George Steiner and Nuccio Ordine are two great writers with profound humanistic training, united by the love of letters as by a noble friendship. Nuccio Ordine wrote George Steiner, the Uncomfortable Guest. Posthumous interview and other conversations (Acantilado, 2023). In this short text, he collects the interview he did with Steiner with the commission that it be published upon his death, which occurred in 2020. And so he did: a posthumous interview converted, at the same time, into a posthumous book by Ordine who died in June 2023 at age 65. Just this fact of “borrowed life” and that death comes at any time of the day has given me a lot to think about.
The book has a long introduction in which Ordine traces Steiner’s intellectual profile with the delicacy of the friend and the acuity of the professor, linking the statements of the interviewee and some of the emblematic works of his interlocutor. And so, Ordine qualifies Steiner as the uncomfortable guest in the areas in which he was welcomed. Knowledgeable about Western culture, he did not stop praising it while pointing out its negative tendencies. Jewish by birth, although not practicing, nor a believer. Defender of his Jewish roots, but not a Zionist, considering that Zionism does not result in the creation of an independent State. Critical of the Western drift that led to the extermination of the Jews and, equally, with a deep pacifist spirit, condemning all violence wherever it comes from. He criticized the profession of literary critics when they forgot his role as postmen: the good critic acts like the envelope that carries the letter and not the other way around.
Steiner was a passionate teacher. He points out that “preparing a lesson, reading a classic, writing an essay, dialoguing with students are different aspects of the same passion, of a single exultation, of a privilege that gives a strong meaning to the life of those who teach (p. 27). ). (…) Teaching seriously is putting your hands on what is most vital about a human being (p. 29).” To which Ordine adds: “reciting a few verses par cœur (or as it is also said in English, by heart) does not just mean learning by heart. It means above all “learning from the heart.” Here, too, Steiner’s words sound like a warning against the vacuous hedonistic pedagogies that, for many decades now, have demonized in schools and universities the right of learning poetry by heart (pp. 31 and 32).” That is, neither rationality nor written thought should do without memory and imagination. With these faculties, we recite verses and passages of texts to savor their content and music. Knowing is not reduced to having the ease of finding information on the Internet, knowing is also delving into the interior of memory to enrich one’s own discourse and vision of life.
Nuccio Ordine asks Steiner what friendship has meant in his life, to which he responds: “friendship has had enormous weight. And no one knows it better than you. I would have lived the last decades of my life very badly without you and without two or three other friends with whom I have maintained a very dense correspondence, privileged interlocutors with whom I have shared a deep emotional intimacy (…). Friendship, authentic friendship, is based on a mystery that Montaigne (trying to explain his relationship with Étienne de La Boétie) summarized in a beautiful phrase: Because it was him; because he was me (p. 76 and 77)”. Yes, human beings are social and dialogic, we require others to be, grow, receive and give. Friendship is an essential part of interpersonal relationships that expand the soul in a convergence of admiration, interests, affection.
The obligatory and crucial question comes: Do you think there is something after death? Steiner’s response is clear: “No… I am convinced that there is nothing. But the moment of the transit itself can be very interesting. The reaction of those who, after having always thought about nothingness, change their mind in the final stage of their life and imagine an otherworldly “world” seems childish to me (p. 78 and 79).” Steiner, on other occasions, referred to the “idea” of God. He defended the importance of the problem of God in thought. He spoke of grammar, of creation, of real presences. That’s as far as it got and it’s no small thing. But, certainly, I perceive in his writings the horizontality of his thought: there is depth, but there is no depth; there is acuity, but no transcendence; There is breadth, but there is no height. “After death there is nothing,” says Steiner. That is to say, there is only present, writing, four languages, genius, friends; time, without eternity.
Steiner, a master, a great man of letters. You can go there to learn about academic rigor, the importance of the humanities. To taste joy, live with hope and live as a child of God, however, we will have to turn to other teachers.
