Surname: DRACODAIDISFirst Name: PHILIP
Categories : Novel / Translation
Date of Birth: 1940
Place of Birth: Halkida, Greece
Foreign Languages: French, English, Spanish
E-mail Address: philipd@ath.forthnet.gr
Web Site Address: http://www.philipdracodaidis.gr
Works:
The Greek prose writer, essayist and translator Philip D. Dracodaidis' first book was published in 1962. Thinking that he has completed his literary work, he rejected most of his books and decided to rewrite those that he considered worth remaining on the market. As from 1995, the following titles have been published: Comments on the Case, Santa-Maura, Towards Ofrynio, The Statue, Ôhe Message, The Facade. These books constitute one literary work entitled Hexametron.
Philip D. Dracodaidis has written three essays: The Century called February, where he presents the fundamental characteristics of the “short 20th century” (so short as the month of February), terror being by far the most important development of that period; The Tale of Literature, where he explains that “literature” as perceived since the Renaissance period up to our days has closed its life cycle; Memory and Memory, where he makes the comparison between the historical memory and the computer “memory”.
Philip D. Dracodaidis translated for the first time in Greek Francois Rabelais, Michel de Montaigne, Baltazar Gracian, Fernando Pessoa, Juan Rulfo
Hexametron
1. Comments on the Case (1996)
2. Santa-Maura (1997)
3. Towards Ofrynio (1998)
4. The Statue (1999)
5. The Message (2001)
6. The Facade (2002)
Essays
1. The Century called February (1996)
2. The Tale of Literature (1997)
3. Memory and Memory(2000)
READ EXCERPTS FROM THE AUTHOR'S WORK:
Comments on the Case
By now it’s an old story: my father, belonging to the Resistance movement and being an active member of the Greek Communist Party, has been shot by the German Army in April 1994. I was less than four years old. The Greek Civil War that started in 1945 and ended in 1949 by the debacle of the so-called Democratic Army supported by the Soviet Union, created a new political and social environment in Greece that didn’t allow me to speak about my father. Many years later I have been able to collect information about his life and his death thanks to discussions I had with people that had known him. The Civil War had destroyed all written documents that could have helped me in this search.
I had no intention to write about a man whose figure remains uncertain in my mind. His case is not exceptional; so many others have offered their life believing that the world could improve and human beings could live happy and in peace. However, it became clear to me that such a case is linked to a generation that opted for sacrifice: such a case is part of our past. I took the decision to speak about this past being sure that sacrifice shows to us the love of life and that whenever everything seems lost, at this particular moment everything can be won. My comments on my father’s case intend to underline this belief.
The Century called February
E. J. Hobsbawm introduced the concept of “the short 20th century”, proving that the 20th century starts in 1914 (beginning of the 1st World War) ending in 1989 (when the Berlin wall falls down).After Mr. Hobsbawm, historians presented the 20th century as a “dark Europe”(Mark Mazower) qualifying the inter-war period (1918-1939) as a “dark Valley” (Piers Brendon). Can we summarize these views? Is there a particular point that characterizes the whole 20th century as short as the month of February in our calendar?
Terror seems to be the prevailing attitude. Starting in the battlefields of La Marne, la Saone, les Ardennes, terror increases quantity and quality-wise thanks to Staline and Hitler. However, the most important terror escalation has been the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombing, a move decided by President Harry Trumann. This escalation has been tested during the Cold War. It proved to be a paying back investment.
Today, terror is the most important threat to be faced. Is there an exit?
The Tale of Literature
Literature has been through three distinct phases in Western Europe (and to some extent in all parts of the world). The first phase starting in the Renaissance period puts the author under the protection of a king or a religious leader or an aristocrat. The author writes for his master and has little contact with the public at large. After the French Revolution, the author has a social role to play: he writes for those that have no voice and need to be «enlightened». It is then that l’ homme de letters becomes an «intelectual» and builds his literary work on theories and literary schools. It is then that books guide the society. The last phase is at the beginning of the 20th century, when writers like Proust, Kafka, Kavafis, Musil and on top of them Joyce (writing Finnegan’s wake) exhaust the literary forms, schools and avant-gardes. After these writers, as we enter the consumer era, authors are exposed to the consumer market. They do not write for social reasons, but they do it in order to reach the largest possible number of book buyers, not necessarily book readers. This does not mean that literature will not be present in the consumer society; it will be a «writing process» leading to a consumer product. Looking back. the tale of Literature has come to its end. Jacques Barzun in his splendid work From Dawn to Decadence underlines that the European Culture (in fact the culture of our globalized world) is in serious decline.
Memory and Memory
The memory of men, the memory of public life, the memory that selects deeds and events on which the historical continuity of all societies is based has been the work of Herodotus and Thucydides. For more than 25 centuries (from the 5th B.C. century up to our 20th century) societies in all countries survived for longer or shorter periods exploiting their past through their common memories.
Computers have their own «memory» that stores information and data that remain available for long periods, are subject to selection for specific reasons which are not available to the public and where the public has not full access. Computers create a different logical approach, privatize the knowledge they offer and accumulate facts that need to be processed, putting the individual in front of personal choices which are not necessarily social choices. We live certainly in a new world.
It is probably too early to see the details of this new world. That is the reason why this essay is short. I hope to be able to expand it in the future.
E-mail Address: philipd@ath.forthnet.gr
Web Site Address: http://www.philipdracodaidis.gr
Works:
The Greek prose writer, essayist and translator Philip D. Dracodaidis' first book was published in 1962. Thinking that he has completed his literary work, he rejected most of his books and decided to rewrite those that he considered worth remaining on the market. As from 1995, the following titles have been published: Comments on the Case, Santa-Maura, Towards Ofrynio, The Statue, Ôhe Message, The Facade. These books constitute one literary work entitled Hexametron.
Philip D. Dracodaidis has written three essays: The Century called February, where he presents the fundamental characteristics of the “short 20th century” (so short as the month of February), terror being by far the most important development of that period; The Tale of Literature, where he explains that “literature” as perceived since the Renaissance period up to our days has closed its life cycle; Memory and Memory, where he makes the comparison between the historical memory and the computer “memory”.
Philip D. Dracodaidis translated for the first time in Greek Francois Rabelais, Michel de Montaigne, Baltazar Gracian, Fernando Pessoa, Juan Rulfo
Hexametron
1. Comments on the Case (1996)
2. Santa-Maura (1997)
3. Towards Ofrynio (1998)
4. The Statue (1999)
5. The Message (2001)
6. The Facade (2002)
Essays
1. The Century called February (1996)
2. The Tale of Literature (1997)
3. Memory and Memory(2000)
READ EXCERPTS FROM THE AUTHOR'S WORK:
Comments on the Case
By now it’s an old story: my father, belonging to the Resistance movement and being an active member of the Greek Communist Party, has been shot by the German Army in April 1994. I was less than four years old. The Greek Civil War that started in 1945 and ended in 1949 by the debacle of the so-called Democratic Army supported by the Soviet Union, created a new political and social environment in Greece that didn’t allow me to speak about my father. Many years later I have been able to collect information about his life and his death thanks to discussions I had with people that had known him. The Civil War had destroyed all written documents that could have helped me in this search.
I had no intention to write about a man whose figure remains uncertain in my mind. His case is not exceptional; so many others have offered their life believing that the world could improve and human beings could live happy and in peace. However, it became clear to me that such a case is linked to a generation that opted for sacrifice: such a case is part of our past. I took the decision to speak about this past being sure that sacrifice shows to us the love of life and that whenever everything seems lost, at this particular moment everything can be won. My comments on my father’s case intend to underline this belief.
The Century called February
E. J. Hobsbawm introduced the concept of “the short 20th century”, proving that the 20th century starts in 1914 (beginning of the 1st World War) ending in 1989 (when the Berlin wall falls down).After Mr. Hobsbawm, historians presented the 20th century as a “dark Europe”(Mark Mazower) qualifying the inter-war period (1918-1939) as a “dark Valley” (Piers Brendon). Can we summarize these views? Is there a particular point that characterizes the whole 20th century as short as the month of February in our calendar?
Terror seems to be the prevailing attitude. Starting in the battlefields of La Marne, la Saone, les Ardennes, terror increases quantity and quality-wise thanks to Staline and Hitler. However, the most important terror escalation has been the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombing, a move decided by President Harry Trumann. This escalation has been tested during the Cold War. It proved to be a paying back investment.
Today, terror is the most important threat to be faced. Is there an exit?
The Tale of Literature
Literature has been through three distinct phases in Western Europe (and to some extent in all parts of the world). The first phase starting in the Renaissance period puts the author under the protection of a king or a religious leader or an aristocrat. The author writes for his master and has little contact with the public at large. After the French Revolution, the author has a social role to play: he writes for those that have no voice and need to be «enlightened». It is then that l’ homme de letters becomes an «intelectual» and builds his literary work on theories and literary schools. It is then that books guide the society. The last phase is at the beginning of the 20th century, when writers like Proust, Kafka, Kavafis, Musil and on top of them Joyce (writing Finnegan’s wake) exhaust the literary forms, schools and avant-gardes. After these writers, as we enter the consumer era, authors are exposed to the consumer market. They do not write for social reasons, but they do it in order to reach the largest possible number of book buyers, not necessarily book readers. This does not mean that literature will not be present in the consumer society; it will be a «writing process» leading to a consumer product. Looking back. the tale of Literature has come to its end. Jacques Barzun in his splendid work From Dawn to Decadence underlines that the European Culture (in fact the culture of our globalized world) is in serious decline.
Memory and Memory
The memory of men, the memory of public life, the memory that selects deeds and events on which the historical continuity of all societies is based has been the work of Herodotus and Thucydides. For more than 25 centuries (from the 5th B.C. century up to our 20th century) societies in all countries survived for longer or shorter periods exploiting their past through their common memories.
Computers have their own «memory» that stores information and data that remain available for long periods, are subject to selection for specific reasons which are not available to the public and where the public has not full access. Computers create a different logical approach, privatize the knowledge they offer and accumulate facts that need to be processed, putting the individual in front of personal choices which are not necessarily social choices. We live certainly in a new world.
It is probably too early to see the details of this new world. That is the reason why this essay is short. I hope to be able to expand it in the future.