If he hadn't been so tired, ... he might have seen at the start that he was setting out on a journey that would change his life forever and chosen to turn back.
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Readings
I like to read, and I read a lot of books -- the primary impetus for starting this site was to give myself a way of keeping track of what I am thinking about the books I am reading, and to remember the thoughts as time passes.
See my reading list for what I'm interested in this year.
If a dream affords the dreamer some lucidity, some poetry, some regal slumber
why forget it then, why discard
the glittering shards of irreality
that pierce your consciousnessless repose
that hold your dreaming brane
like pushpins on the void
And on every one of these occasions, plus many others as well, the Christ of Elqui's response was simply to recite this verse, as boring already as the menu of a pulperÃa: "I'm very sorry, dear brother, my dear sister, very sorry; but the sublime art of resurrection belongs exclusively to Our Divine Master."
And that is what he said to the miners who arrived caked with dirt, carrying the cadaver of their workmate, just at the moment when he was most full of grace, preaching before the people on what diabolical influence the modern world could wreak on the spirit of even a devout Catholic, a believer in God and the Blessed Virgin Mother. The gang of calicheros broke through the midst of the crowd of worshippers carrying on their shoulders the body of the deceased; clearly dead of a heart attack, they were telling him as they laid the body with care at his feet, stretched out on the burning sand.
Upset, embarrassed, everyone talking at the same time, the rednecks were explaining to him how after they had eaten their lunch, the Thursday plate of porotos burros, the group of them had been on their way down for a drop to drink, to "wet the whistle," and that's when tragedy struck -- their fellow worker, all of a sudden he grabbed at his chest with both hands, he fell to the ground as if hit by lightning -- not even a chance to say so much as help!
The art of resurrection: Chapter 1
I have been wondering about porotos -- it seems to be a Chilean word for "beans" or maybe just for food. Still not sure what preparation porotos burros is (or is it just "stupid beans"/ "just plain beans again"?); but in the course of looking around the net today I found a couple of recipes for porotos granados, a dish which appears to consist of whatever vegetables are around plus beans and winter squash, cooked up together into a stew. I'm game, and so were Ellen and Sylvia; so I made up my own version of porotos granados for dinner tonight. It was tasty! Herewith the recipe I followed, a rough compromise between the different ones I found online and what ingredients were to hand:
Porotos granados
Cook beans until tender. I used ¾ pound dry of cranberry beans. Cook with dried oregano and bay leaves. Add some salt when they get soft-but-not-tender.
Peel and chop squash and veggies. I used 1 medium butternut squash and a couple of carrots as well. Fresh corn is a recommended component but is not available to me this time of year; canned or frozen corn probably would have added a lot to the dish as well.
In a stock pot, saute 9 cloves of garlic, minced, and two chopped onions in a good amount of oil. Season with a tbsp. ground cumin and more oregano. Add squash, veggies, and beans. Add a little water, not enough to cover the vegetables, and cover the pot.
Let simmer for about 45 minutes, adding water if it gets too dry. When everthing is falling apart, mash it together with a wooden spoon -- it should be about the consistency of lumpy mashed potatoes.
Serve with a salad of bell peppers and minced cilantro; sour cream and hot sauce make good condiments.
posted evening of December 16th, 2012: Respond ➳ More posts about Recipes
I'm working further on my translation of Hernán Rivera Letelier's El arte de la resurrección... Vague plans to write an interesting cover letter for the first four chapters in rough draft translation and see if I could find a publisher who'd be interested in having me work on the book.
Obviously there is a lot of sun to describe in this book, taking place as it does in the Atacama desert. I found this metaphor just gorgeous:
The Christ of Elqui left the station. The town of Sierra Gorda, nailed down here on the bottom of purgatory, seemed to be completely empty. It seemed an oasis, a mirage in the desert -- indeed its only inhabitant appeared to be the sunshine, stretched out lazy on its four dirt roads, a giant, yellow mongrel dog.
(still not certain about "sunshine" there for "sol"...) -- This came just two pages past a darker image:
Many of their dear ones -- as they themselves would say, their voices low -- had probably died in a work accident, or in a barroom brawl, or infected by one of the epidemics which regularly tore through the north, or had fallen in one of the Army’s massacres of the saltpetre workers -- most had simply vanished into thin air, like the reverberating sun of mid-day vanishes into the desert. They rode the trains in hopes of meeting up with their kin, even if it were to be in a graveyard.
I spent a few weeks in October working on a translation of his "Canto de guerra de las cosas" that I had started and abandoned a couple of years ago. What a great poem this is!
Searching for more about him led me to find some of Chris Brandt's translations -- I was particularly floored by his version of "Hotel Tremol", which you can hear John John reading on YouTube.
From Brandt's translations I was inspired to buy Pasos' PoesÃa completa, which is available in a very nice edition being remaindered at Amazon.es -- with shipping included it is ~$12. (You should buy it if you read Spanish.)
I'm just blown away by the poems -- it is premature to talk about favorites at this point but already with the very second poem in the book, "Cook «Voyages»," we are among the very highest ranks of poetic imagery.
Opportunistically lying in wait and grinning, giggling lamely at the ashy glow of the painted wall in the streetlamp and suddenly hear a dead man walking round the corner and the dying fall
You're making up your mind and nervous, humming inanely snatches of the anthem of your good old school out west; forgotten the words and meanings subtle meaninglessness, your time has not yet come so you play the fool
And suddenly crumpling and falling, lifeless, playing a wrinkled fool, to an audience of jaded friends
You're running now frantic feel the rhythmic pace and all the scenery's the same just one repeated shot flickers past and you could swear you've been out here before Mr. Hitchcock; and this stupid mistake will not be your last
not the last of such creatures entrusted and painted and lined
with precious gems, heirloom for a generation
of bureaucrats --
you switch back now and look him full in the face
and suddenly you find you cannot recognize this familiar caricature, this crudely sketched archetype of disquiet, or you do not want to (and so you fail to), unfamiliar expression you know so well, could trace it out in the dark you reckon soft ivory fingers on imaginary skin and so you stare into his absent eyes and identify yourself with his absent character and longing
It was a lot of fun to hear D.T. Max reading from his new biography of DFW at Words Bookstore in Maplewood. I am looking forward to reading it; and in particular I am taken with the title. Max says it is an expression Wallace made use of repeatedly in letters throughout his career, and generally without context. It rings true for me in ways I haven't quite been able to sort out yet. (Max said he was surprised, at each stage of the editorial process, at being able to keep the title he had chosen.)
For example this statement seems like it would make a really good epigraph (mutatis mutandis) for Rushdie's The Ground Beneath Her Feet -- a book I finished reading this weekend and which I'm recommending wholeheartedly, by the by -- I wonder if it is some sort of postmodern commonplace. This association of love with absence. Both Rushdie and Wallace I think are very concerned with the irreality of the world about which they are trying to write realistically; and maybe this in a way implies that loving someone (as Maria loves Ormus, as otherworldly Rai loves otherworldly Vina) is a way of escaping into their reality from your own irreality, of becoming a ghost. (And this in turn can be seen as a metaphor for the process of reading the novel and identifying with its characters, coming full circle.)
The irritation I felt at Rai's voice throughout the first part of the novel faded about halfway through (indeed about the time I figured out what was making me feel irritated, I started to feel more sympathy for him) -- and in the last 150 pages or so I really started loving his voice (which changed a bit at that point in the story -- he grew in a way that brought more sincerity into his voice).
