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Wednesday, November 10th, 2010
Doing a little more research about Rivera Letelier's book: I was apparently imprecise in calling it an homage to Parra's poem. It looks like both the poem and the book are based on the life of a real historical figure named Domingo Zárate Vega who preached imminent apocalypse in the Elqui Valley of the 1930's. (I am hedging a bit because I'm not finding much primary source material about Zárate Vega on the internets. But multiple pages about the book and about the poem make reference to their being based on real history. An article in the Patagonia Times states that Rivera Letelier "researched the actual existence of the Christ of Elqui for his book and includes a bibliography at the end to avoid accusations of plagiarism" -- I am not finding this bibliography in my copy, which is disappointing and confusing.) From the same Patagonia Times article, a beautiful anecdote about how Rivera Letelier, who grew up in a lower-class family and initally worked as a miner, came to his writing career:
Rivera Letelier began to write when he was 21 years old “because of hunger.†Listening to the radio with an empty stomach, he heard the announcement of a poetry competition whose award was a dinner in a luxurious hotel. He wrote a four-page love poem and won the meal.
I'd love to read that poem, and I wonder if Rivera Letelier has written an autobiography...
 Update: a little information about Zárate Vega in this post from Loruka, who lives in La Serena.
posted afternoon of November 10th, 2010: 1 response
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Tuesday, November 9th, 2010
Another Saramago epigraph from El libro de los consejos -- at the front of his Small Memories is the line, "Déjate llevar por el niño que fuiste/(roughly) Allow the child you were to carry you." The first time I've been able to find a lead suggesting affirmatively that these quotations are actual quotations from somewhere else, not invented by Saramago -- this line takes me to Juan Pedro Villa-Isaza's blog
Casi un objeto, which gives some context for it:
Mientras no alcances la verdad, no podrás corregirla. Pero si no la corriges, no la alcanzarás. Mientras tanto, no te resignes.*
Déjate llevar por el niño que fuiste.
As long as you do not know the truth, you will not be able to alter it. But if you do not alter it, you will never be able to reach it. Still, do not resign yourself. Allow the child you were to carry you.
 (Also, Googling for the original Portuguese rendering of this quote "Deixa-te levar pela criança que foste" leads me to a 2006 interview with Saramago, where he talks about his life and his writing process.) ..."llevar/levar" can also mean "to lead" -- indeed that appears to be the primary meaning in Portuguese; a better rendering of this line might be "Let yourself be led by the child you were." *... and now I am remembering that this line is the epigraph for The History of the Siege of Lisbon... and am back to thinking the whole thing is Saramago's invention.
posted evening of November 9th, 2010: 2 responses
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The Daily Mail publishes some breathtaking photos of the chrysina jewel scarab from Costa Rica. The photographer is Roland Seitre; at his web site you can find much more extraordinary nature photography.
 One other photo from Seitre's site: Baby rhino!
↻...done
posted evening of November 9th, 2010: Respond
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 I bought a book last night on the strength of its cover -- The magnificent cover photo (a still from Buñuel's Simon of the Desert) made me pick it up and read the back cover, made me buy the book and start reading... It is an homage to NÃcanor Parra's Sermones y prédicas del Cristo de Elqui, about a young man from Chile's Elqui Valley who discovers that he is the reincarnation of Jesus Christ. Very dry humor and lovely prose.
Here is a bit of linguistic confusion I found entertaining -- early in the novel the narrator is talking about Christ's difficulties with his good-for-nothing apostles, who are always stuffing themselves, guzzling liquor and smoking -- he compares this with the Messiah's ascetic ways using a quick shift from third to first person, which is made more subtle and confusing by Spanish's imperfect tense. In Spanish, the first person singular imperfect and the third person singular imperfect are usually (maybe always?) the same. So when Letelier writes
Él, por su parte, que debÃa ser luz para el mundo, no fumaba ni bebÃa. Con un vaso de vino al almuerzo, como exhortaba en sus prédicas, era suficiente. Y apenas probaba la comida, porque entre mis pecados, que también los tengo, mis hermanos, nunca figuró la gula. Tanto asà que a veces, por el simple motivo de que se olvidaba de hacerlo, se pasaba dÃas completos sin ingerir alimentos.
The first sentence is obviously the narrator speaking, because its subject is "Él". The second sentence is still referring to Christ in the third person, speaking of "sus prédicas". The beginning of the third sentence looks like it is still doing so until we get to "mis pecados" and "los tengo", and realize Christ is speaking now. Then in the fourth sentence we are back to third person as evidenced by the use of "se" instead of "me" -- I found it surprising what a small proportion of the words in this passage distinguish between the two voices.
posted afternoon of November 9th, 2010: 3 responses
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Tuesday, November second, 2010
Some lovely, incomprehensible, classicist spam in my inbox:
Still call this fire was pleased with. Whereas before to sea is also. Numa had fallen ito italy. Strength of lycurgus and friendship with success. Comparison with less than any one another. Amongst the carthaginians were seen by flight. See and commanding the market place. Besides all greece to take care that Especially those who knew him yet greater. Divine power he took in office. Divine power and confidence in our hands. Found poetry!
posted morning of November second, 2010: Respond
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Sunday, October 31st, 2010
posted evening of October 31st, 2010: Respond
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Saturday, October 30th, 2010
I'm playing the role of a little old woman, pleasantly plump and talkative, telling her life story. And yet it's others I'm interested in, others I like to film. -- Àgnes Varda
posted evening of October 30th, 2010: Respond
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Thursday, October 28th, 2010
Versos sin sentido por Jeremy Osner
Esas palabras se dicen a mà mismo
Como los ecos que vibranse entre las nubes
Pero también debéis escuchar, escuchad
al voz de vuestra Diosa propia.
Cuando vos sentÃs familiar me decid.
Vamos mañana tal vez al paisaje de nuestras ilusiones
o a una ruina postapocalÃptica similar, nos
desaparezcase la iglesia, la iglesia de los padres, la iglesia de ayer.
from Criminalby José Cárdenas Peña
If only it were just the scream
the water's scream,
the rolling stone
abandoned, with no place to lay its head
against the storm.
If only it were just
the wound, corrosive wound,
the nameless passage,
flow of dead time:
the soft procession of the hours,
sentinels of fear.
If only it were the handful of herb
the herb which mates with blood
winnowed through memory
now it can say:
it is over,
the statue, the labyrinth,
angel's shadow, world which never is.
But behind this silent
anguished nostalgia,
behind you yourself
o wounded shadow who calls me,
swells the violence
the destruction over cliffs
over conquered ragged armies, ashes, dust.
And still I know the damage,
in this moment of my hapless lineage;
this ghost or god who from my birthplace
from my rubble rises up
this dove of the final flood,
and around me your words
your tongues of fire
baptismal conch
pouring out on your mirror of drunkenness
handful of naked salt
of biblical questions:
the mud, the signal, seed of man
your voice, your name, your sorrow;
the shape of just one tear
wept out for the dead
for fallen moorish idols
blood which teaches me to feel,
who cannot catch it, fend it off
as the sky fends off his luminous abyss,
the sea her piscene stigmata.
...
posted evening of October 28th, 2010: Respond
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Mellow out your end of the week with the TGW 201010 mix tape I posted at The Great Whatsit. Read up on your Canadian history with the Battle for Québec post I wrote at It is time for history. Generally have a good end of the week and weekend.
posted morning of October 28th, 2010: Respond
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Tuesday, October 26th, 2010
Today's post at Saramago's Other Notebooks quotes one of his oldest novels.
La libertad no es mujer que ande por los caminos, no se sienta en una piedra esperando que la inviten a cenar o a dormir en nuestra cama el resto de la vida.
-- Levantado del suelo, Alfaguara, 2003, p. 422
Liberty is not a woman walking the streets, she is not sitting on a bench outside waiting for an invitation to dinner, to come sleep in our bed for the rest of her life.
-- Raised up from the soil, 1980
posted evening of October 26th, 2010: Respond
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