Contra Jaime Gil de Biedma

De qué sirve, quisiera yo saber, cambiar de piso,
dejar atrás un sótano más negro
que mi reputación -y ya es decir-,
poner visillos blancos
y tomar criada,
renunciar a la vida de bohemio,
si vienes luego tú, pelmazo,
embarazoso huésped, memo vestido con mis trajes,
zángano de colmena, inútil, cacaseno,
con tus manos lavadas,
a comer en mi plato y a ensuciar la casa?

Te acompañan las barras de los bares
últimos de la noche, los chulos, las floristas,
las calles muertas de la madrugada
y los ascensores de luz amarilla
cuando llegas, borracho,
y te paras a verte en el espejo
la cara destruida,
con ojos todavía violentos
que no quieres cerrar. Y si te increpo,
te ríes, me recuerdas el pasado
y dices que envejezco.

Podría recordarte que ya no tienes gracia.
Que tu estilo casual y que tu desenfado
resultan truculentos
cuando se tienen más de treinta años,
y que tu encantadora
sonrisa de muchacho soñoliento
-seguro de gustar- es un resto penoso,
un intento patético.
Mientras que tú me miras con tus ojos
de verdadero huérfano, y me lloras
y me prometes ya no hacerlo.

Si no fueses tan puta!
Y si yo supiese, hace ya tiempo,
que tú eres fuerte cuando yo soy débil
y que eres débil cuando me enfurezco...
De tus regresos guardo una impresión confusa
de pánico, de pena y descontento,
y la desesperanza
y la impaciencia y el resentimiento
de volver a sufrir, otra vez más,
la humillación imperdonable
de la excesiva intimidad.

A duras penas te llevaré a la cama,
como quien va al infierno
para dormir contigo.
Muriendo a cada paso de impotencia,
tropezando con muebles
a tientas, cruzaremos el piso
torpemente abrazados, vacilando
de alcohol y de sollozos reprimidos.
Oh innoble servidumbre de amar seres humanos,
y la más innoble
que es amarse a sí mismo!

(Jaime Gil de Biedma)

Fire and Ice

by Robert Frost

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

(picture: Existence, Fire, Ice -by Johanna Boga)

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

by Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

El miedo

No hay duda de que en estos tiempos el miedo es un tema. Se habla mucho de lo que hace: acelerar los males, inventar otros nuevos, borrar las fronteras entre la realidad y la fantasía, acelerar lo temido (como en el cuento del hombre que pidió un caballo para huir a Samanra, donde le esperaba inquieta por la tardanza la Muerte)…

Y cómo se hace: fijando la atención en un solo objeto, mirando el mundo a través de él, dando significado profundo a cualquier cosa relacionada, informando con estructura de parte de guerra (por la mañana, al mediodía, por la tarde, por la noche, mínimos movimientos de tropa, bajas y victorias), desconfiando de lo que se dice, de lo que se hace…

Me cae bien la gente que sabe que el enemigo es el pánico (su obra acaba siendo muy superior a la de cualquier crisis) y que lo combate. Tengo una amiga que cada vez que va a la bancarrota (una cada tres años, de media) cambia el coche y los sofás. La semana pasada me visitó una pareja de parientes (personas modestas) que se estaba dando vacaciones aprovechando que los dos se habían quedado en el paro al unísono. En fin, que sin embargo el miedo es de pobres (de espíritu).

Contra el pánico, pocos antídotos superan al de la lectura, ese contacto con los muertos y los vivos que dejan su rastro de almas efímeras, pero de grito eterno. Y es que nosotros los mortales pertenecemos a la eternidad, y caducamos sólo para demostrar que aun desapareciendo persistimos. Un texto es una prueba de la continuidad del tiempo y del sentido, de la desgracia y de la esperanza que acompañan a esta vida, del consuelo que requiere, de la inutilidad y miseria de temer aquello que de tan temible no es lícito temerlo, de distinguir entre lo que podemos llegar a saber y lo que nunca sabremos, de aceptar el amor que se nos da y el que ofrecemos no como garantía de nada, sino como iluminación de nuestro humilde lugar en el mundo...

Abran páginas para que el miedo escape, no sea que sin darse cuenta lo hayan dejado encerrado en mitad del pecho.

(Alejandro Gándara, blog "El Escorpión")

Herzog's Universe

So, thought Herzog, acknowledging that his imagination of the universe was elementary, the novae bursting and the worlds coming into being, the invisible magnetic spokes by means of which bodies kept one another in orbit. Astronomers made it all sound as though the gases were shaken up inside a flask. Then after many billions of years, light-years, this childlike but far from innocent creature, a straw hat on his head, and a heart in his breast, part pure, part wicked, who would try to form his own shaky picture of this magnificent web.

(Saul Bellow, Herzog, page 49 -Penguin Modern Classics).

Why do you write and for whom?

The short answer is that you write because you have to. If you rationalize it, it seems as if you’ve seen this sight, felt this feeling, had this vision, and have got to find a combination of words that will preserve it by setting it off in other people. The duty is to the original experience. It doesn’t feel like self-expression, though it may look like it. As for whom you write for, well, you write for everybody. Or anybody who will listen.

(Philip Larkin. Interview for The Paris Review)

Aubade - Philip Larkin

I work all day, and get half-drunk at night.
Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare.
In time the curtain-edges will grow light.
Till then I see what's really always there:
Unresting death, a whole day nearer now,
Making all thought impossible but how
And where and when I shall myself die.
Arid interrogation: yet the dread
Of dying, and being dead,
Flashes afresh to hold and horrify.

The mind blanks at the glare. Not in remorse
--The good not done, the love not given, time
Torn off unused-- nor wretchedly because
An only life can take so long to climb
Clear of its wrong beginnings, and may never;
But at the total emptiness for ever,
The sure extinction that we travel to
And shall be lost in always. Not to be here,
Not to be anywhere,
And soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true.

This is a special way of being afraid
No trick dispels. Religion used to try,
That vast moth-eaten musical brocade
Created to pretend we never die,
And specious stuff that says No rational being
Can fear a thing it will not feel, not seeing
That this is what we fear --no sight, no sound,
No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,
Nothing to love or link with,
The anaesthetic from which none come round.

And so it stays just on the edge of vision,
A small unfocused blur, a standing chill
That slows each impulse down to indecision.
Most things may never happen: this one will,
And realisation of it rages out
In furnace-fear when we are caught without
People or drink. Courage is no good:
It means not scaring others. Being brave
Lets no one off the grave.
Death is no different whined at than withstood.

Slowly light strengthens, and the room takes shape.
It stands plain as a wardrobe, what we know,
Have always known, know that we can't escape,
Yet can't accept. One side will have to go.
Meanwhile telephones crouch, getting ready to ring
In locked-up offices, and all the uncaring
Intricate rented world begins to rouse.
The sky is white as clay, with no sun.
Work has to be done.
Postmen like doctors go from house to house.

Los Mares de Wang

LOS MARES DE WANG, visto por Andrés Barba
Para escribir un libro como Los mares de Wang hace falta una buena dosis de honestidad, inteligencia, valor y talento. Después de cerrar la última página de este voluminosa obra cabe decir sin reparos que Gabi Martínez (Barcelona, 1971) está más que bien servido de esas cuatro virtudes. Si ya de forma aislada son difíciles de encontrar en el panorama de nuestra narrativa, encontrarlas de forma conjunta es un raro placer que no se debería pasar por alto.

El libro se plantea como un largo viaje a lo largo de la costa china, desde Dandong hasta Dongxing, al sur de Macao, en forma de dietario de acontecimientos y ensayo acerca de la política, la economía y la filosofía china. Su primer acierto, cabría decir, es estilístico. Como todo buen libro de viajes se lee como una auténtica novela, se sufre las peripecias de su protagonista y se alegra uno de sus hallazgos como si fueran propios. Desde el principio queda marcada la que será una constante de todo el viaje; la incomprensión, la incomunicación, la imposibilidad de comprender, unida al serio deseo de hacerlo.

Gabi Martínez no sólo representa la aproximación del buen occidental a Oriente (culto, abierto, y peculiarmente bien preparado para su viaje) porque encarne el entusiasmo propio del acercamiento, sino también porque lo hace del desencanto de una incomprensión que no para de repetirse desde que aterriza, y que no es precisamente lingüística. El viajero que es Gabi Martínez cuando aterriza en Pekín va quedando moldeado ante nuestros ojos a medida que viaja no porque los acontecimientos que se ve obligado a vivir demientan o ratifiquen sus opiniones previas, sino porque las enmarcan en la mucho menos fácil de tratar –por ambigua– sustancia de la vida, porque le empujan a integrar lo que ya sabe con lo que cree descubrir.

En este libro –o al menos en su primera parte, hasta que llegan a la ciudad de Quingdao–, esa sustancia de la vida queda concretada básicamente en la figura de Wang, estudiante y traductor de español, con el que el autor se ve obligado a viajar para poder comunicarse. El aparentemente tímido y virginal muchacho, con el que se establece una relación cordial al principio, va desvelando uno a uno, en las diferentes situaciones en las que el occidental le pone en compromiso, todos los terrenos en los que la compresión y el diálogo entre oriente y occidente es poco menos que milagrosa. La forma en la que Wang protege sus sentimientos y su historia privada con un hermetismo sin fisuras va haciendo que, a ojos del occidental, sus cualidades humanas vayan haciéndose cada vez más remotas y su compañía cada vez más difícilmente tolerable. Por otro lado la "desfachatez irrespetuosa" del occidental, su individualismo, sus ganas de saber, su insistencia en vivir, no son menos agresivas e intolerables para el buen Wang. "El conflicto racial emergía en la cama de al lado disparando una serie de estímulos inéditos, sensaciones que jamás me había planteado, porque pese a las noticias terribles que a diario nos golpean, pese a los relatos asombrosos de conflictos entre razas, religiones, etnias, pese a haber sido testigo del odio de unos hombres contra otros, hasta entonces había creído que la única fuerza capaz de provocarme una convulsión tan perturbadora era el amor doméstico. Porque no había sentido ese odio hacia nadie, ni sobre mí. Porque no había accedido esencialmente a las tinieblas del peligro".

La relación con Wang –verdadero tema y corazón de este libro, por mucho que su presencia no abarque todas sus páginas– es el verdadero conflicto, y la única verdadera conexión entre el autor y su viaje. Un viaje tan lleno de desencantos como de sorpresas por la belleza de algunas situaciones (y las hay ciertamente conmovedoras, como el descubrimiento del autor de que ya no será joven nunca más, de que ha cruzado su particular “línea de sombra”), pero transido de la primera página a la última del valor de los auténticos viajeros, que desean conocer aquello en lo que se sumergen, como Conrad en el mar, tal vez sólo porque lo aman sin saberlo y quieren dar cuenta de su amor.

Zhang's views on Chinese Culture

Zhang's ideas about classical education were revolutionary. He believed that Chinese culture had to be abandoned altogether, for even though it was immensely rich, it had an equal number of liabilities. Like the Yangtze river, which flowed faster than one might think, Chinese culture was indeed great in the present as well as in the past but did not consider human intervention and was impossible to purify. The result was that the culture could be appreciated only by aristocrats. Adapted to the few, it was undemocratic.

The main problem was that the difficult writing required at least ten years to learn and thus effectively precluded the dissemination of culture. The masses had to make a living, which, of course, was not easy, and they didn't have time to master a complicated language. As long as characters were used, the masses would be illiterate. An ideographic language was protection for any autocratic polity and ensured an uneducated population. China could no compete with more civilized nations as long as it took half a lifetime to learn how to read. With such a handicap, how could a nation absorb the science and culture of other nations? The only solution was to adopt a phonetic writing system. Although the transition would be invonvenient for their own generation, for the sake of future ones, it had to be begun, now. Inconvenience for Zhang and Taiming meant convenience for their descendants. [...]

In this way, the literati had ruled China for many centuries. The common people could not even correspond with one another.

(Wu Zhuoliu, Orphan of Asia, pp 133-134. Zhang's views on Chinese culture and the Chinese language).

Taiming and Reality

Over the years the Hu clan had scattered, with some members going to the southern and eastern parts of the island and resettling there. [...]
"Ah-San's and Ah-Si's world is disappearing," Taiming mused, captivated by the objective vision he suddenly had of the lives around him. Licentiate Peng was trying to escape reality , whereas Grandfather was trying to transcend reality. Wu Wenqing was overwhelmed by wrestling with reality. And Taiming -he was tired of chasing reality. What spurred him on was youthful ambition, hopes and dreams, but come to think of it, didn't it sometimes seem meaningless? He almost envied his grandfather's detachment.

(Wu Zhuoliu, Orphan of Asia, p. 36. On returning to Taiwan after his stay in Japan)

"Orphan of Asia" -by Wu Zhuoliu

Wu Zhouliu (1900-1976), one of the most renowned Taiwanese writer was born of Hakka parents, worked as a journalist and started his literary career writing in Japanese. He is the author of short stories and novels, among them The Fig and Formosan Weeping Forsythia.

He wrote his autobiographical novel Orphan of Asia in secret between 1943 and 1945. It was first published in Tokyo in 1946. It was then translated into Chinese in 1962 and into English in 2005.

The story recounts the conflicting emotions of its hero, Hu Tai-ming, as he travels between Taiwan, Japan and China.

Born in Japanese-occupied Taiwan, raised in the scholarly traditions of ancient China by his grandfather but forced into the Japanese educational system, Hu Taiming ultimately finds himself estranged from all three cultures.

Japanese rule in Taiwan had made him look to Japan as the center of modernity and progress, but when he arrives there he is all too conscious of not being a "real" Japanese. Indeed, a fellow Taiwanese recommends that he pretends to come from the southern Japanese island of Kyushu, rather than admit to being from Taiwan.

In China, he has to lie about his origin as well, and is later arrested on suspicion of being a Japanese spy. At any event, he is not a "pure" Chinese either, so he is kept in prison. And, in a novel replete with irony, he then escapes on a boat to Shanghai only after asserting that he is in reality a Japanese national.

It is hardly surprising that this book was banned in Taiwan by KMT. For them, Taipei was the interim capital of the whole of China. Manifestations of a specifically Taiwanese identity were prohibited, and only mainstream Chinese literature could be disseminated. Small wonder, then, that a book that presented an archetypal Taiwanese as so confused that he didn't know who on earth he really was found itself banned as well.

The truth, of course, was that overnight the inhabitants of Taiwan had been asked to change from being model, though never fully equal, citizens of the Japanese empire to being unquestioning citizens of a greater China.

Orphan of Asia is obsessively concerned with geographical movement, and as a result with feelings of displacement, dislocation, alienation and, finally, despair. China and Japan, he points out, were both real and imagined places, and the book's protagonist finds it impossible to locate himself in either of them.

(partly from Taipei Times)