A novel is a mirror carried along a high road.
A novel is a mirror that strolls along a highway.
A novel is a mirror which passes over a highway.
A novel is a mirror walking along a main road.
A novel: it’s a mirror you take for a walk down the road.
(different translations of Stendhal’s famous quote from The Red and the Black)
kolobok
My friend and a former classmate Kim Bouvy told me this story recently. I was rolling ‘snowballs’ from sawdust and wood glue for an art school assignment – definition of identity. When asked to explain my idea behind it, I said: ‘That’s the Russian way – you roll on and things stick’.
To me now it sounds like a rather fatalistic (very Russian indeed) life philosophy. My hopeful genetic instinct tells me that good things stick and bad experiences you learn from.
I don’t remember those sawdust balls, it was 17 years ago.
As much as I like Stendhal, I believe that objective storytelling is a contradictio in terminis.
Kolobok is a cocky dough ball from a Russian fairytale that tries but fails to escape his fate of being eaten.
I told my mother what I was writing; she said that Kolobok was happy the whole time he was rolling.
KG 2006 c-print