r&g
md5: 2d982f621bd8756a9877c4ae2cd73780
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And by that I mean men who aren't heroes or warriors, men who aren't the focus of history. Minor characters, basically, but explored in a better way. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, something like that. I have in mind what T. S. Eliot says in Prufrock:
>No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
>Am an attendant lord, one that will do
>To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
>Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
>Deferential, glad to be of use,
>Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
>Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
>At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
>Almost, at times, the Fool.
12859500
md5: 6950462669ff01e4f9254401bfb47b53
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>The truth is that the heroism of your childhood entertainments was not true valor. It was theatre. The grand gesture, the moment of choice, the mortal danger, the external foe, the climactic battle whose outcome resolves all–all designed to appear heroic, to excite and gratify an audience. Gentlemen, welcome to the world of reality–there is no audience. No one to applaud, to admire. No one to see you. Do you understand? Here is the truth–actual heroism receives no ovation, entertains no one. No one queues up to see it. No one is interested.
>True heroism is minutes, hours, weeks, year upon year of the quiet, precise, judicious exercise of probity and care — with no one there to see or cheer. This is the world.
>>24507516 (OP)George Mills.
>>24507521That is not what TPK is about, just a quote from TPK.
>>24507516 (OP)Nobber by Oisin Fagan is terrific. It's a whole bunch of separate narratives that slowly come together, set in the Irish countryside during the Black Death, where no character is singularly important. A lot of the characters grapple with their sense of insignificance with respect to their families, communities, and the world, especially in light of the apocalypse of the plague.
Props to the guy who posted about it here a while ago alongside Brat and Young Skins. Took his rec for it.
Why not go even further beyond? Why not a character who is not only not a hero in the World's narrative, but is not one even in his own?
as far as that goes horatio is a probable reader of erasmus
>>24507521DFW had such a joke of a brain. Good riddance. I couldn't stop cringing while reading his 9/11 essay.
>>24507527 the joke is that neither Bloom nor Stephen are really secondary
