tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19110879279835978312024-01-16T07:19:38.831-05:00Caravana de recuerdosRichardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01746599416342846897noreply@blogger.comBlogger834125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1911087927983597831.post-73686834612659630572023-05-01T01:52:00.000-04:002023-05-01T01:52:10.648-04:00April Book Haul<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwO06qNUNcGXMYfBnw0SBifWQo3Adkh3GPK8XWf37igCDwNkspu_qKQWzjYJyobwX0dsvPIHYM4D2K4dqOxT-3sdFK9EEpoK1xW-SJGMsN0id8V75W00045TsVPqtq9FbVhaWXITEvWezqBMJi_b_lZoamhCVOOZKk-2NqDudTTtF2euhkCtAwthvTXA/s2485/IMG_5269.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2485" data-original-width="2444" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwO06qNUNcGXMYfBnw0SBifWQo3Adkh3GPK8XWf37igCDwNkspu_qKQWzjYJyobwX0dsvPIHYM4D2K4dqOxT-3sdFK9EEpoK1xW-SJGMsN0id8V75W00045TsVPqtq9FbVhaWXITEvWezqBMJi_b_lZoamhCVOOZKk-2NqDudTTtF2euhkCtAwthvTXA/s320/IMG_5269.jpg" width="315" /></a></div><br /><p></p>Richardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01746599416342846897noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1911087927983597831.post-18831538459828253952023-04-29T21:29:00.004-04:002023-05-01T02:08:38.822-04:00Warlock<p></p><div style="text-align: center;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoR8qkcMOWqOV7kvMKfWpSepLdnn9S3uGgm2xNhFmrIWgdwZTp2XTbBiUN0AY6MowRGstGlr4yPMnLufif6R6kj5yamNE28A3cifu9qgi8TNjM48ghtdOCDdBKm0JVNmZyc5i8HjhLjMM_TVOOomKhwJQXkUMsIYT7UpoZsEIMeF3RMty7ImIgWR3DQA/s410/The%20Western.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="410" data-original-width="260" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoR8qkcMOWqOV7kvMKfWpSepLdnn9S3uGgm2xNhFmrIWgdwZTp2XTbBiUN0AY6MowRGstGlr4yPMnLufif6R6kj5yamNE28A3cifu9qgi8TNjM48ghtdOCDdBKm0JVNmZyc5i8HjhLjMM_TVOOomKhwJQXkUMsIYT7UpoZsEIMeF3RMty7ImIgWR3DQA/s320/The%20Western.jpg" width="203" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Warlock </i>(<a href="http://www.loa.org">The Library of America</a>, 2020)</div><div style="text-align: left;">by Oakley Hall</div><div style="text-align: left;">USA, 1958</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">"Is not the history of the world no more than a record of violence and death cut in stone?"</div><div style="text-align: center;">(<i>Warlock</i>, 1067)</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">A McCarthy era novel about frontier justice in the early 1880s American southwest (the town of Warlock seeming to be an only thinly disguised approximation of Tombstone, AZ) that interrogates America's long infatuation with vigilantism and bloodlust, our penchant for building up and tearing down heroes, and the tension between lawlessness and state overreach in the name of putting down "disorder." Sort of a strange batch of concerns for a tome which in other respects can be enjoyed as a juicy, compulsively readable page-turner, but I guess Hall (1920-2008) knew what he was doing when he set out to write about the shit that'd hit the fan once renowned gunslinger Clay Blaisedell was installed as acting Marshal by a Citizens' Committee to bring peace to the growing but government-less town plagued by badmen, road agents and "Cowboys who have an especial craving to ride a horse into a saloon" (569) among other scourges. Sometimes hailed as a proto-<i>Cormac McCarthy era</i> "revisionist western," a comparison that does justice to both authors even if the term "revisionist western" strikes me as inherently dodgy when applied to fiction rather than history, I get what people mean by that even though <i>Warlock</i>'s charms seem more rooted in traditional storytelling (plot over language, for example) than the later novelist's. Still, Blaisedell's successes, as measured by the # of dead bodies of men who mostly deserved what they got but accompanied by the loss of life of others who were merely in the wrong place at the wrong time, eventually frustrates much of the fickle townsfolk to the point that even a nominal supporter, the shopkeeper Henry Holmes Goodpasture, is moved to lament in his journal that "The earth is an ugly place, senseless, brutal, cruel, and ruthlessly bent only upon the destruction of men's souls. The God of the Old Testament rules a world not worth His trouble, and He is more violent, more jealous, more terrible with the years. We are only those poor, bare, forked animals Lear saw upon his dismal heath, in pursuit of death, pursued by death" (839). A McCarthyesque sentiment, no? As is this pronouncement from the exasperated, drunken Judge Holloway: "People don't matter a damn. Men are like corn growing. The sun burns them up and the rain washes them out and the winter freezes them, and the cavalry tramps them down, but somehow they keep growing. And none of it matters a damn so long as the whisky holds out" (1011). A fine, fine read.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5-UsxlBDGzpW0tc-HeT7QywxG8sEFNZa7DvyQrvAKir5ftas-ANYX5IjrFEsuFliGq84HKApGaU2Ba3UmWnA9Taa3YQhYTGHMQYt9WhSYn_zvFmYqAIUj2QQ7onNRkYGSWf4bSPrNYwDaSk07jlqei7ZvBEBrkWQjsbQ0jZTl2cwJGf4ZIrcbkXyIDQ/s1024/Oakley%20Hall%20and%20wife.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="799" data-original-width="1024" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5-UsxlBDGzpW0tc-HeT7QywxG8sEFNZa7DvyQrvAKir5ftas-ANYX5IjrFEsuFliGq84HKApGaU2Ba3UmWnA9Taa3YQhYTGHMQYt9WhSYn_zvFmYqAIUj2QQ7onNRkYGSWf4bSPrNYwDaSk07jlqei7ZvBEBrkWQjsbQ0jZTl2cwJGf4ZIrcbkXyIDQ/s320/Oakley%20Hall%20and%20wife.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: red;">Oakley Hall and his wife Barbara in 1985</span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: red;">(photographer unknown)</span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">*</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">I read <i>Warlock</i> in the LOA anthology <i>The Western: Four Classic Novels of the 1940s and 50s </i>(New York: The Library of America, 2020, 581-1079).</div>Richardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01746599416342846897noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1911087927983597831.post-14669754824306214602023-04-09T16:56:00.006-04:002023-04-09T23:21:43.222-04:00The Golem<p></p><div style="text-align: center;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPd03-wn0eeuDjKMqhqs8RZ4zv8VfvR7ZTrYTIhv50JOp5rmIy0GWmwGPvM23cW3eDXNx_QU1I8lxxZoDP0kZnzS0wgDKV11-WVOq7uo7O1G5pmVYpT88RQ7e3FRlKH2nRd563Rc7kQ5EAqfglhxRHPIETsz6NpX__wSYtXVHocXfPYgOvvbVVCIZcsA/s1000/The%20Golem.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="625" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPd03-wn0eeuDjKMqhqs8RZ4zv8VfvR7ZTrYTIhv50JOp5rmIy0GWmwGPvM23cW3eDXNx_QU1I8lxxZoDP0kZnzS0wgDKV11-WVOq7uo7O1G5pmVYpT88RQ7e3FRlKH2nRd563Rc7kQ5EAqfglhxRHPIETsz6NpX__wSYtXVHocXfPYgOvvbVVCIZcsA/s320/The%20Golem.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>The Golem </i>[<i>Der Golem</i>] (<a href="http://www.dedalusbooks.com">Dedalus</a>, 2020)</div><div style="text-align: left;">by Gustav Meyrink [translated from the German by Mike Mitchell]</div><div style="text-align: left;">Austria-Hungary, 1915</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Borges called <i>The Golem </i>"admirablemente visual" ["admirably visual"] in style and "un libro único" ["a unique book"]. Karl Kraus famously lampooned Meyrink's body of work as combining "Buddhism with a dislike for the infantry." Closer to home, Amateur Reader (Tom) has said that Meyrink was <a href="http://wutheringexpectations.blogspot.com/2013/05/lures-of-shiny-silvery-tin-shaped-like.html">"semi-obscure, semi-difficult, obviously not a first-rate writer but easily worth a look or two or three." </a> What could I possibly add to the discussion after those three titans of book talk have weighed in? I'll give it a try by noting that <i>The Golem </i>is nominally the story of one Herr Athanasius Parnath, an amnesiac and/or just plain mad gemcutter living in and working out of Prague's old Jewish ghetto, and a man who may be the doppelgänger of both the frame story narrator of the novel as a whole and the murderous Golem himself (note: the antics move to the beat of their own dream logic here). While at times confusing and, what's worse, a horrorless, occultist horror novel in a way, the dated weirdness of the work makes it easy enough to embrace even today. I loved, for example, the expressionist descriptions of the people and the places in the ghetto as well as its sights and sounds. Parnath at one point claims to finally understand "the innermost nature of the mysterious creatures that live around me," suggesting that they "drift through life with no will of their own, animated by an invisible, magnetic current, just like the bridal bouquet floating past in the filthy water of the gutter." For a follow-up, he adds that "I felt as if the houses were staring down at me with malicious expressions full of nameless spite: the doors were black, gaping mouths in which the tongues had rotted away, throats which might at any moment give out a piercing cry, so piercing and full of hate that it would strike fear to the very roots of our soul" (45-46). Of course, the image of "a tinkling sound from the piano, as if a rat were running along the keys" (66) was also a nice audiovisual touch. In addition to the pre-<i>The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari</i>-like visual shenanigans, I was also tickled by Meyrink's pulp sensibilities both w/r/t the references to ghetto slang ("In their jargon [a 'Freemason'] was a name for a man who had sexual relations with schoolgirls but whose connections with the police render him immune to the legal consequences" [47]) and the random, proto-Arltian descriptions ("He was stretched on the rack of the deathly hush in the tavern") and dialogue ("You can recognise scum by their sentimentality") (76 & 205) as well as the Baudelaire- and Lautréamont-like encomium to a murderer and suicide which climaxes with the declaration that "the poisonous autumn crocus is a thousand times more beautiful and noble than the useful chive" (238). Hugo Steiner-Prag, an artist who knew the real-life Jewish quarter in Prague before it was demolished and did the illustrations for the first editions of Meyrink's <i>Golem</i>, was to have written a non-opium dream chronicle of the Ghetto but it was left unfinished at his death. What a bland and colorless pity.</div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBZCHmIgl7SfJtJe20M-PGGgJiRmTDYixgpvhwVIuLAmWxWf2MyE7xku8rx9HiIsQW-ifpblPi2Uz5DFnm5Ob73tZR8ZNx1dy7qu11xyRLB12EfrkRYddzBPo-8yUP99uT04NiYEo-MZz0LQpG2UcfTtUJ4BbCk6Y3NIZ2LZs7nKZAEPjv35JzXMlqGQ/s480/Gustav%20Meyrink.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="360" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBZCHmIgl7SfJtJe20M-PGGgJiRmTDYixgpvhwVIuLAmWxWf2MyE7xku8rx9HiIsQW-ifpblPi2Uz5DFnm5Ob73tZR8ZNx1dy7qu11xyRLB12EfrkRYddzBPo-8yUP99uT04NiYEo-MZz0LQpG2UcfTtUJ4BbCk6Y3NIZ2LZs7nKZAEPjv35JzXMlqGQ/s320/Gustav%20Meyrink.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: red;">Gustav Meyrink (1868-1932)</span></b></div>Richardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01746599416342846897noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1911087927983597831.post-62389507076907714202023-04-03T00:59:00.001-04:002023-04-03T01:12:42.518-04:00Mapocho<p></p><div style="text-align: center;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTOyXRwy0HcqvoK0QJWxrBEM5BcCz1p7hMR24cUZmR9OCTgn-oshmfynBuEbS4SjGrPGqxbT6kibV7AugbKI7PHk_hKmAHeHdRdGLdc96nWdE1DLyU2_zy-zawuyngLNXolYsrLcTnO01epP52f0z1Wi3ZgeeySUyS-GuNjhB06jrjBTsMs6_0XlQSWw/s350/Mapocho.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="350" data-original-width="221" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTOyXRwy0HcqvoK0QJWxrBEM5BcCz1p7hMR24cUZmR9OCTgn-oshmfynBuEbS4SjGrPGqxbT6kibV7AugbKI7PHk_hKmAHeHdRdGLdc96nWdE1DLyU2_zy-zawuyngLNXolYsrLcTnO01epP52f0z1Wi3ZgeeySUyS-GuNjhB06jrjBTsMs6_0XlQSWw/s320/Mapocho.jpg" width="202" /></a></div><p></p><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Mapocho </i>(<a href="http://www.eternacadencia.com">Eterna Cadencia Editora</a>, 2019)</div><div style="text-align: left;">por Nona Fernández Silanes</div><div style="text-align: left;">Chile, 2002</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">La Rucia y el Indio son hermanos que, después de haber vivido en el extranjero por muchos años, regresan a Chile después de la muerte de la madre. Al llegar a Santiago, la Rucia deambula por la ciudad en busca de su hermano --el plan: reunirse para tirar las cenizas de la madre en el río Mapocho, "su río" y "su ciudad" según el Indio (16) pero un "conjunto de mojones y basura" según otro tipo (41)-- y se queda en la casa de su infancia ahora casi en ruinas en un barrio ahora casi irreconocible también. Fausto, un historiador que entre sorbos de whisky afirma que "los muertos viven" y que "él puede verlos" y que uno "puede tocarlos, hablarles y hasta consolarlos si se le acercan a llorar" (107), se encuentra con la Rucia al entierro de sus propios hijos al cementerio, donde las vidas de las dos se cruzan y un panorama de la historia chilena empieza a aclararse en un mundo fantasmal parecido a lo de <i>Pedro Páramo</i> de Rulfo. Qué estupenda novela esta. Supondría, por ejemplo, que es un reto de un alto grado de dificultad escribir algo realista en el que personajes muertos hablan de "morir y no saberlo" (130) o se quejan a la Virgen que "los vivos y los muertos se nos están mezclando y tú sabes que eso no es bueno. Caminan por las mismas calles, rezan en las mismas iglesias, algunos hasta conversan entre ellos sin respetar los límites divinos. Ya nadie entiende nada aquí abajo, es una verdadera casa de putas" (200). Yo también me imagino que no pudo haber sido fácil lidiar con las falsedades y las mentiras particular a la historia oficial de Chile en una breve obra de ficción, pero Fernández (Santiago de Chile, 1971), que en el epílogo de 2018 describe la génesis de <i>Mapocho </i>como una foto de tres cadáveres encontrados "tirados en la orilla del río" en septiembre de 1973 (231), tiene éxito más allá de todas las expectativas con la ferocidad y la rabia de su prosa --"La mentira tiene alas y vuela como un buitre, ronda sobre la carroña y se alimenta de los que no saben, los que no ven o no quieren ver" (171); "La mentira respira, huele, chilla, vive como un ratón del Mapocho alimentándose de la mierda, contaminando, expandiendo la enfermedad, pudriéndolo todo, creando más mentira, mintiendo sobre mintiendo, enredando, confundiendo, cahuineando" (172). Inquietante al enésimo grado pero un golazo estilísticamente y temáticamente hablando.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGlAVr6fVx9X8pXSlV96dxUoZ-IJp-XI1fPsvpa7TqoPh1eYmj9hIM72dez-CbxEb7-J1btuxHSXPlRy5ZLctCwU66k8Ij8Jv173KL2Rkj4dCzsPlAR1Drs-3AUZgwF_gXVE2xaVJpxpy358uC3ePCoe2_JelN_XbDSmvAIUkUn1T1ezjTV8-QxptMoA/s500/Nona%20Fern%C3%A1ndez%20Silanes.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="500" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGlAVr6fVx9X8pXSlV96dxUoZ-IJp-XI1fPsvpa7TqoPh1eYmj9hIM72dez-CbxEb7-J1btuxHSXPlRy5ZLctCwU66k8Ij8Jv173KL2Rkj4dCzsPlAR1Drs-3AUZgwF_gXVE2xaVJpxpy358uC3ePCoe2_JelN_XbDSmvAIUkUn1T1ezjTV8-QxptMoA/s320/Nona%20Fern%C3%A1ndez%20Silanes.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: red;">Nona Fernández Silanes</span></b></div>Richardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01746599416342846897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1911087927983597831.post-70669434954984300062023-04-01T18:49:00.001-04:002023-04-01T18:50:49.709-04:00Gli italiani<p></p><div style="text-align: center;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqLt4AnmHqo-dYoPMGje0Z_deCVjG2wNZQ3037fPICNlxisPXPgfm0Z37xF6XD5ZnkKCBXByRfYyNLaC-VtmU68y94YmcS-jVpxUnW_jkOELVgbGcPmRZtqnMURU_W5NnL3f5dSrm3j4lQIRGpeagQq_j3zXn2BYxuzZQx46Okfv6cQTp_kqjKcNDsSw/s2695/IMG_5140.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2076" data-original-width="2695" height="247" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqLt4AnmHqo-dYoPMGje0Z_deCVjG2wNZQ3037fPICNlxisPXPgfm0Z37xF6XD5ZnkKCBXByRfYyNLaC-VtmU68y94YmcS-jVpxUnW_jkOELVgbGcPmRZtqnMURU_W5NnL3f5dSrm3j4lQIRGpeagQq_j3zXn2BYxuzZQx46Okfv6cQTp_kqjKcNDsSw/s320/IMG_5140.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p>Richardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01746599416342846897noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1911087927983597831.post-23662340328139390352023-03-26T17:57:00.010-04:002023-03-27T00:22:50.016-04:00Vita Nuova<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ7Mzzmc-kdURg8qiisgFg9rN-Z4v7FnmSxumwByup8J7YrvcL4Lkbelb5K24eLazeWK-geCvoaw1Xx8SFbMaIYpdMhmFdIUDlr5gHS1iYVwvYim3nG0g6BXsjHTMlY1YWGwEEbNmze7wS2usEtJCppyQ3psiftkn8WoFqB4C0Ay3fQvSzJ_32uTpddw/s499/Vita%20Nuova.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="327" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ7Mzzmc-kdURg8qiisgFg9rN-Z4v7FnmSxumwByup8J7YrvcL4Lkbelb5K24eLazeWK-geCvoaw1Xx8SFbMaIYpdMhmFdIUDlr5gHS1iYVwvYim3nG0g6BXsjHTMlY1YWGwEEbNmze7wS2usEtJCppyQ3psiftkn8WoFqB4C0Ay3fQvSzJ_32uTpddw/s320/Vita%20Nuova.jpg" width="210" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Vita Nuova </i>(<a href="http://www.penguinclassics.com">Penguin Classics</a>, 2022)</div><div style="text-align: left;">by Dante Alighieri [translated from the Italian by Virginia Jewiss in a dual language edition with parallel text]</div><div style="text-align: left;">Florence, c. 1292-1295</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Enigmatic but somehow super interesting <i>libello</i> of poems and prose commentary ("somehow" because the <i>prosimetrum</i> format invites readers--at least readers in translation--to focus on the internal architecture of the work, its narrative arc, the would be autobiography contained within it, its author's poetic coming of age story, essentially everything but Dante's poetry in deference to his prose). I'll certainly have my work cut out for me if I ever read it again! For now, though, I think it'll be enough to mention a handful of things that stood out to me. As Virginia Jewiss conveniently points out in her introduction, "The essential, unsettling claim of the <i>Vita Nuova </i>is this: Beatrice, a real woman from Florence, is also a miracle, a disruptive, divine force who intervenes in [Dante's] life, causing him to think, to write, and to love in new ways. And, miracle that she is, she continues to do so after she dies, disrupting even the finality of death" (viii). The potential sacrilege of this conceit aside, the way Dante chooses to approach it in the context of traditional love poetry is jarring in the extreme. In Chapter 3, for example, he shares a vision in which a "lordly figure" persuades the dream version of Beatrice, described as "naked save for a loosely wrapped crimson cloth," to eat Dante's "burning" heart before ascending to heaven with her. Even accepting the lordly figure as the personification of Love and allowing leeway for the poet to operate freely in the symbolic realm, the impact of the imagery still seems almost <i>Book of Revelation</i> visionary to me--not at all what was expected. As odd as the combination of religious and love poetry here can be at times, though, the <i>Vita Nuova </i>also provides ample evidence that Dante knew how to up the ante. In Chapter 7, he explains that he wrote a sonnet in which his intent was to "call on Love's faithful with the words of the prophet Jeremiah, '<i>O vos omnes qui transitis per viam, attendite e videte si est dolor sicut dolor meus</i>,' and to beg them to listen to me." The allusion, which Jewiss attributes to <i>Lamentations </i>1:12 and translates as "All you who pass along the way, stay here a while, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow" (21), is a fine example of Dante's intertextual dexterity insofar as the translation of the verse into his sonnet ("You who journey on the path of Love,/stay here a while and see/if there be any grief as great as mine" ["O voi che per la via d'Amor passate,/attendete e guardate/s'egli è dolore alcun, quanto 'l mio, grave"]) foreshadows the lovesick poet's illness-inspired dream in Chapter 23 where presentiments of Beatrice's death find "strange and horrible faces" telling Dante that "you are dead" while "birds in flight fell dead from the sky, and the earth quaked" as an apocalyptic preliminary to the canzone that follows. When Beatrice later does die within the timeline of the work as recounted in Chapter 28, Dante claims that a <i>Lamentations </i>1:1 allusion he had just written into his canzone ("<i>Quomodo sedet sola civitas plena populo! facti est quasi vidua domina gentium</i>" [Jewiss: "How lonely sits the city that was full of people! How like a widow has she become!"]) was interrupted by the announcement of her death. He then expresses his grief in first prose and then poetry equally powerfully: "Once she had departed from this world, the entire city was like a widow, stripped of all her dignity" ["Poi che fue partita da questo secolo, rimase tutta la sopradetta cittade quasi vedova dispogliata da ogni dignitade"] (Chapter 30); "These eyes, which weep in pity for my heart/have shed so many mournful, plaintive tears/they ache with sorrow but can cry no more" ["Li occhi dolenti per pietà del core/hanno di lagrimar sofferta pena,/sí che per vinti son rimasi omai"] (Chapter 31). The poet's emotions, almost palpable to a reader even several hundred years after they were set down in writing, require no gloss but form a strange kind of coda to the famous earlier Chapter 25 in which Dante verses on the differences between the Latin poets and the vernacular poets and how the recent rise of vernacular poetry in Provençal and Italian, "the languages of <i>oc </i>and of <i>sì,</i>" was due in Italy at least to the fact that "the first to begin writing poetry in the vernacular was moved by the desire to make his words understood by a woman who found Latin verses hard to understand." Wild.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0pyoSDYXCcf9dHE4gKqxEpSlc0_MaZO_BmSz_eTOGF18qTt_e57-h1f5jSziQ-FNYlXxbCQCUM64St1vPnpqwOC3XDEPOnk0-bChD-9se0AY-rlu6otSEuljf_6QUPBPHv2u_L_jI8_GiXYFW8omQYsghHQrTVdcSK8B46Met-F0O6puq11QZF4bWAg/s600/Dante%20and%20Beatrice.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="324" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0pyoSDYXCcf9dHE4gKqxEpSlc0_MaZO_BmSz_eTOGF18qTt_e57-h1f5jSziQ-FNYlXxbCQCUM64St1vPnpqwOC3XDEPOnk0-bChD-9se0AY-rlu6otSEuljf_6QUPBPHv2u_L_jI8_GiXYFW8omQYsghHQrTVdcSK8B46Met-F0O6puq11QZF4bWAg/s320/Dante%20and%20Beatrice.jpeg" width="173" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><b><span style="color: red;">La visione: Dante e Beatrice</span></b></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: red;">(Ary Scheffer, 1845)</span></b></div><p></p>Richardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01746599416342846897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1911087927983597831.post-46765152607636266492023-03-19T23:56:00.015-04:002023-03-20T00:32:50.653-04:00Los sorrentinos<p></p><div style="text-align: center;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmpYYNCIM-7Seco_L0vatpKnIFCUyLV2vJ0sfdNoC9g5nFoMS01UUPwzjdwrqPCTVQzseztcaj6mqxrjgl-WZtvqzVDQSKWsUowLY469HT9jF9QYkBmv8y2ttu5e2KNa7IpekxixNZq0qaL2c-rfiivQgmXpBeRV_2aNCDRtz0BHafX4kubxe1r7bUlw/s500/Los%20sorrentinos.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="318" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmpYYNCIM-7Seco_L0vatpKnIFCUyLV2vJ0sfdNoC9g5nFoMS01UUPwzjdwrqPCTVQzseztcaj6mqxrjgl-WZtvqzVDQSKWsUowLY469HT9jF9QYkBmv8y2ttu5e2KNa7IpekxixNZq0qaL2c-rfiivQgmXpBeRV_2aNCDRtz0BHafX4kubxe1r7bUlw/s320/Los%20sorrentinos.jpg" width="204" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Los sorrentinos </i>(<a href="http://www.sigilo.com.ar">Sigilo</a>, 2022)</div><div style="text-align: left;">por Virginia Higa</div><div style="text-align: left;">Argentina, 2018</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>"El Chiche Vespolini era el menor de cinco hermanos, dos varones y dos mujeres. Su verdadero nombre era Argentino, pero le decían así porque de chico era tan lindo y simpático que se había convertido en 'el chiche de sus hermanas'. Los Vespolini se habían instalado en Mar del Plata a principios de 1900 y siempre habían tenido hoteles y restaurantes. De su familia el Chiche había heredado la Trattoria Napolitana: el primer restaurante en el mundo en servir sorrentinos".</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Así empieza <i>Los sorrentinos</i>, de Virginia Higa (Bahía Blanca, 1983), una novela divertida basada en un retrato de familia convertido en ficción al estilo de Natalia Ginzburg o algo así (tengo entendido que el Chiche era el tío bisabuelo de nuestra autora). Si no está claro dónde se encuentra la línea entre la realidad y la ficción dentro de la novela, me da igual porque me gustó la filosofía culinaria del Chiche (dos máximas suyas: "Cada pasta tiene su personalidad" y "La cocina del sur de Italia es la unión perfecta entre lo alto y lo popular" [12 y 52]) tanto como el excéntrico elenco de personajes (por ejemplo, el primo Ernesto, de <i>ragazzo </i>casi adoptado por un tal Máximo Gorki durante una visita a Italia, solía lamentar "Yo podría haber sido un bolchevique" durante las sobremesas familiares [35]) además del sentido de humor de varias personas vinculadas con o la familia o la trattoria ("Las cocineras y las camareras decían que Valdemar era buen mozo, 'un churrasco'. Carmela no estaba de acuerdo: 'Para churrasco le sobra un poco de grasa'" [124-125]). Por su parte, Higa demuestra un toque ligero alternando entre lo anecdótico y el lado nostálgico de las cosas. También me interesó el léxico familiar de los Vespolini ("Entre ellos hablaban en lengua napolitana" [32]) y la manera en que el asunto de la "italianidad" de todos estos marplatenses podría expresarse en insultos ("¡Catrosha, no digas papocchias!" [74]) o preguntas sencillas ("¿Te acordás de cuando éramos imperio? ¡Qué grande era el emperador Augusto!" [19]) con igual facilidad. Genial.</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdiYe4w135Lmj9PsdB2VXBL6QECwWc6xTQwOf_ZUAOI6SquqcMmp4Szbxz27SfI7tlo_berrOo4kzHZ_Rw9qEw_FAch9rjOILgdA5Dvn5wpeH44D9-WttP19uHlGUyTBHe_wPvUpSGDZC8Gv1JgZZ1cSD_2whmgcVgexBR9ChIv6BjAg6iKBb2JB-1Xw/s960/Virginia%20Higa%20(Bernardino%20Avila).jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="960" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdiYe4w135Lmj9PsdB2VXBL6QECwWc6xTQwOf_ZUAOI6SquqcMmp4Szbxz27SfI7tlo_berrOo4kzHZ_Rw9qEw_FAch9rjOILgdA5Dvn5wpeH44D9-WttP19uHlGUyTBHe_wPvUpSGDZC8Gv1JgZZ1cSD_2whmgcVgexBR9ChIv6BjAg6iKBb2JB-1Xw/s320/Virginia%20Higa%20(Bernardino%20Avila).jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: red;">Virginia Higa</span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: red;">(foto: Bernardino Avila)</span></b></div>Richardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01746599416342846897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1911087927983597831.post-22437181096365351812023-03-13T00:26:00.018-04:002023-03-14T05:03:46.482-04:00Melmoth the Wanderer<p></p><div style="text-align: center;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW5RHQHmsUhfpgW2OUZWzkijK-aATkSn_pGIY6ZJKpNhYjsWucJJwL-99YGGA1tHNhcNAVyNvkIv-7tgGvINaoZW1WuVWx-6bNVWhknYx6mMQht0encWpOaW8nHFy0Ph4CRMZBdZ5UdsAdKrtLYrx3_aSRFtPZ9gYw4TOmNsLXOPyPdSJZ9eBOeA_-CQ/s500/Melmoth%20the%20Wanderer.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="329" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW5RHQHmsUhfpgW2OUZWzkijK-aATkSn_pGIY6ZJKpNhYjsWucJJwL-99YGGA1tHNhcNAVyNvkIv-7tgGvINaoZW1WuVWx-6bNVWhknYx6mMQht0encWpOaW8nHFy0Ph4CRMZBdZ5UdsAdKrtLYrx3_aSRFtPZ9gYw4TOmNsLXOPyPdSJZ9eBOeA_-CQ/s320/Melmoth%20the%20Wanderer.jpg" width="211" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Melmoth the Wanderer </i>(<a href="http://www.oup.com/worldsclassics">Oxford University Press</a>, 2008)</div><div style="text-align: left;">by Charles Maturin</div><div style="text-align: left;">Ireland, 1820</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Melmoth the Wanderer</i>, the sprawling 500-plus page Gothic classic that threatened to bore me into submission at times before its next level weirdness eventually won the day, was finally crossed off my TBR list late last week. What a fucked-up novel! A series of nested tales about the tempter-like title character who's made some sort of a pact with evil to add 150 years of life to his span of time on earth until/unless he can find another victim to buy out his contract--a supernatural Ponzi scheme of sorts--the novel is splayed out on an oversized canvas rife with colorful anticlericalism, settings which include Inquisition jail cells and ruined monasteries, a malevolent sense of humor, unwanted arranged marriages ("I will first be the bride of the grave" [374]), even an unexpected love story or two. I almost forgot to mention its mean streak. At its gentlest, the anticlericalism takes the form of one narrator's ribbing of an indolent priest for his yawning response to the apparent abduction of a bride to be in the bourgeois Spanish household he's assigned to. First Fra Jose asks for some wine "to slake the intolerable thirst caused by my anxiety for the welfare of your family." Then, in a follow-up worthy of Eça de Queirós, he adds: "It were not amiss, daughter...if a few slices of ham, or some poignant sausages, accompanied the wine--it might, as it were, abate the deleterious effects of that abominable liquor, which I never drink but on emergencies like these" (506). Poignant sausages, a delicious archaism! For another splash of anticlericalism which leads to a quaff of a more potent sort of humor, one need only revisit the chapter where a man condemned by the Inquisition shrieks in horror--what he refers to as "the only <i>human </i>sound ever heard within the walls of the Inquisition" (239)--only to be saved by a fire that breaks out where he's being held shortly afterward. The spiritual punchline, such as it is, comes with the comment that all the appeals to the saints to help prevent the catastrophe went unheeded: "Their exclamations were so loud and earnest, that really the saints must have been deaf, or must have felt a particular predilection for a conflagration, not to attend to them" (241). Another interesting example of the work's malevolent sense of humor is that even nature seems to be troubled by the presence of the Wanderer. At a key moment late in the novel while Melmoth is finishing off one character in the dead of night, the text tells us that "the wave groaned [and] the dark hill groaned in answer, like murderers exchanging their stilled and midnight whispers over their work of blood--and all was silent" (391). Of course, the novel's mean streak, seemingly so ahead of its time, is really something else. It often comes in the person of the title character whose "superhuman misanthropy" (303) makes him a spiritual ancestor of the shapeshifting villain in Lautréamont's 1868-69 <i><a href="https://caravanaderecuerdos.blogspot.com/2010/02/maldoror.html">Maldoror</a></i>. "Beauty was a flower he looked on only to scorn," we are told, "and touched only to wither" (360). Attempting to woo the innocent Immalee, for example, Melmoth makes an extended comparison between the music of the spheres and the suffering that awaits millions of humans in his fevered imagination. "Dream of the music of those living orbs turning on their axis of fire for ever and ever," Melmoth exults, "and ever singing as they shine, like your brethren the Christians, who had the honour to illuminate Nero's garden in Rome on a rejoicing night." Immalee, ill at ease with the allusion to ancient Christians as human torches: "You make me tremble!" Melmoth, undeterred: "The eternal roar of a sea of fire makes a profound bass to the chorus of millions of singers in torture!" (351). At other times, the mean streak surfaces when Melmoth is only a lurking presence to the action. There's a story late in the novel in which a family becomes so down on its luck that it's reduced to famine. One child considers prostituting herself to help feed the family, another sells his blood to the point where he's on the verge of death. The novel's multiple narrators, keen on making comparisons between their descriptions and works of figurative art, seize the moment to explain how Everhard "lay, as Ines approached his bed, in a kind of corse-like beauty, to which the light of the moon gave an effect that would have rendered the figure worthy the pencil of a Murillo, a Rosa, or any of those painters, who, inspired by the genius of suffering, delight in representing the most exquisite of human forms in the extremity of human agony." This description, suffice it to say, isn't over the top enough for our sadistic narrator who proceeds to compare the now blue-lipped Everhard to "a St Bartholomew flayed, with his skin hanging about him in graceful drapery--a St Laurence, broiled on a gridiron, and exhibiting his finely-formed anatomy on its bars, while naked slaves are blowing the coals beneath it" to hammer home the point that "the snow-white limbs of Everhard were extended as if for the inspection of a sculptor, and moveless, as if they were indeed what they resembled, in hue and symmetry, those of a marble statue" (421-422). Maturin, you had me at "corse-like beauty"! Anyway, next level weirdness indeed but thank the deity figure that I finally made time for all these "<i>criminals of the imagination</i>" (250) as "the clock of eternity is about to strike" (540).</div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoW4oXAe_XRWkRDe4qNkAeHAfeLx4LdLuEG0u1r57YLuZgNUtdUp-iBvc75zd3uIR7OyoCcCI_p26smooFINcvzzFIKkSwnW0QzcL3ih8Fvi9HEwybL7v2klMWC_XG3FlRuJJO05PajtWhCnm20axmOuG2c3_pa6NNSLOC-Mdw1AHqro22pKBl2QCdog/s1600/Charles%20Maturin.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoW4oXAe_XRWkRDe4qNkAeHAfeLx4LdLuEG0u1r57YLuZgNUtdUp-iBvc75zd3uIR7OyoCcCI_p26smooFINcvzzFIKkSwnW0QzcL3ih8Fvi9HEwybL7v2klMWC_XG3FlRuJJO05PajtWhCnm20axmOuG2c3_pa6NNSLOC-Mdw1AHqro22pKBl2QCdog/s320/Charles%20Maturin.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: red;">Charles Maturin (1780-1824)</span></b></div>Richardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01746599416342846897noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1911087927983597831.post-43048010509200202822023-03-05T16:28:00.003-05:002023-03-06T18:39:37.117-05:00¿Coleccionista de libros o "hoarder"?<p></p><div style="text-align: center;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiBkvVJTRxbyPc9nuzPsl-x0pl9KFROKOy5JctJA1OCqaMrXeMYgXwF-kJq5Kac0xCTMeJM3MXGEgV9gBbXLdzM69MrMozAYg2_rRJOh1qRk6gKjw5-IYNcwHZIaUJrFPRZc39QXif-Zsb_78p7bGEnJVpKVVyxAV486LInmuUePwBYofbGtPOnVhfpg/s2971/IMG_4987.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2304" data-original-width="2971" height="248" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiBkvVJTRxbyPc9nuzPsl-x0pl9KFROKOy5JctJA1OCqaMrXeMYgXwF-kJq5Kac0xCTMeJM3MXGEgV9gBbXLdzM69MrMozAYg2_rRJOh1qRk6gKjw5-IYNcwHZIaUJrFPRZc39QXif-Zsb_78p7bGEnJVpKVVyxAV486LInmuUePwBYofbGtPOnVhfpg/s320/IMG_4987.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p>Richardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01746599416342846897noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1911087927983597831.post-2068608304298795962023-02-26T23:58:00.010-05:002023-03-01T12:22:06.142-05:00La sed<p></p><div style="text-align: center;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiL1F9OgbdU_BWraKa9EahgaKb6n_OwmF95XINqvztm-KQfeYh3hjgTMV9be8XtJjTYbSDjjpRmyvECTlmIEfm69OTNeAnE8E_9FyxUrAyMhTdFtpQ9AtVkF6_3uZmD7GOhcyKyBIeiXHi-bNLhlEN4sX80DLjemb6Q5UclrEDKNsCuIkhRP08JlWk_wA/s464/La%20sed.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="464" data-original-width="334" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiL1F9OgbdU_BWraKa9EahgaKb6n_OwmF95XINqvztm-KQfeYh3hjgTMV9be8XtJjTYbSDjjpRmyvECTlmIEfm69OTNeAnE8E_9FyxUrAyMhTdFtpQ9AtVkF6_3uZmD7GOhcyKyBIeiXHi-bNLhlEN4sX80DLjemb6Q5UclrEDKNsCuIkhRP08JlWk_wA/s320/La%20sed.jpg" width="230" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>La sed </i>(<a href="http://blatt-rios.com.ar">Blatt & Ríos</a>, 2020)</div><div style="text-align: left;">por Marina Yuszczuk</div><div style="text-align: left;">Argentina, 2020</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">La literatura vampiresca no es lo mío, pero me gustó este <i>page-turner</i> sangriento sobre una vampira suelta en la Buenos Aires decimonónica y otra mujer solitaria (¿un interés amoroso? ¿solo otra víctima?) en la actual capital cuyos caminos se encuentran en la segunda mitad de la novela. Basta decir que, entre algunas escenas saturadas con charcos de sangre y otras dedicadas al "vómito negro" y el "gran cementerio de putrefacción" que era Buenos Aires en el tiempo de la fiebre amarilla (64), Yuszczuk se aprovecha de su tema para desatar una serie de llamativas descripciones sobre la melancolía (en un momento, se nota "una tristeza infinita, como un lago" en los ojos de la criatura de la noche principal [255]), el paso del tiempo ("Quizás la perfección para ocultar la muerte sea la victoria más contundente de este siglo" [66]) y las tumbas y bóvedas del imperio de la muerte ("Este es el cementerio más antiguo de la ciudad, y el único que conserva para la muerte la elegancia de otra época. Un sueño de mármol hecho con dinero, el de las familias ricas. Solo los que podían comprar su derecho a la poesía de la muerte están acá; para los otros, las fosas comunes o las piedras desnudas que sellaron definitivamente su insignificancia sobre la tierra" [12]). Un libro copado, más estilo <i>La condesa sangriente </i>que el gótico en cuanto a su retrato de la violencia, pero quizás lo más memorable por una sensibilidad perfumada con una gravedad inesperada y desesperada.</div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH0B5xzHjiuwRSeHm_jO3j5qOGh7edXUyHfOI3G4I6BKF3rT7Xtv52QF3yzv00XDsoH8gUdHfqh5kqdytH2q0svIrTtbNo94-uaDyTMpHfjTpDLLAhV2tQnOWY4Xt1nCEA8kJDiuJywOOQZT2XtykiIq4qBuBTKEpHhDrDqrkBBrPUlwyYj5N8ZrOBOg/s1200/Marina%20Yuszczuk.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="675" data-original-width="1200" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH0B5xzHjiuwRSeHm_jO3j5qOGh7edXUyHfOI3G4I6BKF3rT7Xtv52QF3yzv00XDsoH8gUdHfqh5kqdytH2q0svIrTtbNo94-uaDyTMpHfjTpDLLAhV2tQnOWY4Xt1nCEA8kJDiuJywOOQZT2XtykiIq4qBuBTKEpHhDrDqrkBBrPUlwyYj5N8ZrOBOg/s320/Marina%20Yuszczuk.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: red;">Marina Yuszczuk</span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: red;">(foto: Anita Bugni)</span></b></div>Richardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01746599416342846897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1911087927983597831.post-25175331492854352062023-02-18T22:14:00.009-05:002023-02-18T22:59:18.905-05:00The Tempest<p></p><div style="text-align: center;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnMGAN3yjMIRQ4mw8yILcOOa8TfcoQNF7sSKw_XrGiZJAJsK4TMmu45O7xU07UhiYfd_o5qcGoTMlNAMlGeuYfBif-rxxESqde5WLiKT0k8VyuUl8Ziri_mKs9Y4qwWWYITuVfmuw00wepgS04PoFc678mHSn_suS_xSovxD0Hucq-kJeandW8UAlH8Q/s350/The%20Tempest.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="350" data-original-width="214" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnMGAN3yjMIRQ4mw8yILcOOa8TfcoQNF7sSKw_XrGiZJAJsK4TMmu45O7xU07UhiYfd_o5qcGoTMlNAMlGeuYfBif-rxxESqde5WLiKT0k8VyuUl8Ziri_mKs9Y4qwWWYITuVfmuw00wepgS04PoFc678mHSn_suS_xSovxD0Hucq-kJeandW8UAlH8Q/s320/The%20Tempest.jpg" width="196" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>The Tempest </i>(<a href="http://www.wwnorton.com">W.W. Norton</a>, 2019)</div><div style="text-align: left;">by William Shakespeare [edited by Peter Hulme and William H. Sherman]</div><div style="text-align: left;">England, <i>c. </i>1610</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I hadn't read any Shakespeare in about 20 years so I thought it was time for a reboot. While maybe a little bit more of a mixed bag entertainment-wise than I'd remembered, <i>The Tempest </i>didn't really disappoint in spite of a non-canonical dull stretch or two. I was secretly tickled, for example, to be reminded right off the bat just what a coarse, crass fellow the Greatest Writer in the English Language could be. I mean, he doesn't even get out of Act 1, Scene 1 before the "honest old councillor" Gonzalo opines that the boatswain of the sinking ship that's going down probably won't die from drowning even "though the ship were no stronger than a nutshell and as leaky as an unstanched wench" (1.1.41-43). Oof, a vivid but not necessarily the most "family-friendly" image! Similarly, Antonio, "the usurping Duke of Milan," whose unlawful moves against his brother Prospero, "the right duke of Milan," have set the romance's whole shipwreck + magic + revenge machinations in motion, also doesn't wait long before exclaiming that he wishes that same ill-regarded mariner "mightst lie drowning the washing of ten tides!" (1.1.52-53)--what the notes to my edition helpfully explain as "an exaggerated form of the sentence passed on pirates, who were hanged on the shore at low-water mark and left there until three tides had flowed" (6). Wow, King James' England is in the house! Culture and civilization are in the eye of the beholder, of course, and in this light one of the most interesting/least superficial things about <i>The Tempest</i> for me this time around was coming to grips with how cleverly the play's events unfold at a crossroads between the dream or magical world of the action, itself influenced by classical literature at times, and the modern world contemporaneous with the writing of the play. A few words about the "man-monster" Caliban (3.2.11) should help explain what I mean. Although Caliban is said to have been "hag-born" of the witch Sycorax (1.2.283), he lives in perpetual fear of Prospero because Prospero's magic powers are greater than those of Caliban's own god Setebos (1.2.372). Setebos, the editors of the Norton edition explain, was "a devil of the Patagonian natives, according to Richard Eden's 1555 translation of Antonio Pigafetta's account of Magellan's circumnavigatory expedition" (19). Caliban, who is elsewhere feared as somebody with connections to "devils...savages and men of Ind" (2.2.54-56) at a time when the people of England were laying out coins to see "a dead Indian" for the novelty of the spectacle (2.2.31), is hence a link to the New World of the Age of Discovery just as surely as Prospero's "Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes, and groves" speech in 5.1.33-50 textually riffs on a Medea incantation from Ovid's <i>Metamorphoses</i>. Shakespeare, not too shabby a playwright for a guy not above an uncouth reference to an unmarried woman's "virgin-knot" (4.1.15) nor a syphilis joke or two!</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2KgUhKXrZeay1S00zxautNUZ6Lap2OQeRd0BFgrJtndNWcRhhXdv8UbjSP-577QVxSICInylDuPehr9hrl46O2E1zpJkiGEavqtSnjp05kTizRYo_H-fLVHfaKUOdDt4vNB_OhquW_Vq7ie6jlYmKI8MSvnj2z_jxeR2V0PUsZ50qYHCfhmJy6PMeYQ/s1537/Shakespeare.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1537" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2KgUhKXrZeay1S00zxautNUZ6Lap2OQeRd0BFgrJtndNWcRhhXdv8UbjSP-577QVxSICInylDuPehr9hrl46O2E1zpJkiGEavqtSnjp05kTizRYo_H-fLVHfaKUOdDt4vNB_OhquW_Vq7ie6jlYmKI8MSvnj2z_jxeR2V0PUsZ50qYHCfhmJy6PMeYQ/s320/Shakespeare.jpg" width="250" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: red;">William Shakespeare (1564-1616)</span></b></div><p></p>Richardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01746599416342846897noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1911087927983597831.post-54478665375445868542023-02-12T01:56:00.008-05:002023-02-24T21:04:42.445-05:00El día que apagaron la luz<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFhlEP9t3Qju9yruyFTvvXjbGqbYFZgVxVKxMUOUaZLYOF8hbMFFnZOsOpi8_eACfbzP0ZrMHqjbyLFlLLIQs46eDdqyW2r9F-ruZ3IvuoX5qrcAXmBea0rLWDWK2yOfgfjATh_M2FgKT0cBhXw5LoJ7FxYs-SHXbrqy8iXP9iQ_WSIs8HG9DdmUqrkw/s500/El%20d%C3%ADa%20que%20apagaron%20la%20luz.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="293" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFhlEP9t3Qju9yruyFTvvXjbGqbYFZgVxVKxMUOUaZLYOF8hbMFFnZOsOpi8_eACfbzP0ZrMHqjbyLFlLLIQs46eDdqyW2r9F-ruZ3IvuoX5qrcAXmBea0rLWDWK2yOfgfjATh_M2FgKT0cBhXw5LoJ7FxYs-SHXbrqy8iXP9iQ_WSIs8HG9DdmUqrkw/s320/El%20d%C3%ADa%20que%20apagaron%20la%20luz.jpg" width="188" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>El día que apagaron la luz </i>(<a href="http://www.editorialplaneta.com.ar">Seix Barral</a>, 2019)</div><div style="text-align: left;">por Camila Fabbri</div><div style="text-align: left;">Argentina, 2019</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Camila Fabbri, una estudiante de 15 años en aquel entonces con la que su madre describió como una "cara de ocho" (25), fue a un recital de la banda de rock Callejeros en diciembre de 2004 al boliche República Cromañón en el barrio de Once de Buenos Aires. La siguiente noche, estalló un incendio al local provocando una tragedia que dejó 194 muertos y casi 1500 heridos. <i>El día que apagaron la luz</i>, una especie de novela de no ficción o, quizás mejor dicho, un collage dedicado a los eventos quince años más tarde, combina una crónica en primera persona por parte de Fabbri con entrevistas con y testimonios de varios sobrevivientes y/o miembros de la familia de los víctimas, mensajitos y texts tomados de WhatsApp y Facebook Messenger, y cosas por el estilo. Una lectura desgarradora. Un padre, médico de profesión, que llegó a Cromañón para recoger a sus dos hijas que habían escapado del boliche, después entró al lugar para salvar vidas si posible: "Lo que vi no me lo olvido más: ahí arriba como una presencia en el techo, vi una nube negra muy fina y larga. Parecía de cemento o de alquitrán. No se movía, no era vaporosa. Parecía pintada con material, como una señal de tránsito o algo del más allá. Yo no creo en los fantasmas, pero esa nube parecía hablar"(143). Paradójicamente dado que el libro debe haber sido enormemente difícil de escribir, Fabbri misma hace hincapié en el trauma y la angustia de esa noche infernal sin tener pelos en la lengua. A la espera de noticias de seres queridos que iban a ir al concierto, resulta que una amiga de Fabbri miraba la pared "con la vista perdida" durante gran parte de la noche. Añade Fabbri: "La mañana del 31 de diciembre en Buenos Aires muchas personas no han dormido y están buscando, como zombies recién convertidos, el cuerpo humano que les corresponde" (89). La misma amiga, cuyo novio y mejor amigo murieron esa misma noche, asistió al velorio del primero dentro de poco. La autora nota que el llanto de la chica se convertió en mutismo a la casa funeraria cuando ella comprendió que lo que encontró en el cajón no era su novio sino "era solo un cuerpo. La esencia --o el movimiento-- se habían retirado. Esta idea la contuvo. Para quien la mirara de lejos", Fabbri puntualiza, "era una imagen ilegal: una quinceañera sola mirando de cerca a su novio recostado dentro de una caja de madera" (92). ¿Difícil de escribir todo esto? Difícil de pensarlo y de leerlo también pero con su enfoque coral, Fabbri incluso introduce una suerte de autocrítica al compartir este comentario desaprobador de un conocido: "Yo no sé para qué querés que te cuente qué estaba haciendo esa noche. Me parece morboso y no le interesa a nadie. No entiendo qué querés hacer con esto y tampoco me importa" (153-154). Dejo la última palabra, más comprensiva, a otra amiga de Fabbri: "A los quince años no pensás en la muerte. De repente, tuvimos que pensarla. Éramos muy chicas para entender" (69).</div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4HKQPwoxLrty90tQiS4nUPjd_NJ__zigI6THP2hXF155RbSfSYdD7mBmh7R5NPM6t62vNEUORewb_tXCFRUXxsWHIumwjugBxZqTObmyOKT_kpWiUhYxIf2HdkWRXonl59C3UojD7xV7F7LJp5Gb7DNxK6sMpuD4zhJrAfpEocCY-1iMNriWtsIT_mA/s1200/Camila%20Fabbri.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="801" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4HKQPwoxLrty90tQiS4nUPjd_NJ__zigI6THP2hXF155RbSfSYdD7mBmh7R5NPM6t62vNEUORewb_tXCFRUXxsWHIumwjugBxZqTObmyOKT_kpWiUhYxIf2HdkWRXonl59C3UojD7xV7F7LJp5Gb7DNxK6sMpuD4zhJrAfpEocCY-1iMNriWtsIT_mA/s320/Camila%20Fabbri.jpg" width="214" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Camila Fabbri</span></div>Richardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01746599416342846897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1911087927983597831.post-19299308013678046622023-02-03T23:22:00.006-05:002023-02-07T22:23:43.422-05:00Nos richesses<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitWKPdtgUOy46LEIuJ8qfUr-LAfST1YlCFrurHCtghkFxkl6cDep63cLiIRCIFA5a_3YSDzBvxfl04rr-7CVEmKRod9dcLDjl_iTEYeq4bVcAn-Bdl38jVO9RcXtGvv1Ausa2PElHdLqP_IzFLAYEwiJcmchwxvfQchjXQY4zr5PX5GYYvMUKDpMVAoQ/s498/Nos%20richesses.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="498" data-original-width="303" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitWKPdtgUOy46LEIuJ8qfUr-LAfST1YlCFrurHCtghkFxkl6cDep63cLiIRCIFA5a_3YSDzBvxfl04rr-7CVEmKRod9dcLDjl_iTEYeq4bVcAn-Bdl38jVO9RcXtGvv1Ausa2PElHdLqP_IzFLAYEwiJcmchwxvfQchjXQY4zr5PX5GYYvMUKDpMVAoQ/s320/Nos%20richesses.jpg" width="195" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Nos richesses </i>(<a href="http://www.editionspoints.com">Points</a>, 2021)</div><div style="text-align: left;">par Kaouther Adimi</div><div style="text-align: left;">France, 2017</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Edmond Charlot, un personnage historique, avait vingt et un ans quand ouvrit la librairie de prêt et maison d'édition <i>Les Vraies Richesses</i> dans Alger en 1936. Ryad, un personnage fictif, a vingt ans quand il arrive à Alger en 2017 pour vider l'endroit de l'ancienne librairie de tous les livres et les meubles. << Détruire une librairie, c'est un travail, ça? >> lui demande un vieil homme du quartier. Combinant un carnet imaginé d'Edmond Charlot avec une narration à la troisième personne et de temps en temps même à la première personne du pluriel, Kaouther Adimi (née à Alger en 1986 mais qui maintenant vit à Paris) réussit à recréer un monde situé au 2 bis de la rue Hamani, ex-rue Charras, Alger avec histoires qui se croisent, des brèves apparitions de Camus, de Giono, et de Mouloud Feraoun entre autres, tout raconté avec beaucoup de chaleur. La voix de Charlot est une des clés du succès du roman quant à sa représentation d'une vie consacrée à la littérature: << Reçu hier une lettre de Jean Giono ! Giono le grand. >> on lit dans le journal de 9 mai 1936. << Je lui avais écrit sans trop d'espoir pour lui demander l'autorisation d'appeler la librairie <i>Les Vraies Richesses </i>en référence à son récit qui m'avait ébloui et où il nous enjoint à revenir aux vraies richesses que sont la terre, le soleil, les ruisseaux, et finalement aussi la littérature (qu'est-ce qui peut-être plus important que la terre et la littérature ?). J'ai failli déchirer la lettre en l'ouvrant. Fébrilité. J'ai répété à Jean Pane ce qu'il nous répond: 'Vous pouvez bien évidemment utiliser ce titre. Il ne m'appartient pas.' >> Le rève de Charlot, ce de créer << avant tout un lieu pour les amis qui aiment la littérature et la Méditerranée >> (36-37), naturellement est entré en conflit avec l'histoire du siècle, qu'Adimi décrit en passages sur les massacres de Sétif, du 8 mai 1945, et d'Algériens à Paris, du 17 octobre 1961; en souvenirs sur la décennie noire quand, selon un personnage, << ces monstres >> du terrorisme << débarquaient dans les villages et tuaient hommes, femmes et enfants... Imagine le courage des journalistes à cette époque. Ils ont tout subi: les assassinats, les bombes, les menaces, les enlèvements, l'exil, les reproches... mais chaque jour, ils étaient à leur poste de travail. Pour des gens comme nous qui n'avions pas d'autres moyens de comprendre ce qui se passait, c'était important >> (129-130); et avec tendresse pour l'idéalisme d'un libraire-éditeur qui a cru, comme l'inscription sur la vitrine de son magasin, qu'<i>Un homme qui lit en vaut deux</i>. J'ai été très ému par ce récit.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfp7RMn3gJJvPAwRJL7DCl4HT6uzG4UbI6DVO-GTc7rv8-9uxOhhaXWBzaNjbx8nuy0i-LgN0MWGWicuWbn3acWddlD9SP1k8iDaTWkQalYyfKZgTQrN7zJFFM6YaKpV4ZMha3EqL9Sl3u6q6tjviHS4GjJHHjMeKJLc2FEdBIlCVjzAHUoQvMcayhLQ/s800/Kaouther%20Adimi.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="800" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfp7RMn3gJJvPAwRJL7DCl4HT6uzG4UbI6DVO-GTc7rv8-9uxOhhaXWBzaNjbx8nuy0i-LgN0MWGWicuWbn3acWddlD9SP1k8iDaTWkQalYyfKZgTQrN7zJFFM6YaKpV4ZMha3EqL9Sl3u6q6tjviHS4GjJHHjMeKJLc2FEdBIlCVjzAHUoQvMcayhLQ/s320/Kaouther%20Adimi.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;">Kaouther Adimi</span></div>Richardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01746599416342846897noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1911087927983597831.post-67789530596773439462020-10-22T02:50:00.008-04:002020-10-22T10:27:07.835-04:00Tram 83<p></p><div style="text-align: center;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkPiZ8HWJ4k5mH8qdLAC47ywZl8I0G3UerM0SodQg7zIOk2fQ_6ZwiEzeLoWJeLJtZor5zAHjrz9HlS45NpRbkv4lfDSV6LO1A5k-JmawUWtXu1860GCV_2HljuwQ7J3uRYXh-ifoYhLeb/s435/Tram+83.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="435" data-original-width="269" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkPiZ8HWJ4k5mH8qdLAC47ywZl8I0G3UerM0SodQg7zIOk2fQ_6ZwiEzeLoWJeLJtZor5zAHjrz9HlS45NpRbkv4lfDSV6LO1A5k-JmawUWtXu1860GCV_2HljuwQ7J3uRYXh-ifoYhLeb/s320/Tram+83.jpeg" /></a></div><i>Tram 83 </i>(<a href="https://www.livredepoche.com/">Le Livre de Poche</a>, 2019)<br />par Fiston Mwanza Mujila<br />République démocratique du Congo, 2014<div><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><< On en a déjà assez de la misère, de la pauvreté, de la syphilis et de la violence dans la littérature africaine. Regarde autour de nous. Il y a de belles filles, de beaux hommes, de la bière-de-Brazza, de la bonne musique... Est-ce que tout cela ne t'inspire pas ? Je suis inquiet pour l'avenir de la littérature africaine en général. Le personnage principal dans le roman africain est toujours célibataire, névrosé, pervers, dépressif, sans enfants, sans domicile et traîne toutes les dettes du monde. Ici, on vit, on baise, on est heureux... Il faut que ça baise aussi dans la littérature africaine ! >></div><div style="text-align: center;">(<i>Tram 83</i>, 66-67)</div><div><br /></div><div>Lucien, un célibataire névrosé qui veut être écrivain, et Requiem, un petit gangster et maître-chanteur, sont vieux amis de fac, mais il y a eu du mauvais sang entre eux depuis cette époque. Donc ce ne pas vraiment une surprise quand les choses commencent à mal tourner lors de la visite de Lucien. Heureusement pour eux deux, le Tram 83 - un bar super populaire dans la capitale de la république séparatiste seulement connue comme La Ville-Pays, << une ville devenue pays par la force des kalachnikovs >> (28) - offre un chez-soi loin de chez soi entre une équipe hétéroclite d'habitués composée de creuseurs de diamant, rebelles dissidents, << les filles de moins de seize ans, appellées canetons >> (23), touristes, ex-Zaïrois et des autres attirés par la musique ou les liaisons sexuelles facilement disponibles dans les toilettes mixtes du bar. <i>Tram 83</i>, un roman imprégné d'une atmosphère sordide en termes de l'intrigue, est raconté avec beaucoup de flair par Fiston Mwanza Mujila. J'ai aimé les insultes sur la mauvaise musique parfois entendue au Tram (par exemple, une description sur << un groupe musical qui massacrait, et sans gêne, un morceau de Coltrane, sans doute <i>Summertime </i>>> est suivie par << les jazzmen continuant à prostituer la musique... >> laquelle, à son tour, est suivie par << ce qui alimentait la ferveur de l'orchestre et par conséquent le lynchage de cette belle mélodie >> [22-24]), la répétition du cri de guerre des prostituées mineures (<< Vous avez l'heure ? >>) qui apparaît et reapparaît comme un riff ou une égratignure sur un disque, et le commentaire social mordant (<< La torture est l'un de points de démarcation entre une république bananière organisée et une république bananière chaotique, autrement dit désorganisée >> [183]), mais ce que j'ai aimé par dessus tout étaient les listes la longeur d'un paragraphe et l'analyse sur la cause du décés par métier dans la mégalopole (le dénominateur commun parmi toutes les professions: << maladies sexuellement transmissibles >>), en bref la combinaison d'une sensibilité presque musical avec un air d'expérimentation. Si mon français était meillure, je décrirais le roman comme une << valse des corps au bord du précipice >>; heureusement pour vous, rien ne m'empêche de citer ces mots de Michel Abescat de <i>Télérama</i>. Exceptionnel. </div><div><br /><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgT21RL2-f6cB8K3qyoEze7NMpc-Ynmc5yZ_X4D7iBN-FFa6LRC_KFza6d5G2ZWrcuP1pWbrQb92l-gQQFzZM5mWzxSfTG74H76f8Yt11pRLmpkCtUcxZolU0dzMmMMtvd9Qqxc8VqxxHrO/s315/Fiston+Mwanza+Mujila.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="315" data-original-width="315" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgT21RL2-f6cB8K3qyoEze7NMpc-Ynmc5yZ_X4D7iBN-FFa6LRC_KFza6d5G2ZWrcuP1pWbrQb92l-gQQFzZM5mWzxSfTG74H76f8Yt11pRLmpkCtUcxZolU0dzMmMMtvd9Qqxc8VqxxHrO/s0/Fiston+Mwanza+Mujila.jpeg" /></a><br /><b><span style="color: red;">Fiston Mwanza Mujila (République démocrat</span><span style="color: red;">i</span><span style="color: red;">que du Congo, 1981)</span></b></div></div></div></div>Richardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01746599416342846897noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1911087927983597831.post-40771176610707782712020-10-12T17:56:00.008-04:002020-10-13T15:04:01.588-04:00Las aventuras de la China Iron<p></p><div style="text-align: center;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQIztdXB3Uj77ZTHr0bq3njxtk2XapdO2WOru9QblPbIOpjknqWTzUUVeuw_NlmBwO4GgayOHE8AeRsubGeqBjcR-ckjIvJ0-AJIv6_lZW7qv-ww8ZiP2MMNJ3slic5ppf6ASVryvbI1IW/s500/Las+aventuras+de+la+China+Iron.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="293" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQIztdXB3Uj77ZTHr0bq3njxtk2XapdO2WOru9QblPbIOpjknqWTzUUVeuw_NlmBwO4GgayOHE8AeRsubGeqBjcR-ckjIvJ0-AJIv6_lZW7qv-ww8ZiP2MMNJ3slic5ppf6ASVryvbI1IW/w235-h400/Las+aventuras+de+la+China+Iron.jpg" width="235" /></a></div><i>Las aventuras de la China Iron </i>(<a href="https://www.megustaleer.com/">Literatura Random House</a>, 2020)<br />by Gabriela Cabezón Cámara<br />Argentina, 2017<p></p><p><i>Las aventuras de la China Iron </i>[<i>The Adventures of China Iron</i>], a witty, subversive reimagining of Argentina's so-called "national epic" <i>Martín Fierro</i> told from the point of view of the gaucho Martín Fierro's abandoned wife, sure sounded like it'd be right up my "rustic" intertextual alley, but that eyesore of a cover still had me worried until Cabezón Cámara's succession of ace storytelling shenanigans was well underway. How was I to know that hallucinogenic mushrooms, a delirious critique of the 19th century "civilization and barbarism" discourse popularized by Sarmiento, and a gender-bending orgy scene or two involving the occasionally cross-dressing title character would all factor into the novel's proceedings? For those not familiar with the 1872 & 1879 <i>Martín Fierro</i> beloved by Borges and maybe worried about the wealth of literary in-jokes likely to follow, suffice it to say that the only thing you really need to know as background for <i>Las aventuras</i> is that its amiable narrator--a teenage orphan won by the gaucho in a card game in José Hernández's original poem but who here calls herself Josephine Star Iron or China Iron or just plain China according to her mood--sets out on a journey across the Pampas in the company of an Englishwoman named Liz, a puppy named Estreya, and a gaucho named Rosa whom they meet along the way. The destination? A small fort on the frontier with the Indian territories, where Liz's husband has been conscripted to fight against the savages. The journey? Part voyage of initiation, part picaresque adventure saga, part <i><a href="http://caravanaderecuerdos.blogspot.com/2012/08/ema-la-cautiva.html">Ema, la cautiva</a></i>-like knife in the back of the Argentinean canon drizzled with a splash of Huck Finn lighting out for the Territory at the end. I had a good time reading this. In her narrator's innocent and often wonderstruck telling, Cabezón Cámara makes it easy to get an idea of the vastness of the Argentinean hinterland before the railroads arrived--"esa casi nada que cruzábamos se iba pareciendo a un cementerio abandonado" ["that semi-nothingness that we were crossing was resembling an abandoned cementery"] she says of one stretch of territory where entire days were spent in the company of weeds and the odd startled hare but without running into "ni una vaca, ni un indio, ni un cristiano ni un caballo" ["either a cow, an Indian, a Christian or a horse"] (34)--but the specificity of the landscape painter episodes is just an appetizer for the full course dinner of artistic license and "licentiousness" that follows. In other words, both Hernández and that "bestia de Fierro" ["brute Fierro"] (125), i.e. the <i>Martín Fierro </i>author and his artistic creation, "that strange gaucho who believed he was a writer" (117), get skewered as characters here--loved the scene where the blowhard Hernández follows up a racist anti-Indian and anti-gaucho rant about civilization and progress by snickerng that the gauchos he knows, "que suelen ser una mezcla de indio y español' ["who tend to be a mix of Spaniard and Indian"], have so far only turned out "unos Habsburgos retacones y negros y analfabetos y desdentados desde los trece" ["some squat, black, illiterate Habsburgs, toothless from the age of 13"] as a result of the attempts to "mejorar la raza" ["improve the race"] through European stock (108). Brutal! Of course, civilization itself receives a similarly scornful treatment once China & Co. break free from convention for a paradisiacal and free love life among the Indians on and around the islands along the Paraná River (note the influx of indigenous language as the novel nears its conclusion). "Bienvenida a nuestra fiesta, mi querida muchacho inglés" ["Welcome to our party, my beloved English boy"] (151) the female Indian leader Kaukalitrán tells her new lover China, the Spanish feminine endings for "bienvenida" ["welcome"] and "querida" ["beloved"] in combination with the use of the word boy anticipating Liz's own same sex sweet nothings as the lovemaking continues: "Liz me hablaba en inglés y me decía tigress, mi tigresa, my mermaid, my girl, my good boy, mi gaucha blanca, my tigress otra vez" ["Liz was speaking to me in English and was saying 'tigress, my tigress, my mermaid, my girl, my good boy, my white lady gaucho, my tigress' again"] (154). Mad fun.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeYxy3Za5OYl5fTH819PN4FwFCN5xjhuKtGnnEqoE7UfHCfA-IMI1dfOJsrb3XVm7sAZes0oURlFL0M9zhOasdm0vtwMyRFidL7MIoagVZUBeq2t13qgBQ93LY9hfKRjCFsYMshmD_vhx0/s380/Gabriela+Cabez%25C3%25B3n+C%25C3%25A1mara.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="214" data-original-width="380" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeYxy3Za5OYl5fTH819PN4FwFCN5xjhuKtGnnEqoE7UfHCfA-IMI1dfOJsrb3XVm7sAZes0oURlFL0M9zhOasdm0vtwMyRFidL7MIoagVZUBeq2t13qgBQ93LY9hfKRjCFsYMshmD_vhx0/s320/Gabriela+Cabez%25C3%25B3n+C%25C3%25A1mara.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: red;">Gabriela Cabezón Cámara (San Isidro, 1968)</span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: red;">More on <i>China</i><i> Iron</i></span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;">Mandy Wight, <a href="https://peakreads.wordpress.com/2020/07/30/the-adventures-of-china-iron-by-gabriela-cabezon-camara-translated-by-fiona-mackintosh-and-iona-macintyre/" style="font-style: italic;">peakreads</a><br />Mario Skan, <i><a href="http://fuentemarcha.blogspot.com/2018/12/reescrituras.html">QUADERNO RIBADABIA</a></i></div>Richardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01746599416342846897noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1911087927983597831.post-59937998120191078512020-10-05T03:07:00.000-04:002020-10-05T03:07:06.008-04:00Storm of Steel<p></p><div style="text-align: center;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_JjgimJ0x3-Jy0HnqCUO80nQb2KiK3iPRXCTF4MD8GWAicfiqcxdwBNQ1Kfh-8rf_Ep1hL6QeLBasvDqv3MqvJwTYE3046CxYihPPt0gh47QC3xJEHpakVTJ9t9oqZbHMinLlGwck8UlZ/s499/Storm+of+Steel.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="327" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_JjgimJ0x3-Jy0HnqCUO80nQb2KiK3iPRXCTF4MD8GWAicfiqcxdwBNQ1Kfh-8rf_Ep1hL6QeLBasvDqv3MqvJwTYE3046CxYihPPt0gh47QC3xJEHpakVTJ9t9oqZbHMinLlGwck8UlZ/w263-h400/Storm+of+Steel.jpg" width="263" /></a></div><i>Storm of Steel </i>[<i>In Stahlgewittern</i>] (<a href="http://www.penguinclassics.com/">Penguin Classics</a>, 2004)<br />by Ernst Jünger [translated from the German by Michael Hofmann]<br />Germany, 1920<div><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: center;">"It was our last storm. How many times over the last few years we had advanced into the setting sun in a similar frame of mind! Les Eparges, Guillemont, St-Pierre-Vaast, Langemarck, Passchendaele, Moeuvres, Vraucourt, Mory! Another gory carnival beckoned."<br />(<i>Storm of Steel</i>, 280)</div><p></p><p>On the second to last page of this insanely high adrenaline memoir, "privately published" in a limited edition of 2,000 copies in 1920 when somebody massively underestimated its popular appeal, Ernst Jünger matter-of-factly relates what it was like to be a survivor of the trench warfare and gas attacks of World War I: "Leaving out trifles such as ricochets and grazes, I was hit at least fourteen times, these being five bullets, two shell splinters, one shrapnel ball, four hand-grenade splinters and two bullet splinters, which, with entry and exit wounds, left me with an even twenty scars. In the course of this war, where so much of the firing was done into empty space, I still managed to get myself targeted no fewer than eleven times" (288). His soldier's luck, in combination with good genes, must have carried on well after the war ended because the resilient <i>Tristram Shandy</i>-reading lieutenant lived to be over a hundred years old before he finally passed away in 1998! In any event, reading about what Jünger called his "adventures," it's hard to underestimate just how fortunate he was to make it out of the war alive. His memories, based in part on a diary he kept during the hostilities, are extraordinarily vivid. En route to the Battle of the Somme on the road to the village of Guillemont, for example, Jünger paints a picture which is almost <i>Thérèse Raquin</i>-esque in terms of the sensory overload: "Over the ruins, as over all the most dangerous parts of the terrain, lay a heavy smell of death, because the fire was so intense that no one could bother with the corpses. You really did have to run for your life in these places, and when I caught the smell of it as I ran, I was hardly surprised - it belonged to there. Moreover, this heavy, sweetish atmosphere was not merely disgusting; it also, in association with the piercing fogs of gunpowder, brought about an almost visionary excitement, that only the extreme nearness of death is able to produce" (93). Elsewhere, the "sweetish, oniony smell" of a British phosgene gas attack in or near the woods of St-Pierre-Vaast serves as the Proustian <i>madeleine </i>for this surrealistic turn: "With weeping eyes, I stumbled back to the Vaux woods, plunging from one crater into the next, as I was unable to see anything through the misted visor of my gas mask. With the extent and inhospitableness of its spaces, it was a night of eerie solitude. Each time I blundered into sentries or troops who had lost their way, I had the icy sensation of conversing not with people, but with demons. We were all roving around in an enormous dump somewhere off the edge of the charted world" (114). Ironically or not given all the death and destruction witnessed and then depicted by Jünger, he doesn't come off as either anti-war or as an apologist for the war. There's very little editorializing along those lines. Which isn't to say that he isn't sensitive to the costs of the war to friends and foes alike as his descriptions of the impact of nonstop bombing--"The villages we passed through on our way had the look of vast lunatic asylums" (127); his account of a skirmish with Indian troops, "who had travelled thousands of miles across the sea, only to give themselves a bloody nose on this god-forsaken piece of earth against the Hanoverian Rifles"--"The whole scene - the mixture of the prisoners' laments and our jubilation - had something primordial about it. This wasn't war; it was ancient history" (150); and his remorse over a soldier he killed at close range all make abundantly clear: "Outside it [a dugout] lay my British soldier, little more than a boy, who had been hit in the temple. He lay there, looking quite relaxed. I forced myself to look closely at him. It wasn't a case of 'you or me' any more. I often thought back on him; and more with the passing of the years. The state, which relieves us of our responsibility, cannot take away our remorse; and we must exercise it. Sorrow, regret, pursued me deep into my dreams" (241).</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnyEoHBqCYHP_7ycHVUT4ZXl5CtR7OS6XUUbT1xusIY9Ys8aDHB_SkCGURydUhppWiDd6oPuXEA-3eoISIPzDt0zP7uOiNHUWu9sQkpe8rHknTfwazdgrI1i9s6VNwwrLuyrG2xFcd0Zk0/s400/Ernst+J%25C3%25BCnger.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="260" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnyEoHBqCYHP_7ycHVUT4ZXl5CtR7OS6XUUbT1xusIY9Ys8aDHB_SkCGURydUhppWiDd6oPuXEA-3eoISIPzDt0zP7uOiNHUWu9sQkpe8rHknTfwazdgrI1i9s6VNwwrLuyrG2xFcd0Zk0/s320/Ernst+J%25C3%25BCnger.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: red;">Ernst Jünger (1895-1998)</span></b></div></div>Richardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01746599416342846897noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1911087927983597831.post-4076454130450544632020-09-27T20:33:00.001-04:002020-09-28T23:07:27.328-04:00Chicas muertas<p></p><div style="text-align: center;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7p-QJwhDeAv81KJmJkAyptH0oZ8Bxore75PZ-YlXkBKIYEyrfRLeVumlgSXhypZi257DeHpa74bhAea6UX_soezzaMiCjgIpUhD7Y6ZUIc88YrF9G9ILL6dQw2DFg5kfgiz8oEFdJSEd9/s450/Chicas+muertas.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="263" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7p-QJwhDeAv81KJmJkAyptH0oZ8Bxore75PZ-YlXkBKIYEyrfRLeVumlgSXhypZi257DeHpa74bhAea6UX_soezzaMiCjgIpUhD7Y6ZUIc88YrF9G9ILL6dQw2DFg5kfgiz8oEFdJSEd9/w234-h400/Chicas+muertas.jpg" width="234" /></a></div><i>Chicas muertas </i>(<a href="https://www.megustaleer.com.ar/">Literatura Random House</a>, 2015)<br />by Selva Almada<br />Argentina, 2014<p></p><p>When Selva Almada was just a sheltered teen growing up in Entre Ríos in the 1980s, news of the murders of three other Argentinean girls roughly her own age--Andrea Danne, 19; María Luisa Quevedo, 15; Sarita Mundín, 20--awakened her to a couple of harsh realities: "Adentro de tu casa podían matarte. El horror podía vivir bajo el mismo techo que vos" ["They could kill you within your own house. The horror could live under the same roof as you"] (17). As Almada explains the extent of the shock a page later, "Tres adolescentes de provincia asesinadas en los años ochenta, tres muertes impunes ocurridas cuando todavía, en nuestro país, desconocíamos el término femicidio" ["Three adolescents from the provinces murdered in the 1980s, three unpunished deaths at a time when, in our country, we still didn't know the term femicide"] (18). Haunted by these deaths even when, as an adult, she realized that young girls were dying all around Argentina in alarming numbers, the author crisscrossed the country in search of some kind of answers to the cold cases still unsolved after decades. The results of the investigation, as chronicled in the non-sensationalist but still way sobering <i>Chicas muertas </i>[<i>Dead Girls</i>, now out in an English translation], take the form of a hybrid narrative nonfiction/memoir blend which manages to pay respect to the victims and their families while not exactly providing solace for anybody else. While Almada succeeds in giving a measure of voice to the three victims beyond the forensic reports, through no fault of her own what little "perspective" there is to be found here comes in the form of things--a clairvoyant who denied the help requested by the boyfriend of one of the victims, saying that "él con las cosas del diablo no se metía" ["he didn't get mixed up with things of the devil"] (42); a husband who endangered his wife, another one of the victims, because she was "demasiado linda" ["too cute"] to return to her previous job as a maid after she had a baby: "Tanta belleza desperdiciada entre los vahos de los productos de limpieza. Así que la mandó a prostituirse" ["So much beauty wasted among the cleaning product vapors. So he sent her out to turn tricks"] (111-112)--that can only be classified as tough, tough pills to swallow. A brave piece of work.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDsVl5JDOAbVRdIOPPLqz2IcAQNCNaltG7sAZMpkYDP1DvZ42bcoa5S8UOkD2Rj1DPPBAtqcsJH5C-h7FaS4nhxPzLN7-IwOZk1BSK6tG4W53_AkTl2aFsZZGz5LlUMNNrsnSB0rR__Pkz/s1024/Selva+Almada.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="744" data-original-width="1024" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDsVl5JDOAbVRdIOPPLqz2IcAQNCNaltG7sAZMpkYDP1DvZ42bcoa5S8UOkD2Rj1DPPBAtqcsJH5C-h7FaS4nhxPzLN7-IwOZk1BSK6tG4W53_AkTl2aFsZZGz5LlUMNNrsnSB0rR__Pkz/s320/Selva+Almada.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: red;">Selva Almada (Entre Ríos, 1973)</span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: red;">photo: Pablo Cruz</span></b></div>Richardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01746599416342846897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1911087927983597831.post-1722084649042060352020-09-26T22:49:00.002-04:002020-09-28T00:09:55.655-04:00Los oficios terrestres<p></p><div style="text-align: center;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik75k2mevJ8373AZLvPKGECGDENIads61otNLwdWMahBYpfzlptVEqnZ3uyLOsjIYQ4aj9YfpkhpGuY3EU1OvzTs2hYxuS1TNULV7SUMXHBDqfi5FDSNq9jQprCpUfPDTVFSlEkOn2gWjf/s624/Cuentos+completos+Rodolfo+Walsh.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="624" data-original-width="432" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik75k2mevJ8373AZLvPKGECGDENIads61otNLwdWMahBYpfzlptVEqnZ3uyLOsjIYQ4aj9YfpkhpGuY3EU1OvzTs2hYxuS1TNULV7SUMXHBDqfi5FDSNq9jQprCpUfPDTVFSlEkOn2gWjf/s320/Cuentos+completos+Rodolfo+Walsh.jpg" /></a></div><i>Los oficios terrestres </i>(<a href="http://www.edicionesdelaflor.com.ar/">Ediciones de la Flor</a>, 2013)<br />por Rodolfo Walsh<br />La Argentina, 1965<p></p><p>Un puñado de cuentos, todos menos uno o buenos o muy buenos, dos o tres de los cuales son cuentazos. "Esa mujer", por ejemplo, es el famosísimo cuento en el que un periodista que se parece a Walsh habla con un militar sobre el robo y traslado del cadáver de Evita. En menos de diez páginas y sin nombrar a la muerta específicamente, los dos personajes bailan alrededor del tema de manera evasiva: "--Esa mujer --le oigo murmurar--. Estaba desnuda en el ataúd y parecía una virgen. La piel se le había vuelto transparente. Se veían las metástasis del cáncer, como esos dibujitos que uno hace en una ventanilla mojada" (292). Mientras tanto, el cuentista-- en gran parte a través del diálogo--capta una atmósfera tensa e inquietante en igual medida. "--¡Está parada! --grita el coronel--. ¡La enterré parada, como Facundo, porque era un macho!" (296). En una nota, Walsh añade que "la conversación que reproduce" dentro del cuento "es, en lo esencial, verdadera" (287). Espeluznante. "Irlandeses detrás de un gato", que cuenta la paliza que espera el nuevo chico en un internado católico de provincia como rito de iniciación, es otro buen ejemplo del estilo vigoroso y sin tonterías de su autor. Además de crear una atmósfera donde se respira "el aire asesino" (342) de la violencia pendiente, Walsh parece señalar la inescapabilidad de tal comportamiento en una sociedad que margina a los pobres y juega por las reglas de los "viejos tiempos levíticos" (340). Nocaut.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifiyaBYTKSaLiXKFwT7WZMPkLYaPUh2Uny6s4WvS4ItecjA77XFeLYqWQmnXaSXrDvU5Ve7ARuHwnxUQwTr_3h2q0f_MuQg6QOlNKJcT1NgnCjQygLJRCad7VIZq2POg7GmHWSC56-7AoL/s936/Rodolfo+Walsh.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="936" data-original-width="936" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifiyaBYTKSaLiXKFwT7WZMPkLYaPUh2Uny6s4WvS4ItecjA77XFeLYqWQmnXaSXrDvU5Ve7ARuHwnxUQwTr_3h2q0f_MuQg6QOlNKJcT1NgnCjQygLJRCad7VIZq2POg7GmHWSC56-7AoL/s320/Rodolfo+Walsh.jpg" /></a><br /><b><span style="color: red;">Rodolfo Walsh (1927-desaparecido en 1977)</span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: red;">Fuente</span></b><br /><i>Los oficios terrestres</i>, libro que incluye seis cuentos en la edición original de 1965 + dos más en esta versión ampliada, aparece en los <i>Cuentos completos </i>de Walsh (Buenos Aires: Ediciones de la Flor, 2013) en las páginas 285-366.</div>Richardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01746599416342846897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1911087927983597831.post-29890594297559197012020-09-20T23:52:00.007-04:002020-09-21T01:12:12.249-04:00ARLT<p></p><div style="text-align: center;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiapmS4PFqeh3dmmBt0vZ5dmYwoNfmmrpT4_sZaouP_XqxzEViLHxfRks9i1qSCQtXt6t3rJM54OcsU-RnTmcWiQvRnQ9yRn7EXpOhWYEFXVE3spKKAJCxgGumgSBXWbnNulyze7-LQHCq2/s445/C%25C3%25A9sar+Aira+in+color.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="267" data-original-width="445" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiapmS4PFqeh3dmmBt0vZ5dmYwoNfmmrpT4_sZaouP_XqxzEViLHxfRks9i1qSCQtXt6t3rJM54OcsU-RnTmcWiQvRnQ9yRn7EXpOhWYEFXVE3spKKAJCxgGumgSBXWbnNulyze7-LQHCq2/s320/C%25C3%25A9sar+Aira+in+color.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>"ARLT"<br />by César Aira<br />Argentina, 1993<p></p><p>An appreciation of Argentinean Literature of Doom great Roberto Arlt penned by fellow Argentinean Literature of Doom great César Aira? Sort of! While I'm not sure what prompted Aira (above, photographer unknown) to take up this possibly spurious exercise in literary criticism, he begins his essay with a definition of the methodologies of expressionism and impressionism which I won't go into here. Arlt, "torturado y pensativo como un alemán" ["pensive and tortured like a German"] (55), is an expressionist, though--the "like a German" line supposedly owing itself to a quote of Goethe's on the nature of the Teutonic temperament. Moving from the general to the specific, Aira then zeroes in on the theme of "la traición' ["treachery, betrayal"] (57) as an example of how Arlt's expressionist tendencies ooze to the surface in his work. Although Aira cheekily calls this "a random but a central" example ["uno cualquiera, pero central"], parenthetically adding that "la elección de ejemplos es una trampa que habría que evitar" ["the choice of examples is a trap that should be avoided"] (!) (57), one wonders why the choice of language is so slippery here given that betrayal and treachery are so foundational to Arlt's fiction. One possible answer: "Cuando uno se pregunta por las intenciones de un artista, es inevitable que se pierda en un laberinto" ["When one wonders about the intentions of an artist, it's inevitable that one get lost in a labyrinth"] (59). And another: slippery language is foundational to Aira's own <i>obra</i>. Whatever one's opinions on Arlt's art, of course, one needn't be a fan of either writer to be amused and/or intrigued by Aira's essayistic antics and conclusions. One of my favorites among the former comes in the paragraph which begins, "Suele decirse 'Arlt, nuestro Flaubert'" ["As the saying goes, 'Arlt, our Flaubert'"]. Although I've actually seen Arlt referred to by Argentines<i> </i>as "our Dostoevsky," I'd be surprised if Aira didn't make up the "our Flaubert" talk altogether. It's a great set-up line, though, insofar as our critic goes on to hammer home the points that 1) "Creo que la aproximación es inepta, y no sólo por el abismo que hay entre un escritor maduro y burgués, y el adolescente visionario que fue Arlt... Yo diría 'nuestro Lautréamont'" ["I believe the approximation is inept and not only because of the gulf that there is between a mature, bourgeois writer and the adolescent visionary that was Arlt... I would say, 'our Lautréamont'"] and 2) "Lo que en la novela europea se hizo a lo largo de quinientos años y mil escritores, en la Argentina lo hizo Arlt solo, en cinco años" ["What in the European novel was done over the course of five hundred years and by one thousand writers was done in Argentina by Arlt alone in five years"] (63, ellipses added). Aira, who hides his cards on the matter of how much he esteems Arlt as a stylist or not, loses his poker face when concluding that Arlt's sense of "lo novelesco" ["the novelesque"] has roots in "el folletín truculento" ["the grisly <i>feuilleton</i>"]--something in opposition to "la novela ideológica, la falsa novela" ["the ideological novel, the fake novel"] as practiced by a more conformist writer like Eduardo Mallea: "Es la diferencia entre el gentleman y el Monstruo" ["It's the difference between the gentleman and the Monster"] (62); when pointing out some of the paradoxes of Arlt's style ("Las novelas de Arlt son historias de la inmovilidad, novelas de las que no se sale, pero al mismo tiempo no se explican sino como novelas de viaje" ["Arlt's novels are stories of immobility, novels in which there's no exit, but at the same time can only be explained in terms of travel novels"]) (63); or when finding unexpected parallels between Arlt's suspension of time and sense of perspective and Marcel Duchamp's <i>The Large Glass</i>. "Yo mismo, proponiéndome como ejemplo de la singularidad extenuada del tiempo, trepo a la cinta del continuo y corro tras el Monstruo revestido de la figura irrisoria de la explicación" ["I myself, setting out as an example of the exhausted singularity of time, step onto the treadmill of the continuum and chase after the Monster sheathed in the ridiculous figure of explanation"], Aira writes, purportedly moved by "la introyección feliz de lo imaginario" ["the happy introjection of the imaginary"] and "la recepción del cine mudo de Arlt" ["the reception of Arlt's silent film"] technique, prey to images that dance before his eyes. "Duchamp la llamó Perspectiva, yo la llamo Inspiración. Salgo a buscarlas todos los días, en una rutina inmutable, a la perfecta transparencia de lo habitual, a las calles de mi barrio, que es el de Arlt, Flores, a los cafés de los alrededores de la plaza y la estación, donde voy todas las mañanas a escribir" ["Duchamp called it Perspective, I call it Inspiration. I go out to search for them every day, in an unchanging routine, in the perfect transparency of the habitual, in the streets of my neighborhood, which is the same as Arlt's, Flores, at the cafés surrounding the plaza and the train station where I go every morning to write" (70-71). Yes!</p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: red;">Source<br /></span></b><span style="text-align: left;">"ARLT," written in 1991 and published in 1993, appears on pp. 55-71 of the Argentinean journal </span><i style="text-align: left;">Paradoxa</i><span style="text-align: left;"> #7. People wanting a full account of all the good stuff I had to leave out from it can find a PDF of the piece </span><a href="http://www.elortiba.org/old/pdf/Aira%20Cesar%20-%20Arlt.pdf" style="text-align: left;">here</a><span style="text-align: left;">.</span></p><p></p>Richardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01746599416342846897noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1911087927983597831.post-54482508537677077692020-09-13T23:53:00.001-04:002020-09-14T00:05:19.519-04:00Notre-Dame du Nil<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj11nwN_GobePy8IVNRa6ge9HDCyPA4EUbUCxl5BUwzWKxFVK_YqysMuIQNTUqycUc5YnZEajTkYOi3xiNebKNqfBHieKpxQMELFZDTIyxJmI0HrdTypG5drQPgXHo3TyOGfDaUFsTZcJnh/s445/Notre-Dame+du+Nil.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="445" data-original-width="271" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj11nwN_GobePy8IVNRa6ge9HDCyPA4EUbUCxl5BUwzWKxFVK_YqysMuIQNTUqycUc5YnZEajTkYOi3xiNebKNqfBHieKpxQMELFZDTIyxJmI0HrdTypG5drQPgXHo3TyOGfDaUFsTZcJnh/s320/Notre-Dame+du+Nil.jpg" /></a></div><p><i>Notre-Dame du Nil </i>(<a href="http://www.folio-lesite.fr/" target="_blank">Folio</a>, 2019)<br />par Scholastique Mukasonga<br />France, 2012</p><p>Rwanda, au début des années 1970. Le lycée Notre-Dame-du-Nil, tout proche de la source du fleuve égyptien, est un lycée d'enseignement catholique consacré à << l'élite féminine du pays. >> Quoique dix pour cent des élèves sont Tutsi selon le quota officiel, les tensions sont fortes entre les Hutu et leurs rivales en raison de la croyance des premiers que << le peuple majoritaire >> sont << les vraies Rwandaises >> et toutes les autres sont << des parasites >> (255). Pas étonnant qu'un personnage remarquera: << Le Rwanda, c'est le pays de la Mort >> (274). Dans ce roman, Scholastique Mukasonga (née au Rwanda en 1956) raconte une sorte de répétition générale du génocide de 1994 tandis qu'elle propose le portrait d'une génération qui disparaîtrait bientôt. L'écrivaine m'a surpris avec le dynamisme de ce portrait. J'ai aimé, par exemple, cette description torrentielle de la saison des pluies: << La pluie pendant de longs mois, c'est la Souveraine du Rwanda, bien plus que le rois d'autrefois ou le président d'aujourd'hui, la Pluie, c'est celle qu'on attend, qu'on implore, celle qui décidera de la disette ou de l'abondance, qui sera le bon présage d'un mariage fécond, la première pluie au bout de la saison sèche qui fait danser les enfants qui tendent leurs visages vers la ciel pour accueillir les grosses gouttes tant désirées, la pluie impudique qui met à nu, sous leur pagne mouillé, les formes indécises des toutes jeunes filles, la Maîtresse violente, vétilleuse, capricieuse, celle qui crépite sur tous les toits de tôles, ceux cachés sous la bananeraie comme ceux des quartiers bourbeux de la capitale, celle qui a jeté son filet sur le lac, a effacé la démesure des volcans, qui règne sur les immenses fôrets du Congo, qui sont les entrailles de l'Afrique, la Pluie, la Pluie sans fin, jusqu'à l'océan qui l'engendre >> (65-66). Une seule phrase. Une telle richesse! En plus du côté descriptif de Mukasonga, j'ai aussi aimé la complexité de sa vision du monde. Bien que la dualité Hutu/Tutsi devienne plus prononcée au cours du roman, <i>Notre-Dame du Nil </i>évite la simplification et son point de vue sur la modernité du Rwanda est peut-être mieux illustré par ce commentaire de Kagabo, un guérisseur, sur une sorcière qui allait aider une étudiante Tutsi en danger: << Nyamirongi parle avec les nuages >>, il dit, << mais elle n'a pas de transistor. Il y a eu un coup d'État >> (266). Formidable.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixjvdH27qYI6V6sKphqb5ErrpVsuYK9VjnRjfpGCE8cZMD0Q1J-ZxFM557UVG7VghrLn9Tu2P35IgfrpCMNyrR3Vx_NuKpWNatxq6GHFLyBmLzWe1ibon3HopRXLuz7A1yeNUu4aeY91Cu/s960/Scholastique+Mukasonga.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="639" data-original-width="960" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixjvdH27qYI6V6sKphqb5ErrpVsuYK9VjnRjfpGCE8cZMD0Q1J-ZxFM557UVG7VghrLn9Tu2P35IgfrpCMNyrR3Vx_NuKpWNatxq6GHFLyBmLzWe1ibon3HopRXLuz7A1yeNUu4aeY91Cu/s320/Scholastique+Mukasonga.jpg" width="320" /></a><br /><b><span style="color: red;">Scholastique Mukasonga au Rwanda en 2013<br />(photo: DR)</span></b></div>Richardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01746599416342846897noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1911087927983597831.post-55454880654766422102020-09-06T18:18:00.002-04:002020-09-06T22:02:25.000-04:00The Palm-Wine Drinkard<p></p><div style="text-align: center;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsze-_4osBpbLphnNFmcYPFw0QUU3MW2Ly4_1rku6aVdko2CfJ0_twneCNJo2WPR18y4WFo6vdouN6g7v9OU4qAwfMB_zSiPsrGrfHVyDfc8IuFLscijPpgb_iFz68vG-FLbZQSyxN2mBk/s499/The+Palm-Wine+Drinkard.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="315" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsze-_4osBpbLphnNFmcYPFw0QUU3MW2Ly4_1rku6aVdko2CfJ0_twneCNJo2WPR18y4WFo6vdouN6g7v9OU4qAwfMB_zSiPsrGrfHVyDfc8IuFLscijPpgb_iFz68vG-FLbZQSyxN2mBk/s320/The+Palm-Wine+Drinkard.jpg" /></a></div><i>The Palm-Wine Drinkard </i>(<a href="https://groveatlantic.com/">Grove Press</a>, 1994)<br />by Amos Tutuola<br />Nigeria, 1952<p></p><p>If I understand things correctly, Tutuola's wild <i>The Palm-Wine Drinkard </i>(full title and capitalization in my edition: <i>The Palm-Wine Drinkard and his dead Palm-Wine Tapster in the Deads' Town</i>) was one of the first books out of Africa to be a commercial and critical success in "the West" even though back home in Nigeria the novelist was derided for bringing shame upon the continent or some such on account of his imperfect and "uneducated" English. "No prophet is accepted in his own country" & etc. For our purposes, I'll note at the outset that I was pleased to make the acquaintance of this pre-independence Nigerian classic. A freewheeling odyssey in which the affable narrator--a prodigious palm-wine drinker who occasionally appears to be a human but who claims to be both "a god and juju-man" and likes to refer to himself as "Father of gods who could do everything in this world" (194)--travels among the living and the dead in the company of his wife shapeshifting his way out of one scrape after another with Death, "a full-bodied gentleman" eventually reduced to a skull, a "very dangerous" bush in which "the boa constrictors were uncountable as sand" (222), and other amusing or monstrous oddities and locales supposedly imported from the world of Yoruba folk tales. A+ for imagination! As far as the actual writing is concerned, I'm not sure I understand the long ago fuss about its supposed flaws. Although Tutuola's English is marked by a # of minor curiosities--i.e. his fondness for emphasizing certain words in sentences parenthetically--and repetitions, probably the "worst" mistake I noted was the following: "His both feet were very long and thick as a pillar of a house, but no shoes could size his feet in this world" (282). Hardly a cause for concern, much less outrage, in a writer navigating a book in a second language, esp. one (book) in which the tradeoffs include scenes of Death tending his yam garden, a cosmovision in which people "and also spirits and curious creatures from various bushes and forests" (201) freely intermingle, and this stupendous intersection between the sensibilities of the olden days and the realities of modern air war: "I could not blame the lady for following the Skull as a complete gentleman to his house at all. Because if I were a lady, no doubt I would follow him to wherever he would go, and still as I was a man I would jealous him more than that, because if this gentleman went to the battle field, surely, enemy would not kill him or capture him and if bombers saw him in a town which was to be bombed, they would not throw bombs on his presence, and if they did throw it, the bomb itself would not explode until this gentleman would leave that town, because of his beauty" (207). On a related note, Tutuola's 1954 follow-up, <i>My Life in the Bush of Ghosts</i>, is said to be even more unhinged and poorly written than <i>The Palm-Wine Drinkard</i> although of course "poorly written" might not apply to anybody already accustomed to book bloggers' English. I can't wait!</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwGBSrT68fgxi8WOPa8x2rxsdy_Zl2wLAHAF0hfn3GZ5kSybkyDwZNHIQCOHRWtjkTY3jWBOAkDiVVksyq60mwOI8j99ycuM76KOhoVE8UlZjPkWaslOuAsxtLLhTIeISbhUjMcJKFb6i2/s232/Amos+Tutuola.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="232" data-original-width="217" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwGBSrT68fgxi8WOPa8x2rxsdy_Zl2wLAHAF0hfn3GZ5kSybkyDwZNHIQCOHRWtjkTY3jWBOAkDiVVksyq60mwOI8j99ycuM76KOhoVE8UlZjPkWaslOuAsxtLLhTIeISbhUjMcJKFb6i2/s0/Amos+Tutuola.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: red;">Amos Tutuola (1920-1997)</span></b></div>Richardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01746599416342846897noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1911087927983597831.post-34917771190432095542020-08-31T23:38:00.002-04:002020-09-01T00:59:02.998-04:00Spanish Lit Month 2020: 8/16-8/31 Links<p style="text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1JxB8ruVJfFf6hjrVGNSh3zaKQUvz8wv8nhNO24xpw9oaTpSEKhsss9wBayEg_TIdJzQJz0TrLhGP_WiXMtQX9g14ezKuATiMYNNhEQ7wyEIgigoUZ8ekYo_53N6r79RlakUImMavoXrT/s768/Jorge+Bar%25C3%25B3n+Biza.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="432" data-original-width="768" height="230" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1JxB8ruVJfFf6hjrVGNSh3zaKQUvz8wv8nhNO24xpw9oaTpSEKhsss9wBayEg_TIdJzQJz0TrLhGP_WiXMtQX9g14ezKuATiMYNNhEQ7wyEIgigoUZ8ekYo_53N6r79RlakUImMavoXrT/w410-h230/Jorge+Bar%25C3%25B3n+Biza.jpg" width="410" /></a><b><span style="color: red;">Jorge Barón Biza & family </span></b><b><span style="color: red;">(collage: Infobae.com)<br /><br /></span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">Thanks to all of you who joined us for </span><a href="http://caravanaderecuerdos.blogspot.com/2020/07/spanish-lit-month-2020.html" style="text-align: left;">Spanish Lit Month 2020</a><span style="text-align: left;"> and especially to </span><a href="https://winstonsdad.wordpress.com/" style="text-align: left;">Stu</a><span style="text-align: left;"> for welcoming me back to the fold as co-host after I took last year off with seasonal blogging disorder. I had fun as usual--hope you did as well. Anyway, here's the final batch of reviews to keep you in a good Spanish language reading place until next year's event. </span><i style="text-align: left;">Nos vemos</i><span style="text-align: left;">.</span></div><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: red;">Amateur Reader (Tom), <i>Wuthering Expectations</i></span></b><br /><a href="http://wutheringexpectations.blogspot.com/2020/08/come-and-see-blood-in-streets-notes-on.html">Come and see the blood in the streets - notes on Miguel Hernández, Pablo Neruda, and the poetry of the Spanish Civil War</a></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: red;">John, </span></b><i><b><span style="color: red;">The Modern Novel</span></b><br /><a href="https://www.themodernnovelblog.com/2020/08/19/claudia-hernandez-roza-tumba-quema-slash-and-burn/">Roza, tumba, quema </a></i><a href="https://www.themodernnovelblog.com/2020/08/19/claudia-hernandez-roza-tumba-quema-slash-and-burn/">(<i>Slash and Burn</i>)</a> by Claudia Hernández<br /><a href="https://www.themodernnovelblog.com/2020/08/20/tomas-gonzalez-la-luz-dificil-difficult-light/"><i>La luz difícil </i>(<i>Difficult Light</i>)</a> by Tomás González</p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: red;">Lisa Hill, </span></b><i><b><span style="color: red;">ANZ LitLovers LitBlog</span></b><br /><a href="https://anzlitlovers.com/2020/08/27/the-happy-city-by-elvira-navarro-translated-by-rosalind-harvey/">The Happy City</a> </i>by Elvira Navarro</p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: red;">Mandy Wight, </span></b><i><b><span style="color: red;">peakreads</span></b><br /><a href="https://peakreads.wordpress.com/2020/08/16/little-eyes-by-samanta-schweblin-translated-by-megan-mcdowell/">Little Eyes</a> </i>by Samanta Schweblin<br /><br /><b><span style="color: red;">Marina Sofia, </span></b><i><b><span style="color: red;">Finding Time to Write</span></b><br /><a href="https://findingtimetowrite.wordpress.com/2020/08/31/last-witmonth-book-hurricane-season-is-indeed-a-hurricane/">Hurricane Season</a> </i>by Fernanda Melchor</p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: red;">Meredith, </span></b><i><b><span style="color: red;">Dolce Bellezza</span></b><br /><a href="https://dolcebellezza.net/2020/08/21/all-this-i-will-give-you-by-dolores-redondo-a-planeta-prize-winning-novel-for-spanish-lit-month-and-women-in-translation-month/">All This I Will Give to You</a> </i>by Dolores Redondo</p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: red;">Obooki, <i>Obooki's Obloquy</i></span></b><br /><a href="https://obooki.wordpress.com/2020/08/30/spanish-literature-month-two-books/">Spanish Literature Month - Two Books</a><br />(on <i>Facundo </i>by Domingo F. Sarmiento and <i>Reasons of State </i>by Alejo Carpentier)</p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: red;">Paul, </span></b><i><b><span style="color: red;">By the Firelight</span></b><br /><a href="https://bythefirelight.com/2020/08/28/capital-de-la-gloria-glorious-capital-by-juan-eduardo-zuniga-a-review/">Capital de la gloria </a></i><a href="https://bythefirelight.com/2020/08/28/capital-de-la-gloria-glorious-capital-by-juan-eduardo-zuniga-a-review/">(<i>Glorious Capital</i>)</a> by Juan Eduard Zúñiga</p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: red;">Richard, </span></b><i><b><span style="color: red;">Caravana de recuerdos</span></b><br /><a href="http://caravanaderecuerdos.blogspot.com/2020/08/cuatro-por-cuatro.html">Cuatro por cuatro</a> </i>by Sara Mesa</p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: red;">Stu, </span></b><i><b><span style="color: red;">Winstonsdad's Blog</span></b><br /><a href="https://winstonsdad.wordpress.com/2020/08/17/things-we-lost-in-the-fire-by-marianna-enriquez/">Things We Lost in the Fire</a> </i>by Mariana Enriquez<br /><i><a href="https://winstonsdad.wordpress.com/2020/08/21/dark-constellations-by-pola-oloixarac/">Dark Constellations</a> </i>by Pola Oloixarac<br /><i><a href="https://winstonsdad.wordpress.com/2020/08/27/the-desert-and-its-seed-by-jorge-baron-biza/">The Desert and Its Seed</a> </i>by Jorge Barón Biza<br /><i><a href="https://winstonsdad.wordpress.com/2020/08/29/nine-moons-by-gabriela-wiener/">Nine Moons</a> </i>by Gabriela Wiener</p>Richardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01746599416342846897noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1911087927983597831.post-43357971134652041892020-08-30T17:14:00.003-04:002020-08-30T22:07:47.988-04:00Cuatro por cuatro<p></p><div style="text-align: center;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmSfcdIdws5foktYrIl23DSoID_FnEyXVr5IwezkqCVvqe31j2Nfj7ZkSfsceJYlp680CHjVOWDyi6YUXeu8pydQMBxCtbIA15C9d_rKOAEMwtDAEMOGGZu3sl5HYeZNGhDkC_tBK-LJPo/s565/Cuatro+por+cuatro.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="565" data-original-width="360" height="453" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmSfcdIdws5foktYrIl23DSoID_FnEyXVr5IwezkqCVvqe31j2Nfj7ZkSfsceJYlp680CHjVOWDyi6YUXeu8pydQMBxCtbIA15C9d_rKOAEMwtDAEMOGGZu3sl5HYeZNGhDkC_tBK-LJPo/w288-h453/Cuatro+por+cuatro.jpg" width="288" /></a></div><i>Cuatro por cuatro </i>(<a href="https://www.anagrama-ed.es/">Anagrama</a>, 2012)<br />by Sara Mesa<br />Spain, 2012<p></p><p>A different type of novel than the stuff I'm used to reading on account of the distinct dystopian vibe it exudes, <i>Cuatro por cuatro </i>[available in English as <i>Four by Four</i>] centers on the strange and increasingly creepy goings on in and around the boarding school of Wybrany College and the nearby city of Cárdenas in Mesa's alternate reality Spain. While "el <i>colich</i>," as both administrators and teachers from the institution and its mostly middle school age students like to refer to it, is in the business of passing itself off as something of a sanctuary from the chaos of the outside world, various irregularities and the unexplained disappearances of students and staff eventually give way to revelations suggesting that the enemy within the gates may be even more monstrous than any dangers lurking outside. On that note, nuff said about the plot. What I will add is that Mesa successfully jostled my expectations in a couple of ways in the service of this smart, moody, fake thriller of hers. For example, I enjoyed the mix of first- and third-person narration here especially given that the culture of silence about the suicides and the crimes at Wybrany has so much to do with what <i>Cuatro por cuatro </i>is all about. Similarly, I also was quite mesmerized by the novelist's powers of suggestion. Was one character's description of Cárdenas--"La ciudad está a punto de explotar... Grupos de incendarios han tomado las calles. Todo es muy peligroso" ["The city is on the verge of exploding... Groups of arsonists have taken to the streets. Everything is very dangerous"] (146, ellipses added)--proof that "el <i>colich</i>" was surrounded by a post-apocalyptic or <i>Stalker</i>-like Zone or just one more nightmarish image like the hastily-glimpsed/possibly-imagined one of a grown man leading a crying adolescent girl away by the hand? Whatever, a good read and one told in a fragmentary, time release style that well suits it.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2-pwlmZuizXbzYQYEDoZez1Qgk6bMMzReUEIFbuCaFNhy-u2pbmq5vrf9dEGCXjpoRnZM_vJrHpci8u2ZLi2QcKRp0HJYEgv2UTj2GriR5vHtsXk7aonnbrP__shQAeSD0D9nDBfQNwri/s650/Sara+Mesa.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="650" height="283" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2-pwlmZuizXbzYQYEDoZez1Qgk6bMMzReUEIFbuCaFNhy-u2pbmq5vrf9dEGCXjpoRnZM_vJrHpci8u2ZLi2QcKRp0HJYEgv2UTj2GriR5vHtsXk7aonnbrP__shQAeSD0D9nDBfQNwri/w410-h283/Sara+Mesa.jpg" width="410" /></a> <br /><b><span style="color: red;">Sara Mesa (Madrid, 1976)</span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: red;">photographer unknown</span></b></div>Richardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01746599416342846897noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1911087927983597831.post-64787673492760070402020-08-23T23:58:00.019-04:002020-08-26T21:37:25.931-04:00The Testament<p></p><div style="text-align: center;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJYxpAHS0hpDFAPsbqNvvPg1g2NGMZtGY9RNAFCm9UdL_RUzSurDWyX3ZUoXNv6GOUnHFQdDUPCixuan614TzSOEl-6YaSQAWvPN1dFErr11sXEM-TjI4uz-fxteSBsXhFDcNfQE11wUJh/s499/Poems+Villon.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="333" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJYxpAHS0hpDFAPsbqNvvPg1g2NGMZtGY9RNAFCm9UdL_RUzSurDWyX3ZUoXNv6GOUnHFQdDUPCixuan614TzSOEl-6YaSQAWvPN1dFErr11sXEM-TjI4uz-fxteSBsXhFDcNfQE11wUJh/s0/Poems+Villon.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><i>The Testament </i>[<i>Le Testament Villon</i>] (<a href="https://nupress.northwestern.edu/">Northwestern University Press</a>, 2013)<br />by François Villon [translated by David Georgi]</div><div style="text-align: left;">France, <i>c.</i> 1461</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">How do I love <i>The Testament</i>? Let me count the ways. One of the acrostics, FRANCOYS and MARTHE, appears in verses 942-955 in the section of the poem that David Georgi has translated under the rubric "Ballade from Villon to His Sweetheart." ("False beauty, your cost is too high by far!" ["Faulse beauté, qui tant me couste chier"] Villon coos.)<span style="color: red;"><b> </b></span>Another, VJLLON, appears in verses 1621-1626 within "The Ballade of Fat Margot" where the poet/pimp claims he and his hooker girlfriend are a good match: "like unto like: bad rat, bad cat" ["L'un vault l'autre, c'est a mau rat mau chat"]. In addition to the self-referential fun and games, I was also smitten with the self-propulsive flow of Villon's 2,023-verse kitchen sink of song. Early on, after raging against poverty and old age, the poet turns his sights on the <i>ubi sunt </i>theme with feeling in the marvelous "Ballade of the Ladies of Times Long Past." "Mais ou sont les neiges d'anten?" ["And where is the snow that fell last year?"] he repeatedly asks at the end of each octet and quatrain (<i>cf.</i> verses 336, 344, 352 & 356). A mere "Another ballade" later, Villon uses Charlemagne and other power brokers from the past to remind us that "No man alive can combat death,/or win a court's protection from it" ["Il n'est qui contre mort resiste/Ne qui trouve provisïon"] (verses 375-376). This, in turn, is followed by an exercise in style using a version of French already antiquated in Villon's time as if to suggest that even words fade away. Georgi calls the language here "a caricature of the French of an earlier period," full of archaisms, "that an educated medieval reader might have recognized from old <i>chansons de geste</i>, such as <i>The Song of Roland</i>, or from the quest-romances already two hundred years old by Villon's time" (notes, p. 237). Of course, the hijinx aren't always so highbrow. In "Ballade for a Lush," Villon pokes fun at Lot for having been "very forward with your daughters" ["De voz filles si vous fist approucher"] under the influence of drink (verse 1241) and in a later stanza he refers to one Marïon la Peautarde, whom Georgi casts as Marion Blisterskin (verse 1781) in honor of her "joke name"--in the translator's reading, Marïon la Peautarde = "Marion, la peau t'arde" or "Marion, your skin burns you" suggestive of "the symptoms of a venereal disease" (p. 255, notes). Never a dull moment <i>avec</i> Villon<i>, </i>and I haven't even gotten around to any of the <i>Testament</i>'s actual bequests, the vile, proto-Rabelaisian "Ballade of Meddlesome Tongues," the geographical puns opposing Montmartre and Mount Valerien--"In Villon's time," Georgi explains, "the abbey of Montmartre was in shambles and the nuns sold wine to get by. They will be able to sell something else too, Villon suggests" (verses 1551-1558; notes, p. 252) via the double whammy of playing off the Montmartre nuns' licentious reputation and the sound effect goof of Valerien sounding like ne "valent rien" or "they're worth nothing"--the hangman's jokes and the debauched like, or the final verses of the poem where the "poor Villon" ["povre Villon"] showily signs off on his testament with a succession of rhymes ending in "-illon" or "-ullon" in alternating lines (<i>cf.</i> verses 1996-2023 in the original for the full effect). A <i>tour de force </i>worthy of all the hype.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: red;">Source</span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;">David Georgi's 2013 bilingual edition of Villon's<i> Poems </i>includes <i>The Testament </i>(Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2013, 27-163) in Villon's Old French and Georgi's modern English in a facing translation.<br /></div></div><p></p>Richardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01746599416342846897noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1911087927983597831.post-3831444000105949282020-08-16T15:43:00.008-04:002020-08-24T00:34:26.863-04:00Malicroix<p></p><div style="text-align: center;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR4AtAQU2xM_9nCd3KM5CWQjBYT1qPaefe_2Q1aPlHHlyDBEy6XjbNgZX3Kf-NOFz97Kfq5bVO4HLnmu10xR5OgVLjwqtRAziuAq-KRK-CKjnCtsYxrR84rivX_Xz5ppRmv7PCVi0TTXe6/s499/Malicroix.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="303" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR4AtAQU2xM_9nCd3KM5CWQjBYT1qPaefe_2Q1aPlHHlyDBEy6XjbNgZX3Kf-NOFz97Kfq5bVO4HLnmu10xR5OgVLjwqtRAziuAq-KRK-CKjnCtsYxrR84rivX_Xz5ppRmv7PCVi0TTXe6/s0/Malicroix.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><i>Malicroix </i>(<a href="http://www.folio-lesite.fr/">Gallimard</a>, 2019)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">by Henri Bosco</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">France, 1948</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">When his great-uncle Cornélius de Malicroix dies sometime in the early 1800s, the 25-year old Martial de Mégremut learns that he stands to inherit his distant relative's inhospitable island home amid the salt water lagoons of the Camargue near the floodwaters of the Rhône as long as he can fulfill two provisions of the old man's will. The first--a three months staycation in his humble new home far away from his loving and close-knit family in the company of the taciturn Balandran and his dog Bréquillet--seems rather pedestrian in nature although it comes with complications in the form of conniving humans and the unforgiving natural world now surrounding him. The second, which Martial only learns about much later, will require the young dreamer to risk his life as a man of action in the fulfillment of a supernatural-tinged task which will take place alongside a mass for the dead overseen by his newfound enemies. Will Martial be the "guest of honor" or remain alive and kicking when that funeral mass is finally celebrated? <i>Malicroix</i>, a difficult novel to sort out in some respects (and not the quickest thing to read when looking up the translation for words like <i>salicornes </i>or pickleweed, previously unknown to me in any language!), struck me as a strange but alluring tale. Conceptually, it situates a quest novel or medieval grail romance within a series of meditations on nature and solitude and Gérard de Nerval-like dreamscapes. Is the action therefore "real," taking place in the narrator Martial's imagination or the product of the fevers and poisonings that beset some of the novel's characters? Thematically, it's appropriately hermetic in the sense that the road map to understanding it provides mirrors the initiate's search for meaning. Meaning that wasn't always clear to this uninitiated reader. Still, it was fascinating to see how Bosco handled some of these genre juxtapositions and narrative misdirections. Gérard de Nerval and Homer provide two telling examples of <i>Malicroix</i>'s rich allusiveness and elusiveness, of the multiplicity of readings it offers. When the evil notary Dromiols first meets the hero to read him the terms of his great-uncle's will, Martial overhears him talking in his sleep later that night and remarks upon how the thought processes evident "venues de cette vie seconde" ["coming from that second life"] (106) reveal a logical if nefarious intent--a clear reference on Bosco's part if not his narrator's to Gérard de Nerval's famous opening line from <i>Aurélia </i>where he declaims<i> </i>that<i> </i>"Le Rêve est une seconde vie" ["Dream is<i> </i>a second life"]. In a subsequent chapter,<i> </i>we get a multi-page sequence in which Martial lingers over a description of the wind transitioning from a forbidding squall into a full on hurricane. While the line that caught my eye was the Nerval-like image of disasters gushing forth from the "cités aériennes" ["aerial cities"] above (130), I'm not so sure that the poetic prose can be easily written off as an uncomplicated allusion in light of a certain animism also present in the text: the river itself gets characterized as "un être...un être redoutable" ["a human being...a dreadful human being"] (186) with an agency of its own on one of the many occasions when the rising waters make Martial fear for his life, and to complicate things Anne-Madeleine, Martial's eventual love interest, is introduced as a spirit-like water creature who bears "cette odeur de vent et d'eau vive" ["this scent of wind and flowing water"] (186) wherever she goes. Nice, mysterious, but lyricism + animism = what exactly? Of course, the supernatural tension between "ce pays sauvage" ["this wild country"] (35) and a pre-Christian conception of the land of the dead unfolding in geographical proximity to the modern day Occitanie commune of Aigues-Mortes ["stagnant water"] also figures in the scene where Dromiols attempts to scare Martial away from his new home by claiming that many people believe it's a "royaume des Ombres" ["kingdom of the Dead"] (91). Citing from the Greek, Dromiols' allusion is to Book 11 of <i>The Odyssey</i>, where Odysseus travels to the land of the Cimmerians where he pours libations to and actually speaks with various shades from the underworld. For those of you as rusty as I am on my Homer, suffice it to say that it's enough to note that this scene sheds light on one aspect of the end of <i>Malicroix </i>even<i> </i>if I have run out of steam to speak of the blind ferryman and the "taureau de combat, d'une stature colossale" ["fighting bull of a colossal stature"] (221) that also haunt its vision literature-tinted pages. It's all a bit much to process in a single reading.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5sb05q_e-GQfDxbo7NL2NWEzmK150NfAGQXyr-p98oP0YYJ6Qc2PO7-s85x-R5sQUbAAgqJKvipDGs9z9nICnJWfWAwCYxJltAesDiQREgM9Xtc387CDcgJt-ZrYuN-NsDpZbxgZ_0boS/s650/Henri+Bosco.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="455" data-original-width="650" height="286" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5sb05q_e-GQfDxbo7NL2NWEzmK150NfAGQXyr-p98oP0YYJ6Qc2PO7-s85x-R5sQUbAAgqJKvipDGs9z9nICnJWfWAwCYxJltAesDiQREgM9Xtc387CDcgJt-ZrYuN-NsDpZbxgZ_0boS/w410-h286/Henri+Bosco.jpg" width="410" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: red;">Henri Bosco (1888-1976)</span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: red;"> photo: Sophie Pacifico le Guyader</span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: red;"><br /></span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span><i>Malicroix </i>was the subject of a readalong earlier in the year which I didn't pay much attention to until two or three posts by <a href="https://eigermonchjungfrau.blog/">Dorian</a> and <a href="http://wutheringexpectations.blogspot.com/">Amateur Reader (Tom)</a> made me realize some of the erudite fun I'd been missing out on. Here's the complete set of those posts for collectors.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;"><b>Amateur Reader (Tom), <i>Wuthering Expectations</i></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span><a href="http://wutheringexpectations.blogspot.com/2020/04/the-birds-birds-sir-visiting-camargue.html">The birds, the birds, sir! - visiting the Camargue and other marshes with Henri Bosco</a><br /><a href="http://wutheringexpectations.blogspot.com/2020/05/henri-boscos-mystical-malicroix-five.html">Henri Bosco's mystical <i>Malicroix </i>- the five other songs of silence</a><br /><a href="http://wutheringexpectations.blogspot.com/2020/05/but-her-true-name-she-hides-it-still.html">but her true name, she hides it still - <i>Malicroix</i>'s tricky narrator - "Breathe, sir, the exhalations of the sauce!"</a><br /><a href="http://wutheringexpectations.blogspot.com/2020/05/malicroix-s-mythology-white-bulls-sun.html"><i>Malicroix</i>'s mythology - white bulls, sun gods, east versus west - this evening, there is nothing in the east but night</a></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: red;"><br /></span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: red;">Dorian, <i>Eiger, Mönch & Jungfrau</i></span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://eigermonchjungfrau.blog/2020/04/09/malicroix-readalong/"><i>Malicroix </i>Readalong</a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://eigermonchjungfrau.blog/2020/06/18/the-old-wild-blood-henri-boscos-malicroix/">"The Old, Wild Blood": Henri Bosco's <i>Malicroix</i></a></div><p></p>Richardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01746599416342846897noreply@blogger.com2