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Saturday, December 10, 2005
Roger Shattuck 1923 - 2005 Man of letters, lover of beauty. Founder, Association of Literary Scholars and Critics. "Ubu has only his appetites, which he displays like virtues. When we try to injure him with our laughter (“satanic” laughter, Baudelaire would call it), we discover that his behavior is so abject that we cannot reach him. He does not have traits of either a great hero or a great villain; he never deliberates. Can we really laugh at Ubu, at his character? It is doubtful, for he lacks the necessary vulnerability, the vestiges of original sin. Not without dread, we mock, rather, his childish innocence and primitive soul and cannot harm him. He remains a threat because he can destroy at will, and the political horrors of the twentieth century make the lesson disturbingly real." |