Compression: Bernardo Bolt Gregori
“Literature is all about compression. Each story, each poem, each novel, as much as they circle around a cluster of personages a list of contents of a specific and tight plot they encompass life in plenitude as it regards the author’s DNA and perpetual metamorphosis. From a six-worder to “Magic Mountain” or “Don Quixote;” from a haiku to “Commedia—The Divine Comedy” or “The Lusiadas” there’s a whole macrocosm and civilization within each opus. Any literary chapter or complete works given, which might be regarded as minutely descriptive, is bred from a magical, for lack of a better word, stance of the artist and brought up by essence and essentials.”
“Compression does not translate amount of time or facts described—whether it is a snapshot, a minute, a glimpse, a slice on a character’s life or an extensive and exhaustive saga. What has been under a continuous process, thus since forever, is life itself and the infinite number of dynamic phenomena proper to existence—mineral, vegetable, animal and the still unknown. And with such comes the environment and landscape of expression.”
“If a text, a canvas, a sculpture, a song does not contain this cell of wholeness, that is, if it is not compressed, it is not literature. And I’m not interested in exploring the merit of importance since I see it as thoroughly subjective. My intent is to communicate what I understand as the qualities of this matter. Qualities meaning the intrinsic characteristics, not the appraised values.”
— Bernardo Bolt Gregori
