Well, well, here’s Stephen Dedalus back again, and causing this reader no end of grief with his literary theories!

Actually, I knew before I started that this chapter was going to be confusing.  Flicking through the pages to see how long it was, I could see from the text layout that there are slabs of poetry, (well, doggerel on p184); a quotation from a chorus book of religious music (staves but no bar lines); play scripts; and some very long paragraphs.  Not only that, on the very first page there are references to Goethe, Milton, W. B. Yeats, and Shakespeare - and even though I’ve read and studied all of these at some time or another (except for Goethe) there’s no chance I’m going to be able to remember them well enough to recognise all but the most obvious of allusions.  (There’s even a reference to Cranly, who was a character in Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, but I only know this because I wrote it in the margin when I studied Ulysses at Uni back in the 1980s.)

In Homer’s Odyssey, Odysseus is caught between unpalatable alternatives.  One route leads to the perils of the seductive Sirens and the Wandering Rocks; the other involves steering a hazardous course between the six-headed monster Scylla and the maelstrom Charybidis.

Who’d have thought that squabbling over literary theory in a library could be analogous to these perils on the high seas?  Yet here is Stephen in the National Library, flaunting a cerebral organ - yes, his brain - in combat over literature.   There’s lots of parodying of Shakespeare but according to Corbin and Evans the narrative technique is dialectic, so I wandered over to Wikipedia to find out if there was more to dialectics than mere argument…  Well, of course there is, and enthusiasts may care to ponder it all, but for my purposes it’s enough to know that

The aim of the dialectical method is resolution of the disagreement through rational discussion, and ultimately the search for truth. One way to proceed — the Socratic method — is to show that a given hypothesis (with other admissions) leads to a contradiction; thus, forcing the withdrawal of the hypothesis as a candidate for truth. (Wikipedia).  

So this is what Joyce has young Stephen do, but I’m not clear about his motives.  (Needless to day I’m none too clear about the argument either.) Is Stephen just showing off how clever he is, or is he just arguing for the fun of it, like a sort of cerebral wrestling match?  He’s up against some erudite company: John Eglinton, someone called A.E. Russell, Lyster the Quaker Librarian and a Mr Best. 

So what’s the argument about?  Russell is a Platonist, and he thinks the stuff about the identity of Shakespeare is a load of rubbish and that what matters is the ‘world of ideas.  All the rest is the speculation of schoolboys for schoolboys’. (p185) (I agree with him).    Stephen – with the overconfidence of youth – sails a bit close to the maelstrom when he decries Hamlet’s musings about the afterlife of his princely soul, the improbable, insignificant and undramatic monologue as shallow as Plato’s’. (p186) The words swirl around ‘between the devil and the deep blue sea’ (p187) which had the by-now familiar Joycean effect on me: meandering through them is like wandering through a crowd, hearing snatches of conversation without making any sense of the babble around me.

Here’s an example:

Unsheathe your dagger definitions. Horseness is the whatness of allhorse.  Streams of tendency and eons they worship.  God: noise in the street: very peripatetic.  Space: what you damn well have to see.  Through spaces smaller than red globules of man’s blood they creepy-crawl after Blake’s buttocks into eternity of which this vegetable world is but a shadow.  Hold to the now, the here, through which all future plunges to the past. (p186)

Yea verily I say, let no one feel guilty about not understanding a word of it! 

And yet, there are parts which do make sense, echoing preoccupations from a long time ago in Telemachus.  Stephen is ‘prying into the family life of a great man’ because he’s bothered about his own family; he’s parodying lines about the poet’s debt (p189) because he’s short of money himself.  He skewers Shakespeare’s treatment of Anne Hathaway because he’s feeling guilty about his relationship with his dead mother, and he’s not about to forgive himself for it because ‘a man of genius makes no mistakes’ – and Stephen thinks he’s a bit of genius himself, doesn’t he?

Haines has been and gone, but Mulligan turns up, resplendent in a primrose coloured vest and Panama, promptly deflating Stephen and his pretentious speechifying:

Shakespeare? he said.  I seem to know the name. (p198)

Buck’s mockery is interrupted by the arrival of Bloom -  a momentous portent, methinks, even though they do not actually meet.  Bloom is escorted through to the provincial papers where he can search for the symbol he wants for his advert, but his arrival is noted because Buck Mulligan recognises him as an acquaintance of Stephen’s father.  And at the end of the chapter Bloom exits the library at the same time as Stephen and Buck, who stands aside to let him pass between them.  This is surely a foreshadowing of a severed relationship in chapters to come!

BTW it would be most interesting to hear an audio book of this chapter…however does one read this out loud?

Rutlandbaconsouthamptonshakespeare or honorificabilitudinitatibus? (p208-9)

There is much that is mystifying in this chapter, but I can’t be bothered hunting around online to clarify any of it.  Two chapters in one day was probably a mistake; it’s better to let Joyce percolate in the brain for a bit before pressing on.

Page references are to my battered old copy of the Penguin Ulysses, 1979 ISBN 014003000x (which uses the 1960 Bodley Head edition, which was the 10th edition and has different page numbers to its predecessors.)

Of the dark past
A child is born;
With joy and grief
My heart is torn.

Calm in his cradle
The living lies.
May love and mercy
Unclose his eyes!

Young life is breathed
On the glass;
The world that was not
Comes to pass.

A child is sleeping:
An old man gone.
O, father forsaken,
Forgive your son!

Now then, where were we?  Ah yes, Chapter 8 and the Lestrygonians. This is where Odysseus has been given his marching orders by Aeolus, and lands up on the island of the Lestrygonians.  A sexy wench lures the lads to more peril.  Daddy is Antiphates, king of the Lestrygonians, and he’s a giant cannibal.  He eats the shore party, but Odysseus gets away with the rest of the crew. 

So there’s lots of eating in Chapter 8.  It’s one o’clock and Bloom is getting hungry but in the end all he gets is a sandwich.  The chapter begins with an evocative image of a sugarsticky girl shovelling scoopfuls of creams for a christian brother (p150) – an image probably lost on anyone born after 1950 whose sweets come in gluttonous packets of hygienic plastic.  How we loved to take our sixpences to the sweet shop!  Those shopkeepers must have had the endless patience gene as we pondered the vast array, eventually choosing ‘one of these, and two of those, and a piece of licorice for mummy’.  We would have watched in awe had anyone bought shovelfuls of anything, for although we were not poor, such bounty was reserved for birthday parties.  Some school treat, says Mr Joyce, but I don’t remember anyone ever being given a sweet at school…

But I digress.  It’s amazing how evocative images of food are, how they tap into memories of home and family meals and childhood treats!  For Joyce, though, this chapter also offers the opportunity to allude to Ireland’s poverty: there’s a little girl in a tattered dress, underfed on a diet of ‘potatoes and marge, marge and potatoes’ (p151). Today people eat ersatz butter in the form of golden margarine because it’s thought to be better for the heart, but the pale margarine of poverty was apparently a different thing entirely.  Bloom is in no doubt about the role Catholic dogma plays in this poverty: he sees Dedalus’s daughter selling off the furniture because the home is being broken up, and we learn that Stephen’s mother had 15 children, birth every year almost, while the priests have no families themselves to feed (p151). A century after Joyce wrote this they’re still preaching increase and multiply, only now their victims are in the developing world, in Africa, South America and the Philippines and the consequences are not just a disaster for the family but also for global overpopulation.  I live in hope that their somnolent ‘loving’ god will send a revelation to the Pope to put a stop to the human misery this dogma causes. 

A Google search for Butler’s monument house corner (p151) led instead to James Joyce Ulysses: A Photo Journey, (an interesting site to compare Dublin today with Joyce’s Dublin at Joyce Images) and this in turn led to James Joyce Music, a site which explores all the musical references in Ulysses.  There’s a CD you could buy to play while reading, which would be nice, especially since the recording is done with just voice and piano so evocative of the times.   This link is to a music clip of Blumenlied, the Flower Song:

This is a song Bloom buys for his daughter Milly when she is taking piano lessons. Known in English as “The Flower Song,” it is tied to Bloom’s pen name, Henry Flower, which he uses in his clandestine correspondence with Martha Clifford. It is one of a number of flower references throughout Ulysses. (Cover notes)

A reader could spend years discovering the riches in this book!

The narrative technique in Lestrygonians is the interior monologue again, but in this chapter we see Bloom not wanting to think about what’s going on between Molly and Boylan.  Is this the first example in literature where the reader witnesses the truncated thoughts of a man repressing his fears and the text suppressing them too? As Bloom ponders various advertising strategies (p153) he remembers ads for Dr Hy Franks’ quack remedies for the clap, and suddenly it occurs to him that Boylan might infect Molly:

If he…

O!

Eh?

No…No.

No, no, I don’t believe it.  He wouldn’t surely?

No, no.

Mr Bloom moved forward raising his troubled eyes.  Think no more about that. (p153)

But his rebellious thoughts keep resurfacing.  As he passes by a cycle shop he remembers Molly’s sexy dress on a day at the races, the ’snug little room’ they had, and the ‘cosy smell of her bathwater’ on tub night.  They were happy.  Happier then. (p155).

Source: Joyce Images

This chapter brings me another statue to look out for when I visit Dublin next year.  Bloom passes by Tommy Moore’s roguish finger, a reference to Thomas Moore, (1779-1852) the bard of Ireland who ended up in Paris to escape gambling debts.  Bloom’s caustic allusion to the adjacent urinal references Moore’s popular ballad The Meeting of the Waters - a beauty spot in Ireland where the Avonmore and Avonbeg Rivers meet to form the Avoca River.

I don’t see how it meshes with the Lestrygonians theme or the digestive tract allusions, but most of the people Bloom meets in this chapter establish him as a sensitive and caring bloke.  Not exactly a SNAG, but fond enough of animals to spend a penny on Banbury cakes to feed some hungry pigeons (p152); kindly to melancholy Mrs Breen whose husband is ‘off his chump’ i.e. loopy(p159); genuinely concerned about Mrs Purefoy’s three-day labour ending in a stillbirth no one bothers even to register (p161) and sensitive to the pride of the ‘blind stripling’ he helps across the street (p180-1). 

It’s also an elegiac chapter, showing how profound Bloom’s losses have been.  Molly’s alienation dates from little Rudy’s death, and she – not wanting to risk having another child only to lose it –  ‘could never like it again’ (p167).    The ’stream of life’ (p155) seems utterly pointless to him:

His smile faded as he walked, a heavy cloud hiding the sun, slowly shadowing Trinity’s surly front. Trams passed one another, ingoing, outgoing, clanging.  Useless words.  things go on same; day after day; squads of police marching out, back; trams in, out.  Those two loonies mooching about.  Digman carted off.  Mrs Purefoy swollen belly on a bed groaning to have a child tugged out of her.  One born every second somewhere.  Other dying every second.  Since I fed the birds five minutes.  Three hundred kicked the bucket.  Other three hundred born, washing the blood off, all are washed in the blood of the lamb, bawling maaaaaa. (p164) 

So he’s in a liverish mood (sorry, an irresistable pun) when he finally decides to turn into the Burton for lunch and the scene revolts him.

See the animals feed.

Men, men, men.

Perched on high stools by the bar, hats shoved back, at the tables calling for bread no charge, swilling, wolfing, gobfuls of sloppy food, their eyes bulging, wiping wetted moustaches. (p168-9)

Hungry as he is, he can’t bear it (and it’s no pleasure to read either).  At Davy Byrne’s ‘nice quiet bar’ instead (p173) he has a chaste Gorgonzola sandwich ‘cut into slender strips’ (p172)  and a glass of burgundy – the choice of wine rather than Guinness emphasising his other-ness.  Alas, Nosey Flynn wants to chat about Molly’s upcoming tour, and mention of Blazes Boylan raises Bloom’s bile.  It was here that I realised that Bloom can’t go home till six o’clock because he doesn’t want to confront Molly and Boylan together.  It’s resignation rather than cowardice, I think.  Over his wine he indulges nostalgic memories of making love on Ben Howth, but such rapture is no longer possible.  ‘Me.  And me now’ he thinks, downcast (p176).

Poor old Bloom.  While he’s in the loo, the drinkers discuss him.  He’s a Mason, says Nosey, but ‘he’s not too bad’ and ‘has been known to put his hand down to help a fellow’ but that ‘God Almighty couldn’t get him drunk‘ and he won’t ever commit himself to anything in writing.  (He wouldn’t give Nosey a tip for the races either.) (p177-8)  But worse for Bloom than that is that when he leaves the bar and turns into Kildare St – after all his efforts to steadfastly avoid thinking about Boylan - he sees the man himself on his way to the assignation with Molly at two o’clock. 

Yet he’s still entertaining ideas about Martha Clifford, hoping that his ad in the Irish Times for a ‘smart lady typist to aid gentleman in literary work’ may lead to other offers! (p159)

BTW I searched Cliff Notes to see why the enigmatic UP message bothered Mr Breen so much but it transpires that nobody really knows.  I also used Notes on James Joyce’s Ulysses  written by Gerry Carlin & Mair Evans to refresh my memory of The Odyssey.

Page references are to my battered old copy of the Penguin Ulysses, 1979 ISBN 014003000x (which uses the 1960 Bodley Head edition, which was the 10th edition and has different page numbers to its predecessors.)

  No me quiero referir en este post a los numerosos libros que todos los lectores abandonamos sin terminar (con los cuales en mi caso se llenaría un océano de sabiduría), sino en concreto a aquellos cuyo abandono no reconoceríamos en una tertulia literaria o en distendida e intelectual charla; por lo tanto la aliteración es importante: inconclusos e inconfesables.  Allá va una pequeña muestra de mis miserias literarias.

       Los hermanos Karamazov. Esta es la obra cumbre de mi particular historia de inconclusiones. Juro por mis muertos que adoro a Dostoievski; he leído casi toda su obra menor (en páginas no en calidad) pero tengo problemas con sus tochos. Llevo treinta años leyendo los hermanos K ¿Hay una mayor muestra de amor literario? Tengo varias ediciones de la obra, desde las obras completas de Aguilar hasta la que estoy manejando los últimos diez años, la edición de Cátedra, con traducción de Natalia Ujánova, que me parece excelente. Dimitri, Ivan y Aliosha son como de la familia, después de convivir con ellos tanto tiempo. En este momento voy por la página 601 de 1112.  De vez en cuando lo tomo, leo cincuenta o sesenta páginas y lo aparco.  En el fondo, lo que me sucede es que me ataca un poco el carácter débil, indeciso, poco prático de alguno de los personajes y no puedo aguantarlos mucho tiempo …

      El Ulisses de Joyce. Muy interesante, revolucionario e impecable. Fantástico para escribir tesis. En serio, me interesó mucho. Pero ¿es necesario leerlo entero? Leí la mitad o más aproximadamente en una edición infame de bolsillo de Bruguera, de la que se iban desprendiendo las hojas a medida que las superabas y de mayorcito me compré la edición impecable de Lumen para embellecer mi biblioteca. Salud Estephen Dedalus! continúa deambulando eternamente por las calles de Dublín que yo descanso en mi casita.

      Vayamos a la actualidad: Vasili Grossman y su Vida y Destino. Vale, ya lo sé, obra cumbre … epopeya … pues yo no superé las cien páginas. Y no me decía absolutamente nada, encefalograma plano. A lo mejor la cosa se iba centrando más adelante, no lo sé.  Por las páginas circulaban una serie de tipos, por aquí, por allá. De acuerdo, soy un PALURDO INSENSIBLE, pero ahí quedó … 

    Javier Marías y su trilogía Tu rostro mañana. Lo mismo. Marías es un excelente escritor. No hay duda. Pero con tendencia a ser autocomplaciente y pelín pelma. El primer tomo, Fiebre y lanza me gustó. Me enganché en la prosa envolvente del señor M. Pero el segundo, Baile y sueño, fue eso, sueño, mucho sueño y lo abandoné en la página 149 según indica la tarjeta enclavada en esta página. Pero aún tuve valor para adquirir el tercer tomo en bolsillo para no dejar inacabada esta monumental joya literaria.

   Y de momento lo dejamos aquí. Uf! qué liberación, que catarsis. Amigos lectores, animaros, confesar públicamente vuestros abandonos!

   Así que Bob, si no te va, déjate de suplicios chinos. Coges 2666 y lo tiras por la ventana, que la lectura es un divertimento, la vida son dos días y no nos vamos a amargar por un quítame allá esas pajas. (O mejor no lo tires, guárdalo, porque a lo mejor dentro de tres, cinco o veinte años te encantará; puede ser, te lo dice un viejo lector).

       P.D. Se me olvidaba mi más grave culpa puestos a confesarlo todo. Nunca he conseguido leer al completo El Quijote.  No puedo con el patético caballero y su obeso ayuda de cámara.

To me, the notion of translating has always held laborious connotations. A flashback to those green and white Latin textbooks with miniscule charts of conjugations and tenses. Translation equaled time-intensive research and required at least one or two dictionaries in addition. It was what the traditional librarian embodied: someone accustomed to getting lost in the stacks scouring ancient and obsolete volumes, meticulously searching for exact meaning.

I recalled Saturday haircut nights with Garrison and A Prarie Home Companion.Dad would cut his sons’ hair  to the segment where the host tried to make librarians sexy again. I dreamed of a world where librarians were no longer old maids loudly “SHHHH”ing laughter and joy from children. Instead a world where the women behind the reference desk were svelte temptresses who just so happened to spend their days aroused by Joyce and Wilde. 

And then you showed up with your sleek and smooth battery-operated translator with the plug-in charger. It translated paragraphs of cyrillic into standard American English nearly instantaneously. In fleeting seconds your glossy machinery boiled down a string of memories, preconceptions and fantasies and encapsulated a transformation.

You popped it closed and slid it into your back pocket. “Happy Defender of the Motherland Day!” -AR

Various offal delicacies (heads, brains, trotters and tripe) for sale in an Istanbul meat market. (Wikipedia)

Since we go out of our way to include, within the modest meat portion of our diet, regular servings of chicken liver and pork liver (chicken and turkey giblets and gizzards, too), sold for around a dollar a pound and incomparably richer in vitamin A, vitamin B12, iron and zinc than all other cuts of meat, we were heartened to read this, from a review by Sudip Bose in The American Scholar of On ULYSSES and Us: The Art of Everyday Life in Joyce’s Masterpiece by Declan Kiberd:

How to Eat Well

“Mr Leopold Bloom ate with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls. He liked thick giblet soup, nutty gizzards, a stuffed roast heart, liver slices fried with crustcrumbs, fried hencod’s roes. Most of all he liked grilled mutton kidneys which gave to his palate a fine tang of faintly scented urine.” So begins the fourth episode, “Calypso,” which introduces us to Bloom. His tastes reflect a time when offal was widely consumed, but they also prefigure our own age, when chefs such as Fergus Henderson and Mario Batali are embracing innards and putting them back on restaurant menus.

Bloom is a true gourmand, though his tastes are hardly extravagant. For his breakfast, he prepares a pork kidney, frying it in butter with lashings of black pepper. He takes time to eat his meal, enjoying it—in marked contrast to his wife, Molly, who dispatches with her breakfast without ceremony, and to Buck Mulligan and the Englishman Haines in “Telemachus,” who carelessly consume their food. Later, in “Lestrygonians,” the sight of men devouring plates of meat at the Burton restaurant will even turn Bloom temporarily vegetarian, as he escapes to the more civilized interior of Davy Byrne’s pub for a cheese sandwich and glass of burgundy.

But why does Bloom love offal? For one thing, the less desirable parts of the animal are actually quite delicious. They also happen to be the parts that most often get thrown out. Practical, frugal Leopold Bloom despises nothing more than waste—wasted food, yes, but also wasted lives. Seeing Stephen, who has the potential to be a great artist, waste his life away in melancholy self-absorption, Bloom recalls “instances of cultured fellows that promised so brilliantly, nipped in the bud of permanent decay, and nobody to blame but themselves.”

Compare that to a passage from “Why Cooking Matters” by noted chef and restaurateur Dan Barber in the September 21 food issue of The Nation:

Supermarkets in the United States stock cutlets and steaks and loins–restaurant chefs, including me, feature them in seven-ounce portions–but unless you venture to an ethnic market (or dine at an ethnic restaurant), you’ll have a hard time getting your hands on liver, kidney or tripe. For commerce’s sake, it makes more sense to use these odd cuts for dog food, or simply to dump them abroad, in places like Mexico and India. (The only way we’ve accepted using these less-than-desirables is grinding them up into sausage links and hot dogs–creating dull food products out of disparate and delicious parts.)

Paul Roberts, in his book The End of Food, calls this the “protein paradox”: meat production has outstripped people production. Through advances in breeding and grain feeding, the cost of one pound of meat is cheaper now than at any time in history. And yet that downswing in cost hasn’t led to any kind of meat-eating democracy. If anything, it has enabled–and at this point, even encouraged–a kind of pork chop dictatorship. Not only do we eat too much meat, we also eat too much of the wrong parts. We don’t know where our meat comes from, we don’t know what the animal we’re eating ate, and we sure don’t know how to get behind the stove and take control of what we put in our mouths.

We ought to start by looking at the great food cultures of the world. The traditional cuisines of Asia and North Africa, not to mention France and Italy, are based on rice, wheat, spices and smatterings of all cuts of meat. In just about every other cuisine, protein plays second fiddle to grains and vegetables. When meat appears, it does so modestly; it takes up less space on the plate, and more often than not it’s a piece of the animal–tripe or oxtail–that Americans so willingly discard.

Eisenstein, so Kluge’s film tells us, came to Paris in November 1928 to see James Joyce, by then almost blind. The two spoke of the possibility of filming Ulysses. Later, Eisenstein would write in his diary that his other project, filming Marx’s Das Kapital, might copy Joyce’s model of a day-in-the-life story, only this time present an evening in the life of a labourer’s wife, a snapshot through which the entire set of social and historical conditions would be refracted. We then see Kluge and others reading passages from the Marx-Engels-Werke, interspersed with striking images of capitalist production. One scene in a car factory shows a large digital sign suspended above the production line which reads ‘Ought/Is’ (Soll/Ist); the digits show the production target alongside the actual number of cars produced. Composer Wolfgang Rihm provides the accompaniment. There follows a tragi-comic scene of 2 Stasi members trying to get their heads round what “communism=electrification+soviets” might mean, the viewer clearly meant to see the ridiculousness of Stalinist ideology. 1 hour down, 11 to go.

Jag vet aldrig vad jag ska svara när folk frågar mig om jag känner någon som “lider av Aspergers syndrom”. Visserligen känner jag många som har asperger, men jag brukar inte fråga dem om de lider av det. Själv lider jag i alla fall inte av min asperger.

Det har varit svårt för mig att veta hur jag ska prata om asperger på något annat sätt än i form av “syndromet”. Å ena sidan vet jag att människor har behov av stöd och insatser, och då måste man ha en diagnos – men å andra sidan är asperger i mångt och mycket snarare ett sätt att fungera på än något funktionshinder. Från vårdens sida har man försökt att bena ut det, och i det tredje diagnoskriteriet slår man fast:

“Störningen orsakar kliniskt signifikant nedsättning av funktionsförmågan i arbete, socialt eller i andra viktiga avseenden.”

Det är alltså så att om man passar in på alla kriterier i övrigt, men inte egentligen har någon “nedsättning av funktionsförmågan” så kvalificerar man inte för diagnosen Aspergers syndrom. Massor av människor har en aspergerpersonlighet, men inte några större svårigheter – och de människorna får alltså inte heller någon diagnos.

Det här var en av de sakerna som kom upp igår, när jag lyssnade på Torbjörn Anderssons fenomenala föreläsning om “Radikala perspektiv på asperger och högfungerande autism”. Torbjörn använder nämligen ordet asperger i en vidare bemärkelse, och inte som en förkortning för Aspergers syndrom. Det han menar är snarare det som man kanske borde kalla aspergerpersonlighet; människor som fungerar på ett visst sätt – oavsett om de har en diagnos eller inte, och oavsett om de uppfyller det tredje diagnoskriteriet eller inte.

Att se asperger som en personlighetstyp istället för en störning är grundförutsättningen för att verkligen kunna prata om positiva sidor, möjligheter och begåvningar. Det gör det också möjligt att kunna diskutera aspergerdrag hos kända personer som inte fått någon formell diagnos: Albert Einstein, James Joyce, Charles Darwin, H.C. Anderssen, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Isaac Newton och Emily Dickinson levde alla på den tid då ingen diagnos fanns att ställa, och många av dem hade kanske inte heller tillräckligt för att få en diagnos – men det faktum att så många av de stora vetenskapsmännen, författarna, konstnärerna och kompositörerna i historien hade autistiska drag är ändå något som är värt att fundera över.

Problemet med att se autismspektrum ur ett strikt medicinskt perspektiv – som något som ofelbart är en störning och helst borde gå att förebygga eller bota – är att man direkt diskvalificerar alla som är “för duktiga” för att räknas in. Därmed förstör man möjligheten att se bakåt och upptäcka den autistiska historien, och man hindras också från att läsa in autistiska drag – eller bokstavsdrag generellt – i framgångsrika människor som lever idag: De är ju inte störda, de har ju inget handikapp, de är ju lyckade. Det är inget fel på dem…

Att diskutera varför en känd person gör si eller så, och säga “hon fick ett DAMP-ryck och skrev mästerverket på tre dygn”, eller “hans förmåga att föreläsa är verkligen autistisk!” är inte självklart smickrande, hur mycket jag än önskar det. Men Torbjörn Andersson har verkligen en autistisk förmåga – inte savant, men autistisk på så sätt att han vet vad han pratar om och att det är det han brinner för. Asperger är förmodligen ett av hans specialintressen, och det märks.

Jag vill att det ska gå att prata om asperger och ADHD som något mer än diagnoser, utan att för den skull förminska betydelsen av den hjälp man kan behöva. Jag vill att det ska vara självklart att det inte är något negativt att ha autistiska drag. Jag vill att folk slutar vara rädda för att stämplas som psykiskt sjuka, som störda, som handikappade. Eller som jag precis upptäckte att min kompis Jörgen hade skrivit på min Facebook:

“Autisten är guld värd, ty Au är ju den kemiska beteckningen för just guld”

Läs även andra bloggares intressanta åsikter om autism, Aspergers syndrom, NPF, diagnoser, funktionshinder, sjukdomar, personlighet, kändisar, förebilder, historia, fördomar, normer, neuronormer, neuromångfald, autismspektrum, vård, stöd, psykologi, psykiatri, cripteori, Albert Einstein, James Joyce, Charles Darwin, H.C. Anderssen, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Isaac Newton, Emily Dickinson

Qualche anno fa ho partecipato ad un corso di fotografia digitale e il docente mi ha fatto riflettere molto sul tipo di sguardo che un fotografo dovrebbe adottare per ogni genere di foto (panorama, ritratto, ecc.), portando dei validi esempi che non conoscevo.

Ora ogni volta che fotografo qualcosa, non posso fare a meno di pensare a chi ha fatto veramente della fotografia un’arte; nulla di presuntuoso da parte mia, ma è certo che se si conoscono i “punti di vista” di chi sa fotografare, magari alla lunga qualcosa si può migliorare ed io di strada ne ho molta da fare.

Ecco perchè ho voluto tenermi archiviata una piccola ricerca sui grandi artisti del passato, che hanno saputo utilizzare la fotografia per esprimere un loro pensiero, utilizzando sicuramente anche strumenti che oggi si potrebbero definire pionieristici.

Le immagini e le biografie sono tratte dai siti proprietari
a solo scopo illustrativo e senza lucro alcuno.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Richard Avedon (sito ufficiale)

Una delle sue opere più famose è la “The American West “, una raccolta di foto di persone comuni di strada, rigorosamente in bianco e nero, pubblicata in due colori nero / grigio.

Alcun esempi:

Alcuni comuni “Minatori”:

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Andreas Deffner (sito ufficiale)

La sua opera più famosa è stata “White, too white”, una rassegna fotografica di persone indiane albine:

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Irving Penn

E’ famoso per le immagini di moda e di ritratto.

Pablo Picasso 1957

Truman Capote 1965

John Osborne 1958

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Annie Leibovitz

Cristo impacchettato.

John Lennon

Woopy Goldberg

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Philippe Halsman

Tra le sue maggiori opere ci solo le famose foto con Salvador Dalì come soggetto.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Anne Geddes (sito ufficiale)

La sua fama è stata l’idea di fotografare i bambini neonati in posizioni particolari, un’idea che l’ha resa famosa nel mondo intero, anche non fotografico.

Questa è una piccola galleria di miniature, sotto ci sono alcune sue opere più famose.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Robert Capa

Bravissimo fotografo, definito anche “fotografo soldato”, che seppe immortalare alcuni momenti storici dei vari conflitti mondiali (una piccola raccolta fotografica).

La sua foto più famosa, Cordoba 1936.

"Leggermente fuori fuoco", sbarco in Normandia.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Gjon Mili

Ha scoperto l’effetto luce nelle fotografie, famose le sue foto con la partecipazione di Picasso mentre dipinge le sue opere con una torcia elettrica.

La sua tecnica è di dipingere con la luce la pellicola, lasciando il soggetto al buio, aprendo l’obbiettivo e facendo disegnare qualcosa con una fonte luminosa, alla fine un colpo di flash per fissare il tutto.

Picasso che dipinge il minotauro con la luce.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Robert Doisneau (sito ufficiale)

Il suo nome viene ricordato soprattutto per le foto riguardanti la vita di strada della capitale francese, caratterizzate da una sincera e umoristica rappresentazione della società e dell’ambiente parigino.

Doisneau amava immortalare la cultura dei bambini della strada e dei loro giochi, arrivando a conferire alle loro attività, seppur infantili, rispetto e serietà.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Steve Mc Curry

Definito il fotografo dell’anima, famosissima la sua foto di copertina del National Geographic di una ragazzina afgana di circa 14 anni conosciuta casualmente in un campo profughi afgano nel 1985, ritornata in auge nel 2001, quando scoprì la ragazza cresciuta (“Passaggio in Italia“).

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

August Sander

Ha saputo immortalare i mestieri della sua epoca.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Henri Cartier Bresson

Si può definire uno dei pionieri della fotografia, dedicava ore per ottenere uno scatto, con una buona macchina Leica-I-1, ma non certo speciale (una piccola rassegna).

Henri Matisse al lavoro

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

James Balog 

Un fotografo che ha sempre amato giocare con la natura

Utilizzando più foto per questo grandissimo albero.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Maurizio Galimberti (sito ufficiale)

Un fotografo contemporaneo che ha saputo inventarsi uno stile suo, utilizzando esclusivamente la Polaroid e formando un’immagine mosaico (una rassegna fotografica).

Mario Monicelli

Isabella Ferrari

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Due fotografi che hanno rappresentato una svolta storica nel conflitto mondiale, entrambi sono stati capaci di riprodurre dei momenti importanti ed unici, anche se in realtà non erano presenti fisicamente all’accaduto:

Joe Rosenthal

Nella battaglia di Iwo Jima la vera bandiera non è mai stata fotografata e questa è una ricostruzione dell’evento, avvenuto successivamente, ma che è passata alla storia per quello che ha rappresentato.

Yevgeny Khaldei

Lo scenario del bombardamento e la caduta di Berlino erano del giorno precedente, ma in quel momento mancava la bandiera e lui stesso l’ha ricostruita sul tetto, usando della stoffa rossa e della carta bianca per la falce e martello; anche se effettuata il giorno successivo, è passata alla storia per il significato che aveva.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

John Paul Caponigro (sito ufficiale)

Artista di fama internazionale, John Paul Caponigro è l’autore di “Adobe Photoshop Master Class” (Adobe Press); un secondo volume, “The Power of Color” (Focal), è in via di pubblicazione. Caponigro tiene workshop in tutto il mondo, inclusi seminari sul colore, è considerato il maestro del Photoshop.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Uliano Lucas (sito ufficiale)

Fotografo milanese, si è affermato come fotografo intorno agli anni ’70, quando documentò le lotte operaie e studentesche a Torino e Milano. Figlio di operai, ha fatto dell’impegno sociale un tema di fondo della sua opera, dal forte contenuto simbolico.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Una rassegna di artisti, per mia futura memoria.

Bye  

Here are the ten thunderwords, hyperlinked to their places in the FW text:

• (thunder):
  bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonnerronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthurnuk

• (thunder):
  Perkodhuskurunbarggruauyagokgorlayorgromgremmitghundhurthrumathunaradidillifaititillibumullunukkunun

• (clap):
  klikkaklakkaklaskaklopatzklatschabattacreppycrottygraddaghsemmihsammihnouithappluddyappladdypkonpkot

• (whore):
  Bladyughfoulmoecklenburgwhurawhorascortastrumpapornanennykocksapastippatappatupperstrippuckputtanach

• Thingcrooklyexineverypasturesixdixlikencehimaroundhersthemaggerbykinkinkankanwithdownmindlookingated

• (shut the door):
  Lukkedoerendunandurraskewdylooshoofermoyportertooryzooysphalnabortansporthaokansakroidverjkapakkapuk

• Bothallchoractorschumminaroundgansumuminarumdrumstrumtruminahumptadumpwaultopoofoolooderamaunsturnup

• Pappappapparrassannuaragheallachnatullaghmonganmacmacmacwhackfalltherdebblenonthedubblandaddydoodled

• (cough):
  husstenhasstencaffincoffintussemtossemdamandamnacosaghcusaghhobixhatouxpeswchbechoscashlcarcarcaract

• (Norse gods):
  Ullhodturdenweirmudgaardgringnirurdrmolnirfenrirlukkilokkibaugimandodrrerinsurtkrinmgernrackinarockar

The first duty of a revolutionary is to get away with it.

-Abbie Hoffman

Hello, world! We are the Urchins. Welcome to our website. We’re just your average, run-of-the-mill starving artist revolutionaries taking our movement to the internet in hopes of reaching millions. We’re young, poor, and in love with the world. And we know we can’t be alone. Urchins are everywhere. See that skinny kid in the corner reading a well-loved copy of Ulysses? Probably an Urchin. Remember that graffiti of an excerpt from Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own you pass on your way home? Probably the work of an Urchin. And that person at your local bookstore who keeps moving his favourite books to the front of the displays? Definitely an Urchin.

Urchins of the world, our time has come! Let us rise up and with one slightly superior voice cry out, ‘Revolution!’

I swear this post’s a productive one because the book I’m reading for my test compelled me to write this particular paragraph down.

“Her eyes, dark and with a look of languor, were opening to his eyes. Her nakedness yielded to him, radiant, warm, odorous and lavishlimbed, enfolded him like a shining cloud, enfolded him like water with a liquid life: and like a cloud of vapour or like waters circumfluent in space the liquid letters of speech, symbols of the element of mystery, flowed forth over his mind.”

Honestly, it gave me the slight chills. It’s probably one of the sexiest and most artfully woven passages I’ve read in a while. I love it. I didn’t know James Joyce could write provocatively either – goes to show I need to read some more classics.

“You have to attain a certain level of richness before you can complain about being poor, he thought. When you are this poor, you are not given the right to complain.“

— Between the Assassinations, by Aravind Adiga

Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger was one of the two best books I read last year and I was excited to start the short stories he wrote before publishing his extraordinary debut. The collection, Between the Assassinations is in much the same vein as The White Tiger, focusing on the shape of modern India and, specifically here, the years between the Hallowe’en 1984 death of polarizing Indian prime minister, Indira Gandhi and the subsequent May 21st 1991 murder of her son and successor, Rajiv Gandhi.

Between the Assassination’s portrayal of the somewhat vanished hope and promise inherent in these years is demonstrated through the growing city of Kittur, a setting that he explores in a similar manner that Joyce utilized his hometown in his only series of short fiction, Dubliners. Kittur’s history, geography religious, ethnic and caste make-up are all presented in reoccurring interludes, Adiga mixing statistics with fiction to create an experience that works to effectively transport readers to the Indian city.

Adiga concentrates on the untapped frustration (and potential) of India’s immense population of poor, often lower caste masses, devoting The White Tiger and almost the entirety of Between the Assassinations to their perspective. This focus is a smart approach to a discussion of the emergence of modern India and illustrates much of the sentiment that Adiga would go on to brilliantly represent in The White Tiger. Between the Assassinations ends up feeling fairly similar to his novel but doesn’t overly retread the same ground. Every one of the short stories works to help create a compelling picture of the various demographics of Kittur and ultimately leads to a microcosmic depiction of crucial years in the formation of the India we know today. From a poor boy turned inadvertant spy, a devoted communist turning capitalist, a lower caste servant hoping to marry his employer and more, Adiga effortlessly forms a memorable cast of characters, endearing every one of them to readers through clever descriptions, funny dialogue and a refusal to narrow any of them down into a two-dimensional caricature.

There are only a few missteps in the entire collection, Day Five: Valencia (To the First Crossroads) and Day Six (Evening): Bajpe. Valencia’s examination of a Brahmin servant woman’s disdain for her younger, lower-caste coworker is functional but misses the opportunity to delve deeper into a complicated issue, providing a solid story but a fairly shallow examination of the given issues in much the same was as Day Six is too content to dwell on the surface of a facsinating topic.

Between the Assassinations is, on the whole, an outstanding work however and even the above, minor complaints are the product of the book briefly losing its momentum and dipping just a little below the quality of the other stories. Aravind Adiga is a welcome counterpoint to the melodrama of some of his fellow Indian writers and Between the Assassinations has the same refreshing, tongue-in-cheek feel that The White Tiger maintained when discussing extremely heavy situations and issues. Although the short stories here don’t break new ground in the same way that Adiga’s first novel’s surprising tone did, they’re still an extremely well written and excellent exploration of similar themes and cultural issues at a crucial juncture in 20th century Indian history.

— Reid

Los sentimientos excitados por un arte impuro son cinéticos, deseo y repulsión. El deseo nos incita al abandono, a apartarnos de algo. Las artes que sugieren esos sentimientos, pornográficos o didácticos, no son, por tanto, artes puras. La emoción estética es por consiguiente estática. El espíritu queda paralizado por encima de todo deseo, de toda repulsión. James Joyce en Retrato de un artista adolescente ____ ¿soy puro o impuro? ¿debo purificarme o buscar la impureza? no sé  si lo mío es lo estático irradiante o la caída libre, voy cayendo a pedazos. Hay un sol ligero, apenas.

Viene M a ayudarme en mi soledad y en mi ceguera, propias de quien sale de la cueva a la plaza pública…. me convence de mostrarlo todo y que no hay para tanto, me percato de que yo no pinto lo atroz o lo absoluto… mis mutilados y mis picos (los de las pinturas) son cotidianos, argumenta M. Me señala una cabeza que quizá esté hecha en clave atroz. En fin, las acuarelas no son siniestras y siguiendo un poco a Joyce, tampoco inmóviles…  Yo le fotografío a él la pupila, azul. Debo huir de aquí antes de que comiencen las celebraciones deportivas.

photo by bbusschots

From the conclusion to James Joyce’s short story “The Dead”:

A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, on the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.

From an essay by Sean Latham:

Despite recording the dizzying perambulatons of men and women around the city … Dubliners, Ulysses and Finnegans Wake all end with scenes of surprising yet also largely unremarked natural beauty: the snow falling gently over Ireland, the fields flushed with flowers atop Howth Head and the Liffey itself moving ‘through grass behush the bush … a way a lone a last a loved a long the’. What does it mean that these books end by carrying us out of the city, even if on a flow that carries within itself the polluted effluvium of urban life?”

Sean Latham, ‘Twentieth Century Critical Contexts” in John McCourt (ed.) James Joyce in Context (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 156.

Latham refers here to Joyce’s awareness of ecology. It is an intriguing comment that sounds counter-intuitive when applied to this archetypal modernist, but is also recognisably true. Some critics are now exploring how Ireland features in Joyce not just as local colour but as a determining force in his work. More interesting perhaps is whether this has any implications for how we understand modernism itself. Writers like Edward Said and Raymond Williams have taught us about the important impact the margins have on metropolitan formations. It’s worth considering here whether the experience of those coming from the rural or colonial margins has something to do with the disjunctures of space and time evident in modernism.

Bu yılın 1 Mayıs’ında Adam Yayınları’nda 19. yılımı tamamladım. Bu 19 yıl benim için çok zengin deneyimlerle dolu bir dönem oldu.

Bu 19 yılın bir önemli yanı da, bu süre boyunca Cevat abiyle hep yan yana ya da aynı odalarda çalışmış olmamızdı. 19 yıl boyunca bir insanla düzenli olarak her haftanın en az bir günü görüşebilmek, insanlar arasında gözle görülemeyen ama her koşulda hemen kendini belli eden bağların kurulmasına yol açıyor.

Cevat abiyle aklınıza gelecek her konuda konuşabilirsiniz. Beşiktaş’ın durumunu da, sinema, tiyatro dünyasında olup bitenleri de, gezilip görülecek ilginç yerleri de, dünyanın çeşitli köşelerinde yaşayan kültür adamlarını nasıl tanıdığını da…

Bu 19 yıl boyunca neler konuştuğumuzu düşündüğümde aklıma önce şiir geliyor. Evet, yeryüzünde şiirin bunca geri çekildiği, toplum hayatının dışına itildiği bir dönemde biz en çok şiirden konuştuk. Çünkü hayatta en önemsediğimiz şeydi şiir. Ama şiirin yanı sıra hayat üzerine, geçmiş, anılar, insanlar üzerine de çok şey konuştuk. Bu konuşmalardan aklımda onun yaşamına ve geçmişine ilişkin çok şey kaldı elbette. Bu yüzden konuşmamı biraz da bu anılar üzerine kurmak istedim. Çeşitli yaşam sahnelerinin onun şiirinin daha iyi anlaşılmasına, sevilmesine yol açacağını düşündüğüm için.

Bir şairi şair yapan etkenleri ya da mutlu rastlantıları hep düşünmüşümdür. Sözgelimi Nâzım Hikmet’i Nâzım Hikmet yapan ne çok etken vardır. Mevlevi şairi dedesinden, ressam annesine, Ulusal Kurtuluş Savaşı’ndan Sovyet devrimine saymakla tükenmeyecek etkenler.

Cevat Çapan’ın yaşamına baktığınızda da, onu şair eden yollarda nice zengin yaşam birikimi olduğunu kolaylıkla görebilirsiniz.

Ve bu yaşam parçalarının hayat denilen o usta terzi tarafından nasıl ustalıkla birleştirilip geliştirildiğini de.

İsterseniz babasından başlayalım.

Erzincan’ın Kemah ilçesinin Pekeriç köyünden bir delikanlı. Köyleri bir Ermeni köyü, ama babası İstanbul’da kuru kahvecilik yapıyor. Ermeni arkadaşlarıyla Trabzon’dan vapura binip İstanbul’a babasının yanına geliyor. Yolda da arkadaşlarından Amerika’yı, orada nasıl canlı, çekici bir hayat olduğunu duyuyor. İstanbul’da babasıyla pek anlaşamıyor, biraz para biriktirince bir gemiye atlayıp önce Cezayir’e, sonra Marsilya’ya, oradan Amerika’ya gidiyor diye bindiği bir gemi ile Hollanda Guyanası’na yani Surinam’a gidiyor. Oradan her nasılsa Küba’ya geçiyor ve Santiago’da tam 20 yıl yaşıyor. İş adamı oluyor ve Emilio Çapan adını alıyor.

Adaları seven bir adam,

Adaları da kadınlar kadar.

Bir adam, gelip dağ köylerinden,

Han kahvelerinde duran.

Bir köylü, imparatorluğun payitahtında.

Bir kaçak, Cezayir zindanlarında.

Bir yolcu, Marsilya’dan.

İkinci Abdülhamit’in padişahlığında

Kalkıp Havana’ya giden babam.

Sonra Kurtuluş Savaşı oluyor, Cumhuriyet kuruluyor ve bu adam ülkesine dönüyor. Kardeşinin Darıca’daki fırınını işletmeye başlıyor. Orada komşuları Girit mübadili bir kızı seviyor ve bu aşktan 1933 yılında Cevat Çapan doğuyor.

12 yaşına kadar olan çocukluk yılları Darıca’da geçiyor Cevat Çapan’ın. İkinci Dünya Savaşı yılları. Hiç elektrik olmayan yıllar. Halkevlerine gelip perdesini kurarak karagöz oynatan karagözcüyü görmesiyle ilk ilgisi ortaya çıkıyor. Aynı yıllarda radyodan da Hayali Küçük Ali’nin Karagöz programlarını dinliyor.

Bu yıllarda babası da sürekli hikâyeler anlatarak oğlunun imge dünyasının gelişmesine katkıda bulunuyor. En çok anlattığı hikâye ise Pardayanlar’dır. Babasından öğrendiği ilk Fransızca sözler de Baba Pardayan’ın oğluna öğütleridir:

Kadınlardan sakın

Saçları yılandır seni sararlar,

Gözleri ateştir, seni yakarlar.

Ama babasının Cevat Çapan’a verdiği dersler yalnızca Pardayanlar değildir:

Babam iki tek atınca,

“Hadi seni karpuzlara götüreyim,” derdi.

(Karpuzlar Gebze’de oturan kızlardı.)

Annem kızarır, kızar,

“Bey, çocuk daha küçük,” diye çıkışır,

mutfağa gider ağlardı.

Babam karpuzdan anlardı.

Babasının oğluna öğrettiği bir şey de rakı içmektir. Daha 3-4 yaşlarındayken onu rakı sofralarına taşımaya başlar. Önce mezelerin lezzetine alışan Cevat Çapan, zamanla mezelerin yanında rakı içmeye de başlar.

Evlerinin yanındaki mescitte ise taşbaskısı kitaplar satan bir seyyar kitapçı vardır. İlkokul yıllarında bu kitapçıdan aldığı Hazreti Ali Cenkleri, Tahir ile Zühre, Arzu ile Kamber, Kan Kalesi, Hayber Kalesi gibi kitapları okumaya başlar. Yalnız kendi kendine değil. Evlerinin altındaki fırında çalışan işçilere de okur bu hikâyeleri. Aralarında saz çalıp, türkü söyleyenler olur, onlardan da ilk türküleri öğrenir.

Bu arada annesini de unutmayalım: O da akrabaları, arkadaşları, komşuları geldiğinde Rumca şarkılar söyler evlerinde. Kimileri yarı Türkçe yarı Rumca masallar anlatır. Yunancaya karşı kulak dolgunluğu da yine işte bu çocukluk yıllarında oluşur.

1945, Cevat Çapan’ın 12 yaşında İstanbul’a geldiği ve Robert Koleje kaydolduğu yıldır. Hem o yıllarda Türkiye’de olabilecek en güzel okula gelmiştir. Hem de sinema, tiyatro gibi sanatlarla buluşacağı İstanbul şehrine.

Taksim sinemasında hep Arap filmleri gösterilmektedir. Türkçe sözlü, Arapça şarkılı filmlerdir bunlar, Abdülvahap’la Ümmü Gülsüm’ün oynadıkları.

Yine aynı yıl İstanbul Şehir Tiyatrolarında Shakespeare ile tanışır. Muhsin Ertuğrul’un sahneye koyduğu Atinalı Timon’dur ilk gördüğü oyun.

Kolej’de Karagöz tutkusu da sürer. Okulda bir perde yaptırıp Karagöz oynatmaya başlar.

İlk yurtdışı gezisini de bir okul gezisi olarak Yunanistan’a yaparlar. Çeşme’den önce Sakız adasına geçip, oradan da Atina’ya giderler.

Robert Kolej’de çok iyi bir edebiyat eğitimi verilmektedir bu yıllarda. Şair Nigar Hanımın oğlu Salih Keramet Türkçe öğretmenleridir. Tevfik Fikret’in arkadaşıdır. Nazım Hikmet, dönemin yaşayan bütün öteki şairleri, Sait Faik, Yakup Kadri, Halide Edip, Halit Ziya, Reşat Nuri derslerde okudukları yazarlardır. Yine Batı dünyasından T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, James Joyce da bu yıllarda keşfettiği yazarlardır.

Okul bitince, 20 yaşında babası onu İngiltere’ye Cambridge Üniversitesi’ne gönderir. Ailesi iktisat okumasını istemektedir. O ise İngiliz Edebiyatı bölümüne kaydolur. Babasına altı ay sonra yazdığı bir mektupla durumu bildirir.

Cambridge’de sinema tutkusu iyice depreşir. Durmadan sinemaya gider. Hemen bütün sinema klasiklerini izleme olanağı bulur. Bir keresinde Mihail Kokoyannis’in Melina Merküri’nin oynadığı Stella adlı filmini o kadar beğenir ki, tam 9 kez seyreder.

Cambridge’de ilk yaptığı işlerden biri de İngiliz arkadaşlarını rakıyla tanıştırmak olur. Savaştan yeni çıkmış İngiltere’de bir çok şey karneyle dağıtılmaktadır. Babası her ay küçük bir koli içinde ona beyaz peynir, pastırma ve rakı gönderir. Rakı sofrasını kurup arkadaşlarına hem rakı içmeyi, hem de türkü söylemeyi öğretir.

Kendisi de elbette çağdaş İngiliz edebiyatının ustalarından etkilenir. Bunlar içinde en beğendiği ise Gökkuşağı ve Aşık Kadınlar romanlarının yazarı D. H. Lawrence’dır.

İlk şiirlerini de yine bu yıllarda yazar. “Denizi Özledik Denizi”, “Dilek Şart”.

Yaz aylarında ise Türkiye’deki edebiyatçılarla arkadaşlıklar kuruyor. Bunlar arasında ilk sıraları Bilge Karasu, Vüs’at O. Bener, Özdemir Asaf alıyorlar. Sonraki yıllarda asker arkadaşı olarak Oğuz Atay da katılacaktır yakın arkadaş grubuna.

Cevat Çapan’ın askerliğini yaptığı 1950’li yılların sonları Ankara, bir sanatçılar merkezidir aynı zamanda. Turgut Uyar’la, İlhan Berk’le, Can Yücel’le, haftasonları buluşup arkadaşlık etmektedirler.

Tabii İngiltere’de okumanın bir yararı da pek çok çağdaş yazarı herkesten önce farkedebilmesi olur. John Berger’i daha ilk romanı  Zamanımızın Bir Ressamı yayımlandığında, 1953’de keşfeder. Ted Hughes, Sylvia Plath aynı dönemde öğrencilik yaptığı şairlerdir. Yine Raymond Williams, F. R, Leaves, George Steiner gibi çağdaş edebiyatın başta gelen eleştirmenlerinin de derslerine girer.

Aynı şekilde, yalnız İngiliz edebiyatına değil, bütün dünya edebiyatına ve şiirine açılan kapıları bulabilmiştir. Böylelikle, günümüzün “Şiir Atlası”na ulaşacak, “Çin’den Peru’ya” çeviri serüveni başlar. “Çin’den Peru’ya”nın ilk basımı 1966’da Vedat Günyol yönetimindeki Çan Yayınları’ndan 76 sayfalık ince bir kitap olarak çıkar. Ancak içinde Sappho’dan Latin Şairlerine, Eski Çin şairlerinden Japon Haiku’larına, Ungaretti’den Pavese’ye, Michaux’dan Rene Char’a, Lorca’dan Alberti’ye Yeats’den Auden’a, Ezra Pound’dan Vallejo’ya çok geniş bir alanda dünya şiiri karşımıza çıkar.

Ardından peş peşe çağdaş Yunan şiirinin büyük ustalarını dilimize aktarır: 1966’da Seferis, 1974’te Yannis Ritsos, 1981’de Kavafis ve 1983’te de Elitis’in şiirleri kitap olarak yayımlanır. Çağdaş Yunan Şiiri Antolojisi, Çağdaş İngiliz Şiiri Antolojisi ve Çağdaş Amerikan Şiiri Antolojisi de 80’li yılların ürünlerindendir.

80’li yılların başında bir de Amerika serüveni vardır, Cevat Abi’nin. Beş kişilik bir aile olarak gittiği New York’ta Fulbright bursuyla geçinemeyince, bir yandan üniversitede 17. yüzyıl İngiliz edebiyatı dersi verir, öte yandan da Türk öğrencilerin kurduğu bir badanacı ekibine katılarak evlere boya badana işlerine gider. Hatta bir keresinde evini boyamaya gittikleri kişinin bir üniversite profesörü olduğunu öğrenince ev sahibi profesörle, onun evini boyamaya gelen Profesör Cevat Çapan’ı tanıştırırlar.

İşte, kimi sahnelerini aktarmaya çalıştığım böylesi çok sayıda mutlu rastlantının ortaya çıkardığı bir şair kişiliktir Cevat Çapan.

80’li yıllar, Cevat Çapan’ın aynı zamanda yeniden kendi şiirine dönüş yıllarıdır. İlk şiiri 1952 yılında, henüz 19 yaşındayken yayımlanmış olmasına karşın, ilk şiir kitabı Dön Güvercin Dön, aradan 33 yıl geçtikten sonra 1985’te yayımlanır ve o yılın Behçet Necatigil Şiir Ödülünü kazanır.

Yılların birikimi içinde yaşama sevinciyle hüznü ustalıkla harmanlayan, yalınlıkla derinliği buluşturan şiirleri peş peşe kitaplaşır: Doğal Tarih, Sevda Yaratan, Ne Güzel Yolculuktu Aklımdan Çıkmaz. Şiirlerinden seçmeler İngiltere ve Fransa’da da kitap olarak yayımlanır.

Cevat Çapan şiirine genel bir bakışla baktığımızda hep anlatılan bir hikaye vardır. Bu hikaye, kimi zaman kişisel, kimi zaman toplumsal bir hikayedir. Ancak içlerine kişisel tarihlerin ve düşlerin karıştığı hikayelerdir bunlar. Annesini, babasını, dayısını anlatırken Anna Ahmatova’yı, Osip Mandelştam’ı, Cesar Vallejo’yu, Walter Benjamin’i de anlatır.

Aslında bir düşler sağanağı da diyebiliriz onun şiiri için. Yalın görünümlü olmalarına karşın kişisel, toplumsal ya da tarihsel pek çok öykünün iç içe geçtiği, birbiriyle ilintilendiği, buluşup uzaklaştıkları bir olaylar ve düşler sağanağıdır. Bu nedenle gizlerine çok da kolay varılabilecek bir şiir değildir belki. Ama şairin dünyasını tanıyıp, ailesi, geçmişi ve bunca içli dışlılıktan sonra bütün dünya edebiyatı ve özellikle de şiiri için de onun ailesi diyebiliriz; evet, dünya şiirinin serüvenlerine açık, şiirin bu geniş ailesine yakın olanlar için tadına kolay varılacak ve sonra da tiryakisi olunacak bir şiirdir Cevat Çapan’ın şiiri.

Bir yaştan sonra, sınırsız bir çağrışımlar

zinciridir hayat;

başka kokular, başka görüntülerle

saldırır üstüne tekleyen belleğinle

ve birden başka adlarla uyanırsın

bir dağ yamacında daldığın düşten.

Bir İsveç filminde miydi

o küçücük madenci çocuğu

Auguste Renoir’ın adını hecelemeye çalışan?

Her şey ne kadar külrengi ve dağınık

gökle denizin maviliği ötesinde.

Bir kadın “Gecenin Matemi”ni söylüyor öğle üzeri

ve herkesten bir şeyler kalan bu sokaklarda,

kırılan camdan kalplerin parçalarını toplarken,

belalısı gizlice zehirliyor içindeki aylak köpeği.

Ve uzakta, düşlediğim Girit’te, belki de,

denize eğilen çamları yıkıyor yıldızlar.

Sonunda sana sığınıyorum, ey şiir,

rüzgarları, fırtınaları yararlı kılan.

Yaşarken, güzel adlar koydum çocuklarıma:

Nigar, Leyla, Alişan.

Burada çok kabaca söz ettiğim olaylar ve olgular, onun bin bir zenginlik içeren hayatının küçük bir bölümüdür yalnızca. Onu tam olarak tanıyabilmek için, gittiği meyhaneleri, yüzdüğü denizleri, gezdiği yerleri, okuduğu kitapları, gördüğü filmleri, oyunları, tanıdığı nice renkli insan portrelerini, çocuklarıyla, öğrencileriyle olan serüvenlerini uzun uzun anlatmak ve dinlemek gerekir. Çünkü bütün bunların ve nicelerinin bileşeninin doğurduğu bir şeydir Cevat Çapan şiiri.

Bunca yüksek uçuşa karşın, Cevat Çapan, ayakları yerden kesilen şairlerden değildir. Güçlü gerçekçiliği ve duyarlık eğitimiyle maddi dünya ile yaratı dünyasını birbirinden ayırmadan bir arada koruyabilmeyi başarmıştır. Gerçeklik duygusuyla güzellik duygusu yan yana, bir aradadır.

Lirik şiir yazmasına karşın, şiirde lirik söyleyişle mizahi, ironik tonu da ustalıkla birleştirebilmektedir.

Cevat Çapan’ın düşler sağanağından, bölük pörçük yaşam parçalarından bir şiir dünyası kurduğunu söyledim. Bu yamalı bohça gibi görünen şiir dünyasına biraz geri çekilip de yukardan baktığınızda ise karşınızda kusursuz bütünlükte bir yapıtın durduğunu göreceksiniz.

Elbette bütün sanatlar gibi şiir de aslında şairinin bireysel bir serüvenidir. Ama şair bu serüvenine ortak edebildiği okurlarıyla yaşar, çoğalır.

Cevat Çapan’ın, Türkçe okuyabilen bizlere sunduğu şiir yolculuğu çok güzeldi.

Ve kim bilir kaç kuşaklar boyunca aklımızdan çıkmayacak.

Temmuz 2005

Note : Il sera ici question de la nouvelle traduction d’Ulysse, effectuée en 2004 sous la direction Jacques Aubert (et de la version Folio pour la pagination). Pour éviter que cette nouvelle traduction ne soit trop empreinte de l’esprit, de la vision d’une seule et même personne, ce sont trois équipes de traducteurs, l’une composée d’écrivains, une d’un traducteur littéraire, la troisième constituée d’universitaires familiers de l’œuvre de Joyce.

Ulysse est un monstre de la littérature. Un minotaure dont le sens est enfermé au beau milieu d’un dédale de mots, que l’on peut approcher d’autant de manières différentes qu’il existe de lectures. On s’interroge ou on fuit, on le porte aux nues ou on le voue aux gémonies, on adore, on déteste. Il tombe des mains à un moment ou à un autre, on ne le lâche plus des mains.
Ulysse me faisait peur, pour avoir tenté une approche de James Joyce en terminale par le biais de Finnigan’s wake. Tentative finalement avorté. Quelques années plus tard, la curiosité est revenue sur le devant de la scène, après avoir entendu et lu le meilleur comme le pire au sujet de ce roman. Un séjour à Dublin sera finalement l’occasion de franchir le pas.

L’objectif de cet article n’est pas de tenter de faire une critique de ce roman, entreprise qui m’apparait insensée face à l’ampleur de la tâche : d’autres s’y sont essayés et bien plus brillamment que je ne saurais jamais le faire. Je souhaite juste tenter de démêler un peu cet imbroglio effrayant que peut constituer Ulysse, tant pour le lecteur éventuel que pour l’eccoeuré qui l’a reposé au bout d’un certain nombres de pages, tant pour le lecteur assidu de Joyce – à qui je demande sa bienveillance s’il relève des incohérences ou un manque de compréhension globale du texte – que pour le curieux anonyme qui s’est laissé entraîné dans la lecture de cette chronique.

L’histoire en elle-même peut se résumer en quelques mots : Ulysse décrit la journée du 16 juin 1904, de huit à trois heures du matin, à travers les déambulations de Leopold Bloom, un homme marié issu de la petite bourgeoisie.

Si la trame est d’une simplicité apparente, c’est la façon dont Joyce a choisi de la traiter qui fait la particularité de ce roman et qui le rend aussi dense.
Ainsi, Ulysse s’ouvre, in medias res, alors que le dénommé Buck Mulligan apparaît en haut d’un escalier, un bol de mousse à raser à la main. Point de Leopold Bloom, dont il ne sera question que plus tard, de manière souvent épisodique, puisque chacune de ses actions est entrecoupée de réflexions, de digressions diverses, de considérations d’ordre politique, musicales, philosophiques, religieuses, de fantasmes sexuels et de souvenirs lointains.

Outre la construction unique dont il sera question plus loin, c’est l’étendue et la densité incroyable de ces digressions qui rendent le roman aussi difficile à approcher. On a tôt fait de se noyer dans la masse d’idées à vouloir saisir le sens de chaque terme sans perdre le fil conducteur du récit, puis on finit par reposer le livre, perdu dans le labyrinthe. Aussi, plutôt que de se faire violence pour tout retenir, je pense qu’il vaut mieux accepter de lâcher prise, se laisser porter par les flots ininterrompues des voix, une seule lecture d’Ulysse ne suffira pas pour en comprendre toutes les arcanes (deux ou trois non plus).
Une partie de ces allusions peuvent être d’autant plus délicates à saisir pour le lecteur français lambda (aucun sous-entendu péjoratif dans l’utilisation de ce terme) qui n’est, à juste titre, pas forcément familiarisé avec certaines notions qui sont abordées : débat sur la langue gaélique et le renouveau celtique de la fin du XIXème siècle, l’histoire de l’indépendance de l’Irlande (qui ne l’obtient -partiellement puisqu’une partie de l’Ulster resta rattachée au Royaume-Unis- qu’en 1921 à la suite d’une guerre civile. Ainsi au moment où se déroule le récit, l’Irlande est encore sous domination britannique.) On retrouve également une foule de références à la mythologie celte, ou encore à des écrivains comme Wilde ou Yeats.

Le traitement du langage, de la langue occupe une place à part, ce qui participe à sa difficulté quand il est question de traduction. Tout d’abord, les registres de langues parcourus au gré de la narration sont extrêmement variés. Joyce joue sur tous les registres de langage, depuis l’argot ou le registre familier, voir même grossier jusqu’à l’utilisation de tournure précieuse et travaillé, c’est toute la gamme des nuances de la langue et de la société qui les emploient qui explorée. En soi, l’exercice n’est peut-être pas vraiment une nouveauté, ni même une preuve de génie ou de talent, mais ce qui l’est en revanche, c’est le brio avec lequel il pousse le jeu jusqu’à son paroxysme, dans la partie Les Bœufs du Soleils (p.553): non content d’explorer les strates d’une langue, il la métamorphose, comme le passage des saisons et des époques, lui donnant tour à tour l’allure d’un texte en vieux [français], d’un discours digne d’un philosophe des Lumières, d’un roman naturaliste, une ritournelle populaire.

Ulysse explore toutes sortes de procédés narratifs différents, ainsi, se clôt-il par le monologue de la femme de Bloom, Molly. Ce monologue, intitulé Pénélope, est long d’une soixantaine de pages et se fait quasiment sans interruption, la ponctuation y est absente et les idées s’enchaînent comme elles le feraient dans une cascade de pensées plus ou moins troublée.
D’autres procédés moins classiques sont aussi utilisés, notamment sous une forme théâtrale, ce qui nous donne Circé,  épisode assez surréaliste (mais tout le livre ne l’est-il pas ?) où Bloom est confronté aux prostituées de Dublin.

Il y aurait un millier d’autres détails à souligner. Par exemple, Stephen Dedalus est également présent dans son roman, largement autobiographique, Portrait de l’artiste en jeune homme (ou Stephen le Héros dans certaines versions).
L’article de wikipédia souligne le rapport entre les chapitres et un art, un symbole, une couleur… c’est une optique de lecture très intéressante, mais plutôt pour une relecture. J’avoue ne même pas avoir fait attention au découpage opéré entre les sections du roman, ni aux références à L’Odyssée pour cette première lecture, préférant me concentrer sur les déambulations-digressions de Leopold Bloom et, puisque j’avais la chance d’y être, aux lieux de Dublin qui sont décrits dans le livre. La chance de pouvoir visiter et ressentir les lieux dont il était question dans le roman a sans aucun doute énormément joué dans ma lecture, nulle doute qu’elle aurait été plus ardue autrement.
Le Bloomsday, qui a lieu tous les 16 juin, est l’occasion d’excursions et de promenades organisés à travers Dublin à la découverte des lieux justement mentionnés dans Ulysse. Ces lieux sont signalés par des plaques de bronze portant une citation du roman.

Ulysse a été publié pour la première fois en 1922, en France, par la librairie de Syvia Beach, Shakespeare & Co. après avoir été refusé par tous les éditeurs, en partie parce qu’ils jugeaient son contenu obscène. Son manuscrit a ainsi été par la Hogarth Press, la maison d’édition fondée par Leonard et Virginia Woolf. On trouve une mention de ce refus dans la correspondance de cette dernière avec Lytton Strachey.

On nous a sollicités pour imprimer le nouveau roman de Mr. Joyce, tous les imprimeurs à Londres et la plupart de ceux en province ayant refusé. Pour commencer, il y a un chien qui p… — puis un homme qui défèque, et l’on risque la monotonie même sur ce sujet — de plus, je ne crois pas que sa méthode qui est très élaborée aille plus loin que couper les explications et mettre les pensées entre tirets. Je ne pense donc pas que nous le ferons.

Lettre du 23 avril 1918. Virginia Woolf – Lytton Strachey, Correspondance, Le Promeneur, Paris, 2009

Ulysse choqua le public lors de sa première parution, ce qui n’est plus le cas aujourd’hui, notamment parce que les mœurs se sont considérablement modifiés, à tous points de vue. Ce qui scandalisait au début du siècle passe plus ou moins inaperçu aujourd’hui.

En définitive, que retenir d’Ulysse ? Un livre-labyrinthe, un réservoir de reflexion, d’analyse littéraire, stylistique, historique, inépuisable. Une sorte de livre-objet qu’il est possible de diviser et de superposer à un nombre impressionnant d’autres livres. Inclassable sans aucun doute.
Maintenant, l’exercice de lecture demande réellement une implication,une motivation  et une concentration qui peuvent décourager un lecteur hésitant. Ajouter à ceci que le statut “mythique” du roman n’est pas sans avoir un côté effrayant, pour peu que l’on soit intimidé -ou rebuté- par les “classiques mythiques”.
L’avantage de Ulysse, c’est que le style est tellement variable suivant les chapitres qu’il est tout à fait possible, pour ne pas dire probable, que l’on en apprécie un et que l’on en déteste un autre. Aussi je ne vois pas pourquoi il ne serait pas possible d’en lire uniquement une partie si on le souhaite. Certes, ca ne donne pas un aperçu juste de l’ouvrage, et il serait possible de trouver toutes sortes d’arguments allant contre cette méthode. Ceci dit, si cela peut contribuer à démystifier ces pavés de la littérature, à les garder en vie et à ne pas donner continuellement aux gens qui n’ont pas lus tel ou tel livre le sentiment d’être incultes, mais au contraire à leurs montrer qu’au final, ce n’est livre et qu’il n’est pas nécessaire de pouvoir en parler sur un ton professoral pour avoir le droit de l’ouvrir, alors pourquoi pas ? Il ne s’agit pas de simplifier un ouvrage comme le font les versions expurgés, ni même de sombrer dans l’exégèse comme beaucoup d’ouvrages universitaires “pratiques” le font, dans le but de donner aux élèves des idées intelligentes à insérer dans leurs dissertations. Il vaut mieux, à mon sens, lire un seul passage d’Ulysse -ou de tout autre roman du même genre- et le comprendre, l’apprécier, qu’il nous donne envie de continuer à lire plutôt que de se gaver avec la littérature comme on le fait avec les oies.

Photo personnelle. Ne pas reproduire sans autorisation, merci.

]]> http://diangu.wordpress.com/2009/11/17/6-1/ Wed, 18 Nov 2009 06:08:36 +0000 diana http://diangu.wordpress.com/2009/11/17/6-1/

Prompt #1 (Due 11/17 by 5PM): Identify one “Round Character” (defined on pp. 17 of the reader) in James Joyce’s “The Dead” and, citing specific lines or passages from the story, explain how Joyce makes them “round” as opposed to “flat.” Do we hear about the character from other characters? From the narrator? From the action? From the character his/herself?

In literature, round characters are those that display complexity with an excess of behavioral traits. Contrastingly, flat characters are one-dimensional and never changing. Though James Joyce’s “The Dead” includes a diverse cast of personalities, none is more developed than Gabriel Conroy. On the surface, Gabriel has it all—he is educated, he is settled, and he is held in high esteem by his fellow family, but by means of the third person omniscient narrative, we as readers can peer into his stream of consciousness to expose a man who, externally content, is so much more insecure and mistaken.

Gabriel’s self-doubt and the defense mechanisms that follow demonstrate his established character. This is first seen when he instinctively decides to “pay off” Lily after his question about her love life was responded with thinly veiled offense. A Royal University-educated teacher, he belittles his own speech as “a mistake from first to last, an utter failure” due to its pretentious nature; he automatically assumes that because he is a scholar, the “grade of culture [of his company] differed from his”, despite the fact that the guests included prominent musical talents and politically correct persons (2242). While in a heated conversation with Amy Ivors, an agitated Gabriel prefers to  allow his state of mind to slouch as he blinks and smiles incessantly instead of directly and assertively responding to her inquiries. He alternatively decides to direct all his vigor and annoyance to “tak[e] part in the dance with great energy” until he ultimately flees (2249). His hesitancy in trying to actively coax Gretta for a night of romance is also an instance of Gabriel’s insecurity. Though he hoped to seduce her, “he did not know where to begin”, even to the point where he wished that she would “come to him of her own accord” (2265). His failure is illuminated by his inclination to talk about acquaintances instead. It isn’t so much the fact that Gabriel is apprehensive; it is more of the fact that he is too nervous to approach his own wife.

Perhaps the most evident of Mr. Conroy’s complexity are his false impressions—by way of himself and his marriage. He seems to possess a sense of hallucinated self-importance, made apparent by his need to sit at the head of the dinner table, professing nationalism, tradition, hospitality, and progression, all with an air of dramatic (to the point that it is virtually artificial) modesty and sincerity. But more than that is his hypocrisy and, possibly by extension, his rejection of his culture. Though Gabriel says he “will not linger in the past,” he is obviously distressed and upset when his wife brings up Michael Furey (2247). Instead of voicing his true thoughts, he implores his wife to bare her soul, though he does it in a sardonic manner (and thus is somewhat hoisted by his own petard). Gabriel is also only able to confidently deliver his speech knowing that Amy Ivors was not there to scoff at his duplicity. His previous conversation with Ivors is an implication, if not reveal, of his unconscious rejection of what it means to be an Irishman—wearing galoshes (“everyone wears them on the continent”), writing for a West Briton-affiliated newspaper, and, of course, announcing “Irish is not my language” and “I’m sick of my country, sick of it!” (2243,2248).

In the end, Gabriel experiences what flat characters would only hope to—a revelation. He is betrayed by all that he thought was true. By the story’s finish, he recognizes that his wife is not who he thought she was—she has felt a passionate love that he can only wish to undergo. He acknowledges that their marriage is, in a sense, empty and void of raw emotion. In conclusion, Gabriel accepts that it is “better [to] pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age”—an epiphany that relates the suggestion that he is wasting away in his galoshes, his self-deprecation, his lack of pride in where he came from (2268).

“He remembered the books of poetry upon his shelves at home. He had bought them in his bachelor days and many an evening, as he sat in the little room of the hall, he had been tempted to take one down from the bookshelf and read out something to his wife. But shyness had always held him back; and so the books had remained on their shelves. At time he repeated lines to himself and this consoled him.”

James Joyce, Dubliners, A Little Cloud, Penguin Popular Classics, p. 77