{"id":1226,"date":"2004-06-22T17:29:05","date_gmt":"2004-06-22T21:29:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=1226"},"modified":"2015-05-14T10:19:18","modified_gmt":"2015-05-14T14:19:18","slug":"odets-on-dostoevsky-and-balance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=1226","title":{"rendered":"Odets on Dostoevsky"},"content":{"rendered":"

Entry from Journal<\/i><\/p>\n

March 29, 1940<\/i><\/p>\n

The man of genius walks, talks, sleeps, eats, loves, and works with a load of dynamite in him. If he carries this load carefully — balance — its power for good work and use is enormous — it can landscape a whole mountainside. Abuse — out of balance — is suicide and a bitter grave.<\/p>\n

It is in this sense that the artist, if he makes a proper amalgam, is beyond good and evil, for everything in him is for creation and life.<\/p>\n

For example, let us say that Dostoevsky had impulses of rape in his heart…. See how a great artist held this part of himself within his recognition and acceptance of what he was. Its creative uses were enormous. It gave him work, tone, feeling, anguish, a wealth of feeling. Finally, it was just such “weaknesses” which gave Dostoevsky’s novels their religious ecstatic fervor.<\/p>\n

In other words … inner contradictions are not solved by throwing out half of the personality, but by keeping both sides tearing and pulling, often torturing the self, until an AMALGAM ON A HIGH LEVEL OF LIFE AND EXPERIENCE IS ACHIEVED! For the artist there is not “bad”. He must throw out nothing, exclude nothing, but always hold in balance. When he has made this balance he has made and found his form.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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