"A man that is born falls into a dream like a man who falls into the sea."

a frase de Conrad é das que mais gosto, é tão completa como um caleidoscópio, é mais real aos sentidos do que o anúncio da água das pedras. a memória de mergulhar dentro de água é poderosa e está num local estranho dentro do passado. tudo o que Lowry escreve cabe nesta citação, a sua vida.

"You'll never know how disappointed I was not to find any whalers in New Bedford." também lá estive e procurei o mesmo, encontrei só a casa do futebol clube do porto, sumol e pastéis de nata. o mar e a literatura, uma relação antiquíssima.

não fosse um fio tão fino, estaria disposta a seguir a maré.

- -


Joseph Conrad, um poema de Malcolm Lowry

This wrestling, as of seamen with a storm
Which flies to leeward—while they, united
In that chaos, turn, each on his nighted
Bunk, to dream of chaos again, or home—
The poet himself, struggling with the form
Of his coiled work, knows ; having requited
Sea-weariness with purpose, invited
What derricks of the soul plunge in his room.
Yet some mariner's ferment in his blood
—Though truant heart will hear the iron travail
And song of ships that ride their easting down—
Sustains him to subdue or be subdued.
In sleep all night he grapples with a sail !
But words beyond the life of ships dream on.

- -

agora sim

é que começou o ano. agora é sobreviver até à primavera, três meses de aflição. para já e havendo energia, a vida branca.

"In the evenings, the patients would stare out over the river at the Jack Frost Sugar Works, and if there was a ship unloading there it seemed to them she might have some special news for them, bringing deliverance. But none ever came...
Sometimes when there was a mist, river and sky merged in a white calm through which little masts and tilted, squat towers seemed to be slowly flying. A smudged gasworks crouched like something that could spring, behind the leaning, vaporous geometry of cranes and angled church steeples; and the factory chimneys waved endless handkerchiefs of smoke.
Farewell, farewell life!
Every so often, when a ship passed, there would be a curious mass movement towards the barred windows, a surging whose source was in the breasts of the mad seamen and firemen there, but to which all were tributary: even those whose heads had been bowed for days rose at this stirring, their bodies shaking as though roused suddenly from nightmare or from the dead, while their lips would burst with a sound, partly a cheer and partly a wailing shriek, like some cry of the imprisioned spirit of New York itself, the spirit haunting the abyss between Europe and America and brooding like futurity over the Western Ocean. The eyes of all would watch the ship with a strange, hungry supplication.
But more often when a ship went by or backed out from the docks opposite and swung around to steam towards to open sea, there was a dead silence in the ward and a strange foreboding as though all hope were sailing with the tide."
Malcolm Lowry em Lunar Caustic.

traveler

de Matt Chase.

e When Brands Attack.

se bem que goste das imagens, estas e as do site, retro with a twist of irony, sarcasmo até, com o que me identifico, gostei mais da citação que desconhecia embora deva fazer parte da 'lista de citações que qualquer idiota deve conhecer na sua vida', isto ironicamente pois. é de Robert Louis Stevenson.




agora fico sem saber se os acampamentos de Lowry na Califórnia estiveram de algum modo relacionados com este de Stevenson. ambos carregaram bem as suas memórias. é curiosa a volta que a citação dá ou pode dar. cambalhotas culturais. (e assim emergem as palavras, carregadas, pesadas de passados dolorosos, musguentas, das imagens ecologicamente limpas).

curioso também que Silverado Squatters esteja em domínio público e não tenha sido ainda apanhado pela indústria da lit de viagens.

já acabou

mas tenho saudades do Vulcão.

"life in the woods"

também no sonho de Yvonne e na realidade de Lowry.

isto no encalço do Walden, under the influence do vulcão.

e o jantar foi Polenta with Wild Mushrooms, salada de verdes com romã e pinhões, petits pots de crème, do livro Food of the Mediterranean.

doldrums

"La rame inutile fatigua vainement une mer immobile..."

Racine's Iphigénie, through Lowry.

ou
"All in a hot and copper sky,
The bloody Sun, at noon,
Right up above the mast did stand,
No bigger than the Moon.

Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.
in Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

- -

todas as notas.

(sem relação, mas com "piada", este doldrums de um sociólogo)

uma quase meia semana

afinal quem ganhou foi Filipa César com a história de sal e exclusão. gostei das imagens, da história, da censura e do martírio mas veio em má altura. andei a voar com corujas, as bebés de Martin Waddell -voltamos sempre, voltamos - as que vão chegando, mesmo que seja ao longe, de Jackie Morris. amanhã talvez recupere, como dizem nas notícias esses eles responsáveis pela realidade, recupere a imagem da coruja silenciosa do Alentejo litoral. só novidades, nesta quarta-feira. alguém acredita nisto, a peganhar a boca e a cara, a correr nos morangos, nos dedos, chupar os dedos. abrir a tampa e fechar e abrir depois de um minuto e voltar a fechar até não restar mais doce. no nicho de British Foods. paguei a conta e vim embora (dois euros por 100g de chocolate chips).

deprimiu-se pelos rios de pedra Madeira abaixo, deprimiu-se pelas mentiras assanhadas e manobras jornaleiras, e ainda por todos os bairros e farmácias e estações de combustível que foram assaltados nos últimos sete dias. pelo menos encomenda as cápsulas online, preenche os quadradinhos onde automaticamente aparece um sinal de conferido, clica aqui e salta uma maré de agradáveis palavras e imagem suave. não se lembra se tem música mas lá na parte de trás do pensamento está o tom nonchalant das notas a acompanhar o timbre da voz do anúncio, a gota espumosa a formar-se no ar como uma outra nuvem. e mais quadradinhos, promoções e segredos - tips. no ar a subir um aroma em forma de s esticado e a impressão de finalmente descanso, controlar esta parte do meu mundo, clique clique. já a caminho, confirmadíssimo, bem educadíssimo.

é engano pensar em Pedro e no seu lobo de cada vez que pensa em fagote. bassoon. Joseph Bodin de Boismortier, gostava de ouvir esta sonata no fim-de-semana mas será quase impossível. Helena foi sua colega de escola, quando havia bata quadriculada, e no entanto não se lembra nem da cara nem do nome. Boismortier was purely a composer and one of the first to have no patrons: he made his living simply by writing new works of music.] anda por aí um livro que relata, suponho, uma história de amor na Figueira da Foz. o Expresso cilindrou livro e autora, de tal maneira que os "trejeitos literários" ou uma expressão igualmente mortífera andaram comigo o resto da semana. e para transformar isto em verdadeiro confetti, dizer que Amanhecer de Stephanie Meyer está no grupo de "literatura em português". papelinhos. mas se o Prometeu Agrilhoado está nesse mesmo grupo e no sub-género "romântica" estou a tempo de desistir.

fiz as contas e ele também, uma folha inteira de contas, minus mom. e o patinho feio de uma ponta à outra. vamos ver dinossauros.

ciaccona, chaconne. variações que combinam com as flores sintéticas e com as curiosidades dos gabinetes. acabo na Gótica de Cornelis Dopper, por ser gótica e pelo nome dele. as meninas que escrevem blogues diários são as mesmas que tinham um livrinho com chave e fechadura minúscula de tão secreta onde largavam queridos diários e a data com letra arrevesada e por vezes esferográfica colorida e por vezes até com cheiro a rosa ou lavanda para ilustrar fotos antigas com meias que eram soquetes ("Em Marc Jacobs, por exemplo, nem as soquetes tiraram a seriedade dos looks."). também havia pétalas de flores e as razões eram várias: porque simbolizavam isso mesmo, porque podiam substituir o perfume das canetas, porque funcionavam como uma parte do todo que tinha sido oferecido e nesse caso eram roubadas de um jardim ou parque como no anúncio. todo um universo de experiência sensorial tão enriquecedora que escapa à nova geração.

quebrando aquele hábito: de vir cá, dar uma volta, ver as vistas, a volta de Domingo enfim, talvez não reste quase nada.

- - - -

real politik: já não tenho sonhos. às vezes trato demasiadamente mal as cinderelas e esqueço-me que aquele sapo com a boca esticada pode ser o seu pombal, a sua neta. para traduzir: a sua razão de viver.


(...)


somos uns animais deformados e a manutenção da espécie (gosto sempre de me denominar espécie) baseia-se em inexistências dentro das nossas cabeças. mais fortes do que o próximo almoço, há quem nem coma.

- - - -

uma mulher suave. douce ou gentle.

ora

outra imagem (disintegration)

a tourada como a vida, há pouco tempo no último Lobo Antunes. será que encontro este outro touro naquele de Lobo Antunes?

. . .

"The poor old creature seemed now indeed like someone being drawn, lured, into events of which he has no real comprehension, by people with whom he wishes to be friendly, even to play, who entice him by encouraging that wish and by whom, because they really despise and desire to humiliate him, he is finally entangled."

(...)

"And there, it had happened. The bull was hopelessly entangled. Now one, two, three, four more lassoes, each launched with a new marked lack of friendliness, caught him. The spectators stamped on the wooden scaffolding, clapping rhythmically, without enthusiasm. - Yes, it struck her now that this whole business of the bull was like a life; the important birth, the fair chance, the tentative, then assured, then half-dispairing circulations of the ring, an obstacle negotiated - a feat improperly recognized - boredom, resignation, collapse: then another, more convulsive birth, a new start; the circumspect endeavours to obtain one's bearings in a world now frankly hostile, the apparent but deceptive encouragement of one's judges, half of whom were asleep, the swervings into the beginnings of disaster because of that same negligible obstacle one had surely taken before at a stride, the final enmeshment in the toils of enemies one was never quite certain weren't friends more clumsy than actively ill-disposed, followed by disaster, capitulation, disintegration -"

M. Lowry, Under the Volcano

imagem (dissolution)

"Dust, dust, dust - it filtered in through the windows, a soft invasion of dissolution, filling the vehicle."

M. Lowry em Under the Volcano.

vulcão

situação latente. (não tenho saudades do futuro). inevitável. realidade.
truth. inevitable. core. intimacy. hell.
confrontar os vulcões de Lowry e os de Ozu não deixa de ser interessante.

looping-the-loop

"The huge looping-the-loop machine, empty, but going full blast over his head in this dead section of the fair, suggested some huge evil spirit, screaming in its lonely hell, its limbs writhing, smiting the air like flails of paddlewheels. (...)
'-Mistair. Money money money.' 'Mistair! Where har you go?'

M. Lowry, Under the Volcano

englishness

'Why, here comes the cartero', Yvonne called out ahead, half turning round and disengaging her arm from M. Laruelle's. She was pointing to the corner on the left at the top of the hill where the Calle Nicaragua met the Calle Tierra del Fuego. 'He's simply amazing,' she was saying volubly. 'The funny thing is that all the postmen in Quauhnahuac look exactly alike. Apparently they're all from the same family and have been postmen for positively generations. I think this one's grandfather was a cartero at the time of Maximilian. Isn't it delightful to think of the post-office collecting all these grotesque little creatures like so many carrier pigeons to dispatch at their will?'

Why are you so voluble? Hugh wondered: 'How delightful, for the post-office,' he said politely. They were all watching the cartero's approach. Hugh happened not to have observed any of these unique postmen before. He could not have been five feet in height, and from a distance appeared like an unclassifiable but somehow pleasing animal advancing on all fours. He was wearing a colourless dungaree suit and a battered official cap and Hugh now saw he had a tiny goatee beard. Upon his small wizened face as he lunged down the street towards them in his inhuman yet endearing fashion there was the friendliest expression imaginable. Seeing them he stopped, unshouldered the bag and began to unbuckle it."

M. Lowry, Under the Volcano

- - -
não tem muita importância mas, chegando ao mesmo local, não li a coisa da mesma maneira ligeira. aliás, penso que a disfunção relativamente ao local/cenário é um elemento estrutura deste Volcano. as leituras da New Yorker:
"Of course it’s not just Yvonne who’s condescending to this man, speaking of him as if he were a trained pet. “Grotesque little creatures” is her phrase, but “an unclassifiable but somehow pleasing animal” and “inhuman yet endearing” are in the third person, attributable only to Lowry. It’s strange, because nowhere else did I detect any kind of race stereotyping. Am I reading too much into this?
MICHAUD: I just assumed that Lowry was describing an actual Mexican postal carrier whom he recalled from his time there. To me, that bit read like a journal entry copied directly into the novel. There are numerous occasions of this throughout the book—clear-eyed descriptions of things that rise out of the book’s sometimes soupy imagery like the volcanoes rising out of the mist.
RAAB: Yvonne’s dismissal of the postman, whom I read as another sort of ancient messenger, seems to me not so much racist as intuitive and symbolic: the postman is, in fact, her enemy, the emblem of miscommunication and of all that is dysfunctional to her in Mexico. Her letters to the Consul have missed their mark and gone astray. Had they been delivered in time, her fate might have been different."

ou antes, o encontro entre o cliché mexicano deles e o meu cliché inglês.

um outro tramp steamer

e uma parte de "ser Conrad", antes da guerra ainda era possível.

"She was, unlike the Philoctetes, everything in his eyes a ship should be. First she was not in rig a football boat, a mass of low goalposts and tankrums. Her masts and derricks were of the lofty coffee-pot variety. These former were black, of iron. Her funnel too was tall, and needed paint. She was foul and rusty, red lead showed along her side. She had a marked list to port, and, who knows, one to starboard as well. The condition of her bridge suggested recent contact - could it be possible? - with a typhoon. If not, she possessed the air of one who would soon attract them. She was battered, ancient, and, happy thought, perhaps even about to sink. And yet there was something youthful and beautiful about her, like an illusion that will never be there, but always remains hull-down on the horizon."

M. Lowry, Under the Volcano

água de novo

A dried up river is like the soul

Malcolm Lowry

A dried up river is like the soul

Of a poet who can't write, yet perceives

With imperfect clarity his theme and grieves

To parched death over the drought. But his goal

Once a wholesome sea of clearest crystal

Recedes, grows gray in hartseye, like old love leaves,

Leaves the mind altogether. He conceives

Nothing to replace it: only at the pole

Of memory flickers some senseless compass.

So the river, by her grey pitying trees,

Is an agony of stones, horrors which sank

But are now declared, bleached. For it is these,

These stones and nothingness which possess

When a river is a road and mind a blank.

a cor das meias

"How much do we need to know about a writer, personally? The answer is that it doesn't matter. Nothing or everything is equally satisfactory. Who cares, in the end? As Northrop Frye has said, the only evidence we have of Shakespeare's existence, apart from the poems and plays, is the portrait of a man who was clearly an idiot. Biography is there for the curious; and curiosity gives out where boredom begins.", Martin Amis numa review a uma biografia de Malcolm Lowry.

muerto

no Smithsonian's American Indian Museum, Washington, DC

a condizer com este.

passeio passear

"The prison was behind them and he imagined themselves jogging into enormous focus for the inquisitive binoculars up there on the watchtower; 'Guapa', one policeman would say. 'Ah, muy hermosa,' another might call, delighted with Yvonne and smacking his lips. The world was always within the binoculars of the police. Meantime the foals, which perhaps were not fully aware that a road was a means of getting somewhere and not, like a field, something to roll on or eat, kept straying into the undergrowth on either hand."

Under the Volcano, M. Lowry

e como citar. 31%. locations 2248-51. 7123.

setenta por cento a linguagem

e o resto a história, diz Saramago. depois de ver metade das entrevistas de Conversas de Escritores. a ideia era boa. no entanto... José Rodrigues dos Santos procura uma resposta e uma confirmação. a resposta à pergunta o que é um bom romance (para uso próprio?), a confirmação à ideia de que a literatura já não é o que era, ou seja, a literatura de entretenimento é tão literatura como a outra. o que vai sempre desaguar à procura de confirmação dos seus romances. o que não impede, de modo algum, que estas entrevistas sejam interessantes, que o entrevistador esteja bem preparado, que é bom encontrar ideias comuns aos escritores de literatura e um outro conjunto de ideias comuns aos escritores de entretenimento. e muito engraçado ouvir que não lê literatura experimental (o que é isso?). ah os europeus que se marimbam na história... e o único português que vai ser lembrado garantidamente- Saramago... "ainda bem" que o próprio se coloca no mesmo patamar de esquecimento de Lobo Antunes. não deixei de me surpreender e de lembrar a pessoa que riu na cara de Natália Correia. [aquilo diz Saramago. o resto são pobres quotes do entrevistador]

mas deixando o fait divers. "Lowry began writing “Volcano” in his late twenties. The writing took four drafts and almost a decade. In his early attempts, he was more interested in seeing how many images and symbols he could embed in the text than in creating lifelike characters. It was only in 1939, when Lowry met Margerie, who was herself an aspiring writer, that the novel began assuming a coherent shape. Margerie suggested characters and plot turns, added sentences, and cut back Lowry’s wordiness. She was a good editor, and the only person who could manage her husband’s reckless temperament." (daqui) nem vou entrar no tema "esposas", lembrando a de Nabokov. mas gostei de ver as imagens e os símbolos. [by the way, alguém conhece o título The Last Twist of the Knife]

the falling man

"I have always seen this story as a tragedy of failed intentions. It does not matter if we fail accidentally or maliciously. We are responsible for failure no matter good intention. You can no more make up for a mistake than you can for a crime." diz Guy Gallo, o argumentista de Under the Volcano nas suas notas.

"The novel can be read simply as a story which you can skip if you want. It can be read as a story you will get more out of if you don't skip. It can be regarded as a kind of symphony, or in another way as a kind of opera--or even a horse opera. It is hot music, a poem, a song, a comedy, a farce, and so forth. It is superficial, profound, entertaining, and boring, according to taste. It is a prophecy, a political warning, a cryptogram, a preposterous movie, and a writing on the wall. It can even be regarded as a sort of machine: it works too, believe me as I have found out. In case you think I mean it to be everything but a novel I better say that after all it is intended to be and, though I say so myself, a deeply serious one too." disse Malcolm Lowry.

(,,,)

ambos recorte de Joyce/Lowry: critical perspectives.

este pode bem ser o melhor livro que vou ler este ano.