Mario Benedetti, "The Truce"

 –ebook

 

Read from to February 5^th 2021

My rating: 

 

The Truce is the only (I think) Uruguayan book I have ever read, but what an introduction to the Uruguayan literature I’ve been offered! Moreover, I have learned (via Wikipedia , of course) that its author, Mario Benedetti, was a prominent member of the influential Generación del 45 and that he is considered one of the most important Latin American writers. A skilled translator (the first to translate Kafka), a mighty journalist, a brilliant novelist and poet, winner of a lot of international awards, he was nevertheless haunted by the same feeling of the worthlessness felt by many of his generation, as his last poem, dictated to his personal secretary just before dying, reveals:

My life has been like a fraud

My art has consisted

In this not being noticed too much

I've been as a levitator in my old age

The brown sheen of the tiles

Never came off my skin

Isabel Allende „Casa spiritelor”

 – e-book. 

La casa de los espíritus- traducerea: Cornelia Rădulescu

Perioada lecturii: 3 – 24 mai 2018 

Votul meu:

Că Isabel Allende ştie să scrie mi-am dat seama imediat ce am terminat de citit Daughter of Fortune (Fiica norocului, cred că e traducerea românească şi à propos de traducere, Cornelia Rădulescu face o treabă la fel de bună cu versiunea românească a La casa de los espíritusca Margaret Sayers cu aceea englezească a Hija de la fortuna). 

Cu toate acestea, nu pot să spun că romanul care i-a adus celebritatea, Casa spiritelor, m-a impresionat în mod deosebit. Este adevărat, tehnica narativă este interesantă şi ingenioasă în simplitatea ei aparentă şi în structura ei rotundă, chiar dacă nu este nouă. Naraţiunea curge pe trei voci care sînt de fapt două, a lui Esteban şi a Albei, deşi cititorul trăieşte cu impresia că naratorul principal, care povesteşte în general la persoana a treia inclusiv despre Alba, este mult mai îndepărtat în timp de evenimentele povestite. Abia în epilog Alba îşi asumă vocea narativă, destăinuind totodată că nu a mimat vocea bunicului ei, ci l-a lăsat să scrie el însuşi părţi din poveste. De asemenea, simetria compoziţională – romanul începe şi sfîrşeşte cu o notaţie din jurnalul bunicii naratoarei, Clara: „Barrabás a ajuns la noi în familie pe calea mării..." dezvoltă şi structural tema eternei reîntoarceri nitzscheene, omul prins în lanţul repetitiv al destinului pe care Alba încearcă să-l rupă făcînd o dublă alegere: morală, în acelaşi sens nitzschean, atunci cînd hotărăşte să nu se răzbune, şi estetică, atunci cînd îşi sublimează suferinţa, transformînd-o în artă:

Roberto Bolaño, “By Night in Chile”

 – Nocturno de Chile. Translated by Chris Andrews. New Directions, 2003; ISBN 978-0-8112-1547-3 ; 130 p.

Read from  December 29^th 2017 to January 9^th 2018

My rating:

“Take off your wig” says Chesterton in the motto of Roberto Bolaño’s novella, By Night in Chile. Then tell the truth, the bald truth, and nothing but the truth.

But what truth? On his deathbed, Sebastián Urrutia Lacroix, priest, literary critic and aspiring poet, mightily takes responsibility for his actions, words and even silences, in a fractured confession that has both the appearance of truth and the suggestion of delusion, although he always seems sanctioned by the spectre of a mysterious, slightly menacing wizened youth:

The wizened youth is watching from a yellow street corner and yelling at me. (…) I can see his jaws and his lips moving and I know he’s shouting, but I cannot hear his words. He can see me whispering, propped up on one elbow, while my bed negotiates the meanders of my fever, but he cannot hear my words either.

Gabriel García Márquez, "Cent ans de solitude"

 – Le livre de poche, 2006

(Re)Lu : du 31 mai au 30 juin 2013

Rating :

Il y a des livres d'une grandeur écrasante. Des livres mystérieux, qui t'incitent et t'illusionnent et qui te refusent leurs secrets même après plusieurs lectures. Des livres vieux comme la sagesse, éblouissants comme un miracle, incitants comme une découverte. Des livres dont on a tout dit, et pourtant on a seulement effleuré le sens.

Dans un univers néanmoins riche en œuvres extraordinaires, ces livres particuliers sont chacun et tous à la fois Le Livre, s'entrelaçant et se détachant en même temps pour créer un monde miraculeux où notre âme se reconnait parmi des idées qui lui sont si familières qu'elle se les revendique. À vrai dire, on aime, on apprécie, on est émerveillé par tant de livres, mais combien parlent vraiment de nous-mêmes? De moi, parlent au moins trois: "L'écume des jours", toutes les fois que je découvre la cruauté et l'insouciance du monde cachées derrière n'importe quelle beauté superficielle, "Les frères Karamazov", toutes les fois que ma conscience me reproche la même cruauté et insouciance envers les autres et "Cent ans de solitude" toutes les fois que je me rends compte qu'il m'est impossible de changer en moi ou dans le monde cette cruauté et insouciance.

Julio Cortazar, "Hopscotch"

(Rayuela), translated from the Spanish by Gregory Rabassa – Pantheon Books, New York 1986 ISBN 0-394-75284-8

Read from September 8^th to October 26^th 2015

My rating:

Every move you make Every page you take – I’ll be watching you

A few nights ago I dreamt one of those bizarre dreams in which I was literally jumping from one page to another depending on the falling of the pebble-pen I kept throwing on a giant book opened at my feet. I often dream I’m reading or, if it happens to be a nightmare, trying very hard to make sense of an illegible page, but this time I paid no attention to the words I was seeing, so focused I was on the game itself.

When I woke up, I realized on one hand that I subconsciously associated a short story I read a long time ago about two characters literally living in a bookland with Julio Cortazar’s Hopscotch, and on the other hand that for the first time ever I didn’t consider looking at the narrative technique as “work” and following the story as “play”; moreover, I was having such a wonderful time playing by the rules enunciated by the author that I didn’t care much for the story, so that I could happily contradict one of the characters’ belief that:

…no real revolution has ever been made against form. What counts is content, man, content.

Mario Vargas Llosa, "The Feast of the Goat"

 – e-book

Read from January  31^st to February18^th 2014

My rating:

They had forgotten the abuses, the murders, the corruption, the spying, the isolation, the fear: horror had become myth. "Everybody had jobs and there wasn't so much crime."

I keep remembering those summer nights, many years ago, when the air was heavy with the tension of passionate discussions about Ceausescu and the political changes after his death and the communism specter that continued to haunt our country.  We were young and full of hope and mockingly called all those regretting the past “old” and “nostalgic” while secretly being afraid of them.

During one of these conversations a friend of mine forecast that in the long run Ceausescu would become legend, his evil forgotten, his few achievements overstated. That statement seemed to me so inconceivable that I started a fight even though I knew very well he shared my political views.