il mestiere di vivere

Cesare Pavese é um dos favoritos, embora não lhe conheça quase nada. Talvez por fazer parte da uma certa literatura europeia que teima em ser esquecida, saída de moda. Fiquei contente por saber que o Ofício de Viver vai ser re-publicado pela Relógio d'Água e gostei de ouvir falar a tradutora. Quase certa a compra, mas prefiro os selected works na Amazon ou os Complete Poems. Escrever livros mata?

Displaced people

Too much sea. We've had enough of the sea.
In the evening, pale water streches away
and shades into nothing, my friend watching it,
and me watching him, and nobody speaking.
That night we end up finding a spot in the rear of a tavern,
an island in the smoke, and we drink. My friend has dreams
(one's dreams grow rather monotonous in the roar of the sea)
where the water is only a mirror, between islands,
of hills stippled with wildflowers and falls.
His wine is like that: he sees himself, as he looks in his glass,
raising hills of green on the plain of the sea.
Hills are fine things, and I let him go on about water,
because this water's so clear you can see down to the stones.

I see nothing but hills, close up and far off,
filling the sky and earth with the sure lines of their flanks.
But my hills are harsh, striped with vineyards
hard-won from scorched ground. My friend accepts this
but still wants to adorn them with flowers and wild fruit
and hidden girls laughing, more naked than fruit.
No need: even my harshest dreams can still manage a smile.
If early tomorrow we go out for a walk
through my hills, we might find, in those vineyards,
a couple of girls, made dark by the sun,
and we could make small talk and sample their grapes.
(...)

e aqui, all the way from downunder, um artigo bem interessante.