Hi Henrik, I have been living in Dresden for 2 years and I never knew about this piece or about Shostakovich. Thanks for writing this. I only discovered your newsletter a couple of days ago and I am so glad I did :)
What an incredible piece - from the striking photographs (which made my son gape) to the detailed insights. I have just been reading pieces by Vaclav Havel and Benda, discussing life of resistance, and you have provided an additional perspective. Will certainly take the time to listen to the quartet in a very renewed light!
> When I hear Shostakovich repeat his name again and again, what I hear is: “I, Dmitri Shostakovich, deserve to exist, in the face of this inhuman terror, in spite my cowardice, I deserve to exist.”
something in this reminds me of Borges's "The Form of the Sword".
The sentence you quote do fairly consciously play with a type of sentence you'd find in Spanish writers of the 1500s, such as Bernal Diaz and Bartolome de las Casas - and playing with that type of syntax is very Borges, now that you point it out. I adore Borges, and much of the South American literature it spawned.
I have written a lot of plenty of fiction, but none that I am proud of.
Thank you Henrik, for conveying presentness of history through your collection of images and choice of words.
Your new series is beautifully touching, exactly as intended. Please keep on existing, no doubt about whether you deserve to do so. 🤗
Hi Henrik, I have been living in Dresden for 2 years and I never knew about this piece or about Shostakovich. Thanks for writing this. I only discovered your newsletter a couple of days ago and I am so glad I did :)
Remarkable work. Thank you.
What an incredible piece - from the striking photographs (which made my son gape) to the detailed insights. I have just been reading pieces by Vaclav Havel and Benda, discussing life of resistance, and you have provided an additional perspective. Will certainly take the time to listen to the quartet in a very renewed light!
Thank you :) What did you read by Havel?
I am just working through "Living in Truth".
> When I hear Shostakovich repeat his name again and again, what I hear is: “I, Dmitri Shostakovich, deserve to exist, in the face of this inhuman terror, in spite my cowardice, I deserve to exist.”
something in this reminds me of Borges's "The Form of the Sword".
do you ever write fiction?
The sentence you quote do fairly consciously play with a type of sentence you'd find in Spanish writers of the 1500s, such as Bernal Diaz and Bartolome de las Casas - and playing with that type of syntax is very Borges, now that you point it out. I adore Borges, and much of the South American literature it spawned.
I have written a lot of plenty of fiction, but none that I am proud of.