.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I don\u2019t know if I\u2019m suffering from writers\u2019 block but it\u2019s the first time since I started this blog back in 2010 that I feel I might be exhausting my topics. 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