This comes after Gustave Flaubert’s transcripts were put into cyber-space in April.

But now Marie-Henri Beyle, or Stendhal as he came to be known, has become the latest of France’s literary giants to be dragged into the 21st century courtesy of painstaking research and cutting-edge digital technology.

A new website launched by the Stendhal University of Grenoble and the city’s public library aims to give the novelist a new lease of life by putting his often barely legible manuscripts online next to scrupulous new transcripts and annotations by literary scholars.

French university brings manuscripts of Stendhal into the 21st century | World news | The Guardian
Manuscrits de Stendhal
Édition des manuscrits de Madame Bovary de Flaubert | Transcriptions | Classement génétique

le rouge et le noir

Michaele Salahi, ce nom était plutôt inconnu jusqu’au fameux diner présidentiel ou elle s’est invitée.
Si deja on réussit à se faufiler et s’introduire, on fait fi du protocole et on attrape le Président avec les 2 mains, une pour nous rappeler que les femmes fatales s’habillent toujours de rouge, l’autre pour nous ramèner au Rouge et le Noir de Stendhal.

Michaele, Michelle ? et n’oublions pas Monica ! Les Présidents américains auraient ils un faible pour les femmes dont le nom commence par M ?

Questo romanzo è stato importante per la storia, infatti ha messo in evidenza le problematiche legate ai ruoli sociali all’interno del Paese. Ambientato in Francia, viene descritto il problema di un uomo che cerca un posto in mezzo a tutta gente assetata di potere.

Il sindaco aveva bisogno di qualcuno che  educasse e  insegnasse il latino ai suoi figli. Venne preso un ragazzo di campagna, di umili origini, Julien Sorel, come nuovo precettore. Un ragazzo di umili origini ma con una grande passione per la letteratura latina. Conosceva a memoria alcuni tratti della Bibbia, che espose anche a voce davanti alla famiglia Rènal, avendo un grande successo. Lui ambiva a salire nella società, nonostante disprezzasse pesantemente il modo di essere dei potenti all’interno di quella stessa società.

Lui aveva vissuto fin da piccolo una vita difficile a causa del modo di trattarlo del padre, che lo picchiava e lo sgridava soprattutto per il fatto che lui “perdeva tempo” sui libri invece di controllare l’andamento del lavoro. Aveva anche dei fratelli che, come il padre, lo trattavano malissimo, picchiandolo e insultandolo. Aveva quasi deciso di scappare da tutto quell’orrore che lo circondava, non sopportava più le prediche del padre per lo studio o per il tempo passato in chiesa, quando invece avrebbe dovuto lavorare per portare avanti la famiglia.

L’incarico datogli come insegnate privato, nonostante non rendesse molto, gli permetteva di studiare ed imparare, visto che il sindaco possedeva molti libri, ed inoltre aveva la possibilità di acquistarne. Appena messo piede in quella casa, tra lui e la signora Rènal, ci fu subito confidenza, che si trasformò poi in lunghe passeggiate per la città, in cui avevano la possibilità di comunicare e di esprimersi. Julien fu subito affascinato dalla signora, innamorandosene. Tra i due si formò un unione che venne poi divisa dalla distanza, ma non si ruppe l’amore quando Julien andò al seminario.

Andò poi a servizio dal marchese La Mole, ed ebbe una storia con la figlia, che si trasformerà poi in matrimonio, nonostante il marchese abbia il presentimento che il ragazzo voglia solo ambire ad una bella posizione, cosa che effettivamente Julien vorrebbe. Ma nonostante ciò, tutto questo viene distrutto dopo che la signora Rènal dà informazioni sul conto del giovane, così pieno di sè, che non si univa a nulla se non ai libri, mettendo il marchese in allarme.

Il matrimonio non avrà luogo, ma al posto ci sarà un omicidio, da parte di Julien nei confronti della signora Rènal che, nonostante l’ amasse, aveva architettato quel messaggio per non farlo “salire” di grado. Tutta quella vita che sembrava andare bene si era rivelata la fine, il punto finale della vita sociale di Julien.

Morena Amparore

Passeando-se pela nave de S. Pedro em Roma, um maravilhado e cicerónico Stendhal alinha números e medições das principais catedrais do mundo. Uma procissão, portanto - e um combate – de colossos de pedra: Santa Maria del Fiore, o Panteão, St. Paul’s. Cada um maior, mais belo, mais majestoso que o precedente, e no entanto reduzido a factos fungíveis e confrontáveis entre si. A mente humana carece destes truques para começar a falar de tamanhas grandezas – embora seja justo ressalvar que o francês em questão foi além da simples descrição, possivelmente mais do que qualquer outro.

Olhando para tudo isto, onde está Fillippo Brunelleschi? O arquitecto que sonhava construir uma cúpula para o Duomo de Florença (também conhecida como a Catedral de Santa Maria del Fiore) situa-se - numericamente - lá para o meio. Mas a sua vida e obra representa muito mais do que a súmula do progresso que a ele sobreveio: ela é, em minha opinião seguramente muito pouco científica, a própria quintessência do Renascimento. 

Sabemos –  seja por Vasari, Ghiberti, ou os grandes historiadores florentinos - que ninguém conseguia projectar a cúpula do Duomo, uma catedral tão ampla e altiva que comportava uma nova categoria de problemas. Poucos imaginavam que a obra fosse possível, e alma alguma conhecia os segredos da arquitectura romana ou sequer da mecânica dos andaimes. Por tudo isto, acho inteiramente comovente que tenha sido à sombra do Panteão – enquanto visitava Roma com Donatello e após uma vida de estudos e esboços intensivos - que Brunelleschi tenha concebido o seu plano final.

Mas a contribuição de Brunelleschi inscreve-se num processo anacrónico de revitalização cultural e identitária que varreu a península, a partir daquele momento em que os italianos passam a afirmar-se herdeiros do latium, descendentes dos Romanos, mas crentes numa cultura itálica vernacular. Sonhadores, enamoram-se docemente com a ideia de que no seu sangue dormia o génio dos antigos, uma noção que porventura nunca foi tão bem articulada quanto na Secção 128 do Canzionere de Petrarca:

vertú contra furore
prenderà l’arme, et fia ‘l combatter corto:
       ché l’antiquo valore
ne gli italici cor’ non è anchor morto.

(” a virtude contra a ira / erguerá armas  e travará breve combate: / que a antiga bravura / nos corações italianos não morreu ainda “). Estamos no Trecento quando nasce a ideia de que o valor antigo aguardava somente um despertar. É então que Petrarca aceita tornar-se Poeta Laureado - mas no Capitólio de Roma, e assumindo a língua toscana como a voz do novo génio poético. Quanto aos restantes báculos, são por demais conhecidos: o imenso Dante, que sofria e amava não em latim mas em toscano, fez dessa língua um canto apto à criação de uma cosmogonia humana, com Boccaccio a sedimentar no domínio da prosa aquilo que já começara a vazar para as belas artes.

É isto que eu considero mais admirável na vida de Brunelleschi, um homem que sempre obrou pela elevação conjunta das ciências que praticava e da humanidade de que comungava. Na sua mente, não era apenas o prestígio que movia mundos mas a recuperação de um idílio perdido, em consonância com o mito da “Idade das Trevas” propugnado por Petrarca. Uma ideia de interregno inculto com a qual não podemos concordar hoje mas que exerceu uma influência poderosíssima nos espíritos dessa época, exaltados pela convicção de poderem estar a restaurar ao mundo o brilho de uma Antiguidade rutilante.

Como tantas vezes sucede nestes casos, Fillippo não viveu o suficiente para ver o final da sua obra. Mas o seu antiquo valore foi reconhecido e, algumas décadas mais tarde, Michelangelo já era exortado com as seguintes palavras, aquando das obras da Basílica de S. Pedro (em que se previa uma cúpula feita segundo a concepção de Brunelleschi):

“ Michelangelo, terás de construir uma lanterna muito diferente da de Brunelleschi. “

A resposta terá sido:

” Pode ser construída de forma diferente, mas não melhor. “

Diante de um precipício de breu, sem nada que não fosse a memória do belo e o eco da grandeza distante, Fillippo supera os antigos. A Renascença encontrava-se consumada.

Comme nous préparons des ateliers d’écriture au musée, une collègue fait sur le voyage. Comme je me suis intéressé de près à tout cela (le récit de voyage en Italie chez Taine, Suarès et Giono), je lui demande de me prêter ses citations pour voir ; dont celle-ci qui parle à ma géo-graphie.

Cette esquisse est un ouvrage naturel. Chaque soir j’écrivais ce qui m’avait le plus frappé [...] Je n’ai presque rien changé à ces phrases incorrectes, mais inspirées par les objets qu’elles décrivent: sans doute beaucoup d’expressions manquent de mesure.

STENDHAL dans Rome, Naples et Florence en 1817

“A szerelem értékét az akadályok emelik. A könnyű siker megfosztja varázsától.”

Stendhal

My two guidebooks on Florence mention Stendhalismo or Stendhalism. The Stendhal syndrome attributes its name to the 19th-century French writer Stendhal who was so overwhelmed by the Basilica of Santa Croce (pictured below) that he could barely walk. I call it the wow effect.

Basilica Santa Croce in Florence, Italy

Such was my reaction when I first saw the view from our balcony — the Basilica Santa Croce lit up at night. It looked like the final destination. Indeed Michelangelo’s tomb is housed inside.

“Wow!” I exclaimed.

For me, visiting a church is like opening a Christmas present. It never looks the same on the inside. It’s always a surprise. And in Florence, it’s a resounding “wow!”

When I led my mom to the Duomo Square the morning after we arrived in Florence, she could not stop saying “wow!” But when we walked inside, there was just peace. It looked nothing like the outside. It was simple and not flamboyant.

The wow effect isn’t only reserved for churches in Florence, however. The palazzos (grand buildings) are also full of surprises, as inside the Palazzo Medici-Ricardi below. It is a room of gold.

Inside Palazzo Medici Ricardi in Florence, Italy

What wonderful places they are for concertising! As a concert goer, I am attracted to the venue of a concert. As a musician, I want to hear how it sounds in different locations. I believe in the power of live music to draw crowds and to make a place come alive. Yet most venues are not built for music but for worship or gatherings.

Tonight I was drawn by the prospect of seeing the gorgeous Cinquencento Salon inside the famous Palazzo Vecchio. I had spotted an invitation to an international congress on women’s rights in the fortnightly English paper The Florentine. It said, “Students and community members are invited to join….”

My mother and I stopped dead in our tracks when we entered the grand hall. It was bigger than a football field. After we sat down, I heard more “wows” as other attendees found their seats.

The discussion panel was organised by New York University’s Pietra Policy Dialogues as the final session in a three-day conference on progress and imperatives of the status of women. It was a privilege to hear the panelists speak on human rights, corruption, public policy, and micro-credit’s role in the empowerment of women.

As usual, in Italy, the event started late. It started at 5:20 pm and ended at 7 pm. But I wished that it had ended late too, for there was too much still unsaid. I, for one, had questions for the young mayor of Florence, Matteo Renzi heralded by Time Magazine as the Obama of Italy. How about empowering venue owners to invite musicians to give concerts everywhere?

After returning the headsets (for simultaneous translation) I hurried to meet and talk to the young lady from Afghanistan who so courageously started schools for girls. Apparently 75% of school buildings are still out of use (i.e. destroyed). Students study in tents. Classes are cancelled when it rains.

Then there’s the panelist from Kenya who defied tradition to get herself educated to help others in her Massai village.

These women are the real wows.

Hmm.  Those are some good ideas you’ve thrown out there, Russ, but I’m not sure that they would pass muster under the Academic Integrity Guidelines at Overlord Academy — which state, uh, something about how you can’t submit the same work for two classes, blah blah blah.  I wasn’t really paying much attention at that meeting, to be honest.  But seeing as how you already have to read Stendahl for your job, isn’t that, like, totally no fair?  Why don’t we both set out to do some long, quasi-conceptual sweatshirt project so that I can be the one who gets to coast on my already-established interests?

Actually, since I was thinking that a movie deal would have to involve some kind of personal conflict and redemption arc, there may be cinema gold to be found here in this little disagreement over what kind of wizards we should be.  So how about this:  a movie based on a book based on a blog about what we should be blogging about!  I know, right?  Kind of like Adaptation, or some other movie that probably came out after I stopped watching movies.

So that’s a little too risky, you say?  Well, then, I’ve got other ideas, and plenty of them.  The more conventional story arcs  involve either a buddy theme (I’d say a road trip, but hasn’t that been done to death?) or a quirky Facebook/Twitter/whatever-era rom com thingie.  I realize I’d have to be a secondary character in the rom com, since, dedicated as I am to this undertaking, I’m not quite ready to abandon my spouse and kid in pursuit of even an inevitable and ultra-lucrative book/movie deal.  In fact, I might even prefer being a snappy sidekick or wingman character.  The only question is, am I more this type or this type?

That was a trick question, of course, since everybody knows I am both those people rolled into one.

Anyway, the more I think about it, the more certain I am that if our blogging experience helps you find True Love with your own MPDG, our path to fame and fortune will be a smooth one.  Also, you know how obsessed I am with internet dating, so maybe that could figure into the mix somehow.  Oooh, oooh, I know, I know!  We set up some situation where, like, you have an internet dating profile and I somehow, like, pick the girls?  Or something?  And it somehow has to do with our blog?  I’m a little fuzzy on the details, and maybe it’s just the old-fashioneds talking, but I have this gut feeling that this could work.  Maybe as a reality show?

God, we’re amazing when we put our heads together.  That expensive education of ours really paid off, Russ.

Am I right or am I right?

The small but important lesson Nate teaches us in this comic strip is that, to get anything in this life, you need to figure out which wizard you are. Well, Dave, which wizard are we?

A lot has been said recently about the distinct possibility that people hate this blog, that, perhaps, we may be taking this joke too far, and that our audience is quite solidly 70% Dave and Russ.  I believe it’s important, then, to briefly discuss our goals in beginning this blog:

1. It is our solemn intent to get a book contract for an elaborated version of the content of this blog by December 2010.
2. The movie deal should follow shortly and The Canadian Club:  The Movie should appear on screens for the summer blockbuster season of 2013.

I don’t think this could be any clearer.  And remember, reader, if you do not read this blog, you are letting Tucker Max win.

Now, it has come to my attention that most book-deal-achieving blogs have one commonality: A Gimmick.  Tucker Max has a penis.  Cake Wrecks talks pretty consistently about cakes that are wrecked. Stuff White People Like talks pretty consistently about that stuff that white people apparently like. Some chick cooks a lot — like once a day.  Another chick asks people to send her lists that you have made.

Now, you’re saying to yourself, “That’s a nice exposition, Russ, but where’s your gimmick?”  What’s the single-minded theme behind this blog that will keep me riveted to your pixels?”

So, I’ve been scratching my brain, trying to figure out what will push us over the cusp of fame and fortune (if cusp fame and fortune do have), and I’ve come up with the following idea.  Bear with me:

So, two pals, Dave and Russ, feeling stuck in boring careers about which they are quite passionate, watch Mad Men.  Suddenly, they realize that the Mad Men season is over, and they wonder what will fill their lives with drama and exquisite aesthetics until Mad Men Season 4.  Russ stumbles upon his old, timeworn copy of Stendhal’s La Chartreuse de Parme.  Hmm — he says to himself — does anybody really take the time to read Stendhal anymore?  He then sends Dave a message over Facebook saying, basically, “Hmm, does anybody really take the time to read Stendhal anymore?” Dave replies back, “You know, I think I’ve told you this before, but I really barely ever read anymore except the same battered, dusty classics I read growing up.  So, yeah, actually, I just cracked open The Red and the Black the other day.”

All of a sudden, it comes to them.  They have to take a year just reading the complete works of Stendhal (including his history of Italian painting) and describe the specific Stendhalien emotions that beset them each day.  A couple of months into their experiment, their feeling of empowerment becomes so magical, that Stendhal’s ghost appears to Russ.  “Russ,” Stendhal says, “You have to help me find the reincarnated soul of my very last romance…”  Thus begins an exciting adventure across France and Italie, where Dave and Russ accompany the ghost of Marie-Henri Beyle on a journey that reveals to them life’s mysteries and helps a dead French author find love and fame one last, bittersweet time.

So, tell us, reader, is that what you want to read on this blog? Is that the kind of wizardry it’ll take to get you to pay attention to us?

“A megpróbáltatásban csak a legelszántabb bátorság segít. A lélek élvezi a bátorságot, és elfelejti, hogy töprengjen a bajon.”

Stendhal

Check out Luann and Tiffany.  Does Luann have a hate crush on Tiffany?  Probably. Does Luann hate herself? Go figure. Is this hilarious? Yes.

Are hate crushes for reals? Whatever!

Whoever is selling the hate crush meme should go stick her head out the nearest window and vomit. That’s what she makes me want to do.  But I didn’t make it that far…  Blech.

Oops!

Not for the first time and definitely not for the last, I’m totally with you on this one, Dave.  Do these people have any clue what they’re talking about?  The hate crush marketeers have the emotional finesse of “I love my fiancee, but I’m not in love with him.“  To quote again what you brought up:

If a crush is about seeing the best version of yourself as you envision it, a “hate crush” is about the worst.

Two things.  One, I have not heard that BS about you hate in others what you don’t like about yourself since — like — fourth frickin’ grade!  Two, must we explain everything through the prism of narcissism?  I think we’ve spoken before about the odd and subtle generational disconnect between us and the Jezebel crowd, namely manifested in matters of sentiment — where there is, on the part of a latter, a certain tendency to take themselves waaaaaay too seriously and to, in general, dismiss nuance and casuistic. Is it because they have been brought up on wonky non-fiction and the Internet?  I won’t speculate.  All I can say is — again — if these chicks read anything like Stendhal we would not be having this conversation. I mean, not only did they get the hate part wrong — put they even fracked up the much more traditional concept of the crush.

Yeah, I give up, folks:  I really hate the fact that I’m a wannabe fetish model.  I’m extremely insecure about how I look in leather.  I fear, at times, that my love of hip radical European Marxists militias who kill people combined with my healthy, thoughtful skepticism of affirmative action, may not necessarily express a coherent weltanschauung.  You’re right. It’s all about me.

Look at Luann.  Yeah.  Up there.  At the top of this post.  Does she hate Tiffany because she hates the superficial broad in herself?  No, she hates Tiffany, because she’s a stuck-up, preening, lousy lady who is acting all possessive of the Australian exchange student and — worse than that, she looks enough like Luann, that this latter worries that people will associate blond cartoon characters with a fracked up sense of community service.  Her position, then, is two-fold:  1) It is a proud, confident disassociation with the superficial similarities shared with Tiffany, while at the same time 2) a strict sense of moral censure best expressed with the word “scoff.”

Like, a lot of the people I hate are people who resemble me — say, picture a slightly shorter Peter O’Toole (when young, of course) with a nose for fresh bread and fine truffles and a certain ability to speak French and other languages, not least while talking about the weather in fine metaphoric terms that beget dreamy expressions in the eyes of the ladies.  Well, so, you take that kind of person: Lovable, right?  But then, say he learned his French in Quebec, drinks fine wine instead of manhattans, thinks Arcade Fire rocks, and thinks that Obama compromised liberal ideals when he let Van Jones go.  And throw in a few carrots and chicks in the mix.  This, my friends, is the perfect recipe for a hate crush:  Again, not the incarnation of your worst faults but, rather, everything ersatz and pretentious that one fears could potentially be associated to your charming person and everything morally wrong that occurs in your vicinity.

Now it would be nice to pathologize and to remedy our capacity for moral censure.  But then who would be there to do such a tough job?  Do we just let these stupid poseurs hang around with a bunch of carrots and chicks without pointing and laughing?

Hate is fun!  Hate is cathartic.  And it keeps giving.

Oh, and a couple more points, Dave.  There was no like, and, thus, no dry-heave-inducing epiphany.  Just another joke gone too far.  That’s my official version, and I’m sticking to it.  Also, I think there is something odd about the fact that I don’t Google stalk my friends.  I thing you’re right that that should be the exception, not the rule.  Whatever.

Von der amerikanischen Lyrikerin Sylvia Plath ist überliefert, daß sie zu Verabredungen bevorzugt die Farben Rot und Schwarz trug – sie nannte sie „the colours of conquest“, die Farben der Eroberung.

Dieser Umstand fiel mir wieder ein, als ich beschloß, künftig einmal pro Woche über Tango-Mode schreiben zu wollen. Auf Polyvore.com stellen Modebegeisterte, ähnlich wie in Modemagazinen, aus einer Vielzahl von Stücken ihre Lieblingsoutfits zusammens. Unter dem Stichwort „Tango“ findet man mehr oder minder gelungene Kombinationen – allen gemeinsam ist jedoch, daß sie ausschließlich im Farbspektrum Rot und Schwarz angesiedelt sind.

Ohne mich eingehender mit der Geschichte der Tangomode beschäftigt zu haben (etwas, das ich in den nächsten Monaten nachzuholen hoffe), wage ich also die Behauptung, daß die Farbkombination Rot-Schwarz in einer symbolhaften, ja synonymen Beziehung zum Tango steht. Eine so starke farbliche Konnotation ist mir aus keinem anderen Standardtanz bekannt: Salsa ist nicht orange, Quickstep nicht grün, Walzer nicht weiß – oder übersehe ich etwas?

Über die Symbolik sowohl von Rot (z. B. Blut, Glut) als auch Schwarz (z. B. Nacht, Tod) ließe sich seitenlang dozieren, doch interessiert mich vor allem ihr Aufeinandertreffen. Daß die beiden Farben auf interessante Weise zusammenwirken, ist auch aus anderen Kontexten hinlänglich bekannt: Neben dem Weiß des Schnees sind es „Lippen so rot wie Blut, und Haare so schwarz wie Ebenholz“, die sich Schneewittchens Mutter für ihre Tochter wünscht. Und der französische Schriftsteller Stendhal gab seinem Roman der Leidenschaften den ganz reduzierten Titel Le Rouge et le Noir (der auch dann neugierig macht, wenn man nicht weiß, daß es sich hierbei wahrscheinlich um eine Anspielung auf den Klerus und das Militär handelte).

Leider lieferte eine erste Google-Suche keine Hinweise, wie es dazu kam, daß Rot und Schwarz die landläufige Vorstellung vom Tango so prägten. Was auch immer die Gründe sein mögen (auf Erklärungsansätze meiner klugen Leserschaft bin ich gespannt), möchte ich die Tatsache zum Anlaß nehmen, meiner imaginären Tanguera-Garderobe als erstes ein rot-schwarzes Kleid hinzuzufügen.

„Rose corsage pencil dress“ by Karen Millen

Einen veritablen Auftritt garantiert dieses Etuikleid von Karen Millen. Ein bescheidenes Betreten der Bildfläche auf der Mittwochsmilonga ist damit allerdings nicht zu bewerkstelligen. Dann schon eher der jährliche Tangoball des Rosenzüchtervereins.

Nun gibt es unter den Tangueros solche, die schulterfreie Kleider lieben und solche, die gewisse Berührungsängste befällt. Ich persönlich finde nicht erst seit Michelle Obama, daß man schöne Gliedmaßen nicht verstecken muß.

Mein Test-Tanguero hatte gewisse Bedenken angesichts des großen Blüte. Doch solange diese die linke Schulter einer Frau ziert, sollte sie selbst bei innigster Umarmung nicht stören. Die zurückhaltende, beinahe strenge Silhouette sorgt für einen Ausgleich zur ostentativen Schulterpartie. Ein sehr schönes Detail sind die Falten an der Vorderseite, die dafür sorgen, daß der Stoff beim Tanzen immer im Einklang mit den Körperbewegungen fällt. Die Länge sollte nicht mehr als knielang sein, damit ausreichend Beinfreiheit im Heckraum gewährleistet ist.

Und da Polyvore so ein schönes Spielzeug ist, habe ich mich gleich an einem Set versucht.

Die wenigsten von uns tragen zu einer Milonga eine Designerrobe. Es braucht nämlich kein großes Budget, damit der schwarze Humor der Tangueros den Tangueras rote Wangen zaubert.

Fest steht, das Leben ist zu kurz für häßliche Kleidung! In diesem Sinne wünsche ich allen viel Vergnügen und ein schönes Wochenende …

In het laatste nummer van Tirade (nummer 430) is de voorpublicatie van een brief te lezen uit mijn debuutroman Levi Andreas. Dit nummer van Tirade staat in het teken van de brief. Ook hou ik vanaf maandag 19 oktober tot donderdag 19 november een ‘brief-blog’ bij op de website van Tirade. Elke dag een brief, speciaal voor u natuurlijk.

klik op de link voor de blog

Roma está llena de callejuelas pequeñas, de repente vas caminándolas y te encuentras con una enorme Fontana de Trevi en una plaza minúscula. En Roma no hay apenas semáforos, hay que hincharse de valor y avalanzarse a los coches y, sobre todo, motos, para cruzar. El Panteón no tiene techo porque a Adriano le gustaba ver las estrellas, así que cuando llueve, se inunda. Allí está la tumba de Rafael,a su lado hay un hueco para la tumba de la que iba a ser su esposa, que, cuando éste murió prefirió buscarse a otro.

Sienna es un pueblecito medieval lleno de estudiantes, y en la biblioteca de la catedral de Sienna hay unos frescos de Rafael que nada tienen que envidiar a la capilla sixtina.

En Florencia se inventó la perspectiva con el Duomo, hay tiendas de piel y papelerías antiguas en cada esquina, y esos mercadillos callejeros que quitan el hipo. En el puente Vecchio hay un montón de joyerías, y una estatua en cuya verja los enamorados ponen un candado con sus nombres y tiran la llave al río, se dice que así se consigue amor eterno, si te pillan la multa es de 50 euros.

Venecia es como un pastel de milhojas gigante al que han tenido que pincharle un montón de palillos para que no se derrumble, aún así se espera que en 60 años dejará de ser habitable. Mires donde mires verás  japoneses, enamorados y gente de crucero. Está llena de cafés, donde el Casanova llevaba a sus amantes, en los que te cantan mientras te tomas un capuccino por un módico precio de 12 euros. A medio día se inunda la plaza de San Marcos y hay que meterse por sus callejuelas para esquivar el agua. Es preciosa

“Ah, Sir, a novel is a mirror carried along a high road. At one moment it reflects to your vision the azure skies, at another the mire of the puddles at your feet. And the man who carries this mirror in his pack will be accused by you of being immoral! The mirror shows the mire, and you blame the mirror! Rather blame the high road upon which the puddle lies, still more the inspector of roads who allows the water to gather and the puddle to form.”

The Red and the Black
Stendhal

This review of Jean-Yves Jouannais’s Artistes sans oeuvres: I Would Prefer Not To appeared in the Times Literary Supplement dated 25 September 2009 (No 5556, p. 30):

Nothing At All

With his bovine-sounding surname, Félicien Marboeuf (1852-1924) seemed destined to cross paths with Flaubert. He was the inspiration for the character of Frédéric Moreau in L’Education sentimentale, which left him feeling like a figment of someone else’s imagination. In order to wrest control of his destiny, he resolved to become an author, but Marboeuf entertained such a lofty idea of literature that his works were to remain imaginary and thus a legend was born. Proust — who compared silent authors à la Marboeuf to dormant volcanoes — gushed that every single page he had chosen not to write was sheer perfection.

Or did he? One of the main reasons why Marboeuf never produced anything is that he never existed. Jean-Yves Jouannais planted this Borgesian prank at the heart of Artistes sans oeuvres when the book was first published in 1997. The character subsequently took on a life of his own, resurfacing as the subject of a recent group exhibition and, more famously, in Bartleby & Co., Enrique Vila-Matas’s exploration of the “literature of the No”. Here the Spanish author repays the debt he owes to Jouannais’s cult essay (which had been out of print until now) by prefacing this new edition.

Marboeuf has come to symbolize all the anonymous “Artists without works” past and present. Through him, Jouannais stigmatizes the careerists who churn out new material simply to reaffirm their status or iinflate their egos, as well as the publishers who flood the market with the “little narrative trinkets” they pass off as literature on the three-for-two tables of bookshops. In so doing, he delineates a rival tradition rooted in the opposition to the commodification of the arts that accompanied industrialization. A prime example is provided by the fin-de-siècle dandies who reacted to this phenomenon by producing nothing but gestures. More significantly, Walter Pater’s contention that experience — not “the fruit of experience” — was an end in itself, led to a redefinition of art as the very experience of life. A desire to turn one’s existence into poetry — as exemplified by Arthur Cravan, Jacques Vaché or Neal Cassady — would lie at the heart of all the major twentieth-century avant-gardes. “My art is that of living”, Marcel Duchamp famously declared, “Each second, each breath is a work which is inscribed nowhere, which is neither visual nor cerebral; it’s a sort of constant euphoria.”

Jouannais never makes the absurd claim that creating nothing is better than creating something: like Emil Cioran, he has little time for what he calls the “failure fundamentalists”. He does not dwell on the Keatsian notion (also found in Rousseau and Goethe) that unheard melodies are sweeter, or wonder why the attempts at a merger between life and art have so often resulted in death. Jouannais’s “Artists without works” are essentially of a sunny disposition. They are dilettantes, driven solely by their own enjoyment; cultural skivers who never feel that they owe it to posterity, let alone their public, to be productive. They let time do its work and are often militantly lazy — like Albert Cossery, the francophone writer of Egyptian origin who, on a good day, would fashion a single carefully crafted sentence, or the American artist Albert M. Fine who is quoted as saying: “If I did anything less it would cease to be art”. It is this divine indolence which differentiates Artistes sans oeuvres from darker essays on the subject.

Some of the most interesting passages in the book concern those larger-than-life figures (Félix Fénéon, Arthur Cravan, Jacques Vaché, Jacques Rigaut, Roberto Bazlen) who entered the literary pantheon as characters in other writers’ novels rather than through their own. Cravan, Vaché and Cassady — who embodied respectively the spirits of Dada, Surrealism and Beat — published virtually nothing during their lifetimes. Naturally, phantom works abound here, from Stendhal’s numerous unfinished novels to the unpublished manuscripts of the Brautigan Library (modelled on the library in Richard Brautigan’s The Abortion) through to Roland Barthes’s criticism, which provided him with the perfect excuse not to write the novel he dreamed of. Jouannais also considers summarizers such as Fénéon, whose “elliptical novels” were no longer than haiku, or Borges, who compiled synopses of fictitious novels so that no one would have to waste time writing or reading them. In fact, the Argentinian’s entire oeuvre — haunted as it is by the possibility of its own silence — is reinterpreted as a paradoxical “pre-emptive production” designed to spare the already overcrowded bookshelves of the Library of Babel. Borges’s Pierre Ménard (along with Bouvard, Pécuchet and Bartleby) is, of course, one of the patron saints of the copiers, another category surveyed in these pages. The destroyers (Virgil, Kafka, Bruno Schulz et al.) who seek to cover their aesthetic tracks only get a brief look-in, Jouannais being more interested in the long line of erasers starting with Man Ray’s 1924 “Lautgedicht” (an obliterated poem) and including such works as Robert Rauschenberg’s “Erased de Kooning Drawing”, Yves Klein’s infamous empty exhibition or Walter Ruttmann’s “blind” film. The author argues convincingly — in a style both eloquent and elegant — that Cravan’s proto-Dadaist provocations, Rigaut’s suicide or Brautigan’s notorious kitchen shoot-outs should be construed as poetic gestures in their own right. Deliberately misquoting Flaubert, he concludes that the works of these so-called “Artists without works” are “present everywhere and visible nowhere”, which may explain why they are so often misunderstood.

Per l’orrore che egli sentiva dell’ideale sciocco, il Caravaggio non correggeva nessuno dei difetti dei modelli ch’egli fermava nella strada per farli posare.
Ho veduto a Berlino alcuni suoi quadri che furono rifiutati dalle persone che li avevano ordinati perché troppo brutti.

Stendhal a proposito di Caravaggio

Rosu si Negru

Come vi avevamo promesso eccoci con il secondo appuntamento dedicato ai consigli di lettura di Anne-Laure. Nel precedente post ci siamo soffermati sui libri per ragazzi – ma in fondo, lo sappiamo, un buon libro è un buon libro per tutte le età -, questa volta ecco un po’ di titoli destinati a una fascia di lettore più ampia. Buona lettura!

Il rosso e il nero di Stendhal

Bel Ami e Tutte le novelle di Guy de Maupassant

Lo straniero e La peste di Albert Camus

Delitto e castigo di Dostoïevsky

Il deserto dei Tartari di Dino Buzzati

I nutrimenti terrestri di André Gide

La valle dell’Eden e Furore di John Steinbeck

Germinale, L’Opera, Al paradiso delle signore, L’assommoir di Èmile Zola

La morte è il mio mestiere di Robert Merle

Il diario di Anna Frank di Anna Frank