Perfection in words

Sometimes I think I only need the works of Joseph Roth, Stefan Zweig, Herman Hesse, Jorge Luis Borges, Robert Waltzer, and Natalia Ginzburg. And a desert island. That’s all.

Photo: Herman Hesse à Montagnola © fileane.com

Deprived stasis

In his first visit to the country, the Polish author and renowned journalist Ryszard Kapuscinski describes in a masterly fashion the extreme dire straits of the destitute masses in India in the 1950s.

“It was a gray, overcast day by the time we pulled into Sealdah Station. On every square inch of the enormous terminal, on its long platforms, its dead-end tracks, the swampy fields nearby, sat or lay thousands of emaciated people -under streams of rains, in the water and the mud; it was the rainy season, and the heavy tropical downpour did not abate for a moment. I was struck at once by the poverty of these soaked skeletons, their untold numbers, and, perhaps most of all, their immobility. They seemed a lifeless component of this dismal landscape, whose sole kinetic element was the sheets of water pouring from the sky. There was of course a certain, albeit desperate, logic and rationality in the utter passivity of these unfortunates: they sought no shelter from the downpour because they had nowhere to go -this was the end of their road- and they made no exertion to cover themselves because they had nothing to cover themselves with.

[...] An old woman next to me was digging a bit of rice out of the folds of her sari. She poured it into a little bowl and started to look around, perhaps for water, perhaps for fire, so that she could boil the rice. I noticed several children near her, eyeing the bowl. Staring -motionless, wordless. This last a moment, and the moment drags on. The children do not throw themselves on the rice; the rice is the property of the old woman, and these children have been inculcated with something more powerful than hunger.

A man is pushing his way through the huddled multitudes. He jostles the old woman, the bowl drops from her hands, and the rice scatters onto the platform, into the mud, amidst the garbage. In that split second, the children throw themselves down, dive between the legs of those still standing, dig around in the muck trying to find the grains of rice. The old woman stands there empty-handed, another man shoves her. The old woman, the children, the train station, everything -soaked through by the unending torrents of a tropical downpour. An I too stand dripping wet, afraid to take a step; and anyway, I don´t know where to go.”

Ryszard Kapuscinski, 2007, Travels with Herodotus, New York, Vintage, pp. 28-29. Trans. from the Polish by Klara Glowczewska.

Photo: Flyover kids, Calcutta, 2009 © Soham Gupta

Désir

Parfois les rêves se realisent. Alors, faites attention à vos désirs cachées…

“Le rêve de Meaume est celui-ci: Il est à dormir dans sa mansarde de Bruges (dans le logement que Jean Heemkers lui a accordé au-dessus de son appartement, au troisième étage de la maison sur le canal). Son sexe se dresse brusquement au-dessus de son ventre. La lumière blanche, épaisse, torride du soleil ruiselle autour du buste nu d´une jeune femme blonde au long cou. La lumière déborde tous les contours de son corps, rongeant les silhouettes de ses joues et de ses seins. C´est Nanni Veet Jakobsz. Elle penche la tête. Elle s´assied sur lui. Elle le plonge en elle d´un coup. Il jouit.”

Pascal Quignard, Terrasse à Rome, Paris, Éditions Gallimard, 2000.

Photo: Valerie and Gotscho Embracing, Paris, 1999 © Nan Goldin

Josephine and the Jewish people

Much has been speculated about the origins and meaning of Franz Kafka´s story Josefine die Sängerin oder das Volk der Mäuser [Josephine the Singer, or the Mouse Folk], which he should have written between March and April, 1924, and which ended up being published as part of his Ein Hungerkünster. Vier Geschichten [A Hunger Artist] (Berlin, Die Schmiede, 1924). This is Kafka reaching the heights of symbolic literature. A people we know nothing about is in deep love with the singing -actually whistling- of the fragile and delicate Josephine, whom they collectively take care of; in turn, she showers them with her unparalleled but easily broken voice, which has the power of congregating the people at once whenever it is heard, the masses flocking to her from wherever it finds them. In a very kafkian game of paradoxes and ceaseless contradictions in which nothing appears to be what it seems, they admit there is nothing special in the way Josephine sings -actually, whistles-, and she is depicted as authoritarian and whimsical; the people is fascinated by her and, at the same time, not really taking her persona seriously. However, the main contradiction consists in that they are certain about being necessary for her survival and, concurrently, she is convinced that without her presence and her art the people would have perished long time ago.

What is Kafka trying to tell us? Which people is he talking about? Who is Josephine? Unfortunately, these questions are bound to remain unanswered, but there have been some attempts at interpreting this magnetic and strange fable. Some have linked it to Kafka´s larynx disease of his final years, caused by the tuberculosis that ultimately killed him. Some others see in the singing character a portrait of Josephine Beauharnais, Napoleon´s wife. Still others associate the story with Eduard Mörike´s poem about a singer named Josephine, who once performed in front of a popular assembly with a pitch voice resembling a whistle. After re-reading the tale, I am inclined to agree with the critic and scholar Juan José del Solar (Franz Kafka, Obras Completas, vol. III, J. J. Solar, ed., Barcelona, Galaxia Gutenberg, 2003, p. 1048) when he brings up as plausible the hypothesis of Kafka having been inspired by the Jewish-Palestine Puah Ben-Tovin -an Hebrew expert who taught language and religion in several Jewish and Zionist associations in Prague by means of choral singing- to describe the condition of the Jewish people, in particular the Jewish peoples of Eastern Europe during the interwar years. Indeed, the allusions to the hard working nature of the Jews, to their appalling living circumstances, the Jewish communities finding themselves apart from each other, and their members harassed and persecuted in the hostile and convulsed European world of the beginning of the Twentieth Century -facts also masterfully described by another giant of Jewish and universal literature, Isaac Bashevis Singer, in Love and Exile (New York, Doubleday, 1984), his memories of early childhood in Poland- make such a possibility an inescapable one.

Photo: Andy Warhol, Ten Portraits of Jews of the Twentieth Century: Franz Kafka, 1987 © Museum Medzilaborce

Loss and sublimation

Meaume leur dit: “Je suis né l´anné 1617 à Paris. J´ai été apprenti chez Follin à Paris. Chez Rhuys le Réformé dans la cité de Toulouse. Chez Heemkers à Bruges. Après Bruges, j´ai vécu seul. À Bruges, j´aimais une femme et mon visage fut entièrement brûle.”

Thus begins the story of Meaume the engraver in Terrasse à Rome (Paris, Éditions Gallimard, 2000), the amazingly beautiful novel by Pascal Quignard. I consider Quignard one of the three best French authors alive -the other two being Pierre Michon and Michel Tournier. No doubt about it. Period.

The young apprentice is in love with the gorgeous 18-year-old daughter of Jacob Veet Jakobsz, elective judge of the city of Bruges. He gazes at her in church, looks for her in processions, follows her in the street, without her becoming aware. But she is aware. In turn, she learns to eye him among the crowd, following her. She gets used to expect his presence behind her.

Elle, elle cherchait sa silhouette. Elle le voyait se dissimuler derrière les parapets des ponts au-dessus des canaux. Derrière la margelle de pierre des fontaines sur les places. Elle le voyait mêler son ombre à l´ombre noire des porches et à celle plus étroite et plus jaune que projettent derrière elles les colonnes des églises. Chaque fois sa présence entraperçue l´emplissait de bonheur.

Eventually, they meet, discreetly. They do not exchange words at the beginning. Just a fleeting caressing of hands. They start seeing each other. In a garden, in her room, in his mansard. They enjoy the furtive minutes they spend together. They get used to their bodies, their nudity, their joy. Nanni Veet Jacobsz is engaged to a man called Valancre. One day, at Meaume´s atelier, the lovers are beginning to dress when Nanni´s fiancé breaks in. Meaume and Valancre fight. Valancre throws the acid Meaume uses to engrave his works to his face, harming him badly. Amid horrendous pain, Meaume is taken to his Master´s place. He will recover. His eyes were not hurt, but his face is irremediably and seriously burnt. After a while, he sends her letters, and tries to talk to her. In vain. She will not talk to him, and apparently decided to terminate the affair. Her absence is a torture. One night, he is sleeping, when she appears in his room. He wakes up. She is more beautiful than ever. She holds his hands. “You must leave inmediately.” “Why?”. “Because he wants to kill you.” “But why?”

Elle lui adresse un beau sourire. Mais elle dit en cessant de lui sourire: “Parce que je lui ai dit que je vous amais.” Brusquement, elle pleure beaucoup.

Meaume leaves the city. They will see each other once more. He will learn then she is married, and gave birth to a son. He leaves for good. Until his death in 1667, he will be constantly ‘leaving’ -Paris, Bologna, Toulouse, Como, Utrecht, Rome-, avoiding daylight and seeking relief in the shadows. He will devote his life to his art, becoming the best engraver of his time. His eyes, the only part of his face which remained untouched by the acid, will always be looking inward, searching for his intimate view of the world to create astonishingly detailed drawings and etched artworks, which nearly always would display a figure in the background whose face remains in the shadow. His eyes, however, find inside him no prospect for love. He cannot love the women he is with. He will always miss her.

Je n´ai jamais plus trouvé de joie auprès d´autres femmes qu´elle. Ce n´est pas cette joie qui me manque. C´est elle.

As in some of his other novels, -Tous les matins du monde, for instance-, Quignard masterfully develops here an individual´s sublimation of love into art, grasping the unlimited power concealed in the mourning for the loved one to transform it into sheer beauty. But, is this possible? Can a human being display such an extreme impossibility to love and, at the same time, be so aware of the world around as to portrait it in all his details and reproduce it so vividly as to arose deep emotions in all those who contemplate his art? May a human heart be so deeply closed to love after an emotional loss and, simultaneously, so acutely wide open to sights, odours, voices, touches, tastes, thoughts, anything we may apprehend with our senses and our mind? How can one be so detached and altogether united to nature?

Je ne réside plus beaucoup dans mon corps…. Je sens ma peau beaucoup trop fine et plus poreuse… Un jour le paysage me traversera…

Look for this novel. Read it. Savour it slowly. Then read it once more. You will not regret it.

Photo: ‘Terrasse à Rome’ cover, 2000 © Éditions Gallimard

Tragedy and contempt

Paul loves Camille, but, somehow, he is not very keen or does not know how to let her wife know. They both are in bed, at night, in the dark. From time to time, Camille´s naked body gets illuminated by a brief flash of outside light. Camille asks: “Tu me trouves jolie?”. “Très”, he replies. She doubts. She wants him to reassure her. The camera caresses Camille´s back, butt and legs. She is gorgeous. We hear Georges Delerue´s melody in the background, or perhaps it is Paul and Camille´s whispering dialogue the one hidding behind the music. Paul Javel wants to be a ‘serious’ playwriter, but nevertheless has accepted to re-write the script for a movie now being shoot near Capri, directed by Fritz Lang. The movie is a remake of Homer´s The Odyssey. The producer, Jeremy Prokosh, does not like the story as Homer wrote it, and he plans to do a “contemporary” film. As Ulysses in Homer´s epic, Paul will have to make a life choice, torn between being true to himself or engaging in a project he depises. However, he is more the antithesis of the Greek hero, as he is unable to make a clear decision regarding his work, his life and his wife. On the way, he risks losing Camille to the bon vivant Prokosh, as Ulysses faced the risk of losing Penelope to the suitors besetting her after he did not return from the war in Troy. Paul only feels contempt for Prokosh´ approach to the project, but accepts to get involved in it out of money. Camille´s love for Paul wears out. She starts treating him contemptuously. “Tu n´est pas un homme, Paul”, she scolds him. He tragically loses her, but eventually stays true to his “art”. Besides Homer´s The Odyssey, there is another classic literary parallel Jean-Luc Godard´s film Le Mépris (Contempt) apparently does not pay attention to, but which nevertheless resembles a great deal Paul and Camille´s tribulations, and that is the tragic story of Erec and Enide, written by Chrétien de Troyes in the twelfth century. While Erec sleeps, his wife Enide cries next to him, full with anger and contempt towards him, and herself as well. She recalls how her husband, her lord, is despised throughout the region for not embracing a career in arms and war, and staying home instead, totally devoted to loving her. Erec wakes up, and ask his wife why she is crying. Enide tells him the reason, how everyone mocks him for giving up the pursuit of glory as an armed knight, how everyone blames her for that, and the deep pain she feels because of it. Erec then decides to leave on a long armed quest. He will be a man, at last, but it will imply leaving her loved one behind, perhaps never to see her again. The choice between love and the search for one´s own place in the world will embody their tragic dilemma, as it constitutes Ulysses and Penelope´s, and Paul and Camille´s.

(This post is dedicated to Dhavar and his family, with my best wishes. A very good French movie does not change real life, but sometimes it may help endure it.)

Photo: Michel Piccoli and Brigitte Bardot in Jean-Luc Godard´s Le mépris, 1963.

Some thoughts on recent readings

Which metaphorical object could we employ to describe Paul Auster´s intricate plots in his novels? A jigsaw puzzle? A matrioshka? I personally would choose the expression ‘hub and spokes’. According to the Oxford American Dictionary, the phrase hub-and-spoke denotes ‘a system of air transportation in which local airports offer flights to a central airport where international or long-distance flights are available.’ The concept conjures up the image of a bicycle wheel, and Auster´s novels often seem to recall a group of wheels disparagedly intersecting with each other, with different main stories and characters tangled up with minor ones in a sort of complex web. Furthermore, you never know in which direction the story will be developing and which characters and events will end up being paramount to it. Something you may be absolutely certain about, however, and this is the author´s trademark, is that pure chance will play a big role at fuelling the plot. Admittedly, The Brooklyn Follies (London, Faber and Faber, 2005) may not reach the height of Paul Auster´s chef-d´oeuvre, Moon Palace, yet it is Auster in full swing, with its colorful characters, its detailed Manhattan-Brooklyn background, its convoluted turns of action and its masterly description of the overcoming power of chance and coincidence to alter our daily lives in unsuspected ways.

It may not be his best creation, and besides, it gives you the impression of being a hasty assembled potshumous book (nothing to blame on the author himself), but W. G. Sebald´s collection of incomplete literary sketches on Corsica -plus some essays- entitled Campo Santo (Barcelona, Anagrama, 2007; originally published in German with the same title by Carl Hanser Verlag, 2003), contains pieces which should be counted among his best works and are on a level with his masterpiece, Austerlitz. I am speaking of chapters such as ‘Campo Santo’, on the role of death in Corsican traditions; ‘Between history and natural history’ (on the literary description of total destruction)’, reviewing the German literary approach to the massive bombing of German cities by Western allies during World War II, something he addressed at lenght in his On the natural history of destruction; and ‘An attempt at restitution’, an inclassifiable bildungs-like short essay on his literary and personal maturation. I consider this last piece a jewel whose beauty and power to conjure up images and reflections may move anyone to tears.

I admit it. It may be heretic to some, but I am overwhelmed by the infinite sadness and the weighty role of routine in Fernando Pessoa´s account of a clerk´s immobile life -sure, there is an ultra-rich inner life in him, on the other hand- in Libro del desasosiego [Livro do desassossego / Book of disquietude] (Barcelona, Acantilado, 2003), despite the beautiful, musical translation into Spanish and the meticulous edition of Acantilado Publishers, a real pleasure for readers. As a second heresy (some will wonder why on earth should I compare these two Portuguese authors), I prefer the more classical in style works of Jose Maria Eça de Queiroz. However, there is much more of Pessoa to read before I give up.

Photo: Soho, New York City, 2007 © Loudsoul