Lá fora a roubar cavalos

Podia ser a tradução portuguesa do romance de Per Petterson "Out Stealing Horses" mas ainda não foi publicado em Portugal, que eu saiba, e não sei qual o nome que vai ganhar este romance premiado, considerado um dos melhores de 2007 pelo NY Times. Ganhou também o prémio de Melhor Escritor Estrangeiro 2006 e o Prémio IMPAC de Dublin 2007. Per Petterson nasceu em 1952 em Oslo, na Noruega, e é bibliotecário de profissão. Começou a escrever relativamente tarde, digo eu, mas fiquei surpreendida por ser ainda novo, "Out Stealing Horses"poderia ter sido escrito por um homem muito mais velho. Este é um livro de 2003, com o título original "Ut og stjæle hester", em 2005 foi publicada a versão inglesa, em 2007 a versão americana da GreyWolf Press. Escreveu até agora um livro de contos e cinco romances e até a wikipedia parece ter sido, tal como o próprio, apanhada de surpresa com o seu sucesso, o artigo sobre si não ocupa metade de uma filha A4. São os novos meios-medida da notoriedade. Aqui, um excelente programa de rádio com Per Petterson, da Minnesota Public Radio, de Setembro de 2007.


(imagem da Minnesota Public Radio)

Ray Carver é uma das suas influências, particularmente os contos escritos nos anos oitenta, Petterson diz que a maior parte dos seus livros são sobre a relação pai-filho. Aqui, a crítica do New York Times.

Sinopse: Em 1948, Trond, de 15 anos, passa o verão no campo com o seu pai. Os acontecimentos inesperados que têm lugar alteram a sua vida para sempre. Uma aventura matinal, roubando cavalos, deixam Trond confuso quando o seu amigo Jon se vai abaixo. Por detrás desta cena, esconde-se uma tragédia pessoal: o primeiro incidente da destruição gradual das famílias dos dois rapazes. Já velho, vivendo numa parte isolada da Noruega, Trond reencontra uma personagem daquele verão que trás memórias dolorosas e que o força a olhar para o seu passado. Tradução muito livre da contracapa da tradução inglesa, na Vintage Books.

"Early November. It's nine o'clock. The titmice are banging against the window. Sometimes they fly dizzily off after the impact, other times they fall and lie struggling in the new snow until they can take off again. I don't know what they want tht I have. I look out the window at the forest. There is a reddish light over the trees by the lake. It is starting to blow. I can see the shape of the wind on the water.

I live here now, in a small house in the far east of Norway. A river flows into the lake. It is not much of a river, and it gets shallow in the summer, but in the spring and autumn it runs briskly, and there are trout in it. I have caught some myself. The mouth of the river is only a hundred meters from here. I can just see it from my kitchen once the birch leaves have fallen. As now in November. There is a cottage down by the river that I can see when its lights are on if I go out onto my doorstep. A man lives there. He is older than I am, I think. Or seems to be. But perhaps that's perhaps that's because I do not realize what I look like myself, or life has been tougher for him than it has been for me. I cannot rule that out. He has a dog, a border collie.

I have a bird table on a pole a little way out in my yard. When it is getting light in the morning I sit at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee and watch them come fluttering in. I have seen eight different species so far, which is more than anywhere else I have lived, but only the titmice fly into the window. I have lived in many places. Now I am here. When the light comes I have been awake for several hours. Stoked the fire. Walked around, read yesterday's paper, washed yesterday's dishes, there were not many. Listened to the B.B.C. I keep the radio on most of the day. I listen to the news, cannot break that habit, but I do not know what to make of it any more. They say sixty-seven is no age, not nowadays, and it does not feel it either, I feel pretty spry. But when I listen to the news it no longer has the same place in my life. It does not affect my view of the world as once it did. Maybe there is something wrong with the news, the way it is reported, maybe there's too much of it. The good thing about the B.B.C.'s World Service, which is broadcast early in the morning, is that everything sounds foreign, that nothing is said about Norway, and that I can get updated on the position of countries like Jamaica, Pakistan, India and Sri Lanka in a sport such as cricket; a game I have never seen played and never will see, if I have a say in the matter. But what I have noticed is that 'The Motherland', England, is constantly being beaten. That's always something.

I too have a dog. Her name is Lyra. What breed she is would not be easy to say. It's not that important. We have been out already, with a torch, on the path we usually take, along the lake with its few millimetres of ice up against the bank where the dead rushes are yellow with autumn, and the snow fell silently, heavily out of the dark sky above, making Lyra sneeze with delight. Now she lies there close to the stove, asleep. It has stopped snowing. As the day wears on it will all melt. I can tell that from the thermometer. The red column is rising with the sun."

E é assim que começa; os dois primeiros parágrafos de "Out Stealing Horses". Ler o capítulo todo, aqui.