Guimaraes Rosa - A terceira margem do rio

"Nosso pai era homem cumpridor, ordeiro, positivo; e sido assim desde mocinho e menino, pelo que testemunharam as diversas sensatas pessoas, quando indaguei a informação. Do que eu mesmo me alembro, ele não figurava mais estúrdio nem mais triste do que os outros, conhecidos nossos. Só quieto. Nossa mãe era quem regia, e que ralhava no diário com a gente — minha irmã, meu irmão e eu. Mas se deu que, certo dia, nosso pai mandou fazer para si uma canoa."

(...)
[Eu?]
(...)

"Sou o que não foi, o que vai ficar calado."


ROSA, João Guimarães. “A terceira margem do rio”. In: Primeiras Estórias.José Olympio Editora.

The White Tiger - Aravind Adiga

Adiga goes on about the other side of the so-much-talked-of rise of India to a new economic power. The fancy promises of outsourcing and IT businesses and a bangalore from a distance.
The sweat and the stinky taste of Old Delhi, New Delhi, and the part - what a huge part - of India that has not seen much change. Cooped and all. Family ties, servitude, not far from hat on his hands, hands hanging low, face to the dust of this old road while listening to the coronel or the local politician. Northeast there. Northeast here.

I mean, how different - I mean - is Brazil from the picture he draws?
Not much.
We, after all, have some very Great Socialists...
And quite often one can hear someone saying about his or hers maid:"She's been with us for so long she is practically family!"

The Corrections - Jnathan Franzen

"(...)
The midmorning light of a late-winter thaw, the stillness of a weekday nonhour in St. Jude, Gary wondered how his parents stood it. The oak trees were the same oily black as the crows perching in them. The sky was the same color as the salt-white pavement on which elderly St.Judean drivers obeying barbiturate speed limits were crawling to their destinations: to malls with pools of meltwater on their papered roofs, to the arterial that overlooked puddled steel yards and the state mental hospital and transmission towers feeding soaps and game shows to the ether; to the beltways and, beyond them, to a million acres of thawing hinterland where pickups were axle-deep in clay and .22s were fired in the woods and only gospel and pedal steel guitars were on the radio; to residential blocks with the same pallid glare in every window, besquirreled yellow lawns with a random plastic toy or two embedded in the dirt, a mailman whistling something Celtic and slamming mailboxes harder than he had to, becaus ethe deadness of these streets, at such a nonhour, in such a nonseason, could honestly kill you.
(...)"

José Saramago II - Do Cerco de Lisboa

"Raimundo Silva abriu de par em par a janela, alguns borrifos salpicaram-lhe a cara, esta é a cidade que foi cercada, as muralhas descem por ali até ao mar, que sendo tão largo o rio bem lhe merece o nome, e depois sobem, empinadas, onde não alcançamos a ver, esta é a moura Lisboa, se não fosse ser pardacento o ar deste dia de inverno distinguiríamos melhor os olivais da enconsta que desce para o esteiro, e os da outra margem, agora invisíveis como se os cobrisse uma nuvem de fumo. Raimundo Silva olhou e tornou a olhar, o universo murmura sob a chuva, meu Deus, que doce e suave tristeza, e que não nos falte nunca, nem mesmo nas horas de alegria.."

"Raimundo Silva spalancò la finestra, qualche spruzzo gli arrivò sulla faccia, non sul libro, perché l'aveva protetto, e la stessa impressione di forza total e traboccante gli invase lo spirito e il corpo, questa è la città che è stata assediata, le mura arrivano fino al mare, ché il fiume è cosí largo da meritarne il nome, e poi salgono, ripide, fin dove non riusciamo a vedere, questa è la Lisbona mora, se non fosse cosí cupa l'aria diq uesta giornata invernale scorgeremmo meglio gli uliveti del pendio che scende fino all'estuario, e quelli sull'altra sponda, adesso invisibili come se li coprisse una nuvola di fumo. Raimundo Silva ha guardato e riguardato, l'universo mormora sotto la pioggia, Mio Dio, che dolce e tenera tristezza, e speriamo che non ci manchi mai, neanche nei momenti di gioia."
Traduzione di Rita Desti 

Passaggio in italiano

José Saramago I - Storia dell'assedio di Lisbona

"O revisor tem nome, chama-se Raimundo. Era já tempo de sabermos quem seja a pessoa de quem vimos falando indiscretamente, se é que nome e apelidos alguma vez puderam acrescentar proveito que se visse às costumadas referências sinaléticas e outros desenhos, idade, altura, peso, tipo morfológico, tom da pele, cor dos olhos, e dos cabelos, se lisos, crespos ou ondulados, ou simplesmente perdidos, metal da voz, límpida ou rouca, gesticulação característica, maneira de andar, porquanto a experiência das relações humanas tem demonstrado que, sabendo nós isto e às vezes muito mais, nem o que sabemos nos serve, nem somos capazes de imaginar o que nos falta."

(..) Il revisore un nome ce l'ha, si chiama Raimundo. Ormai era ora che sapessimo chi fosse la persona di cui abbiamo parlato con indiscrezione, ammesso che nomi e cognomi abbiano mai potuto aggiungere qualche vantaggio evidente ai soliti riferimenti segnaletici e ai vari schemi, età, altezza, peso, tipo morfologico, incarnato, colore degli occhi e dei capelli, se lisci, crespi o ondulati, o semplicemente perduti, timbro della voce, limpida o roca, gesti caratteristici, maniera de camminare, mentre l'esperienza dei rapporti umani ha dimostrato che, pur sapendo questo e talvolta molto di piú, neanche quello che  conosciamo ci serve, né siamo capaci di immaginare che cosa ci manca." 
Traduzione di Rita Desti

Passaggio in italiano

An old one - Prufrock and a non-tropical zeitgeist

"Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question. . .
Oh, do not ask, "What is it?"
Let us go and make our visit."

                                                       ( More of T.S. Eliot's "The Love-Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"  here.)

Cormac McCarthy - The Crossing

"He wrapped himself in the blanket and watched her. When those eyes and the nation to which they stood witness were gone at last with their dignity back into their origins there would perhaps be other fires and other witnesses and other worlds otherwise beheld. but they would not be this one."


(...)
"They seemed in a state of improvident and hopeless vigilance. Like men committed upon uncertain ice." (193)

Missing scarcity - of information, at least

I remember reading  a few years ago Pablo Casal's autobiography. At some point he tells how his father and him one day in 1904 (or around that year), while browsing for music in some bookstores in Spain (what city?), found a copy of Bach's suites for violoncello.

"No one had recorded them. Nobody I knew knew how to play them." So in order to hear these suites he had no other option than to learn how to play them. And so he did, beautifully.

Fast forward to today's world of instant gratification. You hear a piece of music (or almost of anything), type some of it, click, and there you (almost certainly) find a version, a recording, and some comments about it. And this on music, movies, literature, you pick your preference...

So, I often ask myself how to best navigate this maze of information, and what implications there might be from the way and how intensely you do it. Choosing between an electronic book or one in paper; between scanning on blogs, sites, information providers and going back to a book I have read before; between the slower pace of disconnection and 'unfriendedness' and the fast ball of  "I can't be more than an arm's length away from a connected device." 

This is, perhaps, just a generational dilemma. If you grew up mostly interacting on screen, slowness is likely to mean something different. Such as e-mails, for some, have become the new snail mail.

Cormac McCarthy - All the Pretty Horses II

"The house was built in eighteen seventy-two. Seventy-seven years later his grandfather was still the first man to die in it. What others had lain in state in that hallway had been carried there on a gate or wrapped in a wagonsheet or delivered crated up in a raw pineboard box with a teamster standing at the door with a bill of lading. The ones that came at all. For the most part they were dead by rumor. A yellowed scrap of newsprint. A letter. A telegram. The original ranch was twenty-three hundred acres out of the old Meusebach survey of the Fisher-Miller grant, the original house a oneroom hovel of sticks and wattle. That was in eighteen sixty-six. In that same year the first cattle were driven through what was still Bexar County and across the north end of the ranch and on to Fort Sumner and Denver. Five years later his great-grandfather sent six hundred steers over that same trail and with the money he built the house and by then the ranch was already eighteen thousand acres. In eighteen eighty-three they ran the first barbed wire. By eighty-six the buffalo were gone. That same winter a bad die-up. In eighty-nine Fort Concho was disbanded.

His grandfather was the oldest of eight boys and the only one to live past the age of twenty-five. They were drowned, shot, kicked by horses. they perished in fires. They seemed to fear only dying in bed. The last two were killed in Puerto Rico in eighteen ninety-eight and in that year he married and brought his bride home to the ranch and he must have walked out and stood looking at his holdings and reflected long upon the ways of God and the laws of primogeniture. Twelve years later when his wife was carried off in the influenza epidemic they still had no children. A year later he married his dead wife's older sister and a year after this the boy's mother was born and that was all the borning that there was. The Grady name was buried with that old man the day the northern blew the lawnchairs over the dead cemetery grass. The boy's name was Cole. John Grady Cole."

Cormac McCarthy - All the Pretty Horses I

"By midmorning the rain had stopped. Water dripped from the trees in the alameda and the crepe hung in soggy strings. He stood with the horses and watched the wedding party emerge from the church. The groom wore a dull black suit too large for him and he looked not uneasy but half desperate, as if unused to clothes at all. The bride was embarrassed and clung to him and they stood on the steps for their photograph to be taken and in their antique formalwear posed there in front of the church they already had the look of old photos. In the sepia monochrome of a rainy day in the lost village they'd grown old instantly"

[I wonder whether Cole recognized himself in that faded picture. Frozen and from another, then already gone, world]

Ernest Hemingway - Farewell to Arms I

"I wanted to go to Austria without war. I wanted to go to the Black Forest. I wanted to go to the Hartz Mountains. Where were the Hartz Mountains anyway? They were fighting in the Carpathians. I did not want to the there anyway. It might be good though. I could go to Spain if there was no war. The sun was going down and the day was cooling off. After supper I would go and see Catherine Barkley. I wish she were here now. I wished I were in Milan with her. I would like to eat at the cova and then walk down the Via Manzoni in the hot evening and cross over and turn off along the canal and go to the hotel with Catherine Barkley. Maybe she would. Maybe she would pretend that I was her boy that was killed and we would go in the front door and the porter would take off his cap and I would stop at the concierge's desk and ask for the key and she would stand by the elevator and then we would get in the elevator and it would go up very slowly clicking at all the floors and then our floor and the boy would open the door and stand there and she would step out and I would step out and we would walk down the hall and I would put the key in the door and open it and go in and then take down the telephone and ask them to send a bottle of capri bianca in a silver bucket full of ice and you would hear the ice against the pail coming down the corridor and the boy would knock and I would say leave it outside the door please.Because we would not wear any clothes because it was so hot and the window open and the swallows flying over the roofs of the houses and when it was dark afterward and you went to the window very small bats hunting over the houses and close down over the trees and we would drink the capri and the door locked and it hot and only a sheet and the whole night and we would both love each other all night in the hot night in Milan. That was how it ought to be. I would eat quickly and go and see Catherine Barkley. "

Cormac McCarthy - Blood Meridian I

"When the coach had passed they donned their hats again and moved on. The dogs stood tail to tail. Two other dogs sat a little apart, squatting loosely in their skins, just frames of dogs in napless hides watching the coupled dogs and then watching the prisoners clanking away up the street. All lightly shimmering in the heat, these lifeforms, like wonders much reduced. Rough likenesses thrown up at hearsay after the things themselves had faded in men's minds."

Michael Ondaatje - The English Patient

"(...) I was not like him. Though I loved him. Admired him. I had this side to my nature which saw reason in all things. I was the one who had an earnest and serous air at school, which he would imitate and mock. You understand, of course, I was far less serious than he was, it was just htat I hated confrontation. It didn't stop me doing whatever I wished or doing things the way I wanted to. Quite early on I had discovered the overlooked space open to those of us with a silent life. I didn't argue with the policeman who said I couldn't cycle over a certain bridge or through a specific gate in the fort - I just stood there, still, until I was invisible, and then I went through. Like a cricket. Like a hidden cup of water. You understand? (...)"

"Yo no era como él, aunque lo quería, lo admiraba. Yo tenía la facultad de ver una razón de ser en todas las cosas. Era el que adoptaba una actitud seria y formal en la escuela, que él remedaba y de la que se burlaba. Claro, que yo era mucho menos serio que él; sólo que detestaba la confrontación. Lo que no me impedía hacer lo que me apetecía o salirme con la mía. Muy pronto había descubierto un espacio del que disfrutábamos sólo los que llevábamos una vida reservada. No discutía con el policía que me impedía circular en bicicleta por determinado puente o entrar por determinada puerta del fuerte, me limitaba a quedarme ahí, inmóvil, hasta que me volvía invisible y entonces entraba: como un grillo, como una taza de agua escondida. ¿Entiendes?"

Translation: Carlos Manzano    

Michael Ondaatje - The English Patient

A quiet river. Flowing. Slowly.

"Sometimes when she is able to spend the night with him they are wakened by the three minarets of the city beginning their prayers before dawn. He walks with her through the indigo markets that lie between South Cairo and her home. The beautiful songs of faith enter the air like arrows, one minaret answering another, as if passing on a rumour of the two of them as they walk through the cold morning air, the smell of charcoal and hemp already making the air profound. Sinners in a holy city."

["Às vezes, quando ela tem a chance de passar a noite com ele, são despertados pelos três minaretes da cidade iniciando suas orações ainda de madrugada. Andam juntos pelos mercados de indigo que ficam entre o sul da cidade do Cairo e a casa dela. As belas canções de fé atravessam o ar como flechas, um minarete respondendo a outro, como se transmitissem rumores sobre os dois enquanto eles caminham ao ar frio da manhã, já carregado, àquela hora, com o cheiro de carvão e de cânhamo. Pecadores numa cidade sagrada. "]
Translation: Iran

"A veces, cuando ella podía pasar la noche con él, los despertaban los tres minaretes de la ciudade, que iniciaban las plegarias antes del amanecer. Recorrían juntos los mercados de añil situados entre El Cairo meridional y la casa de ella. Los hermosos cantos de fe entraban en el aire como flechas, un minarete respondía a otro, como si se transmitieran un rumor sobre ellos dos, mientras paseaban en el fresco aire matutino, ya cargado con el olor a carbón y cáñamo. Pecadores en una ciudad santa."
 Translation: Carlos Manzano
 

Antonio Tabucchi - Il gioco del rovescio

"Dalla finestra arrivò il suono di una sirena, forse una nave che entrava in porto, e immediatamente sentii un enorme desiderio di essere uno di quei passeggeri di quella nave, di entrare nel porto di una città sconosciuta che si chiamava Lisbona e di dover chiamare al telefono una donna sconosciuta per dirle che era uscita una nuova traduzione di Fernando Pessoa, e quella donna si chiamava Maria do Carmo, sarebbe venuta alla libreria Bertrand indossando un vestito giallo, amava il fado e i piatti sefarditi, e io sapevo già tutto questo, ma quel passeggero che ero io e che guardava Lisbona dal parapetto della nave non lo sapeva ancora e tutto sarebbe stato per lui nuovo e identico. E questa era Saudade (...)"
    

["Da janela chegou o som de uma sirene, talvez um navio que entrava no porto, e imediatamente senti um desejo enorme de ser um dos passageiros daquele navio, de entrar no porto de uma cidade desconhecida que se chamava Lisboa e de ter que chamar por telefone a uma mulher desconhecida para dizer-lhe que havia saído uma nova tradução de Fernando Pessoa, e aquela mulher se chamaria Maria do Carmo, iria à livraria Bertrand usando um vestido amarelo, adorava o fado e os pratos sefarditas, e eu já sabia tudo isso, mas aquele passageiro que era eu e que contemplava Lisboa do convés do navio ainda não sabia e para ele tudo iria ser novo e idêntico. E isso era saudade" (...)]
Translation: Iran

Antonio Tabucchi - El Juego del Revés

"De la ventana llegó el sonido de una sirena, tal vez un barco que entraba en el puerto, e inmediatamente sentí un inmenso deseo de ser uno de los pasajeros de aquel barco, de entrar en el puerto de una ciudade desconocida que se llamaba Lisboa y de tener que llamar ppor teléfono a una mujer desconocida para decirle que había salido una nueva traducción de Fernando Pessoa, y aquella mujer se llamaba Maria do Carmo, iría a la librería Bertrand llevando un vestido amarillo, le gustaban los fados y los platos sefarditas, y yo todo esto ya lo sabía, pero aquel pasajero que era yo y que contemplaba Lisboa desde la barandilla del barco todavía no lo sabía y para él todo iba a ser nuevo e idéntico. Y esto era Saudade (...)"

"From the window came the sound of a siren. Perhaps a ship had entered the harbor. Immediately I felt an immense desire to be one of the passengers on that shop, to enter the harbor of an unknown city called Lisbon, and to have to telephone an unknown woman to tell her that a new translation of Fernando Pessoa had come out, and that woman was called Maria do Carmo. She would come to Bertrand's Bookstore wearing a yellow dress, she loved the fado and Sephardic food, and I already knew all this. But that passenger, who was I and who was gazing at Lisbon from the deck of the shop, did not know it yet, and evertything would be identical and new for him. And this was saudade (...)"

Guimarães Rosa - Grande Sertão, Travessias

"Ah, tem uma repetição, que sempre outras vezes em minha vida acontece. Eu atravesso as coisas - e no meio da travessia não vejo! - só estava era entretido na idéia dos lugares de saída e de chegada. Assaz o senhor sabe: a gente quer passar um rio a nado, e passa; mas vai dar na outra banda é num ponto muito mais em baixo, bem diverso do em que primeiro se pensou. Viver nem não é muito perigoso?" (51)

"Ah, siempre hay en mi vida una repetición que me pasó otras veces. Yo atravieso las cosas - ¡y en medio de la travesía no miro! -, entretenido solamente en la idea de los lugares de salida y de llegada. El señor bien lo sabe: uno quiere atravesar un río a nado y lo atraviesa, pero llega a la otra orilla un poco corriente abajo, muy distinto al lugar en el que había pensado antes. ¿Vivir, no es muy peligroso?" (47)

 Tradução: Florencia Garramuño y Gonzalo Aguilar


"Ah, il y a une répetition, qui constamment se reproduit plusieurs fois dan ma vie. Je traverse les choses - et au milieu de la traversée je reste aveugle! - uniquement occupé par la pensée des endroits par où entrer et sortir. Vous le savez de reste: on veut passer une rivière à la nage, et on passe; mais on se retrouve à un endroit sur l'autre rive beaucoup plus en aval, bien différent de ce qu'on avait pensé en premier. Vivre n'est-il pas très dangereux?" (50)
Tradução: Maryvonne Lapouge-Pettorelli


"Ah, c'è una ripetizione, che in altre circostanze si è sempre verificata nella mia vita. Quando passo attraverso le cose - e in mezzo alla traversia non vedo! - sono tutto preso dal pensiero dei posti di partenza e di arrivo. Vossignoria sa bene: uno vuol passare un fiume a nuoto, e lo passa; ma tocca l'altra sponda in un punto assai piú in basso, ben diverso da quello che in un primo tempo aveva pensato. Vivere non è forse molto pericoloso?" (32)
Tradução: Edoardo Bizzarri

Antonio Lobo Antunes - Eu hei-de amar uma pedra

"(...) se calhar uma dúzia de recordações penduradas num fio de lágrima igualmente
    (a velha história dos genes)
episódios a quem a gente agradece por continuarem conosco mesmo desbotados, vagos, amontoando-se numa caixinha de que cerramos a tampa com medo de que se evaporem, visitamo-los em segredo protegendo-os com a mão
    -Não me roubem o que fui  (...)"


"(...)  tal vez unos cuantos recuerdos colgados en una cadena de lágrimas también
   (la vieja historia de los genes)
episodios que agradecemos porque siguen con nosotros aun descoloridos, vagos, amontonándose en una cajita cuya tapa cerramos por miedo a que se evaporen, los visitamos en secreto protegiéndolos con la mano
  - No me roben lo que he sido  (...)"

Antonio Lobo Antunes - Yo he de amar una piedra

"... quedó parte del cuello y el telón una niebla, supongo que la Photo Royal Ltda. una niebla también, una niebla el fotógrafo con las manos amarillas de los ácidos que nos acomodó en la silla, una niebla el espejo con un cepillo y un peine para arreglar rodetes, melenas, Beato cambiado, muchos edificios ocultando el río que el tiempo disolvía igualmente, yo escurriéndome de mi madre y el fotógrafo ajustando lentes, invisible tras las cajas, arcos voltaicos, telas, el desorden de bodega d elos bastidores..."

"...al irnos de Bissau las cosas se despedían de nosotros, hasta el mástil de la bandera, los emblemas de los batallones en escayola que iban perdiendo pintura, la pena de las cosas tan obvia..."

Grande Sertão - Guimarães Rosa

"Por mim, só, de tantas minúncias, não era o capaz de me alembrar, não sou de à parada pouca coisa; mas a saudade me alembra. Que se hoje fosse. Diadorim me pôs o rastro dele para sempre em todas essas quisquilhas da natureza. Sei como sei. Som como os sapos sorumbavam. Diadorim, duro sério, tão bonito, no relume das brasas. Quase que a gente não abria a boca; mas era um delém que me tirava para ele - o irremediável extenso da vida." (45)


"Por mí, sólo, de tantas minucias, no era capaz de acordarme, no soy de pararme por poca cosa; pero la nostaliga hace que me acuerde. Como si fuera hoy. Diadorim me dejó su rastro en todas esas quisquilleces de la naturaleza. Bién que lo sé. Sonido como el de los sapos que sollozan. Diadorim, serio y duro, tan bonito en el relumbre de las brasas.  Cassi no abríamos la boca, pero era un tilín que me tiraba hacia él - la irremediable extensión de la vida."  (42)

Tradução: Florencia Garramuño y Gonzalo Aguilar  

 "Di per me, solo, tante minuzie, no sarei capace di ricordarle, non sono tipo da far caso alle piccole cose; ma la nostalgia mi fa ricordare. Como fosse oggi. Per me, Diadorim ha messo la sua impronta per sempre in tutte queste quisquilie della natura. Lo so bene. Il suono imbronciato dei rospi. diadorim, serio serio, cosí bello, nel barbaglio delle braci. Quasi non aprivamo bocca; ma era qualcosa al di là di noi che mi attirava verso di lui - l'irrimediabile estensione della vita." (27)

Tradução: Edoardo Bizzarri 

"De moi-même, seul, je ne serais pas capable de me rappeler toutes ces minuties, je ne suis pas le genre à m'arrêter à un détail; mais la nostalgie me les rappelle. Comme si c'était aujourd'hui. Diadorim m'a pour toujours dé posé son empreinte dans ces toutes petites choses de la nature. Je sais comment je sais. Et comment le son que faisaient les crapauds rendait triste. Diadorim, dur sérieux, si joli, dans le reflet des braises. On n'ouvrait quasiment pas la bouche; mais c'était un appel qui me halait vers lui: l'irrémediable illimité de la vie." (44)

Tradução: Maryvonne Lapouge-Pettorelli