“Untrue as a keynote speaker,” August Strindberg once said maliciously about his fellow writer Björnson, and you’ll now think: “What a clumsy start to a keynote speech.” And you’re actually quite right. But where can I find this sentence? I find it in a celebratory speech, namely Thomas Mann’s on Goethe’s 200th birthday. Then, one thinks, there is something to be said for such an important speaker not sparing himself or us such a word in celebration of an even more important other. Are the speakers lying? You understand the suspicion quite well and find it somewhat plausible. “But we don’t want to make it true again,” says Thomas Mann, “but we also want to strive for the “light of truth” on the festival day.
Moses Mendelssohn Medal for Rachel Salamander – Culture
