Business BCN is a new bilingual (Spanish – English) magazine, containing articles, interviews and more about doing business here.

The website was supposed to be functional last month but is still under construction. Even so, you can download a copy of the previous issue of the magazine in pdf format. It looks promising, so let’s hope the site is running normally soon.

If you have problems opening and reading pdf files, we can recommend Foxit (free!) PDF Reader as a lightweight alternative to the Adobe programme.

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Strange Random Language Fact:

Rudyard Kipling was fired as a reporter for the San Francisco Examiner. His dismissal letter was reported to have said, “I’m sorry, Mr. Kipling, but you just don’t know how to use the English language. This isn’t a kindergarten for amateur writers.”

The Indian forests have changed a lot from the life and times of Mowgli and the irony couldn’t have been starker. In what seems a modern adaptation of the famed Jungle Book, this tale of a female sloth bear is more heart wrenching than the movies featuring such storylines for this still awaits a happy ending.

Rama Singh Munda (member of the indigenous tribe) from Ruitisila village in Orissa’s Keonjhar district, about 225km from state capital Bhubaneswar, gave shelter to female sloth bear Rani when she followed him home and was 2-3 days old. The bear would have met a certain death at the hands of predators had she not followed Rama. The family christened her as ‘Rani’ and she was the loved new member of the family. The family which was bereaving the loss of Rama’s wife discovered a reason to smile. The 5 year old daughter of Rama, Dulki found a companion to play with. The family used to share their meals with Rani, Rama even used to take her for joyrides on cycle and all through the time they never used new her for any commercial purposes nor did they caused any harm to the furry animal. However the euphoria of the girl and bear was short-lived as the news reached media circles and the officers took away the bear (only on second attempt as Rani had escaped to forest during the first raid. However the bear returned to her only home later in the day where they darted her and took her to the zoo) Rama was held captive in the jail for breaching the law and keeping a sloth bear at home.

It can only happen in factual realms that an innocent tribal who has been keeping the bear for over a year with affection and care was arrested and put behind bars. We have heard time and again about the pitiful state of zoos in India, the conditions at Nandankanan Zoo are no better. How judicious a decision it was on the part of officials to send Rama to jail and Rani to an unkempt cage? Solomon would be deranged in heavens.

The man is now set free but then who cares about the family…the feelings of the bear who found herself in a cage without her family? The court of law, the animal activists, the NGOs must see at affairs from an animal’s viewpoint too. What good are animal laws if they fail to serve the animals?

Motherless Dulki never knew any Archies teddy bear, for her only buddy was her furry friend with animation.
Dear Bear I empathize with you…fiction lore of Rudyard Kipling was better than the realism.

Know more: http://whereisbear-oipaindia.blogspot.com/

Photo courtesy: AP

Speaking of awards and the people who win them, The Guardian talks to Neil Gaiman, who sounds like a pretty down-to-earth kind of guy. He won the 2009 Booktrust Teenage Award. And, he twitters. A lot.

“I love what the first three pages of The Graveyard Book do to people’s heads,” said Gaiman. “I love reading the upset reviews from people who read those first few pages and say, ‘Oh my God, it’s like a slasher movie with all the murders and blood’ and I think, ‘No, you did that. I just had a man walking round with a knife and you killed all those people in your head. It says more about you than anything I wrote on the page.’”

Gaiman has earmarked the £2,500 prize money for some “cool art” following the realisation that if he spends money on something to hang on his wall then “every time I look at it I can remember the award. Which doesn’t happen if you spend it on groceries.” Another of The Graveyard Book’s awards bought him an EH Shepard illustration, The Murder Re-Enacted, and his “Booktrust artwork” is likely to be another children’s illustration.

Gaiman also talked about the backlash he received when he said he admired Rudyard Kipling:

But he said some of his readers were unimpressed when he revealed his fondness for Kipling, with some of them describing the author of If and Gunga Din as a “fascist”.

Kipling’s reputation has become the matter of heated debate in the postcolonial world, denounced as a racist imperialist by many on the left, while his defenders argue that he has been rountinely misrepresented.

Gaiman, 49, said: “I definitely don’t write like Kipling but he was a literary hero as a kid.

“I was fascinated when I first started mentioning that I thought Kipling was an amazing writer.

“I started getting – not exactly hate mail – it was more disappointed mail.

“People would tell me, ‘How could a writer like you – that we like – like a fascist, an imperialist dog?’ “

Gaiman, who started his career as a graphic novelist steeped in fantasy and science-fiction, commented: “They usually had not read any Kipling, and had been told not to like him by legions of right-minded people.”

Their misconception, he said, was that Kipling’s writing was “100 per cent about the British in India”, to which he responded: “It wasn’t, that’s the point.”

Neil Gaiman’s Graveyard Book buried under awards | Books | guardian.co.uk
The myth-making genius of Neil Gaiman | Books | guardian.co.uk
Coraline author Neil Gaiman received ‘hate mail’ for liking Rudyard Kipling – Telegraph
Politically incorrect children’s authors – Telegraph

Desgraciadamente, ahora los piratas no son héroes de película...

Piratas de Somalia…Tan lejos de los de las películas y del Pirata Garrapata, que el Duende no leyó porque cuando nació ya se le había pasado la edad de la fantasía, pero que le hacía mucha gracia tan sólo con escuchar su nombre. En el duermevela del Telediario, y a cuento del fin del secuestro del Alakrana, se imaginaba en la piel del hijo pequeño de uno de sus tripulantes.

-Qué bien que hayas vuelto, papá. Porque esos piratas no se parecen al prota de Piratas del Caribe, ¿no?…

Y el pescador le abrazaba. Los  piratas ya no son lo que eran, y los pescadores tampoco son como el capitán Akab o el entrañable portugués pelirrojo que interpretaba Spencer Tracy en Capitanes intrépidos. Pescar era una profesión de hombres duros y ahora, en determinadas aguas donde el derecho parece que mira a otro lado y se pone a silbar, es más que un riesgo. Casi una heroicidad. Así pasó que los mismos canallas  que consiguieron convertir la navegación aérea en un infierno, ahora se valen de ellos para hacer chantajismo en el mar. Aunque al final casi debamos darles las gracias porque el hijo del pescador haya vuelto a ver a su padre.

-No entiendo cómo se puede dudar de la necesidad de pagar en estos casos –decía la esposa de una de los rescatados.

Sólo unos pocos lo dudan. Quizás de lo que dudan muchos es de la utilidad del estado de derecho cuando se empeña en abrir casi siempre una vía de escape a los que se ciscan en él. Y cuanto más canallas sean, más respeto y más consideración. Cuidadín cuidadín, al criminal regañarle lo justito para que no se nos cabree más, no sea que salgamos de Guatemala para entrar en Guatepeor.

-Enésima contradicción de la vida moderna –anota Homper en su  Moleskine de perplejidades y estupefacciones- El poder es exigente, intolerante e incluso arrogante con el pillo, pero exageradamente comprensivo con gran delincuente. Y el celo del estado de derecho suele ser inversamente proporcional a la gravedad moral de la acción de su enemigo.

Pero, con todo lo que refunfuña su alter ego,  está alegre el Duende. Y eso que nunca navegó más que en las barcas del Retiro, en un chinchorro por la ría de Cubas y en los veleros de un par de amigos que le invitaron a ver las Baleares desde el mar. El resto fueron sólo singladuras y travesías de Salgari, Verne, Twain, Stevenson, Conrad, Kipling y hasta Agatha Christie, que nos mandaba de crucero por el Nilo y nos preparaba asesinatos de mentira por sólo cinco pesetas que valían sus novelas. Está contento, piensa en el chaval, en su madre, en las familias de todos los que han padecido este horroroso secuestro. Serena, resignadamente contento.

Y entretanto el mar seguirá eternamente batido, toujours recommencé, -como decía el único poema de Paul Valery que uno recuerda. Qué sabio es, siempre en movimiento para que no se registre en su superficie huella alguna de las múltiples  fechorías que en él se han perpetrado a lo largo de la historia. Qué prudente, borrar todo rastro de los piratas de ogaño.

The writer Rudyard Kipling was once on its rolls; the former British prime minister Winston Churchill served as its war correspondent.

Now, The Pioneer, New Delhi, has announced its best editor who wasn’t: Eric Arthur Blair

In a front-page story, the right-wing paper reports that the left-wing novelist and political thinker (born in Motihari, Bihar) received a letter from The Pioneer offering him a job as editor.

And on February 12, 1938, Blair wrote to the India Office in London:

“My object in going to India is, apart from the work on The Pioneer, to try and get a clearer idea of political and social conditions in India than I have at present. I shall no doubt write some book on the sub-continent and if I can arrange it, I shall probably contribute occasional articles (to English periodicals).

“ps: I should have said that I usually write under the name of ‘George Orwell‘.”

Cover image: courtesy Time

Also read: How Chandan Mitra has his halwa and hogs it too

For the record: anything goes. (Conditions apply)

GEORGE ORWELL: Six steps to write better English

“Too much work and too much energy kill a man

Just as effectively as too much assorted vice or too much drink.“

- Rudyard Kipling

Not too much work I have been doing lately. Been having such great fun. I’ve been pleasingly adapting to my friends here. Thanks a lot, guys, for turning me on. Been off for too long, but recently I think I have been able, given pretty lotsa opportunities, to turn on my insanity again. Well, still, I miss you, my babes in Surabaya. You girls are uniquely irreplaceable. Pray that I’m going back there this December. The tickets have not yet been bought, though booked.

Anyway, today I’m learning a new vocabulary! “Plethora.” For those who have known this word before, forgive me for showing off. I’m not that good in Vocabulary. My worst subject in SAT. (Even my score in American History is better than in this one sweet subject.) I found this word in THIS article, as I have been reading articles about water found on the moon. Pretty interesting. So from that word “plethora,” I create the title of this post: “A Plethora of Labora” – for whatever reason. It simply comes out of my innocent mind. Then, after I typed, indeed, the title, I googled any quotation about too much work, and the quote’s above was the quote appeared on the first line. Copy-pasted the whole statement. And that was exactly the process of how I could be now doing…what am I doing right now. Yes, I’m so in the mood of analyzing a quotation right now. Here’s my point of view on this quotation:

Sir Kipling clearly stated that too much work and too much energy kill a man. A simple conclusion even a little kid could take: don’t work too much. I have just returned from the Guaranteed A+ Plus Seminar. They give us 3-step process of how to get all A’s, cutting our study time. Well, from all the steps that they gave me today from 9 a.m. to 14.30 a.m, it is logical to cut our study time by learning effectively. It is so true, assuredly, that too much study, hours after hours of it, could kill us students. What we need to do is do things smartly. Yes, we need to work hard, but it is not enough – we shall also work smart. Be wise, arrange the whole thing effectively, and have fun with life. (Don’t forget to find your stress relief.)

P.S. That picture above was the picture I accidentally-on-purpose found in Flickr, which in a sense could give me a relieving effect to my brain. It somehow soothed my not-so-bad hysteria.

A Contribution To The

ERBzine ERB Library Project

King Solomon’s Mines

by

H. Rider Haggard

Review by R.E. Prindle

     Three volumes made Rider Haggard’s reputation then and maintain it today.  Classics of the B genre.  The first of these is the subject of  this review, King Solomon’s Mines.  The other two are She and Allan Quatermain.  The novels were written between 1885 and 1888.  These were very interesting years in the exploration of  Africa.  Speke had identified the source of the White Nile twenty some years earlier.  Robert Livingstone had been found and sensationally recounted by the great Henry Morton Stanley. 

     Subsequently Stanley had navigated the course of the Nile from the plateau down to the sea, a stunning accomplishment.  His rescue of the Emin Pasha in 1886 was on everyone’s lips.  The white spaces on the maps were rapidly disappearing.  In the midst of this excitement Rider Haggard’s great African trilogy made a propitious appearance.  No better timeing could have been devised.  And the novels were sensational, plausible too, at that time.  Who knew what additional wonders Africa concealed.  There was room in that gigantic continent for a lot of lost cities and civilizations.  Haggard and his disciple, Edgar Rice Burroughs rapidly populated Africa with a host of them.

     Haggard would continue to write exciting African tales until the day he died in 1925 after a lifetime of putting out two or three novels a year.  They usually followed the same format, a long trip out taking up at least half the novel, the intense situation on arrival and a return home.  The same format Edgar Rice Burroughs would use.  The novels were packed with esoteric lore and authentic African details.

     It is said that Haggard wrote the Mines on a bet after being told he couldn’t write the equal of Stevenson’s Treasure Island.  He did do that but Mines is written tongue in cheek with a lot of jokes.  Haggard makes this clear when Quatermain says that his two literary mainstays are the Bible and the Ingoldsby Legends.  The Legends written in the 1830s and 1840s are a collection of humorous parodies of Folklore themes and poems by Richard Harris Barham writing anonymously as Thomas Ingoldsby of Tappingham Manor.  The book was very popular with, it seems, all the the authors till the turn of the century at least.  One finds it mentioned frequently.  Taking the hint I read a copy.  Thus, Haggard is protecting his rear in case of failure by saying his story is just a put on or joke.

     King Solomon’s Mines is told in the first person by the old knockabout hunter, Allan Quatermain.  He has a bumbling self-effacing manner not unlike Inspector Columbo of the TV series.  You don’t think he can do it but he’s spot on every time.

     As was common with this sort of adventure story the point is to make the reader think the story is true.  Burroughs probably picked up his habit of framing from Haggard.  Many of the details of Mines are true to Haggard’s own life while his study of the Zulus and other tribes accurately portray their customs.  Haggard is very sympathetic to African customs and mentality actually seeming to envy them.  He genuinely can see little difference between Black and White while adopting a fairly critical attitude towards Whites and a sympathetic one toward Blacks.  Very modern.  Indeed, in this novel the White heroes join a Zulu Impi or regiment and fight with the Zulus as White Zulus.  Naturally they comport themselves heroically, Curtis excelling the Blacks at their own game.

     As the novel begins Haggard sets up the story.  The Englishmen, Curtis and Good, are out in search of a lost brother.   The meeting with Quatermain on shipboard is fortuitous leading to his subsequent employment as their guide.  Haggard describes a boat journey from Capetown to Durban that is obviously authentic; Haggard himself has taken the same trip.  Thus unlike Burroughs’ imaginary Africa this is authentic, the Real Thing.  On the journey Quatermain meets Sir henry Curtis and his friend John Good, who need a guide to take them in search of Curtis’ lost brother.

     The search will take them to a hidden Zulu enclave behind a burning desert and a towering mountain range.  The trip out is filled with interesting authentic details but no need to dwell on them here.

     Crossing the burning sands not known to have been successfully navigated before, they are confronted by the towering twin peaks of Sheba’s Breasts topped with four thousand foot nipples.  Who can’t see the humor there.  Pretty racy for what are thought of as stodgy old Victorian times.  Bear in mind the Ingoldsby Legends while reading the story as probably most of Haggard’s readers would have been familiar with them.  They are of this sort of tongue in cheek humor.  The ancient map they are following indicated the route to follow.

     Behind the Breasts lies Kukuanaland.  Undoubtledly Kuku should be read coo-coo.  The Kukuanas are the Zulu tribe in possession of King Solomon’s Mines.  Kukuanaland is somewhere near the ruins of Zimbabwe, although Haggard doesn’t allude directly to the site.  I’m sure everyone has heard of the ruins of Zimbabwe.  The old Zimbabwe I mean.

     There has always been a dispute as to who built Zimbabwe.  Africans claim it was built by Africans while the thought in Haggard’s time was that Zimbabwe was built by Phoenicians hence a few mentions of them.  The notion was that these were the ruins through the Queen of Sheba of King Solomon, hence the title King Solomon’s Mines.  Zimbabwe is either in or next to lands of the Shona people.  The Shona arrived in the area from the North possibly from 300 to 800 AD.  There is no record of stone work among the Shona before or after.  The structures of Zimbabwe are of shale like stone merely piled on top of each other being very thick and very high.  Instead of piled up stones it is customary to say the construction is without mortar as though that is a great skill.  Without mortar = piled up stones, doesn’t it?

     It seems unlikely the Shona would have built them while it is also a remote possibility that the Phoenicians did.  It is true however that Greeks traded on these shores but they didn’t build them.   A more probable builder is the Malagasy people.  I don’t think the Malagasy arrival is commonly known yet, it wasn’t to me until a few years ago.   The Malgasies made the long sea journey from Indonesia to arrive in Madagascar and East Africa sometime between 500 and 1000 AD.  As they would have been invaders into a recently and sparsely settled territory any groups landing on the continent would have been automatically at war with the Shona thus needing a fort for protection.  Being much more technologically advanced than the Africans they would likely be familiar with stonework.

     As it is said that Zimbabwe was a mining and trading community, as the Malagasy were seafarers it is likely they would be the more obvious candidate otherwise one has to explain where the traders of what is described as an extensive trade come from as the the Africans couldn’t possibly have gone to the buyers or known what to trade.  Interestingly the Malagasies introduced the banana and an improved yam to Africa thus they had to land on African shores.

     Zimbabwe had only been discovered by Europeans a few years before Haggard arrived in Durban.  Very likely he was eager to see the ruins and did as he does have at least three stories in which Zimbabwe figures.  Here he combines Zimbabwe, King Solomon and the Phoenicians.

     As the party approaches Kukuanaland they are faced by a huge mountain range towering perhaps 15,000 to 18,000 feet into the sky.  Facing them are two huge mountains named Queen Sheba’s Breasts, the Grand Tetons of Africa.

     Here I have to mention a blogger (feministbookworm.wordpress.com) who pointed out the female arrangement of Kukuanaland.  This escaped me in my previous readings but is of some interest.  Haggard in a cryptic way has written a fairly pornographic story, especially for Victorian times.  I’m sure most people didn’t get it even though Haggard provides a fairly obvious map although turned upside down.  This is along the coy lines of various pop songs such as ‘Baby, let me bang your box.’  After shouting out this line several times allowing the average guy  to think a woman is being propositioned the singer reveals he’s actually referring to a piano- box in musician’s slang equals piano.  Box = a woman’s pudenda in sexual slang.

     If one looks at Haggard’s map Sheba’s Breast’s are to the South while there is a triangle of mountains to the North.  The triangle of three mountains forms a female Delta or box.  In the middle between the Breasts and Delta is the Kukuana capitol called Loo.  Loo is British slang for toilet or ’shitter’ so we some scatology going on here.

     This gets better.  I jump ahead to the ending.  The Englishmen are promised diamonds from King Solomon’s Mines.  The mines are located within the Delta or pudenda.  British slang of times for the female pudenda was Treasure Box.  Thus the Englishmen are going to descend through the vagina into the womb of the mines where the diamonds are stored in actual treasure boxes.  Humor, remember.  Bear in mind that in Burroughs diamonds are of the female, actually Anima, treasure.  Same here.  This is going to get better.

     Apart from Mother Earth, represented by Sheba’s pudenda, there are only two women in the story which Haggard smirkingly points out:  One is a Bantu beauty who becomes attached to Good,  the other is an old hag named Gagool.  The latter forms the model for Burroughs’ old Black crone in Gods of Mars and Nemone’s guardian in Tarzan And The City Of Gold.

     Both accompany the three White men to King Solomon’s mines.  At whatever age Burroughs first read this the impressions stuck.  This stuff was current literature to him while Classics to us.  One must imagine the excitement with which these novels were read.  Readers of Opar Tarzan novels (Return, Jewels, Golden Lion and Invincible) will immediately recognize the setup although there are differences.

     Always one to employ horror effects Haggard is at his best in this early novel.  The group descended as it were through the vagina into the depths of the womb.  Along the way are giant stalactites. (Penises?) Then they enter a chamber in which the dead kings of Kukuana are preserved.  Rather than Egyptian mummification they are set beneath a drip being turned into stalactites or, in other words, big pricks.  Seems to me like an obvious joke.  A huge figure of death presides over the immortal enclave.

     Proceeding further they come upon a door set in the wall blocking the way.  The door is a huge slab several feet thick operated by a hidden mechanism that lifts the slab vertically into the ceiling.  Gagool with a hidden movement releases the door which slowly and efficiently retracts into the ceiling.  The party can now enter the treasure room or womb.  The door stands for men’s sexual desire for the female.  As with the hymen without equal desire on the part of the woman entrance is barred but with woman’s compliance the way opens easily.

     Inside the room or womb are the treasure chests containing unlimited value in diamonds.

     After taunting the men Gagool makes a break for the door having released the lever that closes it.  She is held back by Foulata who worshipped Good.  Stabbed by Gagool she falls to the ground but has successfully delayed Gagool.  In attempting to roll under the descending slab the tardy witch  is crushed flatter than a piece of paper.  The men are now trapped in the womb but they have a candle for light.  Quatermain stuffs his pockets with stones while filling a basket Foulata brought.

      Here’s the classic B movie part:  While waiting for death they notice that the air remains fresh.  Good discovers a trap door in a corner.  Opening this they descend as it were into the bowels of this elogated represention of a woman who might represent Mother Earth or the Great Mother thus forming a collective Anima for the three White men.  Anticipating She a little.  A bizarre Anima for Haggard also.   OK, I’ve got a weird sense of humor.  I’ve always known it but that doesn’t make it less funny.  No longer having a light they are forced to feel their way through the tunnels.  The tunnels eerily represent the intestines.  Haggard is getting really scatological here as you know what emerges from intestines.

     As they pick their way along Good falls into a stream that greatly resembles the urethra.  Fortunately Quatermain has some matches.  One is used to locate Good clinging to a rock in midstream, possibly meant as a kidney stone as a joke.  Hauled ashore they backtrack and resume their way.  Curtis spots a dim light toward which they move.  The opening narrows down to the point that the men have to squeeze through tumbling out into the diamond shaft like so many turds.  Haggard must have been gleeful at what he was getting away with.

     Climbing out of the pit they discover they have returned to the entrance.  Thus vagina and rectum are only a short distance apart.  Anatomically correct as it were.  Haggard had a fine sense of humor.

     While adapting the topography for his own needs one can easily see how Burroughs replicates Haggards’ design in Opar.  Burroughs designed a long straight corridor but broken by a fifteen foot or so gap.  In Jewels of Opar Tarzan falls through the gap dropping into a pool of water or river much as in Mines.  Proceeding further he enters he jewel room of Opar filling his pouch as he had neither pockets or basket.

     Opar itself replicates the Treasure House of Kukuanaland.  The gold vaults represent the head of the female figure or perhaps only one of Sheba’s breasts.  Proceeding down the corridor, or Great Road of Kukuanaland one comes to the sacrificial chamber situated much as the city of Loo.  Proceeding from the chamber one comes to the exit.  This is described by Burroughs as a narrow crack or cleft in the wall to pass through which Tarzan had to turn his shoulders sideways.  So, Opar and Kukuanaland are built according to the same scheme.

      Obviously the memory popped into Burroughs’ mind in The Return Of Tarzan, developed in Jewels of Opar and Golden Lion and came to perfection in Tarzan The Invincible.  It would seem clear that ERB understood the sexual structure of King Solomon’s Mines.

     If we go back to the other end of Kukuanaland we have the two towering mountains known as Queen Sheba’s Breasts.  In order to prevent anyone taking a low level route between the Breasts there is a perpendicular barrier running between the breasts rising several thousand feet.  Odd geological formation.  Rising 4000 feeet above the breasts themselves are the nipples.  That should be enough to make anyone laugh.

     A recurrent theme in the stories is a juxtaposition of ice with summer weather, often associated with a woman as here.  Perhaps Haggard had a cold, cold mother.

     While the party is both starving and thirsting they find neither game nor water until Umbopo discovers some melon patches providing food and water until they reach the snow line.  Soon they come to the nipple rising sheer from the breast.  At the base of the nipple is a cave.  This cave may possibly have been appropriated as the entrance to Opar’s gold vaults in Burroughs.  In the cave is the frozen body of Da Silvestre who made the map they have been following.  The bushman servant freezes to death during the night so they set him over by Da Silvestre.   There’s a joke here but I don’t get.

     Continuing down Sheba’s left breast they reach below the snow line.  The boys spot an antelope way off there, long shot, but Quatermain makes it, cleanly knocking out a vertebrae in the neck.  While cleaning up in an adjacent stream and eating they are surprised by a band of Kukuana and taken.

     Umbopo who signed on back in Durban always had this mysterious royal air about him and now we’re going to find out why.  For those contemporaries who insist that no book should violate their enlightened prejudices whether the book be as old as Homer or not they may feel uncomfortable reading this book.  By and large Haggard shares the attitudes toward race, gender and whatever of his times rather than Liberal notions of today.  Can be painful for certain types.

     Nevertheless Haggard has a deep admiration for the Zulu tribes and a kind of understanding one toward the lesser Bushman and Hottentots. The Zulus are uniformly tall and well built while Quatermain and Good are smaller and more comical in appearance.  Only Sir Henry Curtis is of the same stature, slightly larger, as the Zulus.  He seems to stand in for what is otherwise a race of inferior stature.

     There is a great fifty foot wide road that runs from the barrier of Sheba’s Breasts to Sheba’s Delta.  The road is over a hundred miles long with Loo in the center.

     The city of Loo is modeled after the encampment of the Zulu chief, Chaka.  The details Haggard describes are undoubtedly accurate.  Chaka flourished 1830-40 while the last of his line, Cetywayo, ruled during Haggard’s tenure in Africa.  His fictional king is called Twala.  We now discover that Twala is Umbopo’s brother.  The latter was rightful heir but Gagool who is represented as being  hundreds of years old favored Twala expelling Umbopo and his mother which is why he was in Durban.  His identity is assured because of an Uroboros that encircles his waist.  This snake appears to be a birth mark rather than a tatoo.

     After accepting a rifle from Curtis as a gift Twala sends three chain mail shirts of medieval manufacture which proves that Zimbabwe was formerly occupied by another race, I suppose.

     We have a civil war brewing here as Umbopa asserts his rights.  Before the war develops Twala holds a ceremony I find really interesting, the smelling out of witches.  The regiments were assembled.  In this case Gagool runs up and down the ranks smelling out the witches.  Anyone she indicates is removed from the ranks and immediately killed.  This was an actual Zulu custom.  Haggard portrays them more than once in what is his pretty decent historyof the Zulus in the novels.

     Interestingly under the African president of the United States we have the same situation occurring.  Obama denounces those in opposition to him essentially as witches.  While currently we are put under surveillance the time may shortly arrive when we are merely arrested and despatched.  Thus the innate African soul reasserts itself hundreds of years out of Africa.  Of course, Obama was born in Kenya but he didn’t live there.

     After the smelling out the regiments align themselves according to their allegiance.  The three White men suit up on the side of the pretender, Umbopo.  In his admiration of the Impi battle plan Haggard has the Whites disdain to use firearms preferring to show Whites returned to primitive savagery.  Of course he normalizes the British and Zulu societies so that any difference is perceived but not real.

     If you want to how this attitude was digested by the British public rent a copy of the movie If c. 1965.  A British public school story that viewed better the first time around for me but still of interest.  I might rent it again, though.

     It is at this point of the story that the ‘White giant’ Sir Henry Curtis took his place in the Zulu ranks to show White supremacy that is when the actual basis of Tarzan took place in Burroughs’ mind.

     The three Whites are the only ones wearing chain mail so that they come through bruised but alive.  Without the chain mail, of course, all three would have been killed many times over.  Perhaps the chain mail is symbolic of the science of the Maxim.

     My feeling is that Haggard was so enamored of primitive Zulu warfare as organized by Chaka that he thrilled himself by placing the three in their ranks.  Haggard had his peculiarities.  As I say, he seemed to reject science.

     Umbopo’s troops triumph over greater odds while King Twala is captured.  Sentenced to die he demands the right to hand to hand combat selecting Curtis as his adversary.

     Thus a duel ensues providing two or three pages of excitement in which a very hard battle is fought.  Curtis decapitates Twala proving I suppose that on their own turf, evenly matched, the White Man is the greater.

     Morally, however, Haggard gives the nod to Umbopo and the Zulus.   Umbopo apparently feels a bond has been vilolated between the trio and himself.  He offers them wifes, land and honors if they choose to stay in Kukuanaland.  They instead choose to gather diamonds from Sheba’s treasure box.  Umbopo is disgusted that White men care about nothing but money.  Haggard sheepishly agrees with Umbopo but the trio nevertheless collect their diamonds and scoot, setting themselves up splendidly in England where money matters.   Regardless of Haggard’s moral it is clear that the Kukuanas have no use for money in their primitive society while being broke in London is a sort of hell.

     One wonders whether when Umbopo sent Gagool with them he knew that he was sending them to their deaths.  Their return was after all rather miraculous.  Leaving Kukuanaland the three arrive safely and rich in England.

Postscript.

     Burroughs read not only King Solomon’s Mines, She and Allan Quatermain but probably the whole corpus.  What he read before 1911 was obviously the most influential on him through the twenties.  So an an investigator, Haggard’s novels before 1911 are the one to familiarize oneself with first.  The very late Treasure Of The Lake however did influence Tarzan Triumphant.

     Sir Henry Curtis was a key element in the formation of the idea of Tarzan and a role model.  I suspect that Treasure Island by Stevenson provided he means to get the Claytons to Africa.  Evolution provided the background of Kala and Tarzan’s life with the apes.

     Whether Good or Quatermain had any influence on the character of Paul D’Arnot or not I’m not sure.  He may have evolved  from Dupin of Poe’s Murders In The Rue Morgue forming a double for Tarzan not unlike the narrator and Dupin of Murders.

     I have explained the probable relationship of Opar to Sheba’s treasure box.  That seems pretty secure to me.

     Haggard developed the story line of the preamble and journey to the scene of action, a flurry of action in the crisis and the return home.  Burroughs seems to follow this format although he can introduce picaresque elements.

     The landscape and terrain of Burroughs is quite similar to Haggard’s.  Over the years as Haggard read Burroughs’ novels there are Burroughsian elements that creep into Haggard’s work.  Treasure Of The Lake bears a number of similarities to Burroughs especially the elephant dum dum.  That also owes a great deal to Kipling and Mowgli.  A stunning scene in Haggard.  I would really start with Treasure Of The lake and then begin with King Solomon’s Mines, She and Allan Quatermain.

     La, of course, is derived from the next novel, She.

Dacă te poți stăpâni, când norodul din jur se frământă

Brav înfruntând insolentul reproș, cu liniște sfântă,

Dacă-ți păstrezi, în  virtute, credința, și-ncaleci sfiala,

Când se-ndoiește de tine mulțimea, și-i ierți îndoiala…

Dacă aștepți, cu nădejde și nu te răpune așteptarea,

Dacă minciunii, stăpână pe lume, îi spulberi chemarea,

Dacă asaltul mâniei te lasă senin, fără ură,

Dacă pășești peste dorul de-a fi cel dintâi, cu măsură…

Dacă te leagănă visul, dar stărui stăpân peste vise

Dacă din gânduri mărețe, renunți să-ți faci țeluri prezise,

Dacă triumful, izvor de ispite și cruntul dezastru.

Nu-s pentru tine opreliști, nici vâsle, în drumuri spre astru…

Dacă suporți să auzi, despre spusele tale cinstite,

Gânduri viclene, scornite de răi, pentru gloate smintite,

Dacă din opera ta s-au ales doar ruine și spații,

Singur, cu scule stricate, de poți s-o refaci, din fundații…

Dacă pierzând, într-o clipă de risc pe o șansă, avutul,

Poți să începi, de la capăt, uitând în tăcere trecutul,

Ferm adunând cu răbdare, întregul pe lungă durată,

Fără să sufli o vorbă de pierderea grea îndurată…

Dacă superb, prin voință forțezi, când îți vine sorocul,

Inima, capul, tăria, să nu își astâmpere jocul

Gol de puterea vieții, urmându-ți destinul spre ținte,

Tare, cu vrerea din tine, ce-ți spune: mereu înainte!

Dacă mulțimilor poți să vorbești, cu deprinderi egale,

Dacă constant îți păstrezi modestia, și-n cercuri regale

Dacă ești nevulnerabil, la prieteni, la cei cu pornire,

Dacă pe toți îi stimezi îndeajuns, însă nu peste fire…

Dacă momentul cumplit al prăpădului crâncen și mare

Calm vei putea să-i asemeni, în timp, c-un minut oarecare,

Lumea cu tot ce cuprinde, va fi stăpânită de tine,

Tu, peste toți vei răzbate: om al puterii depline!

Poem de Rudyard Kipling, traducerea Corneliu Coposu

Scriitori români care au trecut prin închisorile comuniste

Litera H

Radu Hâncu

Traian Herseni

Al. Hodoș

Petru Hossu

Litera I

Dem Iliescu

Ștefan Ionescu

Mircea Ionescu-Quintus

D. Iov

Ion Iovescu

Alexandru Ivasiuc

George Ivașcu

De poti fi calm cand toti se pierd cu firea

In jurul tau si spun ca-i vina ta;

De crezi in tine chiar cand omenirea

Nu crede dar s-o crezi ar vrea;

Daca de asteptare nu ostenesti nicicand,

Nici de minciuna goala nu-ti clatini gandul drept;

Daca privit cu ura nu te razbuni urand

Si totusi nu-ti pui masca de sfant sau de intelept;

Daca astepti dar nu cu sufletul la gura

Si nu dezminti minciuni mintind, ci drept;

De nu raspunzi la ura tot cu ura

Dar nici prea bun sa pari nici prea-ntelept;

Sau cand hulit de oameni, tu nu cu razbunare

Sa vrei a le raspunde, dar nici cu rugaminti;

De poti visa dar nu-ti faci visul astru;

De poti gandi, dar nu-ti faci gandul tel;

De poti sa nu cazi prada disperarii

Succesul si dezastrul privindu-le la fel;

De rabzi s-auzi cuvantul candva rostit de tine

Rastalmacit de oameni, murdar si prefacut;

De rabzi vazandu-ti idealul distrus si din nimic

Sa-l recladesti cu ardoarea fierbinte din trecut;

De poti risca pe-o carte intreaga ta avere

Si tot ce-ai strans o viata sa pierzi intr-un minut

Si-atunci fara a scoate o vorba de durere

Sa-ncepi agonisala cu calm de la-nceput ;

De poti ramane tu in marea gloata

Cu regi tot tu, dar nu strain de ea;

Dusman, om drag, rani sa nu te poata;

De toti sa-ti pese dar de nimeni prea;

De poti prin clipa cea neiertatoare

Sa treci si s-o intreci gonind mereu;

Daca ajungi sa umpli minutul trecator

Cu saizeci de clipe de vesnicii mereu,

Vei fi pe-ntreg Pamantul deplin stapanitor

Si mai presus de toate, un OM, copilul meu.

Rudyard Kipling

For tiden går det mye i lesing. Skolerelatert lesing, sådan. For lærerne mine, de er ikke uforberedt når de kommer til forelesning, de har derimot brukt tiden på forhånd godt, de har lett gjennom bokhyllene sine, gjennom artikkelkatalogene og de akademiske papirene sine, og når de dukker opp, da har de med seg en god bunke, det er anbefalte bøker og obligatoriske tekster. 

Jeg har foreløpig til gode å gå løs på de obligatorsike tekstene, og koser meg istedet med en anbefalt bok, The River of Lost Footsteps, skrevet av Thant Myint-U. 

Og da tenkte jeg å dele noen fine ord med dere, hentet fra side 187 i boka, der Thant Myint-U siterer Rudyard Kipling:

Personally I love the Burman with the blind favouritism born of first impression. When I die I will be a Burman, with twenty yards of real King’s silk, that has been made in Mandalay, about my body, and a succession of cigarettes between my lips. I will have the cigarette to emphasise my conversation, which shall be full of jest and repartee, and I will always walk about with a pretty almond-coloured girl who shall laugh and jest too, as a young maid ought. She shall not pull a sari over her head when a man looks at her and glare suggestively from behind it, nor shall she tramp behind me when I walk: for these are the customs of India. She shall look all the world between the eyes, in honesty and good fellowship, and I will teach her not do defile her pretty mouth with chopped tobacco in a cabbage leaf, but to inhale good cigarettes of Egypt’s best brand.

Tyngden bak sitatet forsvinner riktignok litt noen sider senere, der Thant Myint-U avslører at Kipling bare tilbragte en halv dag av sitt liv i Burma.

IF

by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;

Si tu peux voir détruit l’ouvrage de ta vie,

Et sans dire un mot te mettre à rebâtir,

Ou perdre en un seul coup le gain de cent parties,

Sans un geste et sans un soupir,

Si tu peux être amant sans être fou d’amour,

Si tu peux être fort sans cesser d’être tendre,

Et, te sentant haï, sans haïr à ton tour,

Pourtant lutter et te défendre,

Si tu peux supporter d’entendre tes paroles,

Travesties par des gueux pour exciter les sots,

Et d’entendre mentir sur toi leurs bouches folles,

Sans mentir toi même d’un mot,

Si tu peux rester digne en étant populaire,

Si tu peux rester peuple en conseillant les Rois,

Et si tu peux aimer tous tes amis en frère,

Sans qu’aucun d’eux soit tout pour toi,

Si tu sais méditer, observer et connaître

Sans jamais devenir sceptique ou destructeur,

Rêver, mais sans laisser jamais ton rêve être ton Maître,

Penser sans n’être qu’un penseur,

Si tu peux être dur sans jamais être en rage,

Si tu peux être brave et jamais imprudent,

Si tu sais être bon, si tu sais être sage,

Sans être moral ni pédant,

Si tu peux rencontrer triomphe après défaite,

Et recevoir ces deux menteurs d’un même front,

Si tu peux conserver ton courage et ta tête,

Quand tous les autres les perdront,

Alors les Rois, les Dieux, la Chance et la Victoire

Ne seront à tout jamais tes esclaves soumis

Et, ce qui vaut mieux que les Rois et la Gloire,

Tu seras un Blogueur, mon fils !

My favorite three poems of all time are (in order)
1. Dawn – Paul Laurence Dunbar
2. Invictus- William Ernest Henley
3. If- Rudyard Kipling

But wait there’s more. I’ll even post them so you too can enjoy these words of wisdom. But get it while its hot. Prose like this won’t last through the next century!

1.
An angel, robed in spotless white,
Bent down and kissed the sleeping Night.
Night woke to blush; the sprite was gone.
Men saw the blush and called it Dawn.
—– Paul Laurence Dunbar’s Dawn

2.
OUT of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

— William Ernest Henley’s Invictus

3.
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on”;

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings – nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man my son!
—Rudyard Kipling

Did you see Smokey Robinson in the picture? Look closely.

Now to all those over-reactors, I’ve just taken this guy’s words, and added credibility by quoting Quranic verses that relate to them. The Quran being a miracle in its poetry far greater than any other, and it being the final, ovewhelming, universal Truth.
I also want to add the disclaimer:
For all the If’s , I personally reply with an “No,I can’t”. And that’s not me being ‘umble , like ol’ Uriah, or anti-Obama, I’m just being Frank.
Also this, that I just read tonight:

“Words can only help impart knowledge, urge that it be practiced, and allude to or denote the resultant state—while this specific answer can only come about by traversing these three stages with one’s existential choices. But by our verbally elucidating the aspects of them that are plain and ready to hand,perhaps God will help the reader travel the rest of the way and discover the answer within his own heart. We will take them in the order they normally occur.”

If…
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;
…So establish regular Prayer, give regular Charity, and hold fast to God. He is your Protector – the Best to protect and the Best to help! S 22 vs 78

If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
… and the best of planners is God. S3 vs 54

If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on”;
And He provides for him from (sources) he never could imagine. And if any one puts his trust in God, sufficient is ((God)) for him. For God will surely accomplish his purpose: verily, for all things has God appointed a due proportion. S16 vs 96

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings – nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
None can command except God. On Him do I put my trust: and let all that trust put their trust on Him. S 40 vs 67

If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run –
And those who strive in Our (cause),- We will certainly guide them to our Paths: For verily God is with those who do right. S29 vs 69

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man my son!
We all strive to be more than men, to be Believers…

I keep six honest serving-men
They taught me all I knew;
Their names are
What and why and when
And how and where and who.

Rudyard Kipling – from The Elephant Child

Six useful questions to ask in any situation

Se saprai conservare la testa, quando intorno a te
tutti perderanno la loro e te ne faranno una colpa;
se crederai in te stesso quando tutti dubiteranno,
ma saprai capire il loro dubbio;
se saprai aspettare senza stancarti nell’attesa,
ed essere calunniato senza calunniare;
o essere odiato senza dare tu sfogo all’odio,
e non apparir troppo bello, né dire cose troppo sagge;

se saprai sognare senza fare del sogno il tuo padrone;
se saprai pensare senza fare del pensiero il tuo fine;
se saprai incontrare il trionfo ed il disastro
e trattare questi due impostori nello stesso modo;
se saprai sopportare di sentire le tue parole giuste
falsate da furfanti per ingannare gli sciocchi;
o vedere le cose per cui hai dato la vita spezzate,
e curvarti e ricostruirle con logori utensili;

se saprai fare un mucchio di tutte le tue vincite
e rischiarle in un giro di testa e croce;
e perdere e ricominciare da capo
senza fiatare sulle tue perdite;
se saprai forzare il tuo cuore, i nervi e i tendini
per assecondare il tuo volere, anche quando essi sono consumati;
e così resistere, quando non c’è più niente in te,
tranne che la volontà che dice loro: “tenete duro!”;

se saprai parlare alle folle e mantenerti virtuoso,
passeggiare con i re e non perdere la semplicità;
se né i nemici, né gli amici potranno offenderti,
se tutti conteranno, ma nessuno troppo;
se saprai riempire il minuto inesorabile,
dando valore ad ognuno di quei sessanta secondi;
tuo sarà il mondo e tutto ciò che esso contiene,
e, ciò che più conta, tu sarai un Uomo, figlio mio.

Rudyard Kipling

Questi sono i miei obiettivi. Irraggiungibili? Forse. Ma sono l’unica soluzione possibile al conflitto interiore che è dentro di me da ieri sera.

John Galsworthy hot, James Joyce not The Guardian, 26 octobre 2009 et Posterity, de George Simmers, 12 octobre 2009.

La gloire littéraire comporte bien des aléas. George Simmers a évoqué voilà quelques jours un sondage, réalisé par The Manchester Guardian en 1929. Le journal avait interrogé ses lecteurs sur les romanciers qui auraient encore du succès un siècle plus tard. La photographie des goûts d’une époque, que suppose ce genre de sondages, donne un résultat plutôt surprenant, vu d’aujourd’hui. John Galsworthy, alors très en vogue, bientôt nobélisé, avait remporté haut la main cete consultation. 80 ans plus tard, ses oeuvres, dont Les Forsyte, sa grande saga familiale, survivent mal au temps qui passe. Ses pièces sont relativement peu jouées. En France, il n’a connu récemment un mince regain qu’avec la diffusion télévisée de l’adaptation des Forsyte, et celle-ci remonte déjà aux les années 70. Galsworthy, ici, est redevenu un inconnu. A sa décharge, la mode des grandes sagas, reprenant sur plusieurs romans les personnages d’une même famille, d’un même clan, est passée. L’époque actuelle, narcissique et individualiste, ne goûte guère ce genre de productions. L’histoire familale, portée sur plusieurs tomes, ne séduit plus les amateurs de littérature. Elle n’est pas dans l’air du temps : le contemporain, éloigné des générations qui l’ont précédé par les mutations rapides de la société, englué dans un quotidien présentiste, sommé de construire sa vie et sa destinée seul, ce contemporain qui ne se conjugue qu’au présent continu ne peut se retrouver dans ces vastes sagas. Elles ne parlent plus sa langue. Seule la littérature populaire porte encore quelque peu les motifs de ces cycles romanesques.

Derrière le démodé Galsworthy se tient H.G.Wells. Sa notoriété a moins souffert du XXe siècle. Père d’une vaste descendance avec ses romans de science-fiction, Wells tient une place de classique dans la littérature de genre. Les motifs de ses principaux romans (The time machine, The war of the Worlds,…) sont entrés dans la conscience collective et y sont restés. L’amateur de SF trouvera peut-être, par certains côtés, ces romans d’anticipation un peu poussiéreux, mais il ne pourra retirer au romancier son statut de classique encore lu aujourd’hui. Orwell, qui à l’époque du sondage n’était pas encore connu, se positionnerait cependant largement devant lui au panthéon littéraire du XXe. En troisième place du sondage, Arnold Bennett. Je suis bien en peine de parler de cet auteur, vu le faible nombre de traductions de lui publiées ces dernières années. Il a apparemment pâti des critiques que lui a adressé l’avant-garde littéraire anglaise : il ne figure plus aujourd’hui, malgré un timide mouvement de redécouverte dans le monde anglo-saxon, parmi les trois grands anglais du début du XXe siècle.

Les places suivantes sont occupées respectivement par Rudyard Kipling et J.M.Barrie. Tous deux ont comme point commun d’avoir bénéficié d’adaptations de leurs oeuvres par Walt Disney (Le livre de la jungle pour le premier, Peter Pan pour le second). Ces dessins animés ont remplacé les romans dans l’imaginaire collectif. D’ailleurs, le reste de l’oeuvre de Barrie a sombré dans l’oubli et Kipling, s’il est encore aujourd’hui un auteur reconnu, souffre de l’ancrage colonial de ses écrits. Ses romans sont avant tout des oeuvres exotiques, marquées par l’impérialisme. Kipling a narré l’apogée coloniale de l’empire victorien. Dans notre époque, marquée par la repentance mémorielle, par la critique de l’impérialisme et de l’esclavage,  et par la contestation du discours hétérosexuel et raciste de l’homme blanc, l’oeuvre de Kipling séduit peu les lettrés : elle a pris aujourd’hui des accents tendancieux, inconvenants. L’intérêt historique des romans n’apparaît pas suffisant pour racheter Kipling aux yeux de notre temps : sa vogue est passée.

Le reste du classement réserve des noms négligés et des écrivains encore lus : Walpole, George Moore ou RH.Mottram sont oubliés, Shaw et Conan Doyle un peu ignorés, DH Lawrence et Aldous Huxley très présents dans les librairies. James Joyce et Virgina Woolf avaient été sous-estimés par les lecteurs de 1929. Ils dépasseraient sans problème Kipling et Galsworthy aujourd’hui. La fortune littéraire est finalement bien incertaine, dans le monde anglo-saxon comme en France. Ramon Fernandez, dans ses analyses littéraires des années 30 évoquait souvent George Meredith, dont les oeuvres étaient quasiment classiques à l’époque. Qui lit encore Meredith aujourd’hui? Les gloires françaises ont vécu le même phénomène : Népomucène Lemercier fût le plus grand dramaturge français pré-romantique ;  Maurice Barrès était probablement l’écrivain le plus côté de son temps, titre contesté peut-être seulement par Anatole France – le style ampoulé du premier le rend illisible aujourd’hui, le second est victime de la mauvaise réputation que lui ont fait les surréalistes ; Paul Bourget vendit plus qu’aucun écrivain de son temps, ses livres ne se dénichent plus désormais que sur Google Books ; Montherlant est passé de mode ; les romans de Mauriac tombent dans l’oubli ; etc… A l’inverse, des écrivains méconnus de leur vivant – Stendhal est l’exemple le plus célèbre – sont toujours lus et célébrés.

Imaginons désormais ce que répondrait le grand public (français ou anglais) à la question posée par The Manchester Guardian en 1929. Imaginons également ce que répondrait le public cultivé. Et projetons nous en 2089. Je parie, si le web est susceptible de garder ces quelques lignes en archives, que ni Jonathan Littell, ni Pascal Quignard, ni Michel Houellebecq, ni Philippe Sollers ne survivront à leur temps. Et je n’évoque pas les clowns Beigbeder et Moix, que seule une complaisance médiatique coupable et paresseuse protège du juste châtiment que mérite leurs produits (ils sont à la littérature ce que Lidl est à Fauchon). Les oeuvres ne peuvent survivre au temps que si elles parlent encore à l’homme du futur. Les lecteurs de demain chercheront dans les livres de notre époque des réponses à leurs questions : ils les trouveront peut-être dans l’oeuvre d’un auteur que nul ne penserait à citer aujourd’hui.

]]> http://nogirlovers.wordpress.com/2009/10/30/diez-cuentos-favoritos/ Fri, 30 Oct 2009 21:52:40 +0000 porlaverdad3 http://nogirlovers.wordpress.com/2009/10/30/diez-cuentos-favoritos/

Tenía ganas de hacer listas, así que hagamos una media tontuela: mis diez cuentos favoritos (uno por autor y estos en orden alfabético.

“El misterio” – Andréiev, Leonid

“Enoch Soames” – Beerbohm, Max

“La biblioteca de Babel” – Borges, Jorge Luis

“La tercera expedición” – Bradbury, Ray

“Otra vuelta de tuerca” – James, Henry

“Los venenos” – Cortázar, Julio

“La fe de nuestros padres” – Dick, Philip K.

“Tantalia” – Fernández, Macedonio

“La construcción” – Kafka, Franz

“ ‘El cuento más hermoso del mundo’ ” – Kipling, Rudyard

Qué decir… no mucho. Tal vez, de Kafka, hay decenas de cuentos de él que me encantan y que, tal vez, sean más populares (“Ante la ley”, “La construcción de la muralla china”, “Un artista del hambre”), pero elijo La construcción porque me parece que tiene esa sensación de paranoia, de claustrofobia que me parece tan suya y que no encuentro en ningún otro lado… Aparte, al igual que “El castillo”, es un cuento de lo que podríamos llamar “literatura ambiental” o “atmosférica” (en el sentido de que el énfasis está en crear una atmósfera, un ambiente, antes que en la narración, y el cual, a diferencia del terror gótico –que también se especializa en eso- no se apoya en un engorroso lenguaje barroco –el vocabulario de Kafka siempre es sencillo y conciso-, sino en la tortura y la paranoia psicológica), y que a mí particularmente me encanta.

De Borges, también, podría elegir “Funes el memorioso”, o “Tlon, Uqbar, Tertius” o “El sur”, pero “La biblioteca…” tiene ese noséqué de estupor metafísico, de inquietud, de terror ante el infinito y la soledad.

El título de “El cuento más hermoso del mundo” está lejos de ser una hipérbole pretenciosa. Verdaderamente podría estar, cuando un hipotético tribunal futuro juzgue la mera literatura de estas épocas, en la selección de lo más hermoso. Todo en ello es perfecto: la descripción del protagonista, la inquietud de índole fantástica, la aparición del amor.

“Los venenos” de Cortázar tal vez sorprenda a alguno, que esperaba “Casa tomada”. Yo, como pedófilo y como nostálgico sin remedio de la infancia, me quedo con “Los venenos”, un cuento, un relato, que supera, a mis ojos, cualquier belleza: su descripción de la infancia en formato “súper 8”, cargada de melancolía, mirando a través del prisma de la nostalgia al primer amor, ante esa belleza suprema de una niña que “estaba con su vestido de lunares anaranjados, que era el que más me gustaba”, verdaderamente me llenan, me sigue llenando de lágrimas los ojos. Este cuento es la última oda a la niñez, “Music has the right to children” de Boards of Canada hecho literatura, “Cuentos asombrosos” hecho cuento de verdad. Es un relato tan chiquito y perfecto y hermoso y nostálgico y maravilloso y colorido y amoroso que difícilmente tenga parangón. Me parece, para mí gusto absolutamente melancólico hacia la infancia, infinitamente mejor a “Casa tomada”.

Muchos dirán “pero che, ¡’Otra vuelta de tuerca’ no es un cuento!” Pues allá ellos. “Otra vuelta de tuerca” es un cuento largo, pero cuento al fin. ¿Qué me gusta de él? Además de inscribirse en la misma línea de ciertos relatos kafkianos de “literatura ambiental”, una de las cosas que más me gustan de él, y ciertamente no la menor, es Flora. Flora es, en palabras de James, “beatífica visión de belleza angelical”. Flora es la niñita más hermosa de toda la literatura (CAGATE LOLITA). Aparte, ese nombre, Flora, qué nombre PRECIOSO, un nombre tan hermoso y bello como su hermosísima portadora. Así que “Otra vuelta de tuerca” aparte de ser el mejor relato de fantasmas jamás hecho sirve como bonita excusa para estar cerca de una de las más hermosas niñitas de toda la literatura.