deriva literária

na minha vida. Playback de Chandler afinal não me apetece porque não quero correr a distância entre uma obra icónica incial e outra de fim de vida, com a carga de carregou, um pouco tóxica. Kadare resolveu ficar na Madeira, não o censuro, as senhoras do hotel resolveram detê-lo para leitura, também não as censuro, de modo que tenho de aguardar pela chegada do recém-nascido, até porque me agradava a cidade de pedra da história, que me faz lembrar um pouco Calvino e tudo o que me faz lembrar um pouco Calvino não é muito mau. entretanto isto (renovando a minha fé naqueles que escolhem o nobel). começa com:

"Then I went back into the house and wrote. It is midnight. The rain is beating on the windows. It was not midnight. It was not raining." Beckett, Molloy.

e

"Let us call our man, the hero of this story, Kingbitter. We imagine a man, and a name to go with him. Or conversely, let us imagine the name, and the man to go with it. Though this may all be avoided anyway since our man, the hero of this story, really is called Kingbitter."

assim é o início de Liquidation de Imre Kertész. não é preciso um génio para saber que vai ser bom.

volto

ao Chandler. voltar é bom, quando são autores. tudo o resto não presta.

(nada) a dizer

ou alguma coisa: para além de não se querer deixar ler, a última vez que este livro foi lido foi em 1992, há mais de doze anos. que imperdoável.

fisionomia (2 ou 3)

"He didn't like that. His lower lip went in under his teeth, and his eyebrows drew down sharply at the corners. His whole face became sharp and foxy and mean."

vou considerar Chandler um mestre da fisionomia. como eu o via, por via do cinema, e como o vejo ao ler. o poder iconográfico do cinema é fora deste mundo. (os Cohen do Lebowski partem da versão no cinema, o que seria este livro re-imaginado a partir do texto).

[ah, se eu tivesse ido!]

dúvida

metódica: com cinco dias para ler, que livro escolher.
[i think i have it: chandler, molina, kadare]

fisionomia (2) the gray man - and more

"He was a gray man, an gray, except for his polished black shoes and two scarlet diamonds in his gray satin tie that looked like the diamonds on roulette layouts. His shirt was gray and his double-breasted suit of soft, beautifully cut flannel. Seeing Carmen he took a gray hat off and his hair underneath it was gray and as fine as if it had been sifted through gauze. His thick gray eyebrows had that indefinably sporty look. He had a long chin, a nose with a hook to it, thoughtful gray eyes that had a slanted look because the fold of skin over his upper lid came down over the corner of the lid itself."


"According to this theory, our personality moulds the way our faces look. It is supported by a study two decades ago which found that angry old people tend to look cross even when asked to strike a neutral expression. A lifetime of scowling, grumpiness and grimaces seemed to have left its mark."

nunca deixa de me admirar a dificuldade da ciência a apalpar no escuro aspectos que os escritores sabem a dormir. [ah, Oscar!]


"and in the wheel chair an old and obviously dying man watched us come with black eyes from which all fire had died long ago, but which still had the coal-black directness of the eyes in the portrait that hung above the mantel in the hail. The rest of his face was a leaden mask, with the bloodless lips and the sharp nose and the sunken temples and the outward-turning earlobes of approaching dissolution. His long narrow body was wrapped-in that heat-in a traveling rug and a faded red bathrobe. His thin clawlike hands were folded loosely on the rug, purple-nailed. A few locks of dry white hair clung to his scalp, like wild flowers fighting for life on a bare rock."

Curie por Cabellut ("I am an Antropologist, along with being a painter. I like to study humans")

"Everything, Lucien Freud said that every artist always paints a self portrait, no matter what he or she is actually painting; and I do agree with him.", diz Cabellut e podia dizer qualquer escritor.

"Duse had a strange way of smiling. It seemed to come from the toes. It seemed to move through the body and arrive at the face and mouth and resembled the sun coming out of the clouds."

fisionomia

(...) there’s a fascinating case of four books dating from 16th through the 19th centuries related to this magical pseudoscience, which assesses character and morality from outer appearance, applying the practice of “judging a book by its cover” to the human form. 
 Physiognomy has its roots in antiquity. As early as 500 B.C., Pythagoras was accepting or rejecting students based on how gifted they looked. Aristotle wrote that large-headed people were mean, those with small faces were steadfast, broad faces reflected stupidity, and round faces signaled courage."
daqui.

a 'pseudo-ciência' do getty, quanto a mim, parece-me certa.

face-reading: o que seria da arte do retrato se todos os seus praticantes lessem a pseudo-ciência getty.

Chandler ensayó sus novelas escribiendo cuentos. Publicó su primer relato largo a los 51 años. Era El sueño eterno (1939).


“When you look into the faces of these quiet creatures who don't know how to tell stories--who are mute, who can't make themselves heard, who fade into the woodwork, who only think of the perfect answer after the fact, after they're back at home, who can never think of a story that anyone else will find interesting--is there not more depth and more meaning in them? You can see every letter of every untold story swimming on their faces, and all the signs of silence, dejection, and even defeat. You can even imagine your own face in those faces, can't you?”
The Black Book, Pamuk

no capítulo seguinte: "Riddles in Faces".

quando

os dias são demasiado volumosos para o calendário e as esferas rolam. literariamente foi com surpresa (ou não) que andei para trás e para a frente com as cenas iniciais de The Big Sleep. Bogart, Bacall, Hawks e uma adaptação também de Faulkner, um clássico do cinema. e no entanto, tão enorme o filme e ainda o livro o ultrapassa. os detalhes de Chandler não chegam ao cinema, a concentração de sentido (Torga!) e os olhos de rapina. especialmente os olhos de rapina.

depois de Pamuk leio e imagino o autor a observar e o que vê em quem.

Carver é filho de Chandler: não conheço as ligações mas estava capaz de jurar. não segui os contos completamente por isto, por ver as mulheres de Carver  - finalmente, à luz da Califórnia que podia ter o som de Lana del Rey. dissolução, mas também acusação. Chandler passa voando por cima da dissolução familar, não lhe importa senão como uma curiosidade.

teimo em ver ambos em São Francisco e não noutras cidades da Califórnia. a baía, a ponte e o monte, velas, o Pier, gelados, pipocas e o Ghirardelli, as maiores sanduiches, o museu e o jardim das colunas, as fontes de água em frente ao museu, a livraria, a rua do cinema, as casas coloridas como as nossas da linha mas mais rosas e azúis, o antigo restaurante no 'cliff' sobre o mar, as gaivotas e o cheiro diferente do pacífico, the Big Sur. noutra vida, podia ter vivido em São Francisco.

(imagem daqui)

para ler

the big sleep.

'little sharp predatory teeth, as white as fresh orange pits'

"She was twenty or so, small and delicately put together, but she looked durable. She wore pale blue slacks and they looked well on her. She walked as if she were floating. Her hair was a fine tawny wave cut much shorter than the current fashion of pageboy tresses curled in at the bottom. Her eyes were slategray, and had almost no expression when they looked at me. She came over near me and smiled with her mouth and she had little sharp predatory teeth, as white as fresh orange pits and as shiny as porcelain."

(ou de quando a américa era grande)