“Were there similarities between the literature on both sides of the Iron Curtain?”
“Definitely. And the phrase itself is an interesting place to start. It is commonly assumed that the term was first used by Winston Churchill in a speech in Fulton, Missouri on March 5th 1946, but in Patrick Wright’s book “Iron Curtain” (2009) he traces the origin to 18th-century theatre. The iron curtain was a safety curtain that came down between the stage and the audience in case of fire. It was the divide between stage and audience and the whole political rhetoric of cold-war literature and its narrative discourse was marked by this profound opposition between self and other, good and evil, democracy and tyranny.”
“The idea of theatricality was the very essence of cold-war literature and discourse—the manipulation of language and information, the difference between appearance and reality, and the way the information was projected to the audience didn’t necessarily have roots in reality.”
“There wasn’t a definitive “end of cold war” response in Soviet literature because the dissident literature, samizdat (self-published) and tamizdat (published over there), proliferated gradually. In the 1980s the Western spy novels all featured good guys from the West and bad guys from the East and they were still very popular. Margaret Thatcher read Frederick Forsyth’s “The Fourth Protocol” (1984) four times. But by this time there was also a huge influx of “real” fiction, serious literature reflecting on the reasons for the cold war and near nuclear disaster, the metaphysical opposition of East and West—post-modernism. This was a natural response to the cold-war situation, given the manipulation of language and the pervading atmosphere of counter-intelligence.”
Read More: http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2014/03/quick-study-olga-sobolev-cold-war-literature
“We already knew that good stories can put you in someone else’s shoes in a figurative sense. Now we’re seeing that something may also be happening biologically,” says neuroscientist Gregory Berns.”
“The neural changes that we found associated with physical sensation and movement systems suggest that reading a novel can transport you into the body of the protagonist,” Berns says.”
“The neural changes were not just immediate reactions, Berns says, since they persisted the morning after the readings, and for the five days after the participants completed the novel.”
“It remains an open question how long these neural changes might last,” Berns says. “But the fact that we’re detecting them over a few days for a randomly assigned novel suggests that your favorite novels could certainly have a bigger and longer-lasting effect on the biology of your brain.”
How do writers come up with story ideas and turn them into novels?
“If one idea in particular seems attractive, and you feel you could do something with it, then you toss it around, play tricks with it, work it up, tone it down, and gradually get it into shape. Then, of course, you have to start writing it. That’s not nearly such fun – it becomes hard work. Alternatively, you can tuck it carefully away, in storage, for perhaps using in a year or two years’ time.” Agatha Christie
“People do not read fiction or watch films as observers. Rather they are drawn to participate in the story, making it reality. This has several benefits. It lets them experience how others deal with problems – how their dilemmas confuse them, engage them rationally and emotionally, challenge their values, and force them to balance competing issues. Reading fiction nurtures skills in observation, analysis, diagnosis, empathy, and self-reflection – capacities essential for good customer experiences, for caring about others, and for promoting good leadership practices. Fiction helps its readers to develop insights about people who are different from themselves. As they ponder what they might have done if confronted with a character’s situation, fiction helps its readers to gain insight about themselves as well.”
“Literary fiction, in contrast to popular fiction, focuses on the psychology of their characters and their interrelationships in the story. The authors of literary fiction reveal their character’s minds only vaguely, leaving out important details. The omission requires the reader to fill in the gaps if the character’s motives are to be understood. Literary fiction is rarely explicit about the internal dialog running inside each character’s mind, which consequently forces the reader to imagine it. This is the way the real world works.”
“Now, in the modern age, the novel is the way we discover what we really believe. If we tell a story, and it seems true and the characters seem real, and the resolution is correct, we are able to say that we are certain, or more certain than before about what we think is true.
The novel in the modern age is the answer or the response to a line in Camus’ notebook, which is, “That wild human longing for clarity….” It is this wild longing that the novel satisfies, and as long as it does that, and as along as a novelist is honest about what it is like to be human, it will not only survive, but thrive.
It will become the method by which we judge our morality.”
The people and the revolution that sent tremors through the United States and the Vatican:
The 1960s sparked revolutionary changes that swept the secular and religious world. At the forefront of the battle for a new – better – world was the most powerful Catholic Order.
Progressive Jesuit priests started a movement that would turn the archaic religious institution into the leading force for change, and in the process put them at odds with the United States.
These Agents of Change saw the need to do away with antiquated political and banking systems, with murderous military-industrial complexes, and flawed educational systems.
They became the biggest threat to U.S. interests…
Inspiration and Historical Context:
SpyWriter Jack King: Agents of Change,
Posted in spywriter
Tagged Books, Death Squads, Jesuits, Latin America, Liberation Theology, Literature, Novels, Opus Dei, Reading, Suspense, Thrillers, Vatican, World, Writing
Amazon, a jungle of anonymous book reviewers…
“why anyone would even bother reading these anonymous customer reviews (even if not faked), rather than relying on those of the “experts.”
“To see why, we need to step back and recall that the book review was born at a democratising moment of the capitalist 18th century. Publishers realised that there was now a larger literate group of readers to whom they could sell books – and who therefore could use help in choosing their reading material.
The end of the patronage system had meant that writers were writing for a wider (and unknown) readership. But it also meant that the review first came into the world as a form of consumer reporting. And it has continued to have this function for us in the globalised, electronic world of the 21st century bombarded, as we all are, by more information and greater choice than ever before. We too are in need of assistance in making selections.
“Reading books is more effective than pills or therapy when it comes to treating depression, according to a study published in Plos One. The research studied a sample of 281 patients in the UK with mild symptoms divided into two groups. The first group were given a self-help book that followed the cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) approach, while the second group underwent a series of traditional therapies based on therapy sessions and antidepressants. After four months, the group that read the CBT guide showed greater signs of improvement. CBT concentrates the patient on the present, rather than analysing and re-living memories and childhood traumas. The therapy helps to identify and modify thought disorders and irrational mental patterns.”
SpyWriter Jack King, the Author of:
The Black Vault http://amzn.to/Na7QRO
The Fifth Internationale http://amzn.to/snl4w1
“Arguably, literature and the humanities have a lot to say about the world of business and the world in general. Ask most business leaders what keeps them up at night, and the answer will rarely be issues of process, technology or numbers – although all of that is certainly complicated and challenging. Rather, what leaders struggle with usually comes down to the people stuff. And by that they mean the complex and often contradictory nature of human beings. …
Insights from literature and the humanities are particularly valuable when trying to understand behaviour that doesn’t seem to make sense in a classic economic analysis. Examples of people being confusing in the world of business abound, whether dealing with colleagues, partners or customers. …
As a way of approaching complex reflection, nothing beats the fragility, the openness, and the contradictory nature of the literary text.
A more sustainable business is surely a more human business. If we continue to ignore human complexity, and human motivations beyond profit, eventually people will turn their backs on commerce. It is already starting to happen.”