Arendt 와 Scholem / 몽테뉴 / "Rebecca"

Daphne du Maurier, "Rebecca" (1938)

 

동네 도서관 라운지 'Classic" 코너에서 10년 넘게 자주 보는 --

아마 여기 고교생의 독서 목록에 드는 -- 책인데 늘 피하다가

이번에 읽었다. 재밌다. 얼마 전에 읽은 소설 Delia Owens 의

"Where the Crawdads Sing" (2018) 과  Ann Patchett 의

"The Dutch House" (2019) 가 생각난다.

 

"I should say that kindness, and sincerity, and if I may say so --

modesty -- are worth far more to a man, to a husband,

than all the wit and beauty in the world." (p. 135)

 

 

Sarah Bakewell, "How To Live, or A Life of Montaigne" (2010)

 

"Pope, Gregory XIII, seems to have been pleased with

events[the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre in 1572] in France.

Apart from the [commemorating] medal, he commissioned

Giorgio Vassri to paint celebratory frescos in the

Sala Regia of the Vatican." (p. 206)

 

"Most of her[Marie de Gournay] arguments were rational and

tightly constructed, but she seasoned them with plenty of

emotion.... [C]oncerning the allegation that he[Montaigne]

wrote in a disorganized manner: 'One cannot deal with great

affairs according to small intelligences ....'" (p. 299)

 

 

A. D. Skinner, 편집/번역, "Gershom Scholem: A Life

in letters, 1914-1982" (2002)

 

Gershom Scholem (1897-1982)은 유대 신비주의의 대학자다.

신비주의에는 전혀 관심이 없어서, 그가 Walter Benjamin, Theodor

Adorno, Hannah Arendt, Martin Buber 와 주고 받은 편지들이나

읽었다. Scholem 팬을 위해 이 책은 도서관에 기증했다.

 

"Benjamin, who was five years Scholem's senior, went on to become

the single most decisive influence on his life and thought." (p. 16)

 

Scholem 과 그가 열여덟 살 때 처음 만난 Benjamin 에 대해 읽으며

나는 Michel de Montaigne 와 그의 요절한 손위 친구

Étienne de La Boétie 를 떠올렸다.

 

"Scholem's two most important war time acquaintances were

Hannah Arendt and Theodor Adorno, both of whom were

also friends of Benjamin's." (p. 215)

 

"The most bitter and protracted conflict he[Scholem] had was with

Hannah Arendt. In 1944, with an essay on Kafka in Partisan Review,

Arendt embarked on a dazzling career of her own as one of

America's premier intellectuals.... The two friends broke over

Arendt's Eichmann in Jerusalem (1965)." (p. 352)

 

Arendt 의 Eichmann 에 대해 주고 받은 편지들을 읽은것만으로는,

지성에서 Hanna Aredndt 가 Gershom Scholem 보다 위라는

생각이 든다. 몇 구절만 인용한다 (p. 394-403).

 

Gershom Scholem:

 

"There is ... what the jews call ahavath Israel, or love for the

Jewish people. With you, my dear Hanna, as with so many

intellectuals coming from the German left, there is no trace of it."

 

"I am not in the least convinced by the notion of  the 'banality

of evil.' ... The banality seems rather more of a slogan than

the result of the ... analysis you presented ... in your book

on totalitarianism. Apparently, back then you had not

yet discovered that evil is banal."

 

"My point was that we should not make it easier for the Germans

to confront their past, as we in fact did with Eichmann's execution."

[Scholem 은 Eichmann 이 처형 대신 종신형으로 감형되기를 원했다.]

 

Hannah Arendt:

 

"Your letter contains a number of uncontroversial claims --

uncontroversial because they are quite simply wrong....

I do not belong to the 'intellectuals coming from the German left.'"

 

"How right you are that I have no such love, and for two

reasons: first, I have never in my life 'loved' some nations

or collective.... Second, this kind of love for the Jews would

seem suspect to me, since I am Jewish myself.... I don't

love the Jews, nor do I "believe"in them. I belong to

this people, in nature and in fact."

 

"In this entire affair I can confess to you one thing:

that injustice committed by my own people naturally

provokes me more than injustice done by others."

 

"It's unclear to me why you characterize the phrase 'banality

of evil' as a slogan....The fact is that today I think that evil in

every instance is only extreme, never radical: it has no depth,

and therefore has nothing demonic about it."

 

"Once again you've misunderstood the 'banality of evil.'

The point isn't to turn evil into something banal or harmless.

The opposite is true. Evil is a surface phenomenon, the decisive

issue being that completly average people, neither good nor

evil by nature, were able to bring about such immense ruin."

 

"I consider it a fairlytale that the death of Eichmann could

'make it easier for the Germans to confront their past.' Even if

it weren't a fairly tale, it wouldn't be a valid argument....

All political considerations, regardless of which side they

relate to, could only be pernicious here. A trial does not

set out to make history; it pronounces justice."