Callback from the nyrb

Quotes Simon Leys:

Their spiritual prestige remained virtually unchallenged till our time: it took the irreverent wit of Lu Xun—the most mordant iconoclast in modern Chinese letters—to point out that

since a genuine hermit is someone who disappears from the view of historians, the hundreds about whom we know so much must have been rather less than sincere; being a hermit is a way of making a living like any other, and hence requires the hermit to hang up a sign advertising for himself.

Thereby reminding me of this post from, actually, not that long ago, though the period when I was inclined to think about The Unknown Masterpiece long predates that (the book turns out not at all to be what I had been expecting).  Had I already read The Fall when writing the linked post, I would surely have made some reference or allusion to it and the narrator's strategy of first condemning himself in order to be in a position to judge; however, since I have only recently read it, I did not. (“I have left philosophy—thus proving myself the best philosopher.”)

Comments

[abc]

in a secret place
basking in the sun...
a hermit chrysanthemum
(Issa)