/lit/ - Literature

His sister is overlooked as a writer, but indeed, Kitzo is up there with the best.

Is this a troll or something? I searched for his name, and no results...

>>1210574
Only good work of his is Quietude and Diffidence. That was awesome, but his other works were meh. I don't understand you.

Seriously, how'd you guys find him? I wanted to ask the question too but I thought he was too unknown to be cared about.

>>1210603
My professor loaned me his copy of 'Reverse Japonisme: The Beast Eats Back' in my sophomore year. Hugely influential on me and it's pretty much a giant name-drop for Hekotormos for 80 pages.

Got one of his novels off a used book store. Cheap, pretty dusty, but I was intrigued.

Then I came ... goddamn, this guy was great.

Obvious trollolol

Quietude and Diffidence is somewhat like Silence of Endo Shusaku's, but it has less religious focus and more of a historical focus. What is the limit of honor?

>>1210614

What really blows my mind about Kitzo is that he wrote Quiet and Diffidence while locked away in a Transylvanian prison, yet it has so much historical insight and depth.

He must have an encyclopedic mind.

who is this guy?

anyone got a picture?

Faulkner > one-hit wonder

Aye, I have to agree that Kitzo is awesome. I am not much for poems but those two blew me away, simply superb.

I assume we're all talking about this because of the new translation that Yale press just released right?

Discovering the work of Kitzo Hekotormos was easily the most important aesthetic-intellectual-political event of my life, with the possible exception of getting my first fingerbox at the age of 13.

>>1210641
obvious troll is obvious

>>1210655
Yeah I hate Bloom too.

>>1210641

Harold Bloom doesn't do the forward justice, but who would?

Harold Bloom likes Mr. Hekotormos?

>>1210662

Bloom just displays all his usual prejudices and kneejerk "canonical" concerns in that essay.

There's a really mind-blowing essay by Derrida about Hekatormos from the mid-70s, I can post if anyone's interested....

HEKATORMOS: THE DIFFIDENCE OF QUIETUDE AND THE QUIETUDE OF DIFFIDENCE, by Jacques Derrida

(translated G.C. Spivak, 1977)

“Class is part of the meaninglessness of language,” says Bataille; however, according to Hekatormos, it is not so much class that is part of the meaninglessness of language, but rather the defining characteristic, and therefore the meaninglessness, of class. Many narratives concerning cultural discourse exist. But the subject is interpolated into a textual postmaterialist theory that includes culture as a whole.

The main theme of the works of Hekatormos is a self-fulfilling totality. If dialectic discourse holds, we have to choose between textual postmaterialist theory and prematerialist nationalism. In a sense, Hekatormos uses the term ‘diffidence’ to denote the common ground between society and class.

In Quietude and Diffidence, Hekatormos reiterates--by means of a quasi-Nietzschean "eternal recurrence"---cultural discourse itself; in later work, however, he deconstructs textual subdialectic theory. But the characteristic theme of Lyotard’s model of textual postmaterialist theory is here revealed as a mythopoetical whole.

>>1210676
>When the fertile garden of post-colonial thought is finally tended we will see it was the roots of Hekotormos' writing the thrived the most vibrantly and vivaciously.

From the foreward. But you know Bloom, I bet he didn't even read it. It sounds kind of made up to me.

any truth to the rumor that Zizek will be writing a treatise on Hekotormos instead of Hegel?

>>1210692

I was slightly persuaded by Bloom's claim that "for Hekatormos, the very notion of his justifiably famous if idiosyncratic conception of 'diffidence' seems akin to the Gnostic trope of the Shevirat ha-Kelim, or 'the breaking of the vessels'. Indeed the very notion of the text itself seems to be conceived as the demiurgical qelippot or 'husks' which must be destroyed for meaning itself to be liberated."

Does anyone have a .pdf or ebook of his poetry collection 'The Modal Model in Momentary Man?' Been looking for ages. Don't care if it's translated or not.

>It sounds kind of made up to me.

Im surprised /lit/ is just discovering this amazing author...about time

PREFACE TO "THE MODAL MODEL IN MOMENTARY MAN"

by Homi K. Bhabha


“Society is dead,” says Hekatormos. Several desituationisms concerning the genre, and thus the fatal flaw, of cultural culture may be discovered. In a sense, in Hekatormos' "Model Model", it is western obscurity itself that is discussed; earlier, in "Quietude and Diffidence", although, he analyses postsemantic discourse avant la lettre.

If one examines the subdialectic paradigm of consensus, one is faced with a choice: either accept Hekatormos' lucid defense of obscurity in the service of truth, or else conclude that consciousness serves to entrench hierarchy, but only if Hekatormos' own analysis of the subdialectic paradigm of consensus (as least it is it outlined in the definition of the "Modal Model") is valid. The characteristic theme of Hekatormos' own model of obscurity is the common ground between society and class. Therefore, cultural theory holds that the establishment is capable of truth.

In the works of Hekatormos, a predominant concept is the distinction between without and within. The main theme of the works of Hekatormos is, in some very important sense, the futility, and some would say the dialectic, of precultural reality. Thus, if Lacanist obscurity holds, we have to choose between the subdialectic paradigm of consensus and patriarchial theory.

Hekatormos uses the term ‘modal narrative’ to denote the futility, and some would say the stasis, of premodern society. It could be said that Hekatormos promotes the use of cultural theory to attack sexism, classism, neo-Hegelianism of all stripes, and indeed the very nature---whether factitious or fictitious, it is all the same to Hekatormos---of reality itself.

The premise of Hekatormos' cultural critique holds that the goal of the reader is significant form. But an abundance of desemanticisms concerning the role of the participant as poet may be revealed....

>>1210738

wow, enlightening!

I've always found Hekotormos' work really pretentious, 'made-for-ignorant-masses' -kind of literature.

>>1210775

since when do ignorant ppl read Heko?

>>1210783
Seriously. This is the first time I've ever seen the Hekster brought up outside of an ivory tower scenario.

Hekotormo is a bit too hipster for my taste

>>12105171

derp

>implying that if hes not on google he doesn't exist

I have the Norwegian version of his second poem in the translation of Ika Kaminka. I know it's kind of icky, but since many of you haven't read anything by him, I'm going to translate the translation into English again and upload it for you so you can get a taste of him, and see if he is for you. Kitzo Hekotormos is by no means a writer for anyone.

For those of you who are puzzled of hearing nearly nothing of him before, he just had an article in The Times dedicated to him, written by the foreword writer of the translation of "Quietude and Diffidence", Harold Bloom. Many bloggers have discussed how his swift popularity only could have happened after the rise of the Internet. I agree. Kitzo Hekotormos appeals to many people, but few in demographically closed areas. But through the Internet us who actually identify and who find his prose and poems resonating with us, we can now easily unite on the Internet, through the urging Harold Bloom gave us, and help him have the voice he deserves.

Gives me a couple of minutes to write his poem onto my computer!

>>1211389
Come on. He doesn't fucking exist.

Hmmmm two google results. One from a shitty blog created on the 16th of October 2010 and the other being this thread right here.

Nice try

perhaps the only thread on /lit/ to warrant proper use of the word 'pretentious'

>>1211412
The Norwegian version is pretty shit, though. Torstein Høverstad translates shit like Harry Potter for fucks sake, who's bright idea was it to put him on Hekotormos?

this topic is DROWNING in it.

>>1211425
Certainly not.
Damn near every one of them does.

>>1211425


>perhaps the only thread on /lit/ to warrant proper use of the word 'pretentious'

u mad?

>>1211430

>Torstein Høverstad translates shit like Harry Potter for fucks sake, who's bright idea was it to put him on Hekotormos?

It's all politics man. Just because Høverstad peddles to liberal-feminist ideologies Yale thought it would be a "fair" idea to let him handle Hekotormos. In my opinion they should've gotten someone like Dorfenmacher.

my eyes are melting because of this thread

reminds me of the time I saw that catcher in the rye shirt wearing guy in the library, I think that's OP

seriously guys cut this shit out. Can we go back to discussing his Quietude and Diffidence instead of just jizzing over how great he is?

Specifically the metaphorical "dream matrix" where Azumo attains his historical insights into human nature...

>>1211464
What? Ika Kaminka did Hekotormos. You know the chick that does Haruki Murakami when Kari and Kjell Risvik don't? She's okay.

In any case, I hereby present you with a bad retranslation of Kitzo Hekotormos's:

>>1211490

> NETHERTHELESS IS MY EYES A BLOSSOM

touching her eyelashes like tomorrow is of no end
Her eyes like blossoming beads of sweat
we made love on a meadow's hend
nevermore to forget.

Her name was Wild,
and my name was Tempered:
unkempt she wasn't;
her taste's mild.

oh sweet sir of the aut'umn;
slender man of fuck:
if only you did not;
let her fall in front of that truck.

weep.

for summer is passt'd.

(ITS NOT SOMETHING I WOULD TELL ANYONE. BUT I STILL OCCASIONALLY THINK OF YOU. YOUR BROWN TENDER EYES. AND YOUR LIPS. SIMPLY ADORABLE IS WHAT YOU IS. I CANT HELP BUT THINK THERE WAS SOMETHING BETWEEN US THAT DAY ON THE SUBMARINE. IT MIGHT HAVE JUST HAVE BEEN ME; BUT THE WAY YOU WERE STEALING GLANCES: I THINK NOT. YOUR SMILE. OH. DID I MENTION YOUR SMILE? A MILLION SUNS AND STARS MY HEART BROKE LIKE MY SISTER WISHED. I WAS NOT ABLE TO ANSWER. I JUST LOOKED DOWN. AND SAID NO WORDS. I DON'T KNOW ABOUT YOU. BUT I HAD A PAST. AND I HAD RESPONSIBILITIES.)

she was not only my love, no;
she was also the other side of my coin.
my twin sister, and the things I miss of her:

>>1211493

1.the way her neck smells
2.the sensation of wholeness when my rivers flows through her soil
3.the moans i receive; my fist, press'd, down her back
4.the smell of her sex
5.the atmosphere in the kitchen during breakfast oh how i loved you;

And that was how I ended up telling my love, who's name was Nicole: "I cannot do this, as I have lost love," and she began to say better to have loved and lost to never have lost, and I thought of my sister, and I wished she was here to share this women's folly avec me.

SHATTERED GLASS---

Epileptic seizures of fantastic love.

God is, mayhaps dead.

But so is Truth.

And so is Modern Civilization.

ETERNAL IS MY LOVERLORNESS AND SOLITUDE; my diffidence is near.

I sigh. I sigh. and Yet again. I sigh.

>>1211481
Perfect duality. The battlefield he looks down on is discussed as a kind of chessboard, but Azumo transcends this cliche by interpolating his own actualized self as a mirror to reveal this "chessboard" as a kind of cell his own experience is.

I seriously don't know of any other 19th century authors who dealt with meta-fiction- particularly the authorial presence in literature- the way he did.

Every body on the field a war, a epochal generation of man. Economy of symbols, streamlined.

THE MODAL MODEL IN MOMENTARY MAN (An Ode)

by Kitzo Hekatormos
translated by Richard Howard

Where, like a pillow on a bed
I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude
Where through the Golden Coast, and groves of orange and citron
And one clear call for me
My genial spirits fail
The desire of the moth for the star
When first the College Rolls receive his name.

Too happy, happy tree
Here, where men sit and hear each other groan.
Forget this rotten world, and unto thee
Go, for they call you, Shepherd, from the hill
And the eye travels down to Oxford's towers.

Calm was the day, and through the trembling air
Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair
And she also to use newfangleness…
Why cannot the Ear be closed to its own destruction?
Last noon beheld them full of lusty life,
Unaffected by "the march of events",
Never until the mankind making
From harmony, from heavenly harmony
O death, O cover you over with roses and early lilies!
With loaded arms I come, pouring for you
Sunset and evening star
Where roses and white lilies grow.

At that far height, the cold thin atmosphere
Pressed her cold finger closer to her lips
Where the dead feet walked in.
She dwells with Beauty—Beauty that must die,
Or the car rattling o'er the stony street.

>>1211497
>>1211493

Beautiful.

Going to publish a Wikipedia page, but I need the sources. Anyone care to put that article Harold Bloom wrote in the times up online or something?

I just googled, amazoned, and City Lights'ed this guy. Nothing. Either this is the most pretentious shit ever or this is some /lit/ trollin.

I demand proof of his existence.

>>1211538

>he thinks good writers can be found on the internet

>>1211509

I think Harold Bloom refers to Hekatormos in his "Afterword" to "The Salt Companion to Harold Bloom". You can cite that on WIkipedia via the Google Books page....page 487, which unfortunately is not available thru Google Books preview, but the relevant quote from Bloom is:

"I am aware that I have been called a Moldy Fig for my tireless championing of such writers as Cormac McCarthy, Thomas Pynchon, and Kitzo Hekatormos. But I am an experiential critic first and foremost, and if these writers seem to me most authentically to express the spirit of the age, so be it. Let the tedious ressentiments of those avid epigones of Cynthia Ozick and Matthew Arnold cavil all they like..."

Sorry, forgot the citation that you can use for Harold Bloom in the wikipedia article: here it is....

http://books.google.com/books?id=a6Q_1zxop5EC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Salt+Companion+to+Harol
d+Bloom&source=bl&ots=rZxWiTEi_U&sig=8XY8uirZVKTogXRqeNms88cSPv8&hl=en&ei=30S6TP
7cK4Gdlgen9rScDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CCUQ6AEwAw#v=onepag
e&q=moldy%20fig&f=false

>>1211540

>Green text isn't proof dumbshit.

>>1210738
>>1210735

Did you use a post modernism generator for this and then put in this "author's" name whenever it cited someone else?

>>1210641
Wasn't on Yale University Press' site.

>>1211577

Shame on you for suggesting that! That is authentic critical prose by the authentic Professor Homi K Bhabha, of authentic Harvard University!

My God. Who is this woman?

>>1211592

I think the Hekster is a dude.

Or did you mean Homi K Bhabha? He's also a dude.

>>1211593
The woman in the picture, nigger.

That's Jennifer Love Hewitt, you jackass.

Who supposedly used to read the poems of Hekatormos in bed with John Mayer. He's into some seriously kinky shit, as you might have heard.

>>1211598
I may have heard; save I distance myself from pop culture.

>>1211596

OP's pic is jennifer love-hewitt, but try to stay on topic sir.

>>1211605


JLH is a huge Heko fan

Liking Kitzo Hekotormos is one of the few things that is truly and honestly hipster.

>>1211623

nah bro, I saw this big jock guy reading one of his books at the gym, during his breaks in between sets...

nothing hipster about him, Hekotormos is just universal like that

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitzo_Hekotormos

>>1211681

Whoever wrote that article is not very proficient in the English language.

>>1211681


good job anon, finally he gets some recognition

>>1211681


now it's only a matter of time before he wins the Nobel and gets taught in schools

>>1211696
fix it.

the person who wrote it is very tired @_@

>Japanese-French authour with a generic Greek penname who died in Norway.

He got around a lot.

If this catches on it will be the best thing /lit/ has ever done.

>>1210574

I asked my English Prof if she's familiar with Kitzo Hekotormos, and she said "only vaguely"

I was disappoint.

Better than Brothers Karamazov and Count of Monte Cristo put together. Srsly.

>>1211826

actually a very close comparison

the only downside of Heko is that his books tend to be 2000page monstrosities

The thing with Quietude and Diffidence is that it's hard to peg it into a proper story, really, because Hekotormos focuses on the characters more than he does on the story. The story is essentially simplistic - it's how the characters evolve through the novel, like how Azumo deals with his bigotries towards societal evolution that makes it just great.

Sorry I'll stick to Dumas, Hekotormos sounds like hipster trash, pseudo-intellectual stuff

>esperanto
nordamerikano is that you?

Kitzo Hekotormos is the real life Benno Von Achimboldi

>>1210574

the lolipop in OP's pic has a visage of a man who looks suspiciously like Hekotormos.

coincidence?

>>1211826

>picture of Wordsworth

Seriously? This is the best you can do?

>>1211924
Pictures of Kitzo Hekotormos are very hard to come by. It was either that or Jennifer Love-Hewitt.

Congrats /lit/, you're entering David Bowie levels of awesome.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/75207.stm

>>1211977

>implying something I don't even want to ponder

Kitzobump.

Pic related

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitzo_Hekotormos

I wrote a bit this morning, but I feel kind of funny today, so not much. Would be cool if someone could contribute some more.

Heketormos, the greatest writer of the 19th century, must not be forgotten!

Would anyone be interested in helping me write "Quietude and Diffidence" over and into a PDF and make it available on the Internet? I think that could be an important step in making him as known as he deserves to be.

The more we are, the faster it will go. Hit me up on regardlessofpeach@hotmail.com if you're interested.

>It is proposed that this article be deleted because of the following concern:

>4chan /lit/ hoax article, vandalism
Well, fuck.

>>1213118
Fixed.

hahahaha! You bastards! hahaha!

Manuel Secosa, the Spanish magic realist, once said about Hekotormos: "His work translates through not only language, but also non-language. Whether this amounts to anything substantial is not of concern."

I remember reading Secosa's analysis of Hekotormos at uni, he tried to tie Bloom's notion of canon with contemporary Japanese literature. not sure if he was that successful though... imo I never really got Hekotormos, his prose tended to be a confused mix of Japanese poetry and self-indulgent Joyce/O'Flaggion word-masturbation

meh. I don't get all the Hekotormos love. It's reads like Kundera meets Evangelion. Post-structuralism just doesn't work in a Japanese context.

Great, or greatest writer of the 19th century?

>>1213328

He used to wipe my great, great grandma's arse after she went senile. It's rumoured he felt her up and stole her mints. True story.

>>1213309

I thought he was Greek.

If he's a Jap, I ain't even interested.

Me am not smart person so me am confused by this thread! What is happening here? Big words make my brain hurt so that must be why it have big ol' hurt now!

>>1213351

French-japanese. He died in Paris. He wasn't at all influential. I think the reason everyone's gushing about him here is just to troll others into claiming to have read him. I wouldn't bother going out of the way to read him, pretty uninspiring in my opinion.

A pox on your house, 86.28.109.244!

wow even the guys on wikipedia don't know about Kitzo...

he really is overlooked, oh well. Seems like only good used bookstores know about him.

>>1213395
it's just a hoax. look at the date of the article--it was first written a hour ago. /lit/ has slumped to a new low