Acabou mais um bloco de sessões da nossa Comunidade na Culturgest. Agora, só haverá mais em Janeiro. Terminámos com muita conversa e várias discussões sobre "o Mar" de John Banville, em tom elegíaco. Porque é a história de um viúvo, Max Morden (o nome diz tudo) que regressa ao lugar onde, na infância, passou um verão decisivo, iniciático e perturbante.
"O Mar"é um romance sobre a morte, sobre a perda, o luto. E é um livro deslumbrante. Terrível, também. Chegámos a conclusões bastante controversas. Por exemplo, que a história é profundamente perversa – porque, "embrulhada" num linguagem poética, encantatória conta coisas terríveis. E porque Max, o narrador – por quem é suposto o leitor sentir simpatia – é, na verdade um monstro egocêntrico e cruel que, como o seu nome indica, espalha a "morte" a devastação à sua volta. Nada cresce, medra ou vive junto dele.
Mas falámos também das referências aos mitos clássicos, da ligação clara com a pintura – Bonnard, Miguel Ângelo, Fantin-Latour, etc. – do simbolismo e das metáforas. Mais, falámos de fantasmas e de espíritos e das inúmeras armadilhas colocadas pelo autor aos leitores.
E prometi que colocaria aqui o poema de Rilke, "Der Geiste Ariel" – por causa da alusão que Banville faz ao arcanjo Ariel. Não sem reproduzir uma das pinturas de Bonnard - a mulher dele, no banho - que evoca o ar salgado e marítimo deste livro. De notar que a banheira parece um esquife.
"O Mar"é um romance sobre a morte, sobre a perda, o luto. E é um livro deslumbrante. Terrível, também. Chegámos a conclusões bastante controversas. Por exemplo, que a história é profundamente perversa – porque, "embrulhada" num linguagem poética, encantatória conta coisas terríveis. E porque Max, o narrador – por quem é suposto o leitor sentir simpatia – é, na verdade um monstro egocêntrico e cruel que, como o seu nome indica, espalha a "morte" a devastação à sua volta. Nada cresce, medra ou vive junto dele.
Mas falámos também das referências aos mitos clássicos, da ligação clara com a pintura – Bonnard, Miguel Ângelo, Fantin-Latour, etc. – do simbolismo e das metáforas. Mais, falámos de fantasmas e de espíritos e das inúmeras armadilhas colocadas pelo autor aos leitores.
E prometi que colocaria aqui o poema de Rilke, "Der Geiste Ariel" – por causa da alusão que Banville faz ao arcanjo Ariel. Não sem reproduzir uma das pinturas de Bonnard - a mulher dele, no banho - que evoca o ar salgado e marítimo deste livro. De notar que a banheira parece um esquife.
ARIEL - tradução inglesa
(After reading Shakespeare’s Tempest)
Once, somewhere, somehow, you had set him free
with that sharp jolt which as a young man tore you
out of your life and vaulted you to greatness.
Then he grew willing: and, since then, he serves,
after each task impatient for his freedom.
And half imperious, half almost ashamed,
you make excuses, say that you still need him
for this and that, and, ah, you must describe
how you helped him. Yet you feel, yourself,
that everything held back by his detention
is missing from the air. How sweet, how tempting:
to let him go – to give up all your magic,
submit yourself to destiny like the others,
and know that his light frendship, without strain now,
with no more obligations, anywhere,
an intensifying of this space you breathe,
is working in the element, thoughtlessly.
Henceforth dependent, never again empowered
to shape the torpid mouth into that call
at which he dived. Defenseless, aging, poor,
and yet still breathing him in, like a fragrance
spread endlessly, which makes the invisible
complete for the first time. Smiling that you ever
could summon him and feel so much at home
in that vast intimacy. Weeping too, perhaps,
When you remember how he loved and yet
wished to leave you: always both, at once.
(Have I let go, already? I look on,
terrified by this man who has become
a duke again. How easily he draws
the wire through his head and hangs himself
up with the other puppets; then steps forward
to ask the audience for their applause
and their indulgence... What consummate power:
to lay aside, to stand there nakedly
with no strengh but one’s own, “which is most faint”)
“Uncollected Poems” Rainer Maria Rilke
(After reading Shakespeare’s Tempest)
Once, somewhere, somehow, you had set him free
with that sharp jolt which as a young man tore you
out of your life and vaulted you to greatness.
Then he grew willing: and, since then, he serves,
after each task impatient for his freedom.
And half imperious, half almost ashamed,
you make excuses, say that you still need him
for this and that, and, ah, you must describe
how you helped him. Yet you feel, yourself,
that everything held back by his detention
is missing from the air. How sweet, how tempting:
to let him go – to give up all your magic,
submit yourself to destiny like the others,
and know that his light frendship, without strain now,
with no more obligations, anywhere,
an intensifying of this space you breathe,
is working in the element, thoughtlessly.
Henceforth dependent, never again empowered
to shape the torpid mouth into that call
at which he dived. Defenseless, aging, poor,
and yet still breathing him in, like a fragrance
spread endlessly, which makes the invisible
complete for the first time. Smiling that you ever
could summon him and feel so much at home
in that vast intimacy. Weeping too, perhaps,
When you remember how he loved and yet
wished to leave you: always both, at once.
(Have I let go, already? I look on,
terrified by this man who has become
a duke again. How easily he draws
the wire through his head and hangs himself
up with the other puppets; then steps forward
to ask the audience for their applause
and their indulgence... What consummate power:
to lay aside, to stand there nakedly
with no strengh but one’s own, “which is most faint”)
“Uncollected Poems” Rainer Maria Rilke
