“When a war breaks out people say, ‘It’s too stupid; it can’t last long.’ But though a war may well be ‘too stupid’, that doesn’t prevent its lasting. Stupidity has a knack of getting its way; as we should see if we were not always so much wrapped in ourselves” (Albert Camus, The Plague).

After reading about “Plagues” in literature, I had planned to have a couple of sessions devoted to “Rebirths”, with readings from Giovanni Papini and André Breton, but the sudden invasion of Ukraine and the news about the first deaths there made me feel uncomfortable reading about rebirths of any kind. Therefore, I decided to focus on Wars in the next meetings (10, 17, and 24 March 2022). I wanted to share readings that could help us reflect upon the stupidity of war; or understand why some like it; or explain why for some others it becomes inevitable.

This time the format of the meetings was open, with no pre-set readings. I asked people to share anti-war poems, extracts from war novels, or pieces that do not deal with war at all but came to their minds when they heard about the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Christina, Eleanor, Jann, Katarzyna, Marco, Philip, Timur, Yichun, and Yilin sent their reading suggestions. We were not able to read everything together, but what we read stimulated some interesting discussions. Among the most complex issues were: What can literature do to the world, to a war? And how does participation to human suffering take place and actually work?

I did not write a blog post for each of the readings this time; some of those who made the suggestions kindly agreed to write on them. I published them as soon as they were sent to me.

The next theme after Wars was “Music”.