Sunday 21 February 2016

editrice

It is really a grave challenge to try to eulogise great authors and thinkers, more acute than other forms of celebrity or political gravitas, as it’s almost as if not enough could be said that's not their canon-entire and what went unsaid, we'll of course never have that privilege and no one's—even those closest to great minds, like Oliver Sacks that passed away not too long ago or Harper Lee whose death only happened on the cusp of the day prior—qualified to speak on their behalf, that is until there's a tacit but agreed-upon mourning-period that's almost akin to copyright expiry after which it’s again seemly to ply footnotes.
Maybe because there’s too much to say about cultural influences, that we shy away from saying anything altogether, and it’s no time to parade out some obscure facts because either one knew his or her work or did not. Among many other heartfelt retrospectives for one of my favourite philosophers was BLDGBlog’s (ever a go-to resource) encomium (not an obituary) of Professor Umberto Eco. I’ve read many of Eco’s fiction publications and especially what Mister Manaugh commented about the general disdainful reception of Eco’s Foucault’s Pendulum about the need for deeper conspiracy that will revise, manifest and assert itself despite a notable connection to reality, really resonated with me (I was an angsty teenager when I read it and without the benefit of mass-media cabals and ought to revisit it). In academics, Eco taught semiotics—which is the study of imparting meaning to things, but which no one can really say what it is, especially after the professor quipped that every phenomenon ought to be dissected as form of communication. I guess if no one understands it (though I think we all intuit it) one is perfectly right and free to invent one’s calling and occupation independently.