Books of gold

"Beloved" pilloried

2012-01-23T22:24:00.000+01:00

Toni Morrison's "Beloved" has been removed from the programme of an advanced English literature class, in a high school in Michigan. The reason is that two parents complained the book was 'simplistic pornography'. Now, I wonder why in this school they let parents who don't know anything about literature take decisions as important as what their children should and should not study. It took a committee to decide that "Beloved", the most important work of a Nobel Prize laureate, should remain in the programme!

One of the parents claimed that "Beloved" contains 'gratuitious language, violence and sex acts that provide no historical context for the reader'. It is evident that Barb Dame, the mother in question, doesn't know the history of her country (or perhaps she is a rather insensitive person), because you clearly cannot say that the violence in the book (rape, whipping, murdering, the hanging of slaves etc) has nothing to do with the history of black people in the USA. The sex acts in the novel have a highly metaphorical meaning: they stand for the difficulties that black people in America experienced regarding normal, healthy love relationships. Starting a family in the wake of the horrors of slavery, when fathers and mothers were bought and sold and children were born only to live a life of suffering, is what lies behind some of the acts in the novel.

Rita Dove

Another thing they complained about was the language in the book. Although the book is usually described as stylistically complex and poetical, Matt and Barb Dame complained that the lexical level of the book is only suitable for a fifth grader (10-11 years old), thus comparing the book to Roald Dhal's "James and the Giant Pea", a popular children's book.

Personally, I think this is racist and it makes me think of a similar piece of news. A couple of months ago a review of an anthology of twentieth-century American poetry written by Helen Vendler caused a stir and a fierce debate on the American canon. The anthology, according to Vendler, includes too many black poets (the editor is in fact Rita Dove, a distinguished African American and a poet). Skimming over her other controversial claims, Helen Vendler observes that the poems chosen by Rita Dove are often 'of rather restricted vocabulary'. As if complicated words made good poems and simple words could not. Now, that black American writers sometimes use a relatively simple vocabulary compared to that of their fellow white writers is a fact. They do this on purpose, of course. It is part of their political agenda. African American theorists like bell hooks and Alice Walker have pointed out that. That Rita Dove has chosen accessible poems (except when the choice was inevitable, as for T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land") is simply the result of her taste. Every anthology is the result of one's sensibilities regarding literature.

Harold Bloom

Nobody nowadays takes anthologies as the Gospel truth. The time when Harold Bloom could choose 26 authors - all male but for Austen, Dickinson, Eliot and Woolf - and decide they were the Western canon is gone, thank God. That time, nonetheless, is not that far away ("The Western Canon" came out in 1994). Personally, I think it is ridiculous to annihilate every form of canon, because without some shared authors, what would we talk about? It would be a discussion between deaf people. At the same time, I think one should be free to value some writers and dislike, or even discard, some others. A fine balance is hard to find, I agree, but nothing come easily in literature criticism.

Read the full review here and Rita Dove's answer here. Also have a look at this long but interesting article appeared on The Australian, where I got the reference to Harold Bloom and his canon, a topic that was buzzing in my mind for a while. I have many more things to say about Vendler's article (what about those infamous statements about Gwendolyn Brooks?), but I'll save that for another time.

African American theatre digest (2)

2012-01-20T16:38:00.000+01:00

“Fences” by August Wilson

Denzel Washington in a stage performance of "Fences"

Inthis realistic play published in 1983, August Wilson has stuffed manyof the anxieties of contemporary African American families. The sixthin his ten-part 'Pittsburgh Cycle' where every play is representativeof a decade of African American experience, “Fences” tells thestory of an ordinary black family of the 1950s: Troy Maxson is ahusband and a father, he works as a garbage man and always grumbleswhen his older son Lyons visits him only to ask for money. He isfrustrated because he was an excellent baseball player but was deniedentry in the Major League because of his skin colour. For this reasonhe doesn't want his son Cory to play football. Of course this is acause of serious argument with his wife Rose. Troy is introverted, healways looks at the past with anger and at the future withresignation. His attempt to get a promotion as a garbage truck driversounds ridiculous, seen that he doesn't have a driving licence. Togive you just another hint, he is building a fence in his yard tokeep death away, but also to keep people out. Without realizing thatshe has stood by him and helped in the household, he cheats on hiswife of 18 years. The family, as portrayed by Wilson in this play, ispresently precarious, but looking for stability. The play has beenawarded the Pulizter Prize for Drama and, although it deals witheveryday life and seemingly trivial things there is a lot ofsymbolism and philosophical insight into the psychologicalcomplexities of the characters.

“Ma Rainey's Black Bottom” byAugust Wilson

MaRainey has been one of the first professional blues singers,recording her music at a time, the 1910s and 1920s, when this wasperhaps the only way for black people to become rich andfamous. She even came before Bessie Smith (a legend telling that MaRainey kidnapped Smith and taught her how to sing). Wilson's playdeals with Ma Rainey as much as with the musicians in his band andwith the white producers. Levee, the youngest member of the band, isbold and ambitious. He has his own innovative ideas about music andtries to impose them on the other musicians, who are howeverreluctant. He wants to play the songs faster, and with swing. Thewhite producers are interested, but the suspicion that they are onlyexploiting him is strong. In opposition to Levee there is Toledo. Heis the only member of the band who can read and write and has learneda lot of things about African American culture from books, thus hekeeps lecturing everyone on the seemingly African influences of theirgestures and habits. When Ma Rainey enters the stage, one becomesaware of her stardom: she has her own private car and wants to beserved a coca-cola before starting to record the songs. The membersof the band, however, keep arguing. Things become even tenserwhen she stubbornly wants her stuttering nephew Sylvester to delivera line at the beginning of a song. The tragic epilogue does not leaveany hope for the African Americanexperience of the 1920s. It is a grim ending, but one that AfricanAmerican literature has made us accustomed to. Wilson's theatre ishumorous at times, but it also has painfully bitter parts. He always constructs complex metaphors of the situation of African American people in a precise moment in time. Hope and defeat go hand in hand in Wilson's work, they are inextricable.

“Gem of theOcean” by August Wilson

Thisthe obscurest of the three Wilson's plays I have been reading.It is set in 1904 in Pittsburgh, in the house of aclearly-symbolical 285-years-old matriarch, Aunt Ester, who practiceshealing with a strange ceremony, the journey to the City of Bones.Citizen Barlow needs to be cleansed because of a crime he hascommitted, while the city is in turmoil because of an incident at themill, involving a black man accused of having stolen some nails. Theman, faced with the shame of admitting to a crime he has notcommitted, drowns himself in the river. While Citizen Barlowundergoes the ritual in which he imagines himself on the ship thatbrought his ancestors to America and visualizes an underwater city ofbones, representing the people dead in the voyage and,simultaneously, his ancestors, things get worse in town, until theusual tragic epilogue leaves the audience gasping. What to make ofthe ritual, with its strong connections to traditional Africanfolklore and animistic religion? How to reconcile it to the dismalfate of black people Wilson insists upon? The hope envisioned at theend of the play, with Citizen Barlow taking up the role of Solly TwoKings, a former guide in the Underground Railroad that led enslaved people to freedom, is highly charged. Finally, after moments of panic and daunting emotions, a small liberation, a cathartic moment that parallels the experience of reconciling oneself with the haunting memory of the Middle Passage.

"The Old Man and the Sea" by Ernest Hemingway

2012-01-08T22:12:00.000+01:00

William Faulkner oncetried to insult Ernest Hemingway by saying that he 'has never beenknown to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary'.Hemingway, however, did use some words that you would need to look upin the dictionary: a lot of fish names, for instance, and fishingtechniques. The problem is that they are not the kind of words youare eager to know the meaning of. The narrative, in fact, goes onsmoothly whether you know or not the kind of fish Hemingway istalking about.

“The Old Man and theSea” is the work that made Ernest Hemingway a celebrity but inspite of that it is a rather simple story: an old fisherman calledSantiago struggles to catch a very big merlin, à la Herman Melville,and the fight goes on for three days. Despite having refused companyfor the day, Santiago wishes a younger friend who usually takes goodcare of him would be there to help him. He knows that he is just anold man fighting a very stubborn fish, whom he however admires.Santiago shows an excellent knowledge of nature and of the sea. Hisstruggle for survival and his mind fixed towards his goal in spite ofseveral adversities is perhaps a parallel to the way one needs totreat life.

I am aware that there isa plethora of interpretations of this short novel and that Biblicalreferences apparently are of paramount importance. The way I see it,this novella might be partly autobiographical, at least from anallegorical point of view. “The Old Man and the Sea” can be seenas the will of an middle-aged writer (Hemingway was 52 and maybe already suffering of depression when he wrotethis) who has recently received some let-downs from his work but islooking for a last win before retiring. All the savvy and wisdom thatSantiago shows at sea may simply represent the skills a writer shoulduse to make his story work. All the talk in town about him being thegreatest fisherman in the world who has been struck by misfortune andhasn't caught a single fish in the last eighty-four days showsperhaps how big Hemingway's ego was at the end of his astonishingcareer (after all he would be awarded the Nobel Prize in 1954). EvenManolin, the young man who has learned everything he knows aboutfishing from him and is ready to take his place, can be interpretedas a younger generation of writers who have learned from Hemingwayand are ready to continue his work and enrich American literatureeven further. “The Old Man and the Sea” is in fact the last workHemingway would publish and it comes after “Across the River andinto the Trees”, an ambitious novel that was critically andcommercially a disaster.

I must confess that Ihave never been a huge Hemingway fan. I had read passages of his workat school and found his writing too “economic”. He does notindulge on describing emotions and one may suffer from the lack oflyrical passages. Hemingway is down to earth and straightforward: hissentences are mostly made of actions and there are relatively fewadjectives. However, I liked the relationship of the old fishermanwith the natural world that surrounds him, his awareness of the placehe occupies within the natural world. I found the tale enriching infrom a spiritual, rather than literary, point of view (withoutrevealing too many details, the end of the novel is both a loss and awin). After all, what did Hemingway answer to Faulkner's provocation?He declared, not without wisdom: 'Poor Faulkner. Does he really thinkthat big emotions come from big words?'.

Filtered # 2

2012-01-02T19:27:00.000+01:00

Time ago I had tried a new post format, where I would filter some "bookish" news and pass them on to you. Unfortunately, as I had warned you, I wasn't constant, but I still like to look for news and curiosities about authors and books.

PS: now my links open to a new window!

#1 What is more relaxing than reading a book while crunching on some good cookies? Stacy Adimando, a "food editor" (and if you want to know what that is follow this link), has made a list of classic cookies (mostly American, but I'm sure you can find most of them in Europe too) to go with a book. The names range from Ernest Hemingway to Jhumpa Lahiri.

Lucia Etxebarria, Spanish author

#2 Spanish author Lucia Etxebarria has decided to stop publishing books at all after having learnt that more copies of her books were illegally downloaded than they were sold. Of course, her drastic choice has sparked fierce debate: is writing a call or a profession? Can one give up writing for the lack of economical gain? Mind that Etxebarria earned more than £750,000 in prizes, so she isn't starving. We haven't lost that great a novelist, in my opinion, as you can gather from my review of one of her novels.

#3 It could become the plot of a new Scandinavian movie. For a certain period Norway's national library had acquired manuscripts and documents related to their best-known authors, playwright Henrik Ibsen and Nobel prize winner Knut Hamsun. Antiquarian booksellers joined the party: the material was in fact juicy, ranging from the draft of a letter addressed to Adolf Hitler to unpublished plays. Unfortunately, everybody was duped, as they were all forgeries by a Norwegian scriptwriter and actor who had contacted people interested in the Second World War. Knut Hamsun is in fact a controversial writer, having sympathized with Nazism.

#4 Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie on classic novel "To Kill A Mockingbird". This talented author has a gift for essay writing, as well as for story telling. I am going cold turkey for her books right now!

#5 An app called Freedom, available for Mac users, locks you up from your own computer, leaving time to do everything else, for example write without the distractions of the internet. Reporters found proof that authors like Zadie Smith and Dave Eggers use it. Can we still hope for that Zadie Smith novel that is due for some years now?

Books read - 2011

2012-01-01T21:04:00.000+01:00

This has been an intense year for me, both academically and "bookishly". I'm in the middle of my research project on the interconnections between postcolonialism and feminism in Indian women's writing. For this reason, you will be encounter books on postcolonial theory and postcolonial feminism (1, 2, 3, 31), a lot of India and poetry, not to mention books for my seminars (10, 30, 34, 37-44, 46, 48) . On top of this list, I have read tons of essays on various topics and this is why, even though I am two books short of my record of 51 books achieved last year, I have actually read a lot. My only regret is that the project is draining me of time to read other books I have bought and I am eager to read (Kenaz, Aminatta Forna, V.S. Naipaul, Kiran Nagarkar, some American and English poetry that is piling up on my bedside table...). I hope I can squeeze them in next year, but I know I'll be even busier than now.

In the meantime, a book hug. Happy New Year everyone!

January
1. The Shock of Arrival - Meena Alexander
2. The Empire Writes Back - Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths & Helen Tiffin
3. Borderlands / La Frontera - Gloria Anzaldua
4. London Fields - Martin Amis
5. Il visconte dimezzato - Italo Calvino

February
6. The English Patient - Michael Ondaatje
7. Rich Like Us - Nayantara Sahgal
8. No New Land - G.V. Vassanji
9. Felicia's Journey - William Trevor

March
10. A Writer's People - V.S. Naipaul
11. Il Dono (The GIft)- Vladimir Nabokov
12. The Skin Between Us - Kym Ragusa
13. Cime tempestose (Wuthering Heights)- Emily Bronte

April
14. Possession - A.S. Byatt
15. Tabaccherie Orientali - Clara Nubile
16. Con il sari rosa - Sampat Pal
17. Scintille - Gad Lerner

May
18. My Story - Kamala Das
19. The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born - Ayi Kwei Armah
20. Raw Silk - Meena Alexander
21. The Country without a Post Office - Agha Shahid Ali
22. Fedeltà (Fidelity) - Grace Paley
23. The Shadow Line - Joseph Conrad

June
24. Jasmine - Bharati Mukherjee
25. Mañana en la Batalla Piensa en mi - Javier Marías
26. Because of India - Suniti Namjoshi

July
27. The Ramayana - R.K. Narayan
28. Italiani, Brava Gente? - Angelo del Boca
29. Shooting Water - Devyani Saltzman

August
30. Guerra e Pace (War and Peace) - Lev Tolstoj

September
31. Woman, Native, Other - Trinh T. Minh-Ah
32. The Finkler Question - Howard Jacobson
33. Come diventare Italiani in 24 ore - Laila Wadia

October
34. The Beggar's Opera - John Gay
35. Feminist Fables - Suniti Namjoshi
36. A Sin of Colour - Sunetra Gupta

November
37. For colored girls who... - Ntozake Shange
38. Topdog/Underdog - Suzan Lori-Parks
39. Funnyhouse of a Negro - Adrienne Kennedy
40. Middlemarch - George Eliot

December
41. Fences - August Wilson
42. Ma Rainey's Black Bottom - August Wilson
43. Gem of the Ocean - August Wilson
44. Le Affinità Elettive - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
45. Building Babel - Suniti Namjoshi
46. The White Boy Shuffle - Paul Beattile
47. A Bowl of Warm Air - Moniza Alvi
48. Polly - John Gay
49. Il Vecchio e il Mare (The Old Man and the Sea) - Ernest Hemingway

"Elective Affinities" by Johann Wolfang von Goethe

2011-12-27T21:59:00.000+01:00

Poor Goethe! When Italian students read "The Sorrows of Young Werther" they object that the plot is identical to Ugo Foscolo's "The Last Letters of Jacopo Ortis", when it is in fact the opposite, the Italian writer having taken Goethe's Sturm und Drang masterpiece as a model for his epistolary novel. Moreover, when one decides to read Goethe's "Elective Affinities" (1809), in spite of having great expectations, for Goethe is one of the most celebrated writers of German literature, the disappointment is overwhelming. The annoying perfection of the language, the falsified and timeless world where all the characters move as if inside a schematic, almost formulaic plot and the stultified, slightly unnerving story of adultery are the main letdowns of this overtly famous novella. Needless to say, the style is elegant and refined. Not a single word is out of place, which is also quite irritating.

Only if you know Goethe enough, or if you have good intuition, you can come to the conclusion that all of this was made on purpose. The Arcadian, motionless environment where the characters live hints at their terrible boredom: Eduard and Charlotte, both at their second wedding, are an apparently happy couple. They spend their time tidying up the gardens, greenhouse, little cemetery and huts of their estate. When they decide to invite the Captain, a long-standing friend of Eduard, and Ottilie, Charlotte's adoptive daughter, things will never be the same. Relying on chemical reactions and theories, Goethe describes how certain people are supposedly meant to be mutually attracted according to chemical affinities.

What one should have clear in mind even before starting to read "Elective Affinities" is that Goethe was trying to criticize, as harshly as he could, the Romantic movement (which he had contributed to shape, by the way). The saccharine nature of Eduard and Charlotte, always described as perfect creatures leading a perfect life in a perfect house without external intrusions, the controlled, artificial landscapes they create and the ubiquitous symbols and allegories hide sheer melancholy and the desire to push away death. When nature is not controlled it is destructive, so we tend to create artificial landscapes, that are pleasing for the eye, but that are really only clumsy attempts to make us forget that life has no meaning after all: we are all going to die and become a bundle of bones. In other words, for Goethe pretending to go back to classicism and to the Arcadia, trying to be closer to nature while experiencing melancholia was not a healthy way of experiencing life. Eduard and Charlotte try to fill up their lives with gardening and with extreme love passions, but strange deadly omens seem to haunt them. Goethe was and was not a romantic: he experienced dejection and depression, especially after the death of his friend and fellow writer Schiller. "Elective Affinities" can be read whether you like or do not like romanticism. It can be a painful reading, no doubts about that. Furthermore, it is a book that has many layers: on the surface it is about adultery, marriage and morality, but on another level, it reflects on life and death, metaphysical and existential questions, the relationship between science and human nature.

If there is a conclusion to be drawn, "Elective Affinities" cannot be considered a fun and uplifting book to read. There are some gloomy (and potentially spooky) moments that will stay with you for a long time and raise many questions. Moreover it is rather difficult to catch all the allusions, allegories and symbols scattered in the book. You have the constant feeling that every object and every action has another meaning, but the whole design remains mysterious. In my own experience, it was very useful academically, but I cannot say that I enjoyed reading it. However, if you are ingenuous enough, you can end up appreciating the pastoral landscape and the cleverly trimmed plot, without having the sense of claustrophobia I experienced. If you are more sophisticated and better read than me, instead, you could actually delight in Goethe's allusions and criticism of the early-nineteenth-century zeitgeist.

African American theatre digest (1)

2011-12-01T13:59:00.001+01:00

I havebeen reading some African American plays recently:

"Funnyhouse of a Negro" by Adrienne Kennedy

A girl called Sarah is alone in her room withher split personalities: she alternates between Queen Victoria Regina and theDuchess of Hapsburg, both white and aristocratic. Sarah is black and ordinary, she has conflicting thoughts about herself, her race, her father and her kinky hair. It is a spooky journey in Sarah's subconsious, thus it is the furthest thing from an uplifting and funny read one can think of.

It is an experimental play, without a clear plot, where one does notreally understand what is going on. It is very disturbing and gloomy, not to mention enigmatic. Nonetheless, it needs to be mentioned that it dates from the 1960s, when African American literature had darker tones. The play is packed with symbolism and oppositions between black and white. The lights on the stage - spots of darkness and spots of light - are unnatural, as Kennedy states in the stage directions. This makes you think of the fact that blackness and whiteness are a construct.

“Topdog/Underdog” by Suzan-Lori Parks

The protagonists of this play, first staged in 2001, aretwo brothers, Lincoln (topdog) and Booth (underdog). They are called like thefamous American President Abraham Lincoln and his assassin, John Wilkes Booth.Booth is a 3-card monte hustler, thus he is making money by tricking people,whereas his brother is a president Lincoln impersonator (Lori-Parksgot the idea from another of her plays where a black person impersonatesLincoln by wearing a frock and a top hat in the streets and letting people play atshooting him).

Jokes are made about AbrahamLincoln’s assassination, for example Booth always mentions shootingpeople if they don’t do as he pleases (‘Anybody not calling me 3-Card gets abullet’, p.24). The significance of a black person impersonating AbrahamLincoln is made clear by Booth : ‘You aint going back but you going all the wayback. Back to way back then when folks was slaves and shit’ (p.27). PresidentLincoln is in fact remembered for ending slavery via the Civil War and wasassassinated by a Confederate supporter, thus you can understand the irony ofa black person impersonating Lincoln and getting shot at. Booth alsoshoplifts, while Lincoln has stopped any illegal activity and has accepted ajob where he is aware that he is being paid less than a white person would. Boothis the underdog, while Lincoln is the topdog, who has quitted the underlife. Theyare brothers who, like Cain and Abel, are destined to kill one another (their names are the result of their father’s idea of a joke), unless...

"For colored girls who considered suicide / When the Rainbow is Enuf" by Ntozake Shange

This is a "choreopoem", meaning poetry dressed for the stage where the actors also dance. It is a brilliant idea and I'd love to see the movie it has been made out of it. The characters are seven women who are defined by the colour of their dress (Lady in Green, Lady in Red and so on). They recite poems, but the boundaries between them are not clear-cut. The seven women on stage relate their experiences and musings regarding abortion, domestic violence, AIDS, womanhood and, of course, race. This play, first performed in 1975, was very successful and it was adapted in many countries of the world. It is my favourite of the three plays I am telling you about: some of the poems make you shudder. They are powerful, they have rhythm and life.
Quoting a newspaer article I found on the web: "Shange’s poetry isn’t stylish. It isn’t elegant, and god forbid if it should be structured. That’s establishment, powder-room, sentimental stuff. The beauty of her poetry is in the slap-like, rapid-fire sound of a language liberated from convention in the same way that Shange’s women are liberating themselves from society’s strictures and assumptions in front of your eyes".

"Middlemarch" di George Eliot

2011-11-17T21:15:00.001+01:00

Comeaccade a Dorothea Brooke, anch'io mi sono dovuta ricredere sullanatura di Casaubon. All'inizio del romanzo mi sembrava un uomo noiosoma tutto sommato innocuo. Dev'essere invece il personaggio piùfastidioso, odioso e lugubre della letteratura inglese. Io lo mettoin cima alla mia lista personale degli antipatici insieme ad UriahHeep, quella canaglia che in “David Copperfield” mette sempre ilbastone tra le ruote al protagonista. Mr. Casaubon è un uomo dimezza età che dedica anima e corpo allo studio e alla redazione diun testo – una “Chiave per Tutte le Mitologie” – che solo luiritiene sarà fondamentale ed importante, tanto che nulla lo devedistrarre. Ne rimane affascinata la giovane Dorothea Brooke, chesceglie di sposarlo ritenendo che le offrirà gli stimoli intellettuali che sente di avere bisogno, sperando al contempo di contribuire allaredazione dell'opera di teologia. Ahimé, sarà solo una chimera,perché fin dalla luna di miele romana, durante la quale Casaubon sirinchiude in biblioteca, Dorothea si annoia e a ravvivarle un po' legiornate è solo il cugino di lui, il giovane e squattrinato WillLadislaw, per cui Casaubon prova una forte antipatia e una fondatagelosia.

Come tutto ciò andrà a finire lo possiamo dedurrefacilmente, ma è soltanto perché questa è la trama “superficiale”del romanzo; è una specie di pretesto per parlare di molte altrecose. L'autrice, infatti, ci presenta il romanzo come uno studiodella società nella campagna inglese negli agli anni venti e trentadell'ottocento e lo fa attraverso una decina di personaggi e adognuno dedica un numero più o meno uguale di pagine (facendoci pian pianoabbandonare l'idea che Dorothea sia la protagonista del libro). C'è,per esempio, Tertium Lydgate, proveniente da una nobile e riccafamiglia ma che ha avuto la sfortuna di scegliere la modestaprofessione del medico di campagna. La bellissima moglie Rosamond,borghese abituata al lusso e ai passatempi frivoli che Lydgate hasposato nella convinzione che un uomo di scienza debba avere unamoglie piacevole ma non particolarmente intelligente, non migliora lasituazione disastrata delle finanze di Lydgate. Poi ci vienepresentato il banchiere Bulstrode, zio di Rosamond, che nonostante sidedichi molto alla beneficenza non può annullare una macchiaindelebile nel suo passato. A dimostrare come tutto nella cittadina di Middlemarch giri intorno ai soldi c'è anche lo sprovveduto FredVincy, il quale sperpera denaro con il gioco d'azzardo e contraedebiti, ma nonostante tutto spera di ottenere la mano dell'amicad'infanzia Mary Garth, che ha sempre amato.

C'èun po' di Jane Austen in tutto questo, ma anche molto di più. Comescrisse Virginia Woolf in un famoso saggio, non ci troviamo di frontead un romanzo d'amore o d'avventura ma, come era già successo inRussia, ad un testo dallo sguardo il più amplio possibile. Dallaposizione della donna all'interno della famiglia, all'ipocrisia deipolitici ottocenteschi, fino ai miglioramenti nella pratica medica eall'ignoranza dei medici di campagna, George Eliot tratta moltissimitemi, e nessuno con superficialità.

All'internodi tutto ciò risulta in particolare evidenza il tema delladisillusione, concepita come l'abbandono di uno stato mentaledominato dall'idealismo, dall'egoismo o dalla pigrizia, e icambiamenti che giungono con la maturità e con una maggioreconsapevolezza del mondo. Prima o poi tutti i personaggi del romanzoabbandonano un punto di vista miope o parziale. “Marriage is sounlike everything else. There is something even awful in the nearnessit brings” (p.759) dice Dorothea verso la fine della storia,riflettendo sul modo in cui la vicinanza che inevitabilmenteaccompagna il matrimonio aveva paradossalmente messo un muro tra leie Casaubon, impedendo una comunicazione chiara ed aperta.Dorothea abbandona l'idea di dover essere il lume di candeladell'anziano marito o l'unica fonte di luce per Middlemarch per viadi quegli atti di beneficenza pensati per essere l'unica suaconsolazione e felicità nella vita. Allo stesso modo, Lydgateabbandona le idee di gloria giovanili e invece di scrivere untrattato di medicina rivoluzionario, come avrebbe voluto in partenza,finisce per esercitare la professione in un luogo di villeggiatura,guadagnando quei soldi che gli servono per mantenere un tenore divita adeguato. Il suo trattato di medicina, manco a farlo apposta,verterà sulla gotta, malattia dei ricchi. Persino Fred vedrà ridimensionarsi il suo sogno di diventare un proprietario terriero, ma in compenso ci guadagnerà l'amore di Mary. Ognuno, in altre parole,raggiunge non la felicità in senso stretto, ma una felicitàrelativa che in fin dei conti risulta essere quella più vicina alla realtà delle nostre vite.

“Middlemarch”è senza dubbio quello che si chiama un romanzo fiume. “There istoo much of it” diceva Henry James, ed aveva forse ragione. Nonsiamo più abituati alla lunghezza e alla prolissità degli scrittorivittoriani. Tuttavia, dopo "Middlemarch" (che risale al 1870) abbiamo scoperto che il protagonista diun romanzo può non essere un eroe perfetto e virtuoso, ma che anzici possono essere più di un protagonista e che i romanzi nonfiniscono tutti con un “e vissero tutti felici e contenti”d'ordinanza. Consigliato a chi non si spaventa di fronte all'abbondanza di vita brulicante di Charles Dickens. Immaginatevelo solo in gonnella che scriveva con uno pseudonimo maschile. Il personaggio della prima moglie di David Copperfield che adorava il suo cagnolino e non era capace di tenere in ordine i conti, per dirne una, c'è tutto.

'A Room of His Own' by Suniti Namjoshi

2011-10-29T21:22:00.000+02:00

I just finished reading "Feminist Fables", a small book that elaborates on the most common fables from the point of view of women. I have already written about this little known author here. To show you how clever and yet so unpretentiously written they are, I'll report one of my favourites.

A Room of His Own
The fifth time around things were different. He gave her instructions, he gave her the keys (including the little one) and rode off alone. Exactly four weeks later he reappeared. The house was dusted, the floors were polished and the door to the little room hadn't been opened. Bluebeard was stunned. 'But weren't you curious?' he asked his wife. 'No', she answered. 'But didn't you want to find out my innermost secrets?' 'Why?' said the woman. 'Well' said Bluebeard, 'it's only natural. But didn't you want to know who I really am?' 'You are Bluebeard and my husband.' 'But the contents of the room. Didn't you want to see what is inside that room?' 'No,' said the creature, 'I think you're entitled to a room of your own.' This so incensed him that he killed her on the spot. At the trial he pleaded provocation.

Questo libro è stato tradotto, con il titolo "Fiabe Femministe", per Supernova. Di Suniti Namjoshi, in traduzione italiana con testo a fronte, è disponibile anche "Istantanee di Caliban. Sycorax", una raccolta di poesie che rivisita "La Tempesta" di Shakespeare, rendendo per esempio Caliban una donna-mostro (ma come cavolo si dice "she-monster" in italiano?) e riflettendo sulle questioni postcoloniali presenti nel testo.

“A Sin of Colour” by Sunetra Gupta

2011-10-23T15:15:00.000+02:00

Forsome reason this novel comes with an endorsement on the front pagewhich reads: “A young, true heir to Virginia Woolf”. I think this was tossed at random: Sunetra Gupta is a very good writer, but shedoes not resemble Virginia Woolf (and I hope the comparison was notmade because one of the characters in the book commits suicide bydrowning). I would more eagerly compare her with Anita Desai: theyare both very careful about language, the effort beingrepaid by delicate and precise sentences, and their novels godeep in the exploration of the characters' interior life in ways thatare never obvious. It is nonetheless an investigation that isprofoundly different from Woolf's interior monologues: Gupta's styleis clearer and lyrical in a simpler way. If I were to make acomparison with two famous painters, I would quote Gauguin for Gupta(resolute brushstrokes, plus profound existentialist and philosophicalallusions) and Monet for Woolf (hazy landscapes and mostly confused,conflicted emotions). The characters' feelings in Gupta's novel arecomplex and even they sometimes cannot name and explain theiremotions, but the author's intentions are always manifest.

“ASin of Colour” tells the story of three generations, it starts inCalcutta just after the Partition and then goes on in Oxford, only toreturn to Calcutta in the last movement. I am using this term –movement – because the author obviously had a clear-cut idea of wherethe novel was going, relying upon structure and therefore giving toher story a feeling of harmony and cohesion that is not easy to find. Perhaps it has to do with the fact that Sunetra Gupta isa scientist as well as a writer and has to work with numbers andfixed rules. “The Sin of Colour” begins with an impossible andpurely platonic love between a young man called Debendranath Roy andhis sister-in-law Reba. In the background there is the family's bigmansion, named Mandalay in homage to the country and the city wherethe Roys made their money by trading teak. If all this rings a bell,it is not by chance: the novel is in fact inspired by Daphne DuMaurier's famous novel “Rebecca”, but this is not the onlyallusion in the book. “A Sin of Colour” is in fact peppered withreferences to many works of literature, from Tagore's songs to “JaneEyre” and Bertold Brecht. The main subject of the novel, forexample, made me think of Satyajit Ray's film “Charulata”, whichis in fact based on a story by Tagore. It does feel right to learnthat the author also translated some of the poet's work. All theliterature references in the book, it needs to be clarified, arenever annoying. On the contrary, they are very cleverly employed tobuild a story that always feels true. All the characters, startingfrom Debendranath's niece Niharika, leave a mark on you. Even thedull, boring English aunt is described with care and wisdom.

All in all, thisis a brilliant book, soulful and written with expertise. It flowsslowly, but it is never boring. I strongly recommend this to anyonewho is interested in good writing and good storytelling, but does not feelattracted to the exotic side of many Indian writers.

Aboutthe author: Sunetra Gupta was born in Calcutta in 1965 and raisedthere and in Africa. She is a Professor of Theoretical Epidemiologyat the University of Oxford and is the author of five novels.“Memories of Rain”, her first work of fiction, has been awardedthe Sahitya Akademy Award in 1996.

Il libro è stato tradotto in italiano con il titolo "La Casa dei Giorni Dorati" ed è pubblicato da Piemme.

Tranströmer and Mistry

2011-10-07T20:44:00.001+02:00

Asyou may have read in the news, the Nobel Prize for Literature went toSwedish poet Tomas Tranströmer.While I hadn't heard of him before the announcement, I am happy thata poet has won (there aren't many poets among the recent laureates).The responses were mixed, but then they are every other year. Toomany European laureates, some people says. He's just some obscure Scandinavian poet nobody was aware of, other people may say. I'll just link you to thisarticle written by Tim Parks called 'What's Wrong with the NobelPrize in Literature'. It summarizes all my ideas on the prize: how can you award a prize that is supposed to be truly global when all the judges are Swedish academics? Of course the jury tried to send a red herring by awarding the prize to someone who writes in a minor language, Swedish. Of course, they were not bold enough to venture into kikuyu literature and this makes you think.

I think it is also nice to acknowledge that the NeustadtInternational Prize for Literature, which some people call theAmerican Nobel, was awarded to Indian-Canadian writer RohintonMistry, which strangely enough I haven't read. He is a lot morefamous than Tranströmerand writes in English.

Hereyou have the other side of the coin and the usual dilemma: is it better that those prizes be awarded to well-known writers who write in languages many people can read or is it worthwhile to dig for new talents in minor languages? And, above all, why do we care so much about these prizes?

"War and Peace" by Lev Tolstoj (vol.2)

2011-10-07T18:00:00.003+02:00

Inthe second volume of this almost never-ending and sometimes draggedon novel (come on, don't be shocked, Tolstoj really lacks inconcision), you will find a lot of war and not as much peace. A greatdeal of pages are devoted to an important field battle and to thefire in Moscow, when the Russian army inexplicably left their capitalcity in the hands of Napoleon. In spite of this, there is still timeto witness Count Pierre Bezukhov's life-changing experience as a warprisoner and his humanitarian experiments. This was my favouritestrand of the novel: I could not help but feel sympathy for Pierre,in spite of his foolishness (at a certain point he starts believingthat he is destined to kill Napoleon because of an obscurecabbalah-related calculation he has made). Natasha also changes a lotin this second volume and by the end of the book she is finally awoman. Prince Andrej, instead, ends up being almost the hero and hisstory line is harrowing but also uplifting. You could argue that “Warand Peace” is, among many other things, a buildungsroman.I know that most scholars speak of it as the historical novel parexcellence and I amnot saying it is not that as well. Only, it is difficult to ignorethat every character matures somewhere between page 1 and page 1425and in order to do that each of them has to live through a war andseveral tribulations.

Theprimary intent of the book becomes clearer than ever by the end ofthe book. The last thirty pages of “War and Peace” are actuallyan essay, pure non-fiction inserted in a novel. This of course makesyou think. More than a family saga, “War and Peace” is the mediumemployed by Lev Tolstoj to write about history. Tolstoj believed in fatalism and thought that revolutions and wars did not happen because of the ambition and desire for power of single leaders. In Tolstoj's world, great men – Napoleon first of all, but also Kutuzov or Murat – are only oneof the many factors that make what we like to call “history”.Apart of me would like to say that Tolstoj's attempt in these last thirty pages to explain how history works was a failure:instead of showing us what history is and how it works through thecharacters in the book, Tolstoj ends his novel with an essay,departing from the narrative texture never to return to it.Nonetheless, it is quite possible that this was perfectly acceptablein the 19^thcentury when Tolstoj wrote the book and I must confess that hisopinions (and his metaphors to explain how he thinks history functions)are alluring to say the least. However, I found thephilosophical parts slightly redundant.

"War and Peace" is an old-fashioned novel, this I can say without feeling guilty. It has become a classic, not only of Russian literature, but of world literature. It is vast and contains many things. It can provoke frustration ("is this book ever going to finish?") or admiration ("how can Tolstoj describe the world so well?"), but surely you cannot dismiss it very easily. It makes you keep thinking about what you have read. In other words, you feel its weight even after you've finished it.

"The Finkler Question" by Howard Jacobson

2011-09-27T16:47:00.000+02:00

Threemen, Libor Sevcik, Sam Finkler and Julian Treslove, are the main characters in this novel, and all of them are widowers. Well, apart from Treslove, who never had a wife but grievesthe lack of one altogether. Libor, a ninety-year-oldCzech-born retired professor with Hollywood connections, is mourninghis beloved wife Malkie, while Julian Treslove is envious of hislong-time friend Sam Finkler for several reasons, one of them beingthat he is Jewish (and therefore, according to him, he is moreintelligent, has the best women and tells the best jokes).

"The Finkler Question" is a brilliant book, very humorous and entertaining, but alsothought-provoking and ultimately sad. As amatter of fact, Ron Charles of “The Washington Post” used adjectives like 'ruminative' and 'broody' to describe it. How can abook be both funny and gloomy? Well, I think this is one of thewonders of Jacobson's writing. “The Finkler Question” tacklestopics like mourning one's family and, of course, identity. The wholebook can be read as a compendium (albeit a crooked one) on Jewishnessin England. I remember that a few months ago I read an article complaining about this. Incidentally, I think the author of the article has not grasped the real meaning of the book, to the point of wondering if he has finished the novel. “The Finkler Question” - which in factreads as “The Jewish Question” (Finklers is in fact the wayJulian Treslove calls Jewish people in general) – reflects on howJewish people are perceived by non-Jewish people. It elaborates onstereotypes and anti-Semitism in a way that is never obvious. Until here, we all agree. What the author of that article failed to see, in my opinion, is that it is slowlyrevealed by the end of the book that it is Treslove's excessive loveand respect for 'Finklers' that hides something disturbing anddisquieting. I think that this can be read as a lesson, not only forthose who hide their prejudice behind excessive admiration, butfor everyone. In other words, Jacobson's book is a lecture on what it means to be human: to grieve, to love and to hate. We perceive Jewishness through the lenses of Julian Treslove, who for as much as he would hate to hear it, has a lot of preconceptions.

Thebook vaguely reminds me of Zadie Smith's “The Autograph Man”, butit's not only because of the Jewish connection. They're both humorousbooks and they are both sprinkled with references to moviestars such as Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich. “The Finkler Question” isnonetheless 'obsessed' with Jewishness as much as its protagonist is.Towards the end of the book it was annoying to read the word 'Jew' inevery page, as it must have been annoying for Finkler's friends tohear Treslove babbling about Jewishness all the time.

HowardJacobson got hold of the Booker Prize with this book. His style isprecise and his novel is pleasant to read, while hispuns and remarks are often witty and never weak ('D'Jew know Jewno' already feels like a classic). In spite of this, there wassomething missing: maybe more narrative complexity, if that issomething desirable in a book. Too often the plot was put aside forendless disquisitions on Zionism that end up being tedious andabstruse, unless you are an expert on the subject. I appreciated the language in which the novel was written, though: the impeccable choice of words and the genius behind some of the musings and reflections. There is a passage about philosophy that I must report here because it feels so true for me (but if you don't care for such curiosities consider the review finished without this):

Every few years Treslove decided it was time he tried philosophy again. Rather than start at the beginning with Socrates or jump straight into epistemology, he would go out and buy what promised to be a clear introduction to the subject - by someone like Roger Scruton or Bryan Magee, though not, for obvious reasons, by Sam Finkler. These attempts at self-education always worked well at first. The subject wasn't after all difficult. He could follow it easily. But then, at more or less the same moment, he would encounter a concept or a line of reasoning he couldn't follow no matter how many hours he spent trying to decipher it. A phrase such as 'the idea derived from evolution that ontogenesis recapitulates phylogenesis' for example, not impossibly intricate in itself but somehow resistant to effort, as though it triggered something obdurate and even delinquent in his mind. Or hte promise to look at an argument from three points of view, each of which had five salient features, the first of which had four distinguishable aspects. It was like discovering that a supposedly sane person with whom one had been enjoying a pefeclty normal conversation was in fact quite mad. Or, if not mad, sadistic. (p. 32-33)

Festivaletteratura 2011 (3/3)

2011-09-20T16:21:00.000+02:00

Uzodinma Iweala. Questo nome difficile da pronunciare appartiene ad un giovane scrittore di origine nigeriana cresciuto negli Stati Uniti. Proveniente da una famiglia molto privilegiata (sua madre è Ministro delle Finanze), Iweala si è laureato in letteratura inglese ed americana ad Harvard, ma come se non bastasse ha anche una laurea in medicina. Incluso tra i 20 migliori giovani scrittori americani da Granta Magazine (una lista simile a quella del sondaggio che vi propongo), Iweala è l'autore di "Bestie Senza una Patria", che racconta la storia di un bambino-soldato. Dialoga con lui Gianni Biondillo, scrittore e giornalista italiano che ha fatto alcune esperienze in Africa. L'incontro ha puntato molto sul fatto che il pubblico in sala non conosce molto dell'Africa, o meglio conosce solo quello che mostra la televisione: fame, povertà, malattie e guerra. Iweala ha insistito molto sulle generalizzazioni che vengono fatte riguardo all'Africa, nonostante tra il pubblico ci fossero una professoressa di storia africana e persone che per lavoro hanno a che fare tutti i giorni con africani provenienti dalle regioni più disparate. L'autore, nonostante abbia scritto un romanzo su una tematica così drammatica e sia in procinto di pubblicarne un altro che parla dell'AIDS nel continente africano, sostiene che noi non conosciamo l'Africa e non ci rendiamo conto che la gente vive vite perfettamente normali anche lì. Forse è vero, però io sto dalla parte dell'intervento polemico (e poco apprezzato) che c'è stato alla fine dell'incontro: perché si è parlato poco, o quasi niente, di letteratura? Perché gli scrittori africani (o indiani, cinesi etc.) devono rispondere a domande sull'economia odierna della Nigeria e l'influenza degli investimenti cinesi sullo sviluppo del paese, quando dovrebbero spiegarci perché la letteratura è importante per avere una visione più amplia e particolareggiata del continente? Io credo che una pluralità di storie (usando l'espressione di Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, un'altra nigeriana che ammiro), si possa raggiungere anche, anzi soprattutto, attraverso la letteratura. Ed infatti questa conclusione arriva, un po' inaspettata ma sicuramente salvifica, da Gianni Biondillo che, per ribadirci come non ci sia una sola Africa, ironizza anche sul fatto che in questo caso è lui, figlio di "terroni" semi-analfabeti che per poco non andava neanche all'università, ad essere il vero svantaggiato dei due.

Laila Wadia e Enrico Franceschini. Entrambi scrivono di incontri e scontri tra culture, uno esaltando la multietnicità e l'apertura di una città come Londra, e l'altra ironizzando sui vizi e le stranezze del popolo italiano. Laila Wadia è nata a Bombay, in India, ma vive da tantissimi anni in Italia. Il suo "Come Diventare Italiani in 24 ore" è l'avventura tragicomica di una ragazza indiana che viene a studiare in Italia grazie ad una borsa di studio, e finisce poi per non lasciare più il Bel Paese, nel bene o nel male. Si legge in due ore, fa ridere e lascia un dubbio: quanto autobiografica è questa storia? Ma Laila Wadia ammira per davvero Aida Yespica per aver avuto successo nonostante abbia origini non proprio italiche?

Enrico Franceschini, invece, è un blogger: scorrendo l'homepage di Repubblica vi è può esser capitato di vedere la thumbnail di un blogger dall'espressione ironico-rassegnata che racconta che cosa succede nella capitale britannica. Innamorato pazzo di Londra, Franceschini ci spiega come fare a distinguere un italiano che gira con la famiglia per South Kensington, ci illumina sul perché Londra sia impazzita per la cucina etnica (un tentativo di recuperare il tempo gastronomicamente perso, secondo lui) e ci regala un resoconto della sua serata a Buckingham Palace, tra gaffe dettate dall'ansia e conversazioni piacevoli con il principe Carlo.

Salvatore Scibona. Anche lui, come Téa Obreht, è stato incluso tra i '20 under 40' del New Yorker (sembra che gli organizzatori del festival abbiano invitato a tappeto gli scrittori giovani più apprezzati dai giornali letterari americani). Come si deduce facilmente dal nome, Salvatore Scibona è uno scrittore di origine italiana. Tuttavia è nato e cresciuto negli Stati Uniti ed ha imparato l'italiano solo da adulto. Il suo acclamato romanzo "La Fine" è ambientato nella comunità italoamericana di Cleveland, in Ohio, dove è cresciuto. Ogni personaggio sembra indirizzato verso una meta, la "fine" del libro, appunto. Eppure quasi non c'è trama in questo libro, che dagli anni '50 va a ritroso fino al 1915, girando sempre intorno alla festa dell'Assunta, molto importante all'interno della comunità italoamericana. Si tratta di un mondo dimenticato e a noi sconosciuto, eppure appartiene al nostro passato e a quello di tutti gli emigranti che dai paeselli più sperduti sono andati a fare fortuna in America. Lo stesso Scibona racconta di come abbia dovuto riscoprire le proprie radici e come sia un caso che si chiami Salvatore (suo padre, infatti, si chiama Kenneth). "Con un nome così", afferma lo scrittore, "mi sono sentito quasi in dovere di indagare sulle mie origini, mentre per quanto riguarda la storia della famiglia di mia madre, di origine polacca, non è stato lo stesso, anche perché non c'erano più legami con il suo paese d'origine. Non conosco più nessuno in Polonia, mentre in Sicilia ho ancora dei parenti, che sto per andare a visitare".

Geraldine Brooks. Australiana d'origine ed americana d'adozione, Geraldine Brooks scrive romanzi storici dalle trame molto affascinanti. Che non si tratti di libri strampalati davanti ai quali gli storici si fanno solo grasse risate è chiaro dal fatto che nel 2006 l'autrice ha vinto il Premio Pulitzer per il suo romanzo "L'idealista", che racconta le peripezie del signor March, il padre delle sorelle di "Piccole Donne" che all'inizio del romanzo lascia le figlie per tornare solo alla fine del libro. "L'idealista", ispirandosi alla vita del vero padre dell'autrice del celebre classico per l'infanzia, racconta come il signor March, fervente abolizionista, avesse partecipato alla guerra di Secessione americana nel periodo in cui era lontano da casa. Un altro suo romanzo di Geraldine Brooks dalla trama affascinante è "I custodi del Libro", che racconta come un importante ed antico libro ebraico sia stato nascosto in una moschea di Sarajevo per metterlo al riparo dalla guerra imminente. L'autrice ha raccontato come compie le sue ricerche, parlando con testimoni diretti o con i loro discendenti, e come il germe che dà la vita ad un libro nasca da un interesse personale. Nel caso de "L'isola dei due mondi", per esempio, ambientato a Martha's Vineyard (prestigioso luogo di villeggiatura, ma anche uno dei pochi luoghi negli Stati Uniti dove i nativi americani non sono mai stati scacciati), l'interesse è nato quando lei stessa si è recata sull'isola per acquistare una proprietà. Durante il suo soggiorno a Mantova, per esempio, ha visitato il Palazzo Ducale ed è rimasta affascinata dalla presenza di una nana, vestita in maniera molto elegante, in uno degli affreschi delle stanze del palazzo. E' il genere di cose, spiega, che fanno scattare la sua voglia di ricerca, per poi creare una storia nata da un fatto curioso o interessante. Non deve tuttavia, essere, un fatto troppo inverosimile. L'intervistatrice, infatti, ci racconta come una volta Geraldine Brooks abbia dovuto scartare una storia troppo variopinta, che aveva per protagonisti una coppia che si salvò da un'epidemia di peste chiudendosi in una chiesa ed isolandosi dal resto della comunità.

Festivaletteratura 2011 (2/3)

2011-09-14T00:12:00.000+02:00

'Ala al-Aswani. Si tratta semplicemente dello scrittore egiziano più conosciuto nel paese e nel mondo, autore di "Palazzo Yacoubian", il romanzo più venduto nel mondo arabo. L'incontro, tuttavia, è incentrato sulla primavera araba e sul clima che si provava a stare in piazza Tahrir al Cairo in quelle fatidiche settimane. Quest'argomento è stato infatti un cavallo di battaglia del festival (uno degli incontri serali di Blurendevù, per esempio, è stato con un blogger egiziano che ha sottolineato quanto ancora ci sia da fare affinché la democrazia in Egitto fiorisca). 'Ala al-Aswani dalle proteste di piazza Tahrir ci ha anche ricavato un libro, intitolato semplicemente "La Rivoluzione Egiziana", che raccoglie i suoi scritti per i giornali indipendenti. Rimane però un po' di spazio per rievocare i personaggi dei suoi personaggi più amati, considerando che se fossero stati persone reali sarebbero tutti a combattere per la democrazia egiziana. E' finito infatti il tempo della rassegnazione e della sottomissione. Tutti quanti, afferma al-Aswani, erano fuori in piazza: musulmani e cristiani, uomini e donne, vecchi e giovani.

Angelica Garnett. In un teatro Ariston stracolmo, la novantaduenne nipote di Virginia Woolf (figlia della pittrice Vanessa Bell) causa non poca curiosità, se non altro per vedere con i propri occhi una parente della grande scrittrice di "Gita al Faro" e farsi raccontare che tipo di zia era. Due curatrici dell'opera di Virginia Woolf leggono interminabili saggi, forse più adatti ad un'aula universitaria che a un festival della letteratura. Non mancano tuttavia suggestioni, nelle loro letture ricche di pathos, tra le quali un riferimento alle farfalle e alle falene (lei, come Nabokov, cacciava farfalle e già questo mi emoziona, nonostante la pena che provo per questi animaletti pinned to the wall). Angelica Garnett non è solo la nipote di una persona famosa, ma anche l'autrice di un libro di memorie sulla sua infanzia privilegiata, vissuta tra le più argute menti del tempo, nonché di un romanzo che è anch'esso una rielaborazione di ricordi d'infanzia. Andando a leggere la sua biografia si scopre quanto fortunata, ma anche triste dev'essere stata da bambina: con un padre inconsistente, per sua stessa ammissione, e una madre opprimente e travolgente, che aveva dato vita con il marito ad una girandola di relazioni aperte e bisessuali da far paura (Angelica è figlia dell'amante di Vanessa, che era approvato dal marito di questa, ed ha sposato a sua volta David Garnett, l'amante bisessuale del padre che l'aveva vista nascere!). La Garnett, purtroppo, è dura d'orecchi e le domande le arrivano con difficoltà. Sembra non saper cosa dire, limitandosi a ribadire che sua zia era molto affettuosa e gentile con lei. Forse gli anni si sentono e lo spaesamento anche. Nonostante ciò, Angelica pesca tra ricordi vecchi di ottant'anni per svelarci che Virginia non era una donna triste e melanconica e il suo suicidio, così tragico, non deve trarci in inganno. Nessuno, e questo stupisce tutti in sala, pensava che fosse una scrittrice di quel calibro, tranne forse il marito Leonard. Per loro era semplicemente zia Virginia.

Hisham Matar. Quando arrivo in sala, leggermente in ritardo, sento la presentatrice dire che Hisham Matar è praticamente l'unico scrittore libico che arriva nelle nostre librerie. A causa della censura e del regime di terrore instaurato da Muammar Gheddafi, infatti, è già una fortuna che qualche scrittore proveniente da quella terra sia di fatto sopravvissuto. Costretto con la sua famiglia a vivere spesso in esilio, Hisham Matar scrive tuttavia in inglese, contribuendo ad ingrossare le fila di chi scrive del proprio paese d'origine da un punto di vista esterno. Apprezzato anche da un mostro sacro come J.M Coetzee, Matar sta vincendo una sfilza di premi con i suoi libri ambientati nel Medio Oriente brutalizzato dalle dittature. Durante l'incontro non può mancare il riconoscimento del passato tragico delle relazioni Italia-Libia e il ricordo del padre dell'autore, rapito parecchi anni fa in Egitto e di cui si sono perse le tracce. L'ultimo romanzo di Hisham Matar, "Anatomia di una Scomparsa", elabora infatti i sentimenti di rabbia e vuoto provati di fronte al rapimento di un padre.

Howard Jacobson. Forse l'incontro più interessante a cui ho assistito, anche perché ho appena finito l'ultimo romanzo dell'autore. Howard Jacobson viene spesso annoverato tra gli scrittori inglesi più interessanti in circolazione, ma allo stesso tempo viene etichettato non di rado come il Philip Roth inglese (entrambi scrivono quasi sempre di sesso e di ebraismo). Howard Jacobosn quest'anno ha vinto persino il Booker Prize, il premio più prestigioso per uno scrittore di madrelingua inglese, insieme al Pulitzer. Tutto ciò nonostante si fosse sempre detto che un libro sull'identità ebraica non ce l'avrebbe mai fatta. Secondo Jacobson, il motivo per cui "L'enigma di Finkler" ha invece avuto così tanto successo è insito nel protagonista, Julian Treslove, che non è ebreo ma vorrebbe esserlo e quindi, un po' come Virgilio nella Divina Commedia, ci accompagna in un viaggio attraverso la scoperta dell'identità ebraica in Inghilterra. L'incontro diventa poi quasi una lezione, di quelle chiarificatrici, sull'umorismo ebraico: "gli ebrei raccontano le barzellette migliori", sostiene l'autore, "perché sanno che il mondo è divertente perché in realtà non lo è". Quando gli viene chiesto perché scriva sempre sull'identità ebraica, Jacobson diventa improvvisamente enigmatico e sbotta: "Ebbene sì, mi sveglio alla mattina e penso, 'sì, sono ebreo'". Non ho capito se parlava sul serio o se era l'ennesima battuta, ma in fondo, "L'Enigma di Finkler" è tutto giocato sul capire e non capire queste filosofie dell'identità. Di momenti esilaranti durante l'incontro ce ne sono stati a bizzeffe, ma quello sul momento in cui ha vinto il Booker Prize è quello che ha fatto letteralmente sganasciare il pubblico dalle risate. L'autore ha infatti ricordato come il giorno in cui ha vinto il premio è stato anche quello in cui i minatori cileni sono usciti e... Ah, ma io non la racconto bene, e quindi ci rinuncio già dall'inizio!

Festivaletteratura 2011 (1/3)

2011-09-12T21:41:00.001+02:00

Al Festivaletteratura di Mantova gli scrittori invitati erano un centinaio almeno e c'è sempre qualcuno che muori dalla voglia di sentire/vedere, ma che non riesci ad incastrare, nemmeno tagliando sulle pause caffé offerte da Illy o rinunciando ad una passeggiatina sul lungolago. Per me quest'anno questi scrittori sono stati rispettivamente Yehoshua Kenaz (scrittore israeliano sopraffino che ha influenzato anche Amos Oz) e Tahar Lamri (italiano, ma di origine algerina, che ha parlato della primavera araba). Ma ho avuto l'occasione di andare agli incontri con moltissimi altri scrittori; magari non nomi eclatanti, ma comunque sempre interessanti. Di quasi tutti gli scrittori non ho ancora letto niente, quindi ho preso questi incontri un po' come una presentazione ad ognuno di loro.

Mihai Mircea Butcovan. Questo è stato il mio primo incontro, sotto il sole cocente della Tenda Sordello e a due passi da Palazzo Ducale, un tempo residenza dei Gonzaga. Butcovan, romeno di nascita ma italiano d'adozione, sceglie di parlare dello scarto tra padri immigrati, che si sentono ancora stranieri in Italia, e figli che sarebbero contentissimi di diventare italiani per la legge, visto che lo sono già culturalmente.Il momento più divertente di questa mezz'oretta passata allegramente è stato la lettura della lettera in dialetto di un milanese un po' particolare, indirizzata a quel leghista che aveva proposto di mettere dei vagoni separati per gli extracomunitari nella metropolitana di Milano. Un grosso applauso nasce spontaneamente quando viene detto che chi è nato in Italia dovrebbe avere la cittadinanza italiana. [Mi sembra di essere negli anni '50 disse tempo fa Zadie Smith, a proposito delle politiche razziali in Italia]

William Dalrymple. Figlio di un baronetto cugino di Virginia Woolf, William Dalrymple è uno storico ed uno scrittore di viaggi piuttosto famoso, nonché il co-fondatore del Jaipur Literature Festival, il cugino indiano del Festivaletteratura di Mantova. Questo incontro, condotto dal giornalista inglese Tim Parks, verte sull'ultimo libro dell'autore, intitolato "Nove Vite". Tra monache jain che si strappano i capelli e fanno voto di non dormire mai sotto lo stesso tetto, vagabondando per tutta l'India, e santoni che digiunano seduti sotto un albero fondendosi armoniosamente con la vita quotidiana degli indiani che si sono ormai abituati, l'India, sostiene William Dalrymple, è un paese dove la spiritualità e la religione non è mai passata in secondo piano. Le innovazioni tecnologiche e il progresso, secondo l'autore, convivono con l'intimità provata dagli indiani con il divino. La grande diversità religiosa fa sì che sia pressoché impossibile conoscere tutti i culti presenti in India, che più che un paese dev'essere considerato un vero e proprio continente, ci ricorda lo scrittore.

Helen Humphreys. Autrice sia di poesia che di una manciata di romanzi, il festival ha scelto di incontrare Helen Humphreys al conservatorio Campiani, con i violoncelli che suonano in sottofondo. Timida e quasi imbarazzata per l'attenzione che le viene riservata, Helen Humphreys sembra non aver parole per descrivere il processo della scrittura, il perché e il percome dei temi dei suoi romanzi, le cui trame intricate ed intelligenti attirano l'attenzione. "Il Giardino Perduto", per esempio, è ambientato a Londra durante la Seconda Guerra Mondiale, dove le vite di tre persone si incrociano in una casa dove c'è un giardino segreto che non appare nelle planimetrie, un po' come nel famoso romanzo di Frances Hodgson Burnett. Ancora più intrigante è "The Reinvention of Love", romanzo storico che narra la storia d'amore tra Adèle, la moglie di Victor Hugo a cui è dedicato anche il film "Adele H." di François Truffaut, e il critico Sainte-Beuve. Descritti da tutti come romanzi a dir poco poetici, dove la natura gioca un ruolo importante, mi sembrano degni di attenzione.

Téa Obreht. In Inghilterra il suo libro, "L'Amante della Tigre", era in vetrina ovunque, un po' perché ha vinto l'Orange Prize for Fiction e, a 25 anni, ne è la più giovane recipient, e un po' perché è stata inserita dal New Yorker nei "20 under 40" (cioè i migliori giovani scrittori americani sotto i 40 anni). La intervista Serena Dandini, che si comporta un po' come fosse sul suo divano rosso, battute comprese. Téa avrà pensato: ma chi è questa matta?! E viceversa, perché Téa Obreht sembra un po' stramba, con la sua paura di mangiare raw chicken, il pollo crudo, e con le sue cacce ai vampiri (un contributo della scrittrice ad Harper's Magazine, che l'ha mandata per i villaggi serbi e croati a capire cosa c'è sotto questa moda di succhiare sangue che ha coinvolto letteratura, cinema e tv americana per ragazzi). Di origine serba, Téa Obreht ha scritto un romanzo molto vicino al realismo magico di Garcia Marquez, trapiantandolo tuttavia nei balcani, e di conseguenza dando vita ad un circo di stranezze da far invidia a Kusturica. Se leggendone un paio di pagine in libreria non mi aveva particolarmente incantato, pare che abbia invece fatto sognare molti spettatori in sala. Che tenerezza pensare che questo era il suo primo incontro in traduzione! L'impressione è di una scrittrice di talento, con tanta tanta fantasia (che sia cresciuta a pane e Gabo ça va sans dire), che però esce da un corso di scrittura creativa, questo mondo misterioso che sta facendo uscire dalle università americane ed inglesi decine e decine di scrittori, ma che qualcuno (*cough*cough*V.S. Naipaul*cough) sostiene vengano fuori tutti uguali, come se fossero fatti con lo stampino. Mah, ci aggiorniamo quando avrò letto qualcosa della Téa (ormai la sento un po' come un'amica, vista la vicinanza anagrafica)! Nel frattempo, have a snippet of Téa Obreht here...

Yirmi Pinkus. La mia alternativa all'incontro con Kenaz, che non sono riuscita a prenotare, è quest'altro scrittore israeliano, anch'egli semi-sconosciuto in Italia. Introdotto da Moni Ovadia (un jack of all trades del festival visto che l'ho incrociato per ben tre volte), Yirmi Pinkus parla in quella strana ed indescrivibile lingua che è l'ebraico moderno, ma il suo romanzo, "Il Folle Cabaret del Professor Fabrikant", ha forte legami con la lingua yiddish, un tempo parlata da moltissimi ebrei in Europa ed ora presente in Israele attraverso gli artisti che decidono di ridare lustro al teatro yiddish. Attraverso un numero ragguardevole di storielle, i due ci accompagnano a conoscere questo tipo particolare di teatro in cui gli spettatori partecipano attivamente alle rappresentazioni, per esempio urlando "Salute!" quando gli attori stanno per bere un bicchiere di vino sul palco, e in cui la musica e le canzoni giocano una parte centrale. Non c'è quindi da stupirsi, racconta Ovadia, che il teatro yiddish abbia influenzato da un lato il teatro di Bertold Brecht e dall'altro il musical americano. Si tratta di un libro che resuscita un mondo che sta per andare perduto, dato che questo tipo di teatro-cabaret descritto da Pinkus è un po' deriso dagli israeliani in quanto retaggio di una cultura che appartiene al passato. Forse perché è difficilmente integrabile all'immagine moderna e nuova (nel senso di culturalmente nuova), che Israele vuole dare di sé. Alla fine mi sembra possa essere un libro divertente e arguto, con una tematica che si scosta dalle solite trite e ritrite. Un romanzo per parlare del teatro, questa la dovevo ancora sentire.

"War and Peace" by Lev Tolstoj (volume one)

2011-09-02T01:16:00.000+02:00

In oneof his most famous essays, Friedrich Schiller distinguished betweennaïve poets and sentimental poets, the former writing spontaneouslywithout planning anything and the second being very self-aware oftheir writing and the problems raised by their work.

Havingread the first volume of “War and Peace”, I could not help butthink that Tolstoj must be necessarily included in the naïvecategory, only to realise that this cannot be possible, that a writerlike Tolstoj would have known where his story would go. While readingthe first volume of Tolstoj’s grandiose effort, I constantly hadthe impression that the author was consciously writing about thepursuit of one’s happiness in life, but that he did not always havea clear-cut idea of where and how Pierre, Prince Andréj, NikolajRostòv or Nataša could find it. I might be terribly wrong, becauseTolstoj kept revising and rewriting episodes of the book for a verylong time, so he must have had some idea of where he was going.

At thecentre of the story there is history of course: the Napoleonic warsthat saw Russia fighting alongside Austria against the French play abig role in the 'war parts', but it is the ultimate meaning ofhistory that is at stake in this book. What is history and can commonpeople ever be a part of it? “War and Peace” is also a hugecanvas of Russian aristocracy, of its falseness and affectation aboveall. Ironically enough, while princes and counts converse in goodFrench, Russia is at war with Napoleon, who is regarded as acharlatan of an emperor and cannot compete with his Russiancounterpart, Alexander I. At the centre of the question, there areideas about Russian identity and the influence of Europe. Thecharacters in the story seem to be more spontaneous when they speakRussian or when they try to live a genuine, simple life that does notinvolve discussing politics or philosophy. It is not by chance thatevery major character is looking for happiness, whether throughmasonry, marriage or war achievements.

“Warand Peace” has many, maybe too many characters. For at least 300pages you need to write them down on a piece of paper and constantlylook at it. In spite of this, some of them really standout: Pierre, the clumsy,illegitimate son of a wealthy count, who is lost and confused to thepoint of entering masonry was createdwith tenderness and affection by Tolstoj, who clearly saw much ofhimself in him. Then there is Prince Andréj Bolkonskij, ayoung officer with a pregnant wife and an eccentric father, and twosiblings, Nikolaj and Nataša. He is a somehow idealistic young manwho is in love with his orphan cousin Sonja to the despair of hisimpoverished parents, while Nataša, still a child at the beginningof the book, grows into a very beautiful young woman who is at a lossregarding her marriage. There are also some purely depravedcharacters like Hélène Kuraghina and her brother Anatole,libertines who clearly represent the moral corruption of the societyof the time (Tojstoj wrote the novel in the 1860s, but set it in theearlier decades, which he probably found more interesting because ofthe historical events).

This is a complex novel which blends history with a familysaga literally throbbing with life. It contains elements ofphilosophy, social sciences, politics and god knows what more. So farit has been an enriching experience to read it, but it has beenrather demanding. Sometimes it feels like you are reading a very longdirector's cut, where episodes do not apparently lead to anythingimportant or where you simply miss the point the author is trying tomake, but I think it is just because Lev Tolstoj sometimes is in over my head.

My Literary London

2011-08-26T19:34:00.000+02:00

London was full of literary bliss this summer.

First of all, I was staying just down the road from London Fields, the city park with a bucolic name where the homonymous novel by Martin Amis is NOT set. M.A. in fact decided that West London, and Notting Hill in particular, was a better place for Nicola, Keith and Guy to live. Of course, while you wander around Hackney you may find some remedies for your “Amis disappointment”, such as bookshops on a boat on Regent's Canal or... reading lanes.

For a radical change, I climbed the stylish neighbourhoods of Highgate and Hampstead, both on the hills in the north of the city. In Highgate there is a famous cemetery, where among other people George Eliot and Karl Marx are buried.

While wild grass grew on Eliot’s modest grave and not a single flower was in sight, people stop by Marx’s majestic grave all the time, leaving flowers and starting interesting discussions on philosophy. I read about one such discussion that eventually conflated into Ian Buruma’s famous book “Occidentalism”, a counterpart to Edward Said’s seminal book on the orientalist discourse. I stopped on Eliot’s grave and I felt sorry for her, even though I haven’t read a single line of her. This is only a temporary impediment, because on the aforementioned bookshop on a boat I bought her most famous work, “Middlemarch”. It took some time before I (or the friendly bookseller) could find a copy of it inside the boat, but after five minutes of intense search I was rewarded with a hardback edition of Eliot’s famous book. By the way, during my holiday I also had a trip to this small place just outside London where I used to be an Italian language assistant. The building that hosts the school once was George Eliot’s summer house and she may have written parts of her novels there!

Highgate Cemetery is next to Waterlow Park, which is really a lovely place if you want to have a break from London’s chaotic and intense life. I sat under a tree, with children playing on the lawn and people sunbathing, with my copy of “War and Peace” and a couple of books of poetry (not exactly the kind of reading you would do on the tube).

Hampstead, with its beautiful, picturesque (and incredibly expensive) houses, can boast a population of artists and intellectuals. This is also where John Keats’ house stands, only nobody seemed to know where it was, causing me to wander around the neighbourhood for more than one hour. His house is rather modest: he only rented a room and a parlour. It’s thrilling to know that there he wrote his “Ode to a Nightingale”, one of his most famous poems. Dear John, buried in Rome, who died at 26 years of age. What I was surprised to learn during my visit was that his friend called him ‘Junkies’. John Keats came from East London, from Moorgate to be precise, not far from where I was staying. Apparently he introduced himself as ‘Junkies’, with a distinguishable Cockney accent. Hilarious! During his lifetime they used to call him ‘a Cockney poet’, which when I think of his poetry sounds preposterous.

I wonder if he wrote "Ode to a Nightingale" here...

Part of my literary tour involved the British Library, where I was doing some research. The central pillar is called the King’s Library, because it’s a donation of King George IV. People who need old books and manuscripts go there and you can see them searching through the shelves from outside. The exhibitions included the Magna Carta, old editions of several classics such as “Jane Eyre” or Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales” and a room dedicated to science fiction, displaying volumes by George Orwell, H.G. Wells and Isaac Asimov.

Punting in Cambridge

Among my trips outside of London there was Cambridge and Stratford-upon-Avon. The first is of course famous for its university and the second for being the hometown of William Shakespeare, but the atmosphere was similar: very relaxed but stimulating. In Cambridge I visited King’s College, the most prestigious and photographed of Cambridge’s many colleges. Because the building that hosts the college was finished under Henry VIII, you can see magnificent statues of him, and in the majestic college’s chapel there are his initials intertwined with Anne Bolyen’s. This obviously reminded me of the books I have recently read about King Henry VIII and his wives, but it was also a history lesson (not to mention the notions of history of art I gobbled while I was there). An incredible number of famous writers studied at King’s College in Cambridge, among which my favourites are E.M. Forster, Zadie Smith and Salman Rushdie. It was strange to think that they walked the same streets, maybe stopping by at the same café or sitting somewhere on a bench scribbling some lines.

In Stratford-upon-Avon, everything revolved around the bard. His birthplace is a stunningly well-preserved house in the centre of the small town. Of course you can visit it (and you’ll have a taste of that peculiarly British obsession for fake meat or plastic eggs on display in the kitchen). In the garden some of the staff is in costume and improvises fragments of Shakespeare’s plays. While I walked on the garden I spotted a bust of Indian poet and playwright Tagore, who was a great admirer of the bard. I wonder why him, with all the admirers Shakespeare has had!

The marvellous cottage of Shakespeare’s wife, Anne Hathaway, is another place that enchanted me, with its garden full of herbs and flowers, its orchard and its maze. The tour guides love to explain how the house passed on one generation after the other in the Hathaway family and how many expressions we use in English, such as ‘raining cats and dogs’ or ‘one over the eight’, originated in the Tudor period, when life conditions were notoriously very different from ours. The atmosphere here was simply peaceful and romantic. Together with Shakespeare's grave in the small, beautiful church of the town and the Shakespeare Royal Company, it made my day!

Anne Hathaway's cottage

In this almost unintentional literary tour, Westminster Abbey was of course included. Together with the burial monuments of Queen Elizabeth I and much of the Tudor dynasty, the abbey is famous for its Poets' Corner, where writers such as Charles Dickens, Geoffrey Chaucer (that my Italian-speaking audioguide called Goffredo!), Rudyard Kipling and Thomas buried are buried. The problem is that sometimes you cannot distinguish the burials from the memorials, so the visitor is led to think that also the Brontes's sisters, W.H. Auden or Jane Austen are buried here, but they are not.

Well, I'm sure I have forgotten some of the many things I have seen (ops, Pinter's play!) and I could write about things I have visited in my previous visits to the UK (Virginia Woolf's house in Bloomsbury or Walter Scott's munument in Edinburgh, not to mention Deacon Brodie's tavern which inspired Stevenson to write one of his most famous novels), but I'm sure you've heard enough for now...

"The Ramayana" by R.K. Narayan

2011-08-24T01:12:00.000+02:00

As the back cover points out, “The Ramayana” ‘is, quite simply, the greatest of Indian epics’. It was first put in writing between 1500 and the fourth century B.C., but it has been adapted and retold many times, each storyteller offering a slightly different version in the intent to accommodate the tale to one’s demands and preferences. This version, told by R.K. Narayan, is based on the Tamil version written by Kamban (the original is in Sanskrit, instead). Narayan (1906 – 2001) has been one of the greatest Indian writers in English and he is still one of the country’s favourites. His contribution to the Indian novel in English predates Salman Rushdie by almost fifty years, his first novel “Swami and Friends” being written in 1935. He has written books on Indian legends and epic sagas that are still wildly read and offer a decent introduction to a story that is larger than life. Narayan’s book is a shortened prose adaptation and those who are looking for a rich version of the story with all its strands and descriptions should look somewhere else. His writing is not without charms, however.

The story is well known: Rama, the favourite son of the King of Ayodhya and an incarnation of the god Vishnu, is married to Sita, whom he has conquered by managing to wield the incredibly heavy bow of god Shiva owned by her father, the King of Mithila. Rama is destined not to live in peace, however. In fact, his stepmother plots against him and manages to send him into exile in the woods for twelve years. The forest being a rather dangerous place, the couple, accompanied by Rama’s brother Lakshmana, have a hideous encounter with a demon, a rakshasa woman who tries to seduce Rama and is disfigured by Rama’s brother in punishment. As a consequence, her brother Ravana plots to abduct Sita, by sending another demon disguised as a golden deer to distract Rama and his brother. Ravana tries to conquer Sita’s heart, but she sternly waits for her husband to set her free. Rama in the meantime has formed an alliance with Hanuman, a monkey hero. Rama learns from a vulture that Sita is in the island of Lanka, so Hanuman crosses the sea and spies on Ravana. After a war between Ravana and Rama’s forces, Sita is freed. Her trials are not ended, though, because her husband seems cold and distant. This is because he is not sure that Ravana has not touched her, therefore she proposes to undergo a trail by fire. Sita, eager to prove her innocence, steps into the fire and is protected by Agni, the god of fire. Narayan’s adaptation ends with Rama and Sita going back to Ayodhya after the end of their period of exile, thus omitting a part of the tale that the author considers not popular enough and, always according to him, a later addition to the story.

The most interesting and controversial part of the epic, the trial by fire, is dealt with rather briskly, whereas other parts are described at length with evident gusto. Sometimes I found Sita annoying, for example when she insists that her husband should catch the golden deer for her, even though he suspects that it is just a trick from s demon, as golden deer notoriously don’t exist. I guess that the whole concept of duty (dharma actually) is explored in the epic, but for a “modern”, western mind it is not easy to grasp.

Another thing that I noticed and that puzzled me is that when Sita offers to prove her purity by entering the fire, Narayan considers that Rama was wrong in not stopping her. The author, in this case, enters the epic tale and makes his own corrections and comments, as many tellers of the story have done in the past. Narayan justifies Rama by claiming that in that moment he didn’t remember he was an avatar of Vishnu. Errare humanum est, Narayan seems to tell us. It is often said that “The Ramayana” is a somehow male chauvinist text, but if we take Narayan’s version for granted it is not so.

I also find Hanuman, the king of the monkey people, an interesting character. I like the parallels between the monkeys’ virtues and values with those same qualities in the human people. These qualities are often highlighted and contrasted with the prejudice and low esteem of the monkey people. As for the prejudices, one clear example is when Ravana is furious because he did not manage to kill “the monkey”, whereas the low esteem of Hanuman and his peers is evident when his army needs someone else (Sampathi, brother to the eagle Jatayu) to tell them that they can take any form they want, thus finding a way to cross the sea to rescue Sita. Some people even suggest that Hamunan and its people are a mythological version of the indigenous inhabitants of the south of India, as a contrast with the northern people of Aryan descent (Rama’s people). This is a fascinated hypothesis, but I wonder if it is a correct interpretation or just some gibberish talk.

Although I already knew bits and pieces of the story, I enjoyed Narayan’s short book. It is an extreme summary for a complex story and the writing is sometimes too stiff for my taste, but it was altogether a pleasant reading experience.

London is an ... "Art of Pariahs"

2011-08-05T17:20:00.000+02:00

I have been studying in the British Library for the past two weeks and I will for the following weeks. I have been working on an essay on transnationality and as London inspires me I have been very busy writing.

I'll post here one of my favourite poems from Meena Alexander's book "The Shock of Arrival".

Art of Pariahs

Back against the kitchen stove

Draupadi sings:

In my head Beirut still burns.*

The Queen of Nubia, of God's Upper Kingdom,

the Rani of Jhansi, transfigured, raising her sword,

are players too. They have entered with me

into North America and share these walls.

We make up an art of pariahs:

Two black children spray painted white,

their eyes burning,

a white child raped in a car

for her pale skin's sake,

an Indian child stoned by a bus shelter,

they thought her white in twilight.

Someone is knocking and knocking

but Draupadi will not let him in.

She squats by the stove and sings:

The Rani shall not sheathe her sword

nor Nubia's queen restrain her elephants

till tongues of fire wrap a tender blue,

a second skin, a solace to our children.

Come walk with me toward a broken wall

- Beirut still burns - carved into its face.

Outcastes all, let's conjure honey scraped from stones,

an underground railroad stacked with rainbow skin,

Manhattan's mixed rivers rising.

London Fields...

2011-07-31T21:56:00.001+02:00

... where the homonymous Martin Amis's novel is NOT set.

Greetings from London! I'll be also covering the literary London...

“Because of India. Selected Poems and Fables” by Suniti Namjoshi

2011-07-14T23:28:00.000+02:00

Rated among the best Indian contemporary poets, Suniti Namjoshi has published several books of verse. In spite of this, her best achievement are nonetheless prose pieces: unusual fables, “Feminsit Fables” (also the title of one of her books) of which there are a couple of examples in this collection published in 1989. Being fables, Nanjoshi’s fragments – I cannot but call them such, as they are merely one page each in length – feature animals rather than humans and have a moral lesson.

My favourite fable of this book is “The One-Eyed Monkey Goes into Print”, where the monkey wants to have its book published, but she is been told that, as they are not many one-eyed monkeys, she should write about humans if she expects humans to read her book (or about crocodiles if she expects them to read her book). Consequently, the monkey leaves a blank space every time the expression ‘one-eyed monkey’ appears in her manuscript, but she is been told by the editor that it is not clear who is talking to who, therefore it is not possible to publish the book. Tired and frustrated, the monkey fills the gaps with the original words and tries with a small publishing house. Her book is accepted, but because there is no audience for such a book, she is asked to contribute with some money for the publication. At the end of the story, the monkey decides to rewrite her book with the help of her crocodile friends and she publishes it with the title ‘The Amorous Adventures of a One-Eyed Minx’.

This story tells of how the publishing world works, of course, but is also a metaphor for the situations which people like the author have to face every day. Suniti Namjoshi is in fact an Indian lesbian feminist writer, hence the choice of a one-eyed monkey as the protagonist of her fable: they are not very common, they can even be called exceptions in the natural world, as lesbians and, even more, Indian lesbians are. Yet, the monkey would like to be published and the reader clearly wants the monkey to achieve its goal. Sadly, there is hardly any audience for third-world lesbian poets. Suniti Namjoshi uses animals as a metaphor for gender and for a different sexual orientation that makes her Other. She writes in the preface to a section of poems called “The Jackass and the Lady”: ‘It’s apparent to many women that in a humanist universe, which has been male-centred historically, women are “the other”, together with the birds and the beasts and the rest of creation. And identification with the rest of creation, possibly with the whole of it, would only be logical” (pg. 29). Now I’m curious to read more of these fables and that is what I will do when I’ll look for another of Namjoshi’s books. In my opinion, they are so much better than her poetry: more original and fresh, funny and immediate, but also deep and wise.

Through the words of Suniti Namjoshi (in this book there are poems, but also short introductions to every section) the reader learns of the steps the author took before reaching a feminist and lesbian conscience. It is interesting and puzzling to learn that at the beginning, she did not even included the word ‘lesbian’ in her vocabulary, resorting to a ‘“Well, all right, do what you like, but BE DISCREET”’ (p.9) kind of attitude.

Her poetry is simple and linear (she uses everyday words exclusively), but the result is sometimes stilted. Luckily, when her poetry is more relaxed (this collection spans twenty years, with ups and downs) some interesting images come out (an upside swan, for example, has me thinking since I read that poem). In her work she often expresses the difficulty and fear of facing a real love affair and not imagined, unnreal ones (‘And if I spoke to you, what would I say? / That there’s a change? That I can still feel the ground / Shifting and giving under my feet?’), but also tackles issues such as cultural clash, or the bundle of languages spoken in contemporary India (‘The government official / speaks in English with friends, / in Hindi with servants, / and reserves his mother tongue / for his 2 Alsatian dogs’) and the role of poetry in a world of violence (‘Next time a battery / of poets will be ready’).

She often resorts to mythology – ‘Homage to Circe’, for instance, is one of my favourite poems in the collection – or literature: “Alice in Wonderland”, a book congenial to her because of ‘the sense of the absurd, the satirical devices, the effective alteration of perspective ad the subversive skills of “the outsider”’ (p.103), but also Shakespeare’s “The Tempest”, attractive perhaps because of its exotic location (‘in English, things Indian became exotic’, p.42) and of course because of the presence of Caliban, a perfect Other.

All in all, it is a nice introduction to this little known poet. It provides a lot of information on how, when and where her single books were written. It is not exhaustive and one feels that a couple more fables would have been appropriate, but for that you have her other books anyway. There are some interesting ideas in the poems as well, but it is not the kind of poetry I enjoy the most: no word plays, no lyrical moments, almost no verses that stick to your mind, only down-to-earth evocations of the most common images of poetry (the mermaid, the moon, the rose). The fables are so much better: who can resist a fragment called 'The Saurian Chronicles'?

"La Linea d'Ombra" di Joseph Conrad

2011-07-05T15:15:00.000+02:00

La mia recensione di questo libro è uscita su Paperstreet ed è disponibile a questo link. In più, vorrei suggerirvi di leggere l'introduzione al libro scritta da Roberto Saviano, scritta per l'edizione della Biblioteca di Repubblica. Tra le varie cose che dice su questa novella (o romanzo breve?), c'è questo passaggio che vorrei riportare, non perché sia una cosa che non è stata mai detta su "La Linea d'Ombra", ma perché riassume in poche righe qual è il succo di questo testo:

Alcune narrazioni sembrano dei romanzi per l'anima. Ti spiegano come affrontare delle situazioni esistenziali, come smontare e rimontare le idee che ti sei fatto a proposito. "La Linea d'Ombra" è uno di questi: un capolavoro della letteratura che può divenire strumento pratico di consapevolezza del proprio essere e agire nel mondo. Perché racconta di un'esperienza universale, la gioventù e il passaggio all'età adulta, dalla quale però - come spiega Conrad nel libro - "ci si attende una sensazione particolare e personale: un po' di se stessi".

-- and you, Garcia Lorca, what were you doing down by the watermelons?

2011-07-04T14:43:00.000+02:00

A Supermarket in California

What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman, for
I walked down the sidestreets under the trees with a headache
self-conscious looking at the full moon.
          In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went
into the neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations!
          What peaches and what penumbras!  Whole families
shopping at night!  Aisles full of husbands!  Wives in the
avocados, babies in the tomatoes!--and you, Garcia Lorca, what
were you doing down by the watermelons?

          I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old grubber,
poking among the meats in the refrigerator and eyeing the grocery
boys.
          I heard you asking questions of each: Who killed the
pork chops?  What price bananas?  Are you my Angel?
          I wandered in and out of the brilliant stacks of cans
following you, and followed in my imagination by the store
detective.
          We strode down the open corridors together in our
solitary fancy tasting artichokes, possessing every frozen
delicacy, and never passing the cashier.

          Where are we going, Walt Whitman?  The doors close in
an hour.  Which way does your beard point tonight?
          (I touch your book and dream of our odyssey in the
supermarket and feel absurd.)
          Will we walk all night through solitary streets?  The
trees add shade to shade, lights out in the houses, we'll both be
lonely.

          Will we stroll dreaming of the lost America of love
past blue automobiles in driveways, home to our silent cottage?
          Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage-teacher,
what America did you have when Charon quit poling his ferry and
you got out on a smoking bank and stood watching the boat
disappear on the black waters of Lethe?

Berkeley, 1955
Allen Ginsberg

“Domani nella Battaglia Pensa a Me” di Javier Marías

2011-06-29T15:50:00.000+02:00

Alla fine del libro – per lo meno dell’edizione spagnola che ho comprato per comprovare che sono ancora capace di leggere in questa lingua – c’è un breve epilogo che non è altro che la trascrittura del discorso tenuto da Marías in occasione della consegna del premio Rómulo Gallegos. Qui ci viene rivelata una cosa molto importante riguardo al significato ultimo di questo romanzo. Marías dice: “Quizá estamos hechos en igual medida de lo que fue y de lo que pudo ser” (“Forse siamo fatti in egual misura di quello che è stato e di quello che sarebbe potuto essere”). I personaggi di “Domani nella Battaglia Pensa a Me”, infatti, si trovano spesso in situazioni precarie, frequentano luoghi a loro estranei dove sono quindi degli intrusi, e devono ricorrere alla menzogna per non farsi scoprire. A volte prendono momentaneamente il posto di un’altra persona e, soprattutto, alla fine dei conti subiranno le conseguenze dei loro sotterfugi.

Il protagonista Victor Francés è un ghost writer (un “negro de la escritura”, come si dice in modo alquanto buffo in spagnolo) che vive della fama degli altri, scrivendo copioni per la televisione e discorsi per vari personaggi pubblici. Nel bel mezzo di un appuntamento galante con una donna sposata, l’uomo si trova in una situazione paradossale che non può che turbarlo profondamente: la donna si sente male e nel giro di pochissimo tempo, senza quasi rendersene conto, muore lasciando un bambino piccolo a dormire in una stanza piena di modellini di aeroplani e l’ospite, oramai divenuto un intruso in una casa sconosciuta, ad interrogarsi sul da farsi. Che cosa sarebbe successo se Victor Francés non si fosse trovato a cena da quella donna? Cosa sarebbe successo al bambino? E se invece Marta, che ora giace morta sul suo letto mezza svestita in modo imbarazzante, si fosse ricordata per tempo che il marito era all’estero per lavoro e avesse invitato a cena il suo “solito” amante, di cui Victor scopre l’esistenza grazie ai messaggi della segreteria telefonica che riascolta numerose volte? Sono queste alcune delle domande che si fa il protagonista-narratore, mentre continua a mentire per intrufolarsi nella vita dei familiari della donna morta per curiosità, come d’altronde facciamo noi lettori quando a forza ci intromettiamo nella vita dei personaggi dei romanzi che leggiamo, scovandone i segreti più inconfessabili e le emozioni più intime, senza vergognarcene e provando persino piacere nella continua finzione.

Javier Marías si ferma a descrivere le singole scene nel dettaglio, rallentando costantemente la narrazione, di modo che siamo costretti – almeno, io sono stata costretta – a leggere lentamente, assaporando la qualità delle riflessioni, spesso anche esistenzialiste, dell’autore. Per questo non è uno scrittore per tutti: la noia a volte è in agguato, nonostante l’indubbio valore letterario. Lo sforzo di sopportare un ritmo talmente lento da risultare addirittura snervante, credo venga ripagato dalla profondità e dalla lucidità di acune considerazioni sulla morte e sulla precarietà dell’esistenza. Chissà quanto Marías è consapevole della propria verbosità e quanto abbia lottato con editori (e lettori forse?) per non modificare questo stile, oserei dire, quasi proustiano.

Diverse citazioni letterarie e cinematografiche arricchiscono il testo, da quella memorabile di Shakespeare tratta dal Riccardo III che dà il titolo al romanzo a quella di “Campanadas a Medianoche” di Orson Welles, che non sono, come accade troppo spesso, gettate nel testo per autocompiacimento, ma contribuiscono ad approfondire le questioni trattate nel testo. Sono dei mantra che ricorrono, facendoci riflettere su come le emozioni umane siano ricorrenti, come una frase che Shakespeare mette in bocca al fantasma di una regina assetata di vendetta possa essere valida anche nella Madrid contemporanea. Il libro tra l’altro sfrutta i benefici di un’aura da romanzo giallo: a chi appartiene, per esempio, quella voce che nella segreteria piange in modo inconsolabile e la cui voce suona irriconoscibile per il pianto?

"Domani nella Battaglia Pensa a Me" di Javier Marías

edito da Einaudi, 1998 (12 €)

Sull’autore: Javier Marías è uno tra i massimi scrittori spagnoli contemporanei. E’ nato nel 1951 a Madrid, figlio di un filosofo che è stato un oppositore di Franco. E’ autore di numerosi romanzi, tra i quali “Tutte le Anime” (1989, tradotto in Italia solo nel 1999), “Un Cuore Così Bianco” (1992) e “Domani nella Battaglia Pensa a Me” (1994) formano la cosiddetta “Trilogia Sentimentale”. Nel 2002 ha pubblicato il primo capitolo di una seconda, ambiziosa trilogia chiamata “Il Tuo Volto Domani”, che comprende i romanzi “Febbre e Lancia”, “Ballo e Sogno” e “Veleno e Ombra e Addio”. Javier Marías è anche traduttore, in particolare di romanzi inglesi in spagnolo.

“The Country Without a Post Office” by Agha Shahid Ali

2011-06-21T19:42:00.000+02:00

In the case of Agha Shahid Ali (1949 – 2001), the entry about the author’s country that I usually have at the beginning of every review makes me feel ill at ease, so I decided to leave that out. We are speaking of a Kashmiri-American poet, born in New Delhi in a newly independent India and forced into exile in the United States because of the violent reality of Kashmir, which was annexed to a mostly Hindu nation, India, even if it was a predominantly Muslim region also claimed by Pakistan. To express this uneasiness, the poet uses among other things the metaphor of stamps (“I’ve brought cash, a currency of paisleys / to buy the new stamps, rare already, blank, / no nation named on them”).

The country without a post office in the title is obviously Kashmir, written in endless ways (“Kashmir, Kaschmir, Cashmere, Qashmir, Cashmir…”) to stress the elusiveness of the places of memory, which in the meantime change but in our minds are still as we left them, even though faded and distorted by the present time we live in. In Kashmir, incidentally, several layers created by migrations, conquests and conversions have set up a multiplicity of meanings, mirrored in the name of the region and in its different transliterations. These layers, superimposed but also cause of frictions and fractures, perfectly describe the poems of Agha Shahid Ali. Outlining it, Meena Alexander speaks of a “geography of dissonance, place tearing open to reveal another place, an elsewhere the poet must claim in order to reach where he wants to go” (Poetics of Dislocation, p.9). It is thus possible that the phone rings in America and, when the conversation has finished, you hang up the phone in Kashmir, as it happens in the poem that gives its name to the entire collection.

Those who in front of a poem always feel the urgency to understand should take note that Agha Shahid Ali’s poetry is built through associations rather than through a concrete narrative plot. Yet the poet often speaks of real events, like when in 1990 the post office of Srinagar closed down for several months because of violent insurrections against the government and the mail piled up in the house of a friend of the poet’s father.

Agha Shahid Ali’s poetry is packed with nostalgia and awareness of the fact that once you have left the native country and one’s past are irretrievable. The dreamlike quality of his poetry are triggered by this desire to grasp, to own once again the places of childhood and one’s roots. Yet it is a desire accomplished only in brief moments when several places superimpose, or in dreams, which obstinately and unreasonably bring us back to the places we have lived in, distorting them and adapting them to the concrete reality of the present. Exile, for the poet, is like the Arab language, used in prayer by all Muslims, but not always possessed or understood. In the couplets of a ghazal, Agha Shahid Ali expresses these feelings:

The only language of loss left in the world is Arabic –

These words were said to me in a language not Arabic.

[…]

From exile Mahmoud Darwish writes to the world:

You’ll all pass between the fleeting words of Arabic.

At an exhibition of miniatures, such delicate calligraphy:

Kashmiri paisleys tied into the golden hair of Arabic!

[…]

When Lorca died, they left the balconies open and saw:

his qasidas braided on the horizon, into knots of Arabic.

(“Ghazal”)

Agha Shahid Ali has introduced Americans to the poetic form of the ghazal, through his works and his translation of the great Urdu poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz. Some American poets, after him, have experimented with this poetic form in English, as García Lorca had done before with Spanish. Ali said that every couplet, repeating in its second verse the rhyme in the first couplet, is like a stone from a necklace, which should continue to shine in that vivid isolation.

This is the kind of poetry that has apt quotations, sometimes from poets also interested in the problems of nationalism and self-rule, for instance Yeats “Now and in time to be / Wherever green is worn, … / A terrible beauty is born”), or from cherished poets, like Emily Dickinson who lived in Amherst like him. Of her he reports a few lines at the beginning of a poem (“If I could bribe them by a Rose / I'd bring them every flower that grows./ From Amherest To Cashmire”). In spite of this he has an extremely original style: he uses free verse as well as some specific poetic forms (villanelle or ghazal, for instance), thus mixing several poetic traditions. He speaks of utterly personal feelings and experiences of loss and nostalgia, but he also reflects on the ultimate meaning of history and of human conflicts.

About the author: Agha Shahid Ali was born in New Delhi in 1949. He was educated there and in Kashmir, before emigrating to America. There he was the recipient of several grants. He is the author of, among other things, "A Nostalgist's Map of America" (1991), "Call me Ishmael Tonight: A book of ghazals" (2003) and "The Country Without A Post Office" (1998). He also edited a book of ghazals in English, "Ravishing Disunities: Real Ghazals in English" (2000). He died of brain cancer in 2001.

“The Country Without a Post Office” di Agha Shahid Ali

2011-06-21T19:30:00.000+02:00

Nel caso di Agha Shahid Ali (1949 – 2001), la voce sulla nazionalità dell’autore che di solito metto all’inizio di ogni recensione mi mette a disagio, così ho deciso di toglierla del tutto. Si tratta infatti di un poeta kashmiro-americano, nato a Nuova Delhi in un’India appena indipendente e costretto all’esilio negli Stati Uniti a causa della realtà violenta che imperversa nel Kashmir, annesso ad un’India a maggioranza indù pur essendo in larga parte musulmano e rivendicato dal Pakistan. Per esprimere questo disagio, il poeta usa tra le varie cose la metafora dei francobolli (“I’ve brought cash, a currency of paisleys / to buy the new stamps, rare already, blank, / no nation named on them”[1]).

Il paese senza un ufficio postale del titolo è ovviamente il Kashmir, scritto in infinite maniere (“Kashmir, Kaschmir, Cashmere, Qashmir, Cashmir…”) per sottolineare l’inafferrabilità dei luoghi della memoria, che nel frattempo mutano ma nella nostra mente rimangono così come li abbiamo lasciato, sebbene sbiaditi e distorti dal presente che viviamo. In Kashmir, tra l’altro, diversi strati formati da migrazioni, conquiste e conversioni hanno creato una molteplicità di significati, che si rispecchiano nel nome della regione e nelle sue diverse traslitterazioni. E sono proprio questi strati, sovrapponibili ma capaci anche di creare attriti e corti circuito, a descrivere al meglio la poesia di Agha Shahid Ali. Nel descriverla Meena Alexander parla di “una geografia della dissonanza, un luogo che si apre, si scarta per rivelare un altro luogo, un altrove che il poeta deve rivendicare per arrivare dove vuole” (Poetics of Dislocation, p.9, traduzione mia). Così può capitare che il telefono squilli in America e che, a conversazione finita, lo si riagganci in Kashmir, come accade nella poesia che dà il titolo alla raccolta.

Bisogna far notare a coloro che di fronte alla poesia sentono l’urgenza di capire che la poesia di Agha Shahid Ali è costruita per associazioni piuttosto che con un filo narrativo ben preciso. Nonostante questo il poeta parla spesso di avvenimenti reali, come quando nel 1990 l’ufficio postale di Srinagar fu chiuso per dei mesi a causa delle violente insurrezioni contro il governo e la posta si accumulava in casa di un amico del padre del poeta.

I versi di Agha Shahid Ali sono intessuti di nostalgia e coscienza del fatto che una volta che si è partiti il paese natio e perciò anche il proprio passato non sono più recuperabili. La qualità onirica della poesia di Ali è dovuta proprio a questo desiderio di afferrare, di possedere di nuovo i posti dell’infanzia e delle proprie radici, ma è un desiderio che si compie soltanto in brevi momenti di sovrapposizioni tra più luoghi, o nei sogni, che ostinatamente e in maniera insensata ci riportano nei luoghi dove abbiamo vissuto, distorcendoli e adattandoli alla concreta realtà del presente. L’esilio, per il poeta, è come l’arabo, usato in preghiera da tutti i musulmani, ma non sempre posseduto o conosciuto. Nei distici di un ghazal, Agha Shahid Ali incastona questi sentimenti:

The only language of loss left in the world is Arabic –

These words were said to me in a language not Arabic.

[…]

From exile Mahmoud Darwish writes to the world:

You’ll all pass between the fleeting words of Arabic.

At an exhibition of miniatures, such delicate calligraphy:

Kashmiri paisleys tied into the golden hair of Arabic!

[…]

When Lorca died, they left the balconies open and saw:

his qasidas braided on the horizon, into knots of Arabic.[2]

(“Ghazal”)

Agha Shahid Ali ha introdotto gli americani alla forma poetica del ghazal, attraverso i propri componimenti e le sue traduzioni del grande poeta urdu Faiz Ahmed Faiz. Alcuni poeti americani, dopo di lui, hanno sperimentato con questa forma nella lingua inglese, come già aveva fatto García Lorca con lo spagnolo. Ali disse che ogni distico del ghazal, cioè ogni coppia di versi, che ripete nel secondo verso la rima presente nel primo distico della poesia, è come la pietra di una collana, che da sola dovrebbe continuare a brillare in vivido isolamento.

Questo è il genere di poesia che risplende di citazioni calzanti, a volte di poeti che si sono interessati ai problemi legati al nazionalismo e all’indipendenza, per esempio Yeats (“Now and in time to be / Wherever green is worn, … / A terrible beauty is born”[3]), e altre volte di poeti amati, ad esempio Emily Dickinson, vissuta ad Amherst come lui, di cui riporta un passaggio all’inizio di un componimento (“If I could bribe them by a Rose / I'd bring them every flower that grows./ From Amherest To Cashmire”[4]). Tuttavia, è anche un tipo di scrittura molto personale, che utilizza i versi liberi così come alcune forme poetiche ben definite (la villanelle o il ghazal), mescolando così varie tradizioni poetiche. Si riferisce a sentimenti ed esperienze molto personali di perdita e di nostalgia, così come riflessioni sul senso ultimo della storia e dei conflitti umani.

Sull'autore: Agha Shahid Ali è nato a Nuova Delhi nel 1949. Ha studiato a Nuova Delhi e in Kashmir, prima di trasferirisi in America, dove ha vinto numerose borse di studio. Tra le sue collezioni di poesie figurano "A Nostalgist's Map of America" (1991) e "Call me Ishmael Tonight: A Book of Ghazals" (2003), oltre che "The Country Without a Post Office" (1998). Ha curato anche un libro di ghazal in lingua inglese, "Ravishing Disunities: Real Ghazal in English" (2000). E' morto prematuramente di cancro al cervello nel 2001.

[1] “Ho portato dei contanti, una valuta di tessuti a motivi cashmire / per comprare i nuovi francobolli, rari di già, spogli / nessuna nazione vi è nominata” (traduzione mia).

[2] “L’unica lingua della perdita rimasta al mondo è l’arabo / Queste parole mi furono dette in una lingua che non era l’arabo. / […] Dall’esilio Mahmoud Darwish scrive al mondo: / Passerete tutti per le parole sfuggenti dell’arabo. / Ad una mostra di miniature, una calligrafia delicatissima: / motivi cashmire annodati ai capelli d’oro dell’arabo! / […] Quando Lorca morì, lasciarono le finestre aperte e videro: / le sue qasidas intessute nell’orizzonte, nei nodi dell’arabo” (traduzione mia).

[3] “Ora e nel tempo avvenire, / Ovunque s'indossi il verde, […] / Una bellezza terribile è nata.” (da “Pasqua 1916”).

[4] “Se potessi corromperli con una Rosa / Gli porterei ogni fiore che cresce / Da Amherst al Kashmir!”.

"Jasmine" by Bharati Mukherjee

2011-06-07T20:15:00.000+02:00

Year of first publication: 1989
Genre: novel
Country: India / Canada / USA

Jyoti, Jasmine Vijh, Jase and Jane Ripplemeyer are not the same person. Jyoti lives in a village in Punjab, in a house without electricity and toilets, while Jasmine lives with her husband Prakash in a small apartment in Jullundhar, where she endeavours to read a VCR manual in order to brush up her English, in the wait of emigrating to America. Jase is a live-in caregiver in a spacious and expensive apartment in the Upper West Side of New York City, and has a crush on her employer, whereas Jane Ripplemeyer is the pregnant young wife of a middle-aged Iowa banker who has left his wife for her. Unfortunately, he has become an invalid after an indebted farmer shot him twice at the back, in front of the door of his house on a Christmas eve. Moreover, Jane is an illegal immigrant and has a past of violence and confusion which she is trying to forget. Yet, this is not a book with several apparently unconnected stories, but one single story, where the protagonist constantly reinvents herself, modifying her identity as her American experience goes on and as she acquires consciousness of what it means to start a new life in a new country.

Leaving behind her widowhood (her husband suddenly died, murdered by a Sikh terrorist), Jasmine is first raped by a disfigured sailor, the captain of the fishing boat with which she illegally arrived in America, and then ends up in the ghettoised neighbourhood of Flushing, in New York, hosted by a former professor of her deceased husband. Dissatisfied of that life, too similar to the one she had in India, Jasmine finds a job as a live-in caregiver for the Hayes, who treat her as if she were a host and a friend, not a maidservant. The story unfolds in endless flashbacks, so that the reader doesn’t understand almost until the end of the book how Jasmine has ended up in a rural community in Iowa, where people struggle to understand her origins and what they involve.

The plot, as the New York Times has written about another of her novels, has never been one of Bharati Mukherjee’s strengths: in several instances the development of the characters’ vicissitudes is unrealistic or even preposterous. For example, the protagonist kills a man who wanted to abuse her, stabbing him several times at the abdomen, then continues on her way, becoming a caregiver, a wife and a mother. She never mulls over the reasons leading the man, a deeply-scarred sailor evil as only characters of the fairytales can be, to earn his living with the smuggling of human beings. She is not upset nor has nightmares about it, only a slight hesitation, followed by pure pleasure, at the moment of entering the shower, a commodity that she first experienced in the motel where she was staying with this man. Jasmine is even able to tell her adopted son Du, grown up in a Vietnamese refugee camp where he has see all kinds of atrocities, that she has committed murder once, without thus damaging the mother-son relationship. The inconsistencies don’t end up here: fifteen-year-old Du suddenly decides to leave his adoptive family in order to join his sister, who works in a taco stand in Los Angeles, without saying goodbye to his father and leaving his mother at home alone with a rifle on her lap, because she has to defend herself from a depressed and homicidal-murderous neighbour who threatens to kill her. I could quote more examples, but the gist is that in this book the farewells, the losses, the traumas aren’t tackled and analysed deeply enough. In other words, the characters don’t brood over their choices as it happens in real life, and wounds don’t leave permanent scars.

It isn’t nevertheless a boring read: the story is gripping, also thanks to the frequent use of short sentences, which sound however stilted sometimes, as if the author had wanted to reproduce the style of a male American author, concise and pragmatic. Twenty years ago for the themes tackled the book was probably rather innovative and certainly shocking. The America described by Bharati Mukherjee is a country of endless possibilities, where an illegal immigrant who has committed a murder can become a respectable Mrs. Ripplemeyer, but it’s also a dangerous country, where a father and loving husband becomes an invalid following a gun fire or where illegal immigration flows illicitly without Americans realizing it.

Jasmine has always lived on the edge of change: that same Punjab where an astrologer predicted her a life as a widow has been swept away by scooters and television, and also the farmers in Iowa have been living an era of great changes. New, hyphenated identities are in town and new possibilities open up for young farmers of the area. By the end of the book Jasmine will need to choosee between an old life of duties, in other words between the life of a caregiver, and a new freer existence, identified by the American spirit and the expansion towards the West. The ending catches the reader rather unprepared and leaves a feeling of uneasiness, especially for ethical reasons, but also for structural coherence.

The protagonist becomes first infatuated with and then falls in love with her employer, Taylor Hayes: ‘I fell in love with his world, its ease, its careless confidence and graceful self-absorption. I wanted to become the person they thought they saw: humorous, intelligent, refined, affectionate.’ (p.171). Taylor is, in other words, like America itself, unconsciously fascinating, so much that it inspires a desire to be imitated and assimilated. At a certain point in the novel, Du’s teacher says that he is in a hurry to become all American. This is exactly what Jasmine is trying to do: she is constantly replacing saris with T-shirts and cords, learning the names of local baseball teams, buying Dairy Queen at the mall and even learning how to walk like an American. It is a complete metamorphosis: by the end of the book the protagonist is conscious of having completely cut off her Indian self, differently from her son who has kept in contact with his community of origin, but she doesn’t seem to make any steps towards her son’s direction. It seems to me that this choice reflects the culture of the ‘melting pot’ still popular in the 1980s and 90s, when immigrants were supposed to melt into a more homogenous culture.

About the author: Bharati Mukherjee was born in Calcutta in 1940 into a wealthy family and was educated in India and the USA (Iowa). She has lived for ten years in Canada with her husband and has Canadian citizenship, but now she lives in the USA. Her works often relate the difficulties of forging a new American identity and the problems faced by Asian Americans. Among her novels, at least “Desirable Daughters” (2002) deserves to be mentioned, and among her collections of short stories her most influential work has been “The Middleman and Other Stories” (1988), which won the National Book Critics Circle Award and contains the short stories that was the bud of her novel “Jasmine” (1989).

“Jasmine” di Bharati Mukherjee

2011-06-07T20:14:00.000+02:00

Anno di prima pubblicazione: 1989

Genere: romanzo

Paese: India / Canada / USA

Jyoti, Jasmine Vijh, Jase e Jane Ripplemeyer non sono la stessa persona. Jyoti vive in un villaggio del Punjab indiano, in una casa senza elettricità e senza servizi igienici, Jasmine invece vive con il marito Prakash in un piccolo appartamento a Jullundhar, dove si sforza di leggere il manuale d’installazione di un videoregistratore per esercitare il suo inglese, in attesa di poter emigrare in America. Jase è una ‘live-in caregiver’, cioè una bambinaia, in un ampio e costoso appartamento dell’Upper West Side di New York, ed ha una cotta per il suo datore di lavoro, mentre Jane Ripplemeyer è la giovane moglie di un banchiere dell’Iowa di mezza età che per lei ha lasciato la moglie e da cui aspetta un bambino. Purtroppo però lui è diventato invalido dopo che alla vigilia di Natale un agricoltore sommerso dai debiti gli ha sparato due colpi di pistola alla schiena davanti alla porta di casa, mentre lei si trova illegalmente nel paese e ha un passato di violenza e confusione che cerca di dimenticare. Non si tratta però di un libro in cui si intrecciano diverse storie apparentemente scollegate tra loro, ma un’unica vicenda, in cui la protagonista si reinventa continuamente, modificando la propria identità man mano che la sua esperienza americana prosegue e man mano che conquista consapevolezza di che cosa significhi rifarsi una vita in un paese nuovo.

Lasciandosi alle spalle la vedovanza (il marito viene improvvisamente ucciso da un attentatore Sikh), Jasmine viene prima abusata dal marinaio sfigurato che comandava la nave container con cui è arrivata illegalmente in America, poi finisce nel quartiere-ghetto di Flushing, a New York, ospite del vecchio professore del marito morto. Insoddisfatta di quella vita, troppo simile a quella che conduceva in India, Jasmine trova lavoro come bambinaia presso gli Hayes, che la trattano come fosse un’ospite e un’amica, anziché una domestica. La storia si dipana con continui flashback, perciò non capiamo fino quasi alla fine del libro come Jasmine sia finita in una comunità rurale dell’Iowa, dove la gente fa fatica a capire le sue origini e che cosa implicano.

La trama, come scrisse il New York Times a proposito di un altro libro dell’autrice, non è mai stato il punto forte di Bharati Mukherjee: diversi sono i punti in cui il dipanarsi delle vicissitudini dei personaggi diventa poco realistico o addirittura assurdo. Per esempio, la protagonista uccide un uomo che la voleva violentare, infliggendogli numerose coltellate all’addome, poi prosegue per la sua strada, diventano bambinaia, moglie e madre. Non si arrovella mai sulle ragioni che avevano portato l’uomo, un marinaio dal volto sfigurato, cattivo come solo i personaggi delle favole, a guadagnarsi da vivere con il contrabbando di vite umane. Non ha turbamenti, né incubi, se non una leggera esitazione, seguita da puro piacere, quando entro in doccia, essendo questa una comodità provata per la prima volta proprio nella camera del motel doveva alloggiava con quest’uomo. Jasmine può persino dire a Du, il figlio adottivo, cresciuto nei campi profughi vietnamiti dove ha visto ogni tipo di atrocità, che una volta ha ucciso un uomo, senza che il rapporto madre-figlio si incrini. Ma le inconsistenze non finiscono qui: Du, che ha solo quindic’anni, decide di lasciare la famiglia adottiva per raggiungere la sorella che lavora in uno stand di tacos a Los Angeles, senza neanche salutare il padre e lasciando la madre con un fucile in mano per difendersi dal vicino di casa depresso ed esasperato che minaccia di ucciderla (o di uccidersi). Potrei fare molti altri esempi, ma il succo è questo: gli addii, le perdite, i traumi non sono affrontati ed analizzati in modo abbastanza approfondito. In altre parole i personaggi non rimuginano sulle loro scelte, come succede nella realtà, e le ferite non lasciano cicatrici indelebili.

Si tratta tuttavia di un libro per niente noioso, dal ritmo abbastanza incalzante, anche grazie anche all’utilizzo di frasi spesso molto corte, che però suonano talvolta innaturali, come se l’autrice avesse cercato di riprodurre il romanzo di un perfetto scrittore maschio ed americano, conciso e pragmatico. Vent’anni fa per i temi affrontati il libro era probabilmente abbastanza innovativo e certamente scioccante. L’America di Bharati Mukherjee è il paese dalle mille possibilità, dove un’immigrata illegale che ha ucciso un uomo può diventare una rispettabile Mrs. Ripplemeyer, ma è anche un paese pericoloso, dove un padre di famiglia e un marito amorevole può rimanere invalido in seguito ad un conflitto a fuoco o dove l’immigrazione illegale scorre clandestinamente senza che gli americani ne siano coscienti.

Jasmine ha sempre vissuto sull’orlo del cambiamento: il Punjab in cui un astrologo le aveva predetto una vita da vedova è stato spazzato via nel giro di qualche anno dalla rivoluzione degli scooter e della televisione, ed anche i contadini dell’Iowa stanno vivendo un’epoca di cambiamenti. Nuove identità segnate da un trattino sono arrivate in città e nuove possibilità si aprono per i giovani agricoltori della zona. Alla fine Jasmine dovrà scegliere tra una vecchia vita di oneri e doveri, in altre parole una vita da ‘care-giver’, e una nuova esistenza più libera, identificata con lo spirito americano e l’espansione verso ovest. Il finale spiazza e mette molto a disagio, soprattutto per motivi etici, ma anche strutturali al libro.

La protagonista si invaghisce e poi innamora del suo datore di lavoro, Taylor Hayes: ‘Mi innamorai del suo mondo, del suo essere sempre a proprio agio, della sua spontanea sicurezza e del suo aggraziato auto-assorbimento. Volevo diventare la persona che pensavano di vedere: divertente, intelligente, raffinata, affettuosa.’ (p.171). Taylor è, in poche parole, l’America stessa, inconsciamente affascinante, tanto da voler essere imitata ed assimilata. Ad un certo punto l’insegnante di Du osserva come egli stia cercando di diventare americano il più in fretta possibile. E’ esattamente quello che cerca di fare anche Jasmine: sostituisce il sari con ‘T-shirts and cords’, impara i nomi delle squadre di baseball locali e compra Dairy Queen al centro commerciale, imparando anche a camminare come un’americana. E’ una metamorfosi completa: nel finale la protagonista è cosciente di aver completamente reciso la sua metà indiana, a differenza del figlio che ha mantenuto dei contatti con la comunità di origine, ma non sembra fare alcun passo per andare nella direzione del figlio. A me sembra che questa scelta rifletta un po’ quella cultura del ‘melting pot’ che andava di moda in America negli anni ’80 e ’90: un calderone in cui il nuovo immigrato si immerge per sciogliersi in una cultura più omogenea.

Sull’autrice: Bharati Mukherjee è nata a Calcutta nel 1940 in una famiglia benestante ed ha studiato sia in India che negli Stati Uniti (Iowa). Ha vissuto per una decina d’anni in Canada con il marito, prendendo la nazionalità canadese, ma ora vive negli Stati Uniti, dove insegna scrittura creativa. I suoi lavori parlano spesso delle difficoltà nel forgiarsi una nuova identità americana e dei problemi affrontati dalla comunità indiano-americana. Tra i suoi romanzi, ricordiamo “Desirable Daughters” (2002) e tra le raccolte di racconti “The Middleman and Other Stories” (1988), che ha vinto il National Book Critics Circle Award e che contiene la storia da cui è nato il germe del romanzo “Jasmine” (1989). In italiano, a quanto mi risulta, è stata tradotta solo la raccolta di racconti "Episodi isolati" (edito dalla Feltrinelli, 1992, e pubblicato originariamente negli Stati Uniti nel 1985 con il titolo "Darkness").

V.S. Naipaul e le donne

2011-06-03T17:20:00.000+02:00

Sir Vidia ne ha combinata un'altra. Questa volta nel mirino non c'è Derek Walcott, né mezza Africa, e neppure l'India, ma l'intero genere femminile, ovvero metà del globo. Già, perché V.S. Naipaul, scrittore di origine trinidadense e vincitore del Premio Nobel per la Letteratura, ha recentemente affermato in un'intervista per la Royal Geographic Society che nessuna scrittrice donna, neanche Jane Austen, può considerasi alla pari con lui. Le donne, secondo V.S. Naipaul, scrivono "spazzatura sentimentale", in quantità così grande che lui, dopo un paragrafo o due, è già in grado di individuare il sesso dell'autore. Nel tritacarne del controverso autore de "La Maschera dell'Africa" è finita anche la sua ex redattrice, Diana Athill, che quando è passata dal leggere i libri in via di pubblicazione allo scriverli ha perso la stima di Naipaul. Noto per le sue dichiarazioni poco politically correct e per i suoi giudizi lapidari sugli scrittori di mezzo mondo, V.S. Naipaul è stato anche al centro di numerose faide tra scrittori ed è anche noto per considerarsi ormai da decenni il più grande scrittore di lingua inglese. Il talento non gli manca, questo sembra scontato dirlo, ma la modestia e il tatto, nonché il buon senso, questa è un'altra cosa.

Non è l'unica notizia recente per quanto riguarda le donne e la scrittura. Esquire, una rivista on-line per uomini, ha compilato una lista di libri che tutti gli uomini dovrebbero leggere, l'ennesima. Tra questi 75 libri non ce n'é nessuno scritto da una donna, tranne uno scritto da tale Flannery O'Connor. Joyland, che si occupa principalmente di "short fiction", si è divertito a postare una lista dei 250 libri scritti da una donna che ogni uomo dovrebbe leggere. Ormai non bado più a queste liste: sono molto spesso discutibili e inutili. Non ho voglia di fare l'ennesima conta, ma sono sicura, per esempio, che sia nella lista di Esquire che in quella di Joyland la stragrande maggioranza degli autori e delle autrici, scrivono in inglese. Quel che sembra certo, ad ogni modo, è che gli uomini non leggono e non stimano abbastanza i libri scritti dalle donne. Sarà per pregiudizio oppure le donne veramente non sanno scrivere?

"Fedeltà" di Grace Paley

2011-06-02T01:07:00.001+02:00

La mia recensione di "Fedeltà", ultima raccolta di poesie della scrittrice ed attivista newyorkese Grace Paley (edita da Minimum Fax per la collana Minimum Classics, 13 €) è uscita per la rivista on-line Paperstreet e si trova a questo link. Nel frattempo vi lascio una delle sue poesie più famose, prima in inglese e poi nella traduzione italiana.

My review of "Fidelity", the last collection of poems by New York-born writer and activist Grace Paley, has been published in Paperstreet, an Italian on-line cultural magazine. Here I'll post one of her most famous poems, first in English and then in the Italian translation.

Responsibility

It is the responsibility of society to let the poet be a poet
It is the responsibility of the poet to be a woman
It is the responsibility of the poet to stand on street corners
giving out poems and beautifully written leaflets
also leaflets you can hardly bear to look at
because of the screaming rhetoric
It is the responsibility of the poet to be lazy
to hang out and prophesy
It is the responsibility of the poet not to pay war taxes
It is the responsibility of the poet to go in and out of ivory
towers and two-room apartments on Avenue C
and buckwheat fields and army camps
It is the responsibility of the male poet to be a woman
It is the responsibility of the female poet to be a woman
It is the poet's responsibility to speak truth to power as the
Quakers say
It is the poet's responsibility to learn the truth from the
powerless
It is the responsibility of the poet to say many times: there is no
freedom without justice and this means economic
justice and love justice
It is the responsibility of the poet to sing this in all the original
and traditional tunes of singing and telling poems
It is the responsibility of the poet to listen to gossip and pass it
on in the way storytellers decant the story of life
There is no freedom without fear and bravery there is no
freedom unless
earth and air and water continue and children
also continue
It is the responsibility of the poet to be a woman to keep an eye on
this world and cry out like Cassandra, but be
listened to this time.

Responsabilità

È responsabilità della società accettare che il poeta sia un poeta
È responsabilità del poeta essere una donna
È responsabilità del poeta stare agli angoli delle strade
consegnando poesie e volantini scritti mirabilmente
o volantini dalla retorica esasperata
inguardabili
È responsabilità del poeta essere pigro andare in giro a vaticinare
È responsabilità del poeta non pagare tasse destinate alla guerra
È responsabilità del poeta entrare e uscire da torri
d’avorio e bilocali in periferia
e campi di granoturco e accampamenti militari
È responsabilità del poeta maschio essere una donna
È responsabilità del poeta femmina essere una donna
È responsabilità di chi è poeta affermare la verità contro il potere come dicono
i Quaccheri
È responsabilità di chi è poeta imparare la verità da chi non ha potere
È responsabilità del poeta dire molte volte: non c’è
libertà senza giustizia e questo significa giustizia
economica e giustizia degli affetti
È responsabilità del poeta cantarlo in tutte le chiavi
originali e tradizionali in cui si cantano e dicono le poesie
È responsabilità del poeta ascoltare le chiacchiere e rimetterle
in giro come i cantastorie che travasano il racconto della vita
Non c’è libertà senza paura e coraggio. Non c’è
libertà se non continuano
la terra e l’aria e l’acqua e se non continuano
anche i bambini
È responsabilità del poeta essere una donna sorvegliare
il mondo e gridare come Cassandra ma stavolta
essere ascoltata.

Ai margini. Su rifugiati, bombe e dittatori.

2011-05-29T15:52:00.001+02:00

W.H. Auden

Mi è capitato una volta di ricevere una fotocopia durante una lezione universitaria e focalizzarmi sui margini del suddetto pezzo di carta. La pagina conteneva una poesia di W.H Auden scritta per la morte di William Butler Yeats, ma siccome si trattava appunto di una fotocopia tratta da un’antologia, vi compariva anche uno spezzone di un altro componimento, sempre di Auden, intitolato “Refugee Blues”. Il titolo ovviamente mi colpì molto più di quanto possa mai fare la solita elegia funebre, non tanto per il rimando musicale, ma per la pertinenza e l’attualità di tale argomento: i rifugiati. Quando lessi questo spezzone i barconi dei clandestini, soprattutto giovani tunisini che venivano a cercare una vita migliore, non cessavano di arrivare a Lampedusa e, da quanto apprendevo dalla televisione, alcuni migranti erano rimpatriati perché non avevano la possibilità di chiedere lo status di rifugiati. Il Ministro dell’Interno continuava a ripetere che, mentre la Libia era effettivamente uno stato in guerra, la Tunisia era uno stato pacifico, dove il dittatore era stato sconfitto ed era stato sostituito con un governo più democratico. C’erano anche dei “subsahariani”, come li chiama il telegiornale, in quei barconi, magari provenienti da quella Costa d’Avorio bistrattata di cui si sente parlare ogni tanto, ma sempre con distrazione, oppure dalla Somalia, paese perennemente in guerra, che non è neanche più un paese, se è per quello. La poesia recita:

Say this city has ten million souls,

Some are living in mansions, some are living in holes:

Yet there’s no place for us, my dear, yet there’s no place for us.

Once we had a country and we thought it fair,

Look in the atlas and you’ll find it there:

We cannot go there now, my dear, we cannot go there now.

In the village churchyard there grows an old yew,

Every spring it blossoms anew:

Old passports can’t do that, my dear, old passports can’t do that.

The consul banged the table and said,

“If you’ve got no passport you’re officially dead”:

But we are still alive, my dear, but we are still alive.[1]

Sono andata a cercarne il resto quindi. Di che cosa stava parlando Auden? Quali erano i rifugiati di cui stava parlando in modo così solidale? Quando ho trovato la poesia per intero ho scoperto che era stata scritta per i rifugiati ebrei negli anni ’30 del novecento, il che le dava tutto un altro aspetto, una patina di storia e una tonalità seppia a quella che io avevo immaginato come una poesia colorata dai drappi delle donne africane. Non che non sapessi che W.H. Auden non poteva aver scritto una poesia sui rifugiati attuali, poiché le migrazioni dall’Africa all’Europa per motivi economici sono iniziate molto dopo. Questa è quindi la forza della poesia: poetry does not grow ripe for us, we grow ripe for poetry, scriveva la poetessa indiana Kamala Das (‘la poesia non matura per noi, noi maturiamo per la poesia’). Noi maturiamo per una certa poesia, non è che la poesia cinquant'anni fa fosse diversa, ma oggi io sono particolarmente pronta a recepire empaticamente queste parole.

Pochi giorni dopo mi sono accorta che sul retro di quella pagina fotocopiata, c’era un’altra poesiola, anch’essa finita lì per sbaglio, schiacciata appunto tra le prime strofe dell’elegia a Yeats e gli ultimi versi di chissà quale poesia. Si chiama “Epitaph on a Tyrant” e la leggo oggi, quando dittatori che sedevano sulla loro poltrona di capi di stato da decenni sono stati spodestati e un altro di questi terribili despoti, Gheddafi, viene perseguitato dalle bombe, che ingiustamente colpiscono anche i civili, provocando ancora più profughi:

Perfection, of a kind, was what he was after,

And the poetry he invented was easy to understand;

He knew human folly like the back of his hand,

And was greatly interested in armies and fleets;

When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter,

And when he cried the little children died in the streets.[2]

Auden più di settant’anni fa descriveva quegli stessi meccanismi del potere che oggi ci lasciano perplessi, ci fanno arrabbiare, ci tormentano come tormentavano gli uomini a quel tempo.

Gregory Corso

Per un puro esempio di serendipity, che è una delle benedizioni di un amante della letteratura, mi capita tra le mani una poesia di Gregory Corso, una delle sue più famose: “Bomb”. Dalla forma graficamente emblematica di fungo atomico, il lavoro del grande poeta della Beat Generation è un elogio alla bomba. A Corso sembrava infatti che la carica d’odio verso la bomba atomica che animava le proteste degli anni ’50 fosse un controsenso: perché la gente aveva così tanta paura di morire a causa della bomba e non in un incidente d’auto o sulla sedia elettrica? Certo, la sua provocazione non fu ben digerita dai pacifisti e, letta oggi, questa composizione suona oltremodo strana. Oggigiorno la gente non protesta, non più di tanto, per le bombe, definite intelligenti (ma quanto intelligente può essere una bomba?) e non certo atomiche, sganciate sulla Libia, e il terrore dell’atomica verrà forse debellato, almeno in Italia, da un referendum popolare guidato dalla paura. Ma è una paura legittima, perché in questo caso non è il nemico a minacciare di sganciarti l’atomica, ma il tuo stesso governo. La sua ironia sfacciata (‘The top of the Empire State / arrowed in a broccoli field in Sicily / Eiffel shaped like a C in Magnolia Gardens / S. Sofia peeling over Sudan’[3]), oggi è diventata amara, perché non è più paura di qualcosa di inverosimile, ma paura di qualcosa che è già successo: paura di verdure al cesio, di bambini dalla testa grossa e tonda come un pallone, con quattro braccia o senza gli occhi, come è successo a Chernobyl. Oppure paura dell’invasione dei profughi, causata dal tuo stesso uso scellerato delle bombe, non atomiche ma ugualmente ‘toy of universe / […] Death’s Jubilee’, cioè ‘giocattolo dell’universo, […] Giubileo di Morte’.

Gregory Corso si impegnava a non generare altro odio odiando la bomba, ma pensava che se queste bombe vengono gettate sul serio – per di più dai nostri connazionali e dai nostri alleati, mica da un nemico lontano, cattivo e sconosciuto – come accade in Libia o se la minaccia atomica è reale – come accade al giorno d’oggi con le centrali – questa poesia, questa presa in giro dell’odio innescato da coloro che si definiscono pacifisti, purtroppo assume una piega sinistra, quasi di sfottò nei confronti di quelli che le bombe ora se le sentono davvero sopra la testa, ad un passo da casa nostra per di più. “E’ responsabilità del poeta”, scriveva Grace Paley, “essere donna tenere d’occhio / il mondo e gridare come Cassandra, ma per essere / ascoltato questa volta”.

Ecco quindi che nel contesto odierno ho trovato una poesia perfettamente calzante e una fuori luogo, ma entrambe - per così dire - hanno contribuito ad un certo discorso che mi sto costruendo sulla validità (o sull'inutilità) della poesia in periodi di difficoltà, violenza e di spinta prorompente dell'attualità sulla produzione artistica.

[1] “Metti che questa città abbia dieci milioni di anime / Alcune vivono nelle ville, alcune vivono nei tuguri: / Eppure non c’è posto per noi, mia cara, eppure non c’è posto per noi. / Un tempo avevamo un paese e lo pensavamo giusto, / Guarda nell’atlante e lo troverai: / Non possiamo andarci ora, mia cara, non possiamo andarci ora. / Nel sagrato della chiesa cresce un vecchio tasso, / Ogni primavera fiorisce di nuovo: / I vecchi passaporti non lo possono fare, mia cara, i vecchi passaporti non lo possono fare. / Il console batté i pugni sul tavolo e disse, / ‘Se non avete un passaporto siete ufficialmente morti’: / Ma siamo ancora vivi, mia cara, siamo ancora vivi. (Traduzione mia)”

[2] “Perfezione, di un certo tipo, era ciò che cercava / E la poesia che inventava era facile da capire; / Conosceva la follia umana come il palmo della sua mano, / E si interessava molto di eserciti e flotte; / Quando rideva, senatori rispettabili scoppiavano a ridere, / E quando piangeva i bambini piccoli morivano per le strade.” (Traduzione mia)

[3] “La cima dell’Empire State / sfrecciata in un campo di broccoli in Sicilia / Eiffel a forma di C nei Magnolia Gardens / S. Sofia che si spella sopra il Sudan” (traduzione di Fernanda Pivano in Poesia degli Ultimi Americani).

"The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born" di Ayi Kwei Armah

2011-05-22T19:40:00.005+02:00

Anno di prima pubblicazione: 1968

Genere: romanzo

Paese: Ghana

Per questo post vorrei scrivere di un libro (e un autore) che non è mai stato tradotto in italiano (a quanto mi risulta), nonostante si tratti di un classico della letteratura africana.
Nel primo capitolo di “The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born” l’autore si sofferma a descrivere il corrimano di legno che fiancheggia le scale che conducono all’ufficio dove lavora il protagonista del libro, che rimane senza nome. Il legno è ormai vecchio, presenta molte crepe e per quante passate di lucido e cera si possano dare non ha certo un bell’aspetto. Nel processo d’invecchiamento di detto corrimano, osserva il narratore, sarà sempre il marcio, la putrefazione a vincere:

Il legno là sotto avrebbe vinto e lo avrebbe fatto in eterno. Di quello non c’era dubbio, solo il dolore della speranza perennemente destinata alla delusione. Era chiarissimo. Naturalmente era nella natura del legno marcire di vecchiaia. La cera, si supponeva, avrebbe raggiunto la parte marcia. Ma naturalmente alla fine era il marcio che senza sforzo avrebbe imprigionato il tutto nel suo abbraccio. (p.12, traduzione mia)

Ayi Kwei Armah usa la parola “rot”, che non a caso viene tradotta anche come “corruzione”. La lunga descrizione del corrimano, insozzato tra l’altro anche da mani sporche di escrementi e resti di cibo, una pagina e mezza di scrittura molto fitta, è anche metafora della società descritta dall’autore, ormai rovinata e destinata al peggio, praticamente inguaribile dopo un passato coloniale che ha lasciato corruzione e clientelismo come guida unica del paese. “The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born”, il primo romanzo del più grande scrittore ghanese, descrive infatti una società dove per ottenere qualcosa nella vita – un’auto lussuosa, una bella casa, le migliori marche di superalcolici stranieri – bisogna per forza accettare una mazzetta, idolatrare l’occasionale politico al potere fino ad ottenere un incarico di prestigio o violare la legge ed ottenere, insieme al potere, i soldi necessari a guadagnarsi la stima di parenti ed amici.

Ayi Kwei Armah

Il protagonista del romanzo è un uomo che ha una vita del tutto normale: un lavoro noioso ma sicuro nel settore dei trasporti, una famiglia e una casa modesta. Per via della sua condotta integerrima – non accetta mazzette, ne viola la legge in alcun modo – è disprezzato dai colleghi e dalla sua famiglia, a partire dalla moglie Oyo e dalla suocera, che lo accusa di non avere i soldi necessari al sostentamento dei propri figli. La routine quotidiana viene interrotta dall’incontro con Koomson, un ex compagno di scuola che è diventato inspiegabilmente Ministro. Quest’ultimo promette di offrire all’uomo un ottimo affare, perciò è invitato a cena con la moglie Estelle. Oyo fa di tutto per onorare l’ospite: compra il miglior cibo a disposizione, usa il servizio di piatti buono e si stira i capelli in mancanza di una parrucca, oggetto di culto dell’alta società ghanese. Qui Armah introduce dell’umorismo “per alleggerire gli aspetti più tetri” (come dice lo Yorkshire Post, in un blurb in quarta di copertina): la ricca e viziata moglie di Koomson, per esempio, abituata ai superalcolici d’importazione, sostiene che la birra non è adatta alla sua costituzione. Il padrone di casa, con un misto di impertinenza e cinismo, le chiede quindi che tipo di costituzione possegga. L’affare offerto da Koomson in fin dei conti non si rivela essere molto redditizio, ma svela i retroscena della classe dirigente del paese. Facendo buon viso a cattivo gioco, i politici sostengono un socialismo di facciata, per poi dedicarsi al capitalismo più sfrenato di nascosto. E’ una delle tante critiche che fa Armah alla società ghanese, uscita da pochi anni dall’esperienza coloniale.
Quello che redime il paese, tuttavia, sono persone come il protagonista, un uomo comune che rappresenta l’africano (o il ghanese) qualsiasi, onesto e lavoratore, tanto da rimanere senza nome. Siccome questo è un libro pieno di simboli e metafore, vorrei portare l’attenzione sul chichidodo, un uccello al quale Oyo paragona il marito. Il chichidodo “odia gli escrementi con tutta l’anima. Ma il chichidodo si nutre solo di vermi, e si sa che i vermi crescono meglio nei gabinetti” (p.45, traduzione mia). L’uomo, come il chichidodo, apprezza il denaro e il potere di Koomson, ma non il modo con cui l’ha ottenuto. Odia sporcarsi le mani, in altre parole. Sarà proprio questo elemento repellente, gli escrementi appunto, a fornire una via d’uscita, proprio letteralmente, ad una situazione uscita di mano, e il racconto si chiude con l’immagine di un singolo fiore che metaforicamente cresce dal letame, dove la scritta “The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born”, dipinta dal conducente su un autobus, sta a significare una speranza insita nelle singole persone oneste che cresceranno dalla situazione impossibile del paese. L’errore nella grafia di “beautyful” forse indica che l’Africa, o perlomeno il Ghana, non viaggia più su canoni europei (di correttezza per esempio, ma anche di bellezza) e che è (o sarà) capace di creare qualcosa al di fuori della filosofia e della politica occidentale, in modo del tutto originale.

Lo scrittore Nigeriano Chinua Achebe

E’ proprio quest’ultima immagine, secondo me, la chiave di lettura del libro e l’elemento principale con cui sbugiardare la tesi che sostiene che Ayi Kwei Armah sia uno scrittore assolutamente pessimista e vincolato a canoni estetico-filosofici occidentali. Chinua Achebe, per esempio, ha scritto un saggio al vetriolo su questo argomento, sostenendo che Armah ha provato a scrivere un romanzo esistenzialista a là Camus ma ha fatto l’errore di ambientarlo in un posto specifico e in un momento storico altrettanto reale. Secondo me, mentre la scelta di lasciare il protagonista senza nome è discutibile, l’autore avrebbe potuto fare un passo ulteriore verso il realismo (offrendo maggiori dettagli sulla vita ghanese o sulla situazione politica). Non amo particolarmente i romanzi ambientati in un “non meglio specificato paese Africano”, perché secondo me la validità di un’opera letteraria per tutta la condizione postcoloniale (o anche per l’intera umanità) si può creare con mezzi molto meno insidiosi, come appunto le metafore o i personaggi memorabili (in questo romanzo “The Teacher”, una specie di filosofo di vita, è uno di questi).
Nel complesso Ayi Kwei Armah scrive un romanzo forte, ben strutturato e giustamente annoverato tra i classici della letteratura africana. A capitoli in cui la narrazione si fa avvincente affianca parti più riflessive, dal sapore filosofico, dove la storia arranca un po’, ma poi il racconto riprende, più forte e prorompente di prima. In meno di 200 pagine, Ayi Kwei Armah da vita ad un libro in cui non si vergogna di denunciare quello che non va nel suo paese. Ad un’atmosfera cupa, opprimente, dove regna un costante sentore di sconfitta, di perdita e di pessimismo degna di un Naipaul o di “Cuore di Tenebra” per fare gli esempi più ovvi, Armah affianca una prosa energica, un umorismo fuori dal comune ed un germoglio finale di speranza.

Sull’autore: Ayi Kwei Armah è nato a Takoradi, in Ghana, nel 1939. E’ stato educato in Ghana e in America. Ha lavorato come traduttore ad Alfieri e come sceneggiatore per la televisione ghanese, poi come insegnante d’inglese e come traduttore-editore per Jeune Afrique in Francia. E’ interessato a creare un organismo panafricano che abbracci le diverse culture e lingue del continente (in questo senso ha incoraggiato lo sviluppo del Kiswahili come lingua del continente). Ha scritto diversi romanzi, tra i quali “Two Thousand Seasons” (1973) e “The Healers” (1979).

“The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born” by Ayi Kwei Armah

2011-05-22T00:50:00.085+02:00

Year of first publication: 1968

Genre: novel

Country: Ghana

In the first charter of “The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born” the author describes the wooden banister of the staircase leading to the office where the unnamed main character of the book works. The wood is very old, with deep cracks, and for as much polish as you can use, it is not in good shape. In the ageing process of the banister rot and decay will always win:

The wood underneath would win and win till the end of time. Of that there was no doubt possible, only the pain of hope perennially doomed to disappointment. It was so clear. Of course it was in the nature of the wood to rot with age. The polish, it was supposed, would catch the rot. But of course in the end it was the rot which imprisoned everything in its effortless embrace. (p.12)

Ayi Kwei Armah uses the word “rot” and it is not by chance that “corruption” is a synonym of “rot”. The thick, one-page-and-a-half-long description of the banister, also filthy from the contact with hands dirty with excrement and leftovers of food, is also a metaphor for the society described by the author, already ruined and doomed to the worst, essentially unable to heal after a colonial past that has left corruption and political patronage as the only signpost of the country. “The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born”, which is the first novel of the most important Ghanaian writer, Ayi Kwei Armah, describes a society where in order to obtain something in life – a fancy car, a beautiful house, the best brands of imported spirits – one needs to accept bribes, to worship the occasional politician to get a position of prestige or to break the law and get, together with power, the money necessary to have the trust of one’s friends and family.

Ayi Kwei Armah

The protagonist of the novel is a man who has a thoroughly normal life: a boring but steady job in the railway service, a family of his own and a modest house. Because of his upright conduct – he cannot stand corruption and does not break the law in any way – he is despised by his colleagues and family, starting from his wife Oyo and his mother-in-law, who thinks he hasn’t got the means to support his own children. The daily routine is upset by the encounter with Koomson, a former classmate of him who has inexplicably become a Minister. Koomson wants to go into business with him, so he is invited to dinner with his wife Estelle. Oyo does everything possible to honour the guest: she wants the best food, uses the best plates and glasses in the house and, lacking the wig so fashionable among rich Ghanaians, straightens her hair quite painfully. At this point Armah introduces some humour “to leaven the grimmer aspects” (as the Yorkshire Post writes in a blurb in the back cover): Koomson’s spoilt wife, for instance, used to imported spirits, says that beer does not get along with her constitution. The host, with a mixture of cheekiness and cynicism, asks her what kind of a constitution is it that she has. The deal reveals to be nothing really profitable, but it shows the backbone of the ruling class of the country. Grinning and bearing, politicians apparently support socialism, committing themselves to unrestrained capitalism on the sly. This is one of the many critiques that Armah makes of Ghanaian society, barely out of the colonial experience when the novel was written.
The protagonist of the story, however, is a symbol for the future redeemers of the country: he represents the common African man (or Ghanaian man), honest and hard-working, so much that he lacks a name. Because this book is packed with symbols and metaphors, I would like to draw attention to the chichidodo, a bird to which Oyo compares her husband. The chichidodo bird, “hates excrement with all its soul. But the chichidodo only feeds on maggots, and you know the maggots grow inside the lavatory” (p.45). The man, like the chichidodo, appreciates Koomson’s money and power, but not how he got it. He hates to get his hands dirty, in other words. This hideous element, the excrements, will pay a crucial role in finding a way out, quite literally, from a situation that has gone out of hand. The tale will end with the image of a single flower, metaphorically growing from dung, and the writing “The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born”, both painted by the driver himself. This image stands for the hope of a few honest people growing out of the horrible situation of the country. The mistake in the spelling of “beautyful” perhaps implies that Africa, or Ghana at least, has rejected European canons (of correctness and beauty, for instance) and is able (or will be able) to create something outside of western philosophy and politics, in a thoroughly original way.

Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe

It is this last image, in my opinion, the key to the interpretation of the book and the main element to dismantle the thesis that considers Ayi Kwei Armah an outright pessimistic author, bound to aesthetic and philosophical canons that are utterly western. Chinua Achebe, for instance, wrote a caustic essay on this subject, arguing that Armah tried to wrote an existentialist novel à la Camus but made the mistake of setting it in a real place and in real time. In my opinion, while the choice of leaving the protagonist unnamed is questionable, the author could have made a further step towards realism (providing more details on Ghanaian life or on the political situation). I am not particularly fond of novels set in an "unnamed African country", because in my opinion the relevance of a literary work for the postcolonial condition as a whole (or even for the human kind) can be created in less insiduous ways, like metaphors or less insiduous characters (in this novel, "The Teacher", a philosopher of life of a sort, is one of those).
Overall, Ayi Kwei Armah wrote a powerful, well-structured novel which is rightfully rated among the classics of African literature. He couples chapters where the story is gripping with more reflective, almost philosophical chapters, where the story struggles a little, but then the tale recovers, stronger and bursting with life. Less than 200-pages long, Ayi Kwei Armah is not ashamed of telling what is not working in his country. Next to a grim, overwhelming atmosphere ruled by a feeling of defeat, loss and pessimism that could be found in a novel by Naipaul or in “Heart of Darkness (just to make two obvious examples), Armah places an energetic prose style, an out-of-the-common sense of humour and a sprout of hope at the end of the book.

About the author: Ayi Kwei Armah was born in Takoradi, Ghana, in 1939. He was educated in both Ghana and America. He worked as a translator in Algiers and as a scriptwriter for Ghana television, then as an English teacher and as a translator-editor for Jeune Afrique in France. He is concerned with the creation of a Pan-african agency that will embrace the diverse cultures and languages of the continent (in this sense he has encouraged the development of Kiswahili as a continental language). He has written several novel, among them "Two Thousand Seasons" (1973) and "The Healers" (1979).

"La Mia Storia" di Kamala Das

2011-05-17T20:38:00.001+02:00

Anno di prima pubblicazione: 1973 (in Malayalam), 1988 (in inglese)

Genere: memorie

Paese: India

"La Mia Storia" di Kamala Das, edito da Il Punto d'Incontro, Collana Donne in Corsivo, 2007, €13,90

La poetessa ed attivista americana Muriel Rukeyser una volta disse: “Cosa accadrebbe se una donna dicesse la verità sulla propria vita? Il mondo si spaccherebbe in due”. Quello che Muriel Rukeyser ravvisava era l’inenarrabilità dell’universo femminile nei confronti di una narrazione che per secoli era stata solo maschile. Leggendo quest'autobiografia di Kamala Das, una delle maggiori poetesse indiane, si ha proprio la sensazione che con un semplice atto di sincerità femminile il mondo debba spaccarsi, facendo uscire dalle viscere della terra demoni su demoni. Quando questo libro venne pubblicato, infatti, la società indiana si scandalizzò nel leggere di questa donna senza peli sulla lingua che parlava liberamente delle sue relazioni extraconiugali e delle sue cotte lesbiche di adolescente. A leggerlo oggi, l’effetto prorompente di questo libro è un po’ smorzato dalle orde di donne che in anni recenti hanno fatto del sesso e del vizio il soggetto dei loro libri, persino nell’India bacchettona (vedi Shobhaa De, che io per altro non ho letto ne ho intenzione di leggere, non perché sono bacchettona ma per lo stesso motivo per cui non leggo Sophie Kinsella!).

Kamala Das non ha mai rivelato se il contenuto della sua autobiografia fosse la pura verità o il risultato del desiderio di avere una vita diversa (un dilemma che mi fa pensare all’autobiografia della scrittrice neozelandese Janet Frame). La prefazione scritta da K. Satchidanandan (io ho un’edizione indiana del libro) dice che “la scrittrice, maliziosamente enigmatica, ha tormentato i lettori disseminando indizi contradditori, prima confessando che si trattava della sacrosanta verità e poi dichiarando che non era altro che una fantasia appagatrice, una vita alternativa che si era creata per se stessa" (p.vii, traduzione mia). Kamala Das ha avuto una vita apparentemente normale: nata a Malabar, in Kerala, fu costretta a trasferirsi continuamente per seguire il marito e la famiglia, prima a Calcutta, poi a Bombay e in altre città indiane. In questo libro denuncia la fobia della comunità Nair (la casta di proprietari terrieri a cui appartiene) verso il sesso e l’intimità (“Non c’è da meravigliarsi se le donne delle migliori famiglie Nair non nominavano mai il sesso. Era la loro principale fobia. Lo associavano a violenza e spargimenti di sangue. Erano cresciute con le storie di Ravana morto a causa del suo desiderio per Sita e di Kichaka, che era stato fatto a pezzi dal marito legittimo di Draupadi solo perché la desiderava”, p.23) e la durezza e stupidità di certi uomini (di un leader studentesco di cui si era innamorata scrive “Provai a mettermi dei fiori tra i capelli. Ma tutto quello che disse fu che senza perdere altro tempo dovevo cominciare a leggere Marx e Engels”, p.61).

Il libro è pieno di poesia, ma la prosa lineare è spesso migliore delle vere poesie all’inizio di ogni capitolo. L’autore della sopraccitata introduzione riporta un passaggio della prima edizione del libro, scritta in Malayalam: “Mi piace chiamare questa poesia anche se le parole perdono musicalità quando, dopo aver sollevato al mio interno una bella turbolenza liquida, arrivano in superficie nella forma relativamente solida della prosa. Avevo sempre bramato la forza necessaria a scrivere questo libro. Ma la poesia non matura per noi, noi maturiamo abbastanza per la poesia” (p.viii). Quando l’autrice si sofferma sulla propria vita quotidiana, il racconto si fa vago: è la storia semplice di una donna che scrive poesia o racconti nel tempo libero, dopo aver messo a letto i bambini. Non menziona mai, se non una volta di sfuggita, gli altri scrittori importanti che conosceva, perciò il libro non si legge come il racconto della vita scintillante di una scrittrice famosa, ma la storia di una donna irrequieta, che si sentiva molto sola e che bramava un amante che potesse renderla felice e soddisfare i suoi appetiti sessuali ed intellettuali. Siccome il libro è stato pubblicato nel 1973 e poi in un’edizione rivista in inglese nel 1988, non vi si menziona l’elemento forse più controverso della vita di Kamala Das: la sua conversione all’Islam, avvenuta nel 1999, e il successivo pentimento.

Se qualche volta alzavo gli occhi al cielo per la serie infinita di amanti, reali o immaginari, sciorinati nel libro, non vedevo l’ora di leggere le parti dove la poetessa riflette su che cosa significa essere una donna, una madre ed una scrittrice in una società conservatrice. Finisco con una delle considerazioni più impressionanti di Kamala Das: “Dovunque uno scrittore vada, la sua notorietà lo precede. I non-scrittori di norma non si fidano degli scrittori. Questo succede perché sono interamente diversi salvo in apparenza. Essendo la mente un arto invisibile, non è presa in considerazione. Persino gli uccelli hanno le loro altezze particolari. Gli uccelli di terra che non si alzano nel cielo solitario, spesso si chiedono perché le aquile volino in alto, perché girino sempre in tondo come ballerine. L’essenza dello scrittore elude il non-scrittore. Tutto quello che lo scrittore lascia trapelare per questa gente sono le stranezze del vestire e gli eccessi emotivi. Infine, quando i muscoli della mente hanno racimolato abbastanza potere da leggere i pensieri segreti della gente, lo scrittore rifugge l’ostilità invisibile e si avvinghia ai suoi tipi affini, quei sognatori, nati con un frammento di ala ancora attaccato ad una spalla” (p.169-170).

"My Story" by Kamala Das

2011-05-17T19:23:00.001+02:00

Year of first publication: 1973 (in Malayalam), 1988 (revised edition in English)

Genre: memoir

Country: India

American poet and activist Muriel Rukeyser once said "What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life? The world would split open". What Rukeyeser recognized was a certain unspeakability of the feminine world, in comparison with a narrative that for centuries had been exclusively male. Reading the autobiography of Kamala Das, one of the foremost poets of the Indian subcontinent, one really has the feeling that with a simple act of sincerity the world would indeed split open, letting out demons and demons. When this book came out, in fact, the prudish Indian society was scandalized at the outspoken woman who could so freely talk about her extramarital affairs and her teenage lesbian crushes. The effect for the reader is now somehow softened by the dozens of women writers who have recently made sex and desire the subject of their books, even in squeamish India (see Shobhaa De, whom I haven't read and whom I will not rush to read, not because I'm prudish, but for the same reason that I don't read Sophie Kinsella!).

Kamala Das never revealed if the content of her autobiography was the honest truth or if it was fruit of her longing for a different life (a dilemma that makes me think of Janet Frame's autobiography). The preface by K. Satchidanandan (I have an Indian edition of the book) says that "the writer, ever mischieviously enigmatic, kept them [the readers] tantalized by dropping contradictory hints, first confessing it was nothing but truth and then declaring it was just a wish-fulfilling fantasy, an alter-life she has created for herself" (p.vii). Kamala Das had an apparently normal life: she was born in Malabar, Kerala, and was forced to move very often, following her husband and family to Calcutta, Bombay and several other cities within the boundaries of India. In this book she denounces the phobia of the Nair community for sex and intimacy ("No wonder the women of the best Nair families never mentioned sex. It was their principal phobia. They associated it with violence and bloodshed. They had been fed on the stories of Ravana who perished due to his desire for Sita and of Kichaka, who was torn to death by Draupadi's legal husband Bhima only because he conveted her", p.23) and the roughness and stupidity of certain men (of a student leader she was in love with, she writes "I tried to wear flowers in my hair. But all he said was that I should without wasting any more time, begin to read Marx and Engels", p.61).

The book is filled with poetry, the simple prose actually better than the real poems at the beginning of each chapter. The author of the aforementioned introduction quotes a passage from the first version of the book, written in Malayalam: "I like to call this poetry even if my words lose their music when, after raising in my innards a beautiful liquid turbulence, they come to surface in the relatively solid contours of prose. I had always longed for the strength necessary to write this. But poetry does not grow ripe for us, we grow ripe enough for poetry" (p.viii). When the author lingers on her everyday life, the tale remains sketchy: it is the simple story of a woman scribbling poetry or writing stories in her spare time, after the children have gone to bed. She never mentions, except once in passing, other important writers she spent time with, so the book does not read like the tale of the famous writer's glamorous life, but more like the story of a restless woman, who felt very lonely and longed for a lover who could make her happy and satisfy her sensual and intellectual appetite. Because the book was published in 1973 and then revised in English in 1988, it doesn't mention one the most controversial issues of Kamala Das's life: her conversion to Islam in 1999 and her later repentance.

While I sometimes rolled my eyes at the endless line of imaginary or real lovers in the book, I was hungry for the parts where the poet reflects on what it means to be a woman, a mother and a writer in a conservative society. I'll finish with one of Das's most striking considerations: "Wherever a writer goes, her notoriety precedes her. The non-writers do not normally trust the writers. This is because they are entirely dissimilar except in appearance. The mind being an invisible limb, is not taken into consideration. Even birds have their own particular heights. The land birds who do not rise far into the lonely sky, often wonder why the eagles fly high, why they go round and round like ballerinas. The essence of the writer eludes the non-writer. All that the writer reveals to such people are her oddities of dress and her emotional excesses. Finally, when the muscles of the mind have picked up enough power to read people's secret thoughts, the writer shies away from the invisible hostility and clings to her own type, those dreaming ones, born with a fragment of wing still attached to a shoulder" (p.169-170).

"Con il Sari Rosa" di Sampat Pal

2011-05-10T22:06:00.002+02:00

Anno di prima pubblicazione: 2008
Genere: memoir
Paese: India

"Con il Sari Rosa" di Sampat Pal (in collaborazione con Anne Berthod), edito da Edizioni Piemme, 16 €

Ho sentito parlare di Sampat Pal e della sua Gulabi Gang per la prima volta qualche anno fa e la storia mi aveva colpito. Si tratta di un gruppo di donne indiane generalmente appartenenti alle caste più basse che hanno creato una rete di solidarietà femminile che si impegn a difendere i diritti delle donne di fronte ai più svariati soprusi. Come marchio di riconoscimento indossano tutte un sari rosa (gulabi vuol dire appunto rosa) e portano sempre con sé un lathi, il tipico bastone da combattimento usato anche dalla polizia indiana.

"Con il Sari Rosa" è il memoir della fondatrice dell'associazione, Sampat Pal, scritto con l'aiuto di una ghost writer, Anne Berthod, giornalista francese che ha scritto, tra l'altro, "Slumgirl Dreaming", sulla storia rags to riches della bambina di "Slumdog Millionaire" (libro che mi risparmio volentieri). Sampat Pal Devi è nata da una famiglia poverissima dell'Uttar Pradesh ed appartiene ad una delle caste più basse, i gadaria, letteralmente "mandriani". Infilatasi alla scuola locale di nascosto trascurando il lavoro nei campi che i suoi genitori si aspettavano da lei, Sampat Pal impara a faticosamente a leggere l'hindi, che non è nemmeno la sua lingua materna, dato che in casa sua si parla un dialetto locale. Data in sposa alla tenera età di dodici anni com'è usanza tra la gente umile da cui viene, Sampat dimostra fin da subito di che pasta è fatta. Non vergognandosi di controbattere a nessuno, neanche ai bramini che, approfittando di essere la più rispettata delle caste indù, si prendono gioco degli altri e scroccano ai gadaria utensili che poi non restituiscono mai, Sampat Pal comincia a farsi conoscere in paese come la più sfacciata tra le donne, la più ribelle e ostracizzata, ma anche la più sveglia. Il suo linguaggio sboccato mi ricorda la Phoolan Devi del film "Bandit Queen", personaggio con cui condivide alcuni particolari biografici e senza dubbio la determinazione. Mi avevano colpito, ad esempio, quei "motherfucker" e "sisterfucker" disseminati nel film e Sampat Pal riflette proprio su questa fissazione di usare le donne nelle imprecazioni, arrivando a criticare due fratelli che in modo molto sciocco e ridicolo insultano la loro stessa madre o sorella.

Nonostante lo scarso livello d'istruzione, Sampat Pal capisce al volo come gira il mondo: la corruzione, i raggiri dei funzionari locali e dei piccoli commercianti, per non parlare del potere spropositato dei mariti sulle loro mogli. Così decide di fondare una scuola per insegnare alle donne a cucire e a leggere, trasmettendo allo stesso tempo le sue idee sull'emancipazione femminile. Non avrà la vita facile: più volte sarà allontanata dal suo villaggio per non essersi piegata ai soprusi dei più potenti e sarà perseguitata dai dada, i sicari a pagamento. Non risparmia parole aspre per nessuno, a partire dal Primo Ministro dell'Uttar Pradesh, Kumari Mayawati, che era stata la prima intoccabile a giungere a quella carica. Colpevole di essersi buttata alle spalle i suoi ideali e di essere venuta a patti con le caste superiori per accaparrarsi più voti, Sampat Pal nomina invece come modelli personaggi come Lakshmibai, la mitica regina di Jhansi che ha combattuto contro gli inglesi, o Chanakya, il consigliere dell'imperatore Chandragupta conosciuto in Occidente come "il Machiavelli indiano". La gulabi gang, ci spiega il libro, è nata solo dopo anni di lotte contro le ingiustizie e non ha niente a che vedere con le assistenti sociali. La fondatrice si aspetta infatti che le persone che vengono aiutate poi partecipino attivamente all'associazione, portando il sari rosa d'ordinanza e impegnandosi in prima persona a migliorare le cose.

La veste grafica di questo libro non è delle migliori: a vederlo sugli scaffali della libreria si potrebbe pensare che sia uno dei soliti libri creati apposta per saziare la nostra sete di donne abusate e segregate in casa nei paesi del terzo mondo. "Con il Sari Rosa", però, non si sofferma a compatire le donne indiane, ma per esempio discute di come uscire da alcuni circoli viziosi, descrive l'organizzazione della vita sociale nei villaggi e denuncia la pigrizia della maggior parte delle donne che non hanno né la forza né il coraggio di farsi valere.

Sampat Pal e la sua gulabi gang

Di certo la giornalista francese che ha messo per iscritto le parole di questa attivista indiana non è un Premio Nobel per la letteratura, ma ha avuto il buon senso di lasciar trasparire il linguaggio semplice e schietto della protagonista, elemento che rende questo libro un po' come la versione indiana di "Mi chiamo Rigoberta Menchù". Più azzeccato questo paragone, a mio parere (nonostante le polemiche che girano intorno al Premio Nobel per la Pace guatemalteco), che quello con la più famosa Arundhati Roy, donna diversissima per formazione, metodologia e approccio a Sampat Pal, che alle parole preferisce l'azione sul campo e che i soprusi li ha vissuti in prima persona. E anche perché le parole dure Sampat Pal non le risparmia neppure ai naxaliti, con cui Sampat Pal non vuole avere niente a che fare, sostenendo, in maniera forse un po' sommaria, che sono solo un'organizzazione spietata, che fa largo uso di armamenti, a differenza sua, che come arma ha solo un bastone.

Filtered

2011-05-06T16:26:00.000+02:00

I'll shamelessly copy from other bloggers who have a weekly post on literary news and interesting links. Obviously, I'll never be constant enough to respect the weekly schedule, but seen that I enjoy these posts (very post-modern and salad-bowl-like, to say something "hip"), I'll dish them out to you too:

#1 Did you know that Abbottabad, the town where Osama Bin Laden was killed, has taken its name from an English general of the British Raj era? The awkward thing is that James Abbott has written a poem about this small town, calling it simply "Abbottabad". "The Guardian" has found it and called it "one of the worst poems ever written". If you feel strong enough, read it here.

#2 Take a brief look at vintage, old-fashioned covers of "Lolita" offered by Flavorwire. There is also a video with an interview with old Vlad, where he is showing us his favourite covers of "Lolita".

#3 Maybe it's a new dawn for Italian contemporary literature. Igiaba Scego, author of "La Mia Casa è Dove Sono" was awareded the Mondello Prize. The news is that she is an Italian writer of Somali origin. Minority writers, in fact, had been so far excluded from the literary prizes.

# 4 Yet another biography of Mahatma Gandhi has been published. This one, nonetheless, written by a certain Joseph Lelyveld and titled "Great Soul. Gandhi and his Struggle with India", suggests that India's spiritual father had, in his years in South Africa, a homoerotic, if not homosexual, relatioship with a man called Hermann Kallenbach, a German Jewish bodybuilder. Needless to say, the book has caused scandal in India. The New York Times, in his review, promptly ignores the topic.

#5 Another round-up from Flavorwire, this time to revise (or discover) the Bard's bawdy jokes.

Norman Mailer's house

#6 Ernesto Sabato has died. He was a famous Argentinian novelist and essayist, famous also because he led a commission to investigate the crimes committed during the dictatorship. The New York Times calls him "the conscience of Argentina".

#7 The Huffington Post takes us to see the house of some famous writers. Among the strangest there is Truman Capote's house (how could it have been otherwise?) and Norman Mailer's, which once had a hammock and a trapeze swing to climb it.

#8 This is not exactly fresh, but have you tried Ron Charles' Totally Hip Video Book Reviews? I love them! Here the famous critic of "a major American newspaper" (the Washington Post) makes a spectacle of himself with a funny and quick review of Jonathan Franzen's "Freedom", which has recently been published in Italy as well.

#9 Do you think the world of literature is a happy Republic of Love? Well, you're wrong: the JRR Tolkien Estate has contested a forthcoming book which features the author of "Lord of the Rings" as one of its characters.

#10 Rudyard Kipling was a reporter in Italy during the First World War, did you know? Hemingway was not the only one to do the nasty job; this is what "La Guerra nelle Montagne. Impressioni dal Fronte" seems to tell us. The book contains Kipling writings of his Italian period.

Filtrato

2011-05-05T23:53:00.000+02:00

Scopiazzo allegramente da altri blogger, che con cadenza settimanale fanno dei post con le 'notizie letterarie' e i vari link interessanti della settimana. Ovviamente non avrò la costanza di rifarlo ogni settimana, però siccome mi diverto a leggere questi post (molto post-moderni, molto salad bowl, per dire qualcosa di 'hip'), li propino anche a voi:

#1 Ma lo sapevate che Abbottabad, la città pakistana dove è stato ucciso Osama Bin Laden, ha preso il nome da un generale inglese in servizio durante il periodo del Raj britannico? La cosa più bizzarra non è questa, ma il fatto che il generale James Abbott abbia scritto una poesia dedicata alla cittadina, intitolata senza troppi giri di parole "Abbottabad". Il Guardian l'ha scovata e l'ha definita "una delle peggiori poesie mai scritte". Se volete farvi del male, la potete leggere qui.

#2 Flavorwire ci offre una carrellata delle cover vintage di Lolita, una più retro dell'altra. C'è anche il video di una vecchia intervista al vecchio Vlad, in cui lui ci mostra le sue copertine di Lolita preferite.

#3 Forse è una nuova alba per la letteratura italiana contemporanea. Igiaba Scego, autrice di "La Mia Casa dove Sono", ha vinto il premio Mondello. La novità è che si tratta di una scrittrice italiana di origine somala. Gli scrittori italiani di origine straniera, infatti, erano stati fino ad adesso snobbati dalle giurie dei premi più importanti.

#4 E' uscita un'ennesima biografia del Mahatma Gandhi. Solo che questa, scritta da tale Joseph Lelyveld ed intitolata "Great Soul. Mahatma Gandhi and his Struggle with India", suggerirebbe che il padre spirituale della nazione aveva, durante i suoi anni sudafricani, una relazione - se non omosessuale, almeno omoerotica - con tale Hermann Kallenbach, un ebreo tedesco che faceva bodybuilding. Inutile dire lo scandalo e la polemica che il libro ha suscitato in India. Il New York Times, nella recensione del libro, ignora prontamente l'argomento.

#5 E' ancora Flavorwire ad offrirci un'altra carrellata, questa volta ci serve per ripassare (o scoprire) i doppi sensi a sfondo sessuale del Bardo.

La casa di Norman Mailer

#6 E' morto Ernesto Sabato, grande scrittore e saggista argentino, famoso anche per aver presieduto una commissione per investigare i delitti commessi durante le atrocità della dittatura. Il New York Times lo chiama la coscienza dell'Argentina.

#7 L'Huffington Post ci porta a vedere le case di alcuni grandi scrittori. Tra le più pittoresche ci sono quelle di Truman Capote (e come poteva non esserlo) e quella di Norman Mailer, che ai bei tempi aveva anche un trapezio e un'amaca per scalarla e viverla al meglio.

#8 Questa non è proprio fresca, ma avete mai provato Ron Charles' Totally Hip Video Book Reviews? Io le adoro! In questo link, il famoso critico letterario di un 'major American newspaper' (il Washington Post) si rende ridicolo con una recensione divertente e veloce di "Freedom" di Jonathan Franzen, che come forse saprete è da poco uscito anche in Italia.

#9 Pensavate che il mondo della letteratura fosse una felice Republic of Love? Ebbene, vi sbagliate: il JRR Tolkien Estate ha contestato un libro in uscita, con il grande scrittore de "Il Signore degli Anelli" per protagonista.

# 10 Rudyard Kipling inviato speciale in Italia durante la prima guerra mondiale, lo avreste mai detto? Non solo il caro vecchio Hemingway ha fatto quel lavoraccio, sembra dirci "La Guerra nelle Montagne. Impressioni dal Fronte Italiano", che raccoglie gli scritti di Kipling del periodo italiano.

"Trumpet" di Jackie Kay + "Scintille" di Gad Lerner

2011-05-01T22:17:00.001+02:00

Vi aggiorno su un paio di cose. Sono uscite un paio di mie recensioni sulla rivista Paper Street: lo scorso mese quella di "Trumpet" di Jackie Kay, la poetessa di cui ho parlato anche qui. E' un libro che è stato tradotto in Italia, una volta tanto, e io ve lo consiglio caldamente, anche se per ottenerlo dovrete quasi certamente ordinarlo in libreria.

"Pilgrims" di Bruno Schulz

Questo mese ho scritto invece la recensione di "Scintille. Una storia di anime vagabonde" di Gad Lerner. Su quest'ultimo vorrei spendere due parole su qualcosa che non ci stava nella recensione per gli amici di Paper Street. Lerner si sofferma sulla pittura di Bruno Schulz, che potrebbe avere incrociato suo nonno nelle cittadine della Galizia yiddish dove entrambi vivevano. Questo scrittore e pittore, che io prima non conoscevo se non di fama, dipingeva/schizzava queste cose sinceramente angoscianti ed inquietanti. I suoi soggetti erano molto spesso vecchiacci malefici con teste sproporz

"Midsummer Night's Dream" di Marc Chagall

ionate e calvizie incipiente, al cospetto di donne dalle gambe snelle in pose lascive. Lerner spiega la cosa con il complesso di inferiorità del povero Schulz, non certo bello e del tutto simile a questi uomini che non potevano far altro che fissare le proverbiali bellezze ucraine (che incantano anche Lerner nel libro, eh!?), e naturalmente con la nota 'sgradevolezza ebraica'. Mi soffermo a pensare a questa sgradevolezza, ohibò! Poi giro la testa e vedo una stampa di Marc Chagall che mi hanno regalato, sensibilità completamente diversa ma uguali natali, se non fosse che... Ma come? Tu quoque, Marc, fili mi! Ma poi no, per fortuna mi sono ricordata che il titolo del quadro è "Midsummer Night's Dream"!!! Chagall è ancora il pittore degli abbracci romantici...

Mi riallaccio all'ambientazione mediorientale del libro di Gad Lerner, per dirvi che ho conosciuto un amico blogger, che scrive sulla Turchia dall'affascinante città di Istambul. Io della Turchia, se non ricordo male avevo parlato solo in un post, molto molto tempo fa riguardo un romanzo di Orhan Pamuk.

"Tabaccherie Orientali" di Clara Nubile

2011-04-25T19:14:00.000+02:00

Anno di prima pubblicazione: 2010
Genere: racconti
Paese: Italia

"Tabaccherie Orientali", di Clara Nubile, LAB, collana "Gli Ulivi", € 11

E' bastato un commento al blog di Silvia a scatenare un'emozionante momento serendipico, che coinvolgeva la poetessa indiano-americana Meena Alexander, la giovane scrittrice pachistana Kamila Shamsie e il poeta kashmiro-americano Agha Shahid Ali, quest'ultimo a formare da cuscino naturale, per una volta smilitarizzato, tra le due. E' così che sono arrivata a conoscere questo libro emozionante, i cui momenti lirici non rovinano il tessuto del racconto.

"Ai miei studenti d'America dicevo sempre, prendete le vostre parole, quelle parole che avevo scritto con caparbia e presunzione, con impeto e pietà. Prendete le vostre parole e mettetele spalle al muro, poi spogliatele. E sparate, senza pensarci nemmeno un attimo. Gonfiatele di proiettili, dilaniatele, riempitele di piombo. Infine raccogliete i resti, i cadaveri ancora palpitanti delle vostre parole e avvolgetele in un sudario. Di notte, cullatele. Vegliate sulle vostre parole sbrindellate. Fate la veglia funebre alle vostre parole, ai vostri romanzi, alle poesie, ai racconti, ai passaggi, alle lettere. E al terzo giorno resusciteranno, senza le vostre mani. Da sole le parole si alzeranno dal sepolcro di carta e si incammineranno per strada, investite di luce vergine, libere da rimorsi e somiglianze. Forse a quel punto potrete anche pensare di avere scritto due versi, due righe degne di essere lette." (p.42)

Agha Shahid Ali

A parlare così è Agha Shahid Ali, poeta kashmiro-americano purtroppo non ancora tradotto in Italia (se non per sporadiche poesie in qualche antologia), che è anche uno dei personaggi di questa raccolta di racconti, sospesi tra l'India, il Salento e una manciata di altri luoghi del globo. In ogni storia a parlare è un personaggio realmente vissuto: poeti, attivisti e viaggiatori, ma anche boss della mala, narcotrafficanti e banditesse indiane. Non unicamente modelli da imitare, o persone da riverire, quindi, ma anche criminali o gente dalla vita travagliata, la cui umanità palese è rappresentata dalle pantofole di Topolino che indossava Pablo Escobar, il più potente narcotrafficante che la Colombia abbia mai conosciuto, al suo funerale. Il mio racconto preferito, tra i dieci proposti, è forse proprio quello dedicato al poeta che viene da un paese in cui non ci sono più gli uffici postali, che poi sarebbe appunto quella vallata dove "creano desolazione e la chiamano pace", il Kashmir.

Quando deve imbucare una lettera, lui che come tanti altri scrittori vive in esilio, deve per forza decidere se comprare un francobollo per l'India o per il Pakistan. Ma come può decidere? Un francobollo per il Kashmir non esiste, com'è tristemente noto. Il bello di questo racconto è la rielaborazione dei versi del poeta, che funzionano per accumulazione ed associazione, mentre i racconti normalmente scorrono perché c'è un filo narrativo e la stessa noiosa logica che riempie le nostre giornate. Ma la poesia contemporanea - e quella di Agha Shahid Ali in modo particolare - è come un sogno, così capita di arrivare in ritardo di dieci anni ad uno spettacolo al cinema, oppure di passeggiare per le strade della vecchia Delhi completamente deserte. Ricordi ed immagini forgiate dall'esilio, dalla nostalgia, dalle migrazioni.

La banditessa Phoolan Devi

Ma non è lui l'unico personaggio dall'esistenza tormentata: c'è la dacoit e parlamentare indiana Phoolan Devi, che parla nello stesso linguaggio sboccato del film biografico "Bandit Queen", e la cantante di ghazal Begum Akhtar, che saliva sul palco con una fiaschetta di whisky e con la sigaretta perennemente in bocca. Ci sono anche personaggi nati in Occidente che però, come l'autrice, avevano il prurito sotto i piedi e hanno girato il mondo: Bruce Chatwin, l'indimenticabile autore de "Le Vie dei Canti", o Mildred Cable, missionaria inglese che si è spinta fino in Cina. Quest'ultima accompagna l'io narrante del racconto "La notte che scoprii di essere Mildred Cable". Ogni tanto infatti spunta questo personaggio, presumibilmente autobiografico: una ragazza che sta viaggiando per l'India e si trova allo stesso tempo spaesata ed estasiata dal nuovo paese che sta imparando a conoscere e ad amare. Nel primo di questi racconti, "Persino il cielo è diventato verde", vengono evocati i canali del Kerala, a quanto mi dicono non dissimili da quelli veneziani che conosco bene, e le verdissime risaie, anch'esse paragonabili a quelle della pianura padana, poi di nuovo le montagne del Kashmir, regione che Hans vuole visitare a tutti i costi nonostante il conflitto, inseguendo una leggenda che sarà per lui una maledizione. Incapsulato di nuovo da un verso di Agha Shahid Ali ("separation can't be borne / when the rains come"), questo racconto è infatti dedicato a Hans Christian Ostro, viaggiatore e danzatore norvegese che è stato ucciso in Kashmir. La morte e la malattia è un po' un fantasma in questi racconti che sprizzano voglia di vivere ma dove la morte è appunto o inaspettata oppure giunge in modi raccapriccianti, come nel caso del virus misterioso che ha stroncato la vita straordinaria, sempre sulla cresta dell'avventura, dello scrittore di viaggio inglese Bruce Chatwin. Infarciti di versi di poesie e di citazioni, che alle volte travalicano le dimensioni del tempo e dello spazio, come quando Begum Akhtar cita una canzone di Vinicio Capossela, questa raccolta di racconti che non supera le ottanta pagine è una bella ventata di aria fresca nel mercato stantio della letteratura italiana.

Sull'autrice: Clara Nubile è nata a Brindisi, nel 1974. Nel 2001 è partita per Bombay, dove ha fatto la ricercatrice, ma ha vissuto anche ad Antwerp, in Belgio, e a Ravenna. E' traduttrice e scrittrice. Ha pubblicato "Io ti Attacco nel Sangue" (Fazi, 2005) e "Lupo" (Fazi, 2007). La trovate anche nel blog di Tabaccherie Orientali.

"Possession" by A.S. Byatt

2011-04-23T19:00:00.002+02:00

Year of first publication: 1990

Genre: novel, historical novel, detective novel

Country: UK

There are some books whose success is perfectly understandable: a compelling but altogether simple plot, a love story perhaps and likeable characters. The success of A.S. Byatt’s “Possession”, nonetheless, is unusual: set in the world of academia, with two scholars of 19^th-century English poetry as its main protagonists, “Possession” is packed with academic discussions, several-pages-long Victorian poems, not to mention 19^th-century letters and journal, so that the present-time narrative space is sensibly restricted. How could the general public, with no interest in literary history, enjoy this? The love story disentangles only at the end of the book and some of the characters are not exactly likable.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, of course, as I dabble in literature myself. “Possession” shows how the scholarship of two famous Victorian poets can considerably change with the discovery of a bundle of love letters. Roland Michell, a diligent if not dull researcher in one of the most revered Victorian poets, Randolph Henry Ash, finds in an old book an unfinished letter to an unknown woman. After researching in journals and asking several other academics, he discovers that Ash held a correspondence with Christabel LaMotte, a poet worshipped by feminists for her lesbian relationship with a painter, Blance Glover. The scholar starts a compelling quest for more information on this secret love story, in the course of which he meets Professor Maud Bailey, one the main experts on LaMotte’s poetry. The two academics visit her grave and find out they have an affinity that goes beyond their love for literature or Victorian poetry. Yet, they are determined not to fall in love. The author has recently reported that her American editor insisted on saying that it was impossible for two people not to have intercourse for such a long time, seen that they were so clearly attracted one to the other. I found it intriguing and realistic, instead. Roland and Maud’s insecure love story reflects Ash and LaMotte’s relationship and the genius in Byatt’s book is that at a certain point they realize it. They are academics, after all, and their work very often consists in finding connections.

Christina Rossetti

Balancing many genres – the historical novel, the detective story and the novel of manners – A.S. Byatt’s book is reminiscent of Umberto Eco’s “The Name of the Rose”, but it is also a reflection on scholarship, poetry and literary history. The book shows, among other things, how the role of women in academia has changed through centuries. Christabel LaMotte, for instance, is a fictitious nineteenth-century poet who was considered inferior to male authors just because of her sex and is still revered as a great poet only by feminists, like Maud. Her friend and companion Blanche committed suicide in a way reminiscent of Mary Wollstonecraft’s attempt: throwing herself from Putney Bridge, that is. Another great character is Beatrice Nest, a contemporary scholar whose passion for Randolph Henry Ash only resulted in a 25-year-long study of his wife’s dull journals, because it was the only subject she was “allowed” to study at a time, the 1960s, when academia was a world dominated only by men. Women’s studies came after that, but the two worlds remained separated. Maud Bailey, an expert on LaMotte’s poetry, dismisses Ash, one of the most renowned poets of his time, for the male imaginary of his poetry and so does Roland Michell with regards to Christabel LaMotte who wrote about fairies and monsters. It is only by coincidence that they start to talk with each other, finding connections and similarities between their way of thinking.

"Proserpine" by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

The spirit of women like Dorothy Wordsworth, Mary Wollstonecraft or Judith Shakespeare permeates the novel. They are all women who had brothers or husbands whose work is among the greatest achievements in the literary world, but who could have because authors just as well, or who struggled to become authors but never had the success of their male counterparts. There are in fact many allusions to the great literature that has been written under Queen Victoria’s reign. Personally, I indulged on a kind of game while I was reading the book: is there a model A.S. Byatt followed to create the two poets? I don’t have an answer but Christabel LaMotte I imagine like a pencil sketch of Christina Rossetti or like the women in her brother Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s paintings. As for Ash I don’t have a model in mind, but I think Tennyson and Browning are the poets everyone would think about (incidentally, Tennyson wrote a poem called ‘Maud’ and ‘Christabel’ is a long poem by Coleridge).
Possession is naturally - leaving aside the sexual meaning, which also has its importance - what drives Roland and Maud in their quest: they want to possess the authors they study, not their letters and relics, but also their thoughts, their lives, their words. But is it really possible? I’ll add something unpopular to finish: I didn’t particularly like the poems. I found myself skipping them all the time, as the clues were discernible anyway in Roland and Maud’s disquisitions. That's the problem of such a gripping story! Yet, the poems are what makes this novel peculiar: they are an integral part of the work and not a later addition. They are not memorable, in my opinion, but they help building a 19th-century athmosphere around the two characters.

About the author: A.S. Byatt is considered one of the most important living authors in Britain. She was born in Sheffield, England, in 1936. Her mother was a scholar of Browning and her sister is also a novelist. She wrote, among other things, a quartet of novels inspired by D.H. Lawrence, which inclues "The Virgin in the Garden" (1978) and "Still Life "1985). She is also the author of several collections of short stories, for instance "The Matisse Stories", where each story is inspired by a painting by Matisse. "Possession", her most famous novel, won the Booker Prize and was made into a movie with Gwyneth Paltrow. Her last novel is "The Children's Book" (2009).

Che cosa resterà di questi Incroci di Civiltà 2011?

2011-04-18T19:38:00.000+02:00

Di solito, quando vado ad un festival letterario, faccio tanti post, uno per ogni incontro, sforzandomi di ricordare che cosa abbia detto ognuno degli autori, sciorinando nomi di romanzi e scrivendo brevi biografie frettolose. Questa volta voglio fare brevi snapshot degli incontri a cui ho partecipato:

- Kiran Nagarkar: Convinto che siamo venuti tutti ad ascoltarlo a pagamento, l'umiltà di questo scrittore è pari solo alla qualità letteraria che traspare dalle letture dei suoi libri. Mi è rimasta la voglia di comprarmi "Cuckold" sul marito di Mirabai, la grande poetessa mistica indiana. Invece non è stato tradotto in italiano e non ce l'hanno al banchetto, quindi mi devo accontentare di "Ravan & Eddie", pubblicato da Metropoli d'Asia.

- Pap Khouma ed Igiaba Scego: Lui gesticola molto quando parla, spalancando le braccia enormi: non ho difficoltà a credere che sua madre, quando è tornato in Senegal dopo molti anni passati in Italia, gli abbia detto: "Ma come sei cambiato, sei diventato così italiano!". Lei, orecchini giganti che tintinnano, è la vincitrice del Premio Bauer, insieme a V.S. Naipaul! Legge un passo tratto dal suo ultimo libro, "La mia casa è dove sono", sui migranti che arrivano sui barconi: molto attuale, colpisce nel segno. Quando apro il libro di Khouma ad una pagina a caso, incontro un cinema Rialto, immerso nelle strade di Dakar anziché nelle calli veneziane dove ci troviamo. Che magia!

- Jabbour Douaihy e Gad Lerner: "C'è Gad!", dico ad Igiaba Scego, emozionata e sconvolta perché il giornalista che vedo il lunedì sera in televisione è seduto a tre metri da noi, nel cortile del Casinò di Venezia, con i mitici pantaloni giallo senape e quella erre moscia strana. Douaihy non lo vedo, nella stanza stretta e lunga dove ci hanno messo, ma ascolto mentre legge dal suo romanzo il suo arabo dall'influenza francese, cresciuto all'ombra dei cedri del Libano.

- A.S. Byatt: E' abbastanza vero quello che dicono di lei: austera e poco incline alle battute, anche quando dice delle cose divertenti non si scompone. Forse la più grande scrittrice inglese contemporanea, Byatt ci racconta che è affascinata dalla scienza e che una volta ha incontrato un entomologo che voleva chiamare una sua farfalla con il suo nome. Come è successo a Nabokov, anche lui appassionato di farfalle, che ne ha una che porta il suo nome. Questa connessione da sola vale la serata.

- Wladimir Kaminer: tedesco di origine russa, scrittore e DJ, Kaminer nei suoi libri prende in giro i tedeschi. Scrive per esempio di un cane che aveva preso in bocca la mano del suo amico Boris. Non l'aveva morsa ma la teneva proprio in bocca. Lui, del tutto spontaneamente, ha urlato al cane "Heil Hitler!" e il cane ha lasciato la presa. Evidentemente era un cane nazista, è stato il commento. Umorismo Russendisko...

- Nathan Englander e Alessandro Piperno: Diversissimi come scrittura, uno dalla prosa più tradizionale, "quasi proustiana" (Piperno), e l'altro dirompente, con un accento newyorkese talmente forte da stordire (Englander). "A New York, appena uscivo dalla mia bolla mi sentivo ebreo. Sono dovuto andare in Israele per non sentirmi più ebreo" dice Englander. Paradossalmente illuminante.

- V.S. Naipaul: il peperino Naipaul questa volta era proprio laconico e ha parlato poco. Accompagnato come sempre dalla moglie Nadira che sale sul palco, elegante nel suo salwar kameez verde, per dare qualche indicazione al marito, Sir Vidia legge dal suo ultimo libro, "La Maschera dell'Africa", un pezzo sulla tomba dimenticata di un grande re africano. L'Africa, per Naipaul, è un luogo degli orrori, dove sanguinari dittatori si succedono uno dopo l'altro. Un libro per curarsi dal terzomondismo più accanito?

"Wuthering Heights" by Emily Brontë

2011-04-17T15:27:00.000+02:00

Year of first publication: 1847
Genre: novel, Gothic novel, romantic novel
Country: UK

At a certain point in "Wuthering Heights", when Heathcliff learns of Isabella's infatuation for him, Emily Brontë writes: 'And he stared hard at the object of discourse, as one might do at a strange repulsive animal: a centipede from the Indies, for instance, which curiosity leads one to examine in spite of the aversion it raises.’ (p.115). I think this is how we look at the characters of this novel, morbidly, like we look at an eerie animal. Emily Brontë is often called the sphinx of English literature, because how the daughter of a clergyman who lived a secluded life in rural Yorkshire came to write this tale of human wickedness and revenge is one of the main concerns of critics of 19th-century Gothic and romantic literature.

This book was among my favourite during my teenage years, but I had not reread it since. What I saw at the time, of course, was the dark, strong, inexplicable love story between Heathcliff and Catherine. I could not care for the second generation: Cathy seemed to me a dull version of her mother and I was fascinated only by the (in)possibility of ghosts wandering the windy moors of Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange. I did not see all the implications and possible readings that the novel could have: an exposure of the unfair laws that regulated inheritance, the puzzle of Heathcliff's ethnic origins or the "nature versus culture" topos.

"Wuthering Heights" is the story of Heathcliff and his revenge, above all. The story is told by Ellen Dean, the housekeeper of Thrushcross Grange, to a certain Mr Lockwood, the new tenant there. After an iconic scene where Mr Lockwood dreams of the ghost of a woman knocking at his window, but then wakes up and finds out that it was just the branch of a tree pulling against the window, Ellen Dean starts to tell the story of the two families who inhabited Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange. She recalls that Heathcliff was first brought home as a child by Mr Earnshaw after a trip to Liverpool, but his origins were unknown. He lookes like a gypsy, with dark, unruly hair and black eyes and she likes to speculate, even suggesting that he might have Chinese or Indian origins (pp.64-65). He is treated like a son by Mr Earnshaw, but he is not considered as such by everyone else (here's again another topos, see Austen's "Mansfield Park" for instance). His only friend in the world is Catherine Earnshaw: together, they run and have adventures in the open air, like brother and sister. One day, they run away from Wuthering Heights, like children do when they play. They reach Thrushcross Grange, which appears like a nice cottage owned by the Lintons. Here Heathcliff is discarded as a gypsy, while Catherine is treated like a princess. In the following weeks at Thrushcross Grange, she is taught good manners and is given nice clothes. The interactions between the Earnshaws and the Lintons result in two marriages. Catherine marries Edgar Linton, despite she loves Heathcliff. 'I am Heathcliff' (p.90) she says, in one of the most famous monologues of English literature. The reasons why she loves him remain obscure, even after 150 years of the book's first publication. Is it the kind of love that twins have or is it a more carnal passion? What we know is what the text says: Heatchliff leaves after hearing who Catherine is going to marry and in the next few years nothing is known about his whereabouts. When he comes back, he is a gentleman, rich and good-mannered. He gambles with Hindley, Catherine's brother, in order to inherit Wuthering Heights, and teaches Hindley's son Hareton bad manners. Heathcliff – an outcast, dark-skinned and lacking lineage – manages to become the master of the house and to destroy the two families. Catherine dies in childbirth, but not after having hold Heathcliff in her arms for the last time, and Heatchliff elopes with Isabella, Edgar's sister (oh, God, this novel is getting so difficult to summarize!). The story goes on with the second generation: Catherine and Edgar's daughter Cathy, Heathcliff and Isabella's sickly son Linton and Hindley's son Hareton, whom Heathcliff has not taught how to read and whom he treates as a peasant. Hindley being dead, maybe murdered by Heathcliff, and Hareton not representing a menace, Heathcliff has almost accomplished his revenge. His next evil plan is to make sure that Cathy Linton falls in love with poor Linton, his son, so he will inherit Thrushcross Grange as well. He manages to do that, at his son's expenses. Linton, already ill, in fact dies soon after marrying Cathy. The epilogue takes place when Mr Lockwood goes back to the region after a few months of absence and finds Ellen Dean living at Wuthering Heights with Cathy and Hareton, who have become friends, Heathcliff having died in the attempt of seeing Catherine's ghost through fasts and long wanderings in the night.

All the characters in the novel are loathsome: even Catherine, the heroine of the story, is whimsical, sometimes cruel and above all, impertinent and bossy. Her daughter Cathy is perhaps less unpleasant, but she is altogether spoiled and superficial. Linton is one of the most annoying characters in literature and Heathcliff is just too cruel and evil to be plausible. This is why I suggest that readers look at "Wuthering Heights" as if it were a strange animal. We ask ourselves what could Emily Brontë possibly mean with this novel and we wonder why we are so attracted to it. I browsed the web to learn what critics wrote and came out with a lot of different readings, but none of them satisfies. Lord David Cecil in 1935 wrote that the principle of calm and storm pervades the novel, suggesting that "Wuthering Heights" should be read in that sense. He certainly had a good point, but I don't think that "Wuthering Heights" can be restricted to a single reading. Emily Brontë certainly tackles and subverts the question of power relations, for instance, with the Other (Heathcliff) taking the role of master. Heathcliff is, nonetheless, essentially the villain of the story, albeit forced to become so by circumstances. His is an usurpation of power by the Other, the undefinied colonial subject (gypsy, Lascar or Irish, the origin doesn't really matter). Race as a metaphor for gender works only partially here: while at the end of the story Cathy is reintroduced in the inheritance line (Hareton will formally inherit, I think, but it is Cathy who's managing the house), Heathcliff or his potentially benevolent descendants are wiped out. The only son he had was a sickly, hideous boy whose horrible fate the reader is encouraged to soon forget. Those whose lineage are unknown remain therefore exluded. In other words, gender is preferred over race. The novel questions and then reaffirms imperial ideology (as Susan Meyer says of "Jane Eyre"). I think that the problem of inheritance and power structures is integral to the story, but there are so many things in this book that one does not feel at ease by endorsing a particular interpretation over the others.

In my opinion, "Wuthering Heights" is, first of all, a tale of revenge, of what rage, hatred and isolation can do to human beings. It is a story that still exerts its quirky fascination over the readers: Heatchliff digging up Catherine's body or the isolation of Yorkshire moorlands roughening the character of people stay forever in readers' minds. It is a novel of extreme violence, sometimes unmotivated and prompted by frustration, with oppositions and strange haunting images (what about the dead rabbits or the hounds at the beginning of the novel?), and this is why it is a story that lingers in the mind of readers long after having finished the book.

About the author: Emily Brontë (1818-1848), was born in the moorlands of Yorkshire, the daughter of a clergyman. She had a stern education and never left Yorkshire. She had a close relationship with her two sisters, Charlotte and Anne, who were also writers. She left only one novel ("Wuthering Heights") and some poems. She died of tubercolosis at thrirty years of age. She was unmarried and, it is said, never knew love.

Wallace Stevens, 'Mozart, 1935'

2011-04-10T21:46:00.001+02:00

It is National Poetry Month in the USA. To celebrate this I have decided to post a poem by an American author, Wallace Stevens (1879-1955). I came across this poem late at night. It was one of the first nights of the Lybian war and I could hear the planes flying above my head, leaving from an American military base nearby. They were heavy and I knew that, in spite of all the talks of peacekeeping missions, they were taking war to that country, so close to Italy geographically. I understood the poem as an invitation to keep writing poetry, keep producing art even in a violent world. Ignoring what is happening around him, a corpse being carried down the stairs, stones thrown upon the roof, I perceived that Wallace Stevens was asking artists to keep working even in a time of great upheavals and horrors. Just read the poem and then something more after it...

Mozart, 1935

Poet, be seated at the piano.
Play the present, its hoo-hoo-hoo,
Its shoo-shoo-shoo, its ric-a-nic,
Its envious cachinnation.
If they throw stones upon the roof
While you practice arpeggios,
It is because they carry down the stairs
A body in rags.
Be seated at the piano.
That lucid souvenir of the past,
The divertimento;
That airy dream of the future,
The unclouded concerto . . .
The snow is falling.
Strike the piercing chord.
Be thou the voice,
Not you. Be thou, be thou
The voice of angry fear,
The voice of this besieging pain.
Be thou that wintry sound
As of the great wind howling,
By which sorrow is released,
Dismissed, absolved
In a starry placating.
We may return to Mozart.
He was young, and we, we are old.
The snow is falling
And the streets are full of cries.
Be seated, thou.

The poem is actually quite connected to the moment in which it was written, as I learned browsing the internet for information. Many critics accused Wallace Stevens of paying too much attention to sounds and rhythm, without putting ideas into his poetry. He was considered 'out of tune' in a time when the Great Depression was what people should think about and consequently what poets should be writing about. The poet answers with this poem, quite beautifully. 'Be seated at the piano' he says, play arpeggios, even when people throw stones at your roof. Is it critics, criticizing the poet? Is it the terrible things happening in the world? I don't know. The poet-pianist is playing the present (hoo-hoo-hoo, shoo-shoo-shoo, ric-a-nic, whatever the tune of the moment is) and must remain seated at the piano. In the end, history passes, art remains. Mozart is still relevant today, he's still young, because with his music 'sorrow is released / dismissed, absolved'). This is what art is for. It cannot always change things in the world, but it is important in order to give our minds a relief from the bleakness of everyday life and maybe in order to placate our conflicts. That comma in the title, critics write, is essential: Mozart seems anachronistic in 1935, but is it really? By the end of the poem it doesn't seem so. 'The streets are full of cries', the last line says, and yet it is placidly snowing, Mozart is playing. Poet, be seated at the piano! The poet is 'interested not in writing about the street, but in writing about the problem of writing about the street' Mark Halliday wrote.
I so regret that Wallace Stevens was not in my syllabus, because I love this poem.

"The Skin Between Us. A Memoir of Race, Beauty and Belonging" by Kym Ragusa

2011-04-04T21:03:00.001+02:00

Year of first publication: 2006
Genre: memoir
Country: USA

Kym Ragusa's memoir begins on the Strait of Messina, dividing Sicily from Calabria and representing the crossroad between Europe and Africa. This place is significative for the author, because her paternal ancestors migrated from Southern Italy to America and her maternal ancestors were African slaves brought to North America via a forced migration. Standing there on the ferryboat, with her corkscrew hair tied in a knot in order 'not to stand out' (p.18), she reflects on the meaning of belonging to a place. She would like to shoot the ancient Greek-Sicilian myth of Persephone, the goddess that divided her time between the underworld and the mortal world. 'What are you?', American people ask her, 'where are you from?', Italian people always enquire, curious about her skin colour and her childlike Italian.

The skin between us: a border, a map, a blank page. History and biology. The skin between us that kept us apart and sheltered us against the hurt we inflicted on each other. The skin between us: membrane, veil, mirror. [...]
What are you?
Black and Italian. African American, Italian American. American.
Other. Biracial, Interracial. Mixed-blood, Half-Breed, High-Yellow, Redbone, Mulatta, Nigger, Dago, Guinea.
Where are you from?
I DON'T KNOW where I was conceived, but I was made in Harlem. Its topography is mapped on my body: the borderlines between neighboorhoods marked by streets that were forbidden to cross, the borderlines enforced by fear and anger, and transgressed by desire. The streets crossing east to west, north to south, like the web of veins beneath my skin.(p.26-27).

Here begins Kym Ragusa's investigations of her identity, split between two communities that hardly interacted with each other: the Italian and the African American communities of East and West Harlem. Her mother, stunningly beautiful (but not at all a tragic mulatta!) and young, with a genius IQ and a career in modeling is the last of a series of strong African American beauties in her family, all light skinned and unfortunate with men. Descended from a Pittsburgh community where German ancestors have mingled with African American former slaves, blond hair coexisting with a 'double-edged pride' of being black, so that their ethnicity was both emblem of honor and deep shame, the author struggled to understand the entanglements of race divisions. Her corkscrew hair, her grandmother Miriam told her, were her father's fault, the result of HIS African roots, rather than her own (which had produced red hair, by the way, of the sort Malcolm X had). The glamor of the Harlem Renaissance her grandmother had experienced, her friendship with Marilyn Monroe in Los Angeles and with some of the greatest poets and musicians working in the Harlem area clashed with the violence in the nieghboorhood. The writer experienced it first hand: a man was murdered in the apartment building where she lived and her mother was threatened with a gun by a drugaddict.

On the other side of the family, a noisy, poor Italian American family, her grandfather speaking always Calabrese and her grandmother Gilda always looking at her suspiciously, because of the color of her skin. Her Italian American relatives struggled to get along with the maternal side of her family: her grandmother Miriam and her aunts thinking that her father was too poor and working class to suit their taste. With a mostly absent father, who after the Vietnam war had become addicted to drugs, and a Puerto Rican step-mother to add into the salad bowl, the author relates how her family, after a whole life spent in the city, tried to adjust to the life in a small place: growing vegetables in the garden, for example.

Revolving around the figure of her two grandmothers Miriam and Gilda, who died one week apart from each other like two sisters crossing the ocean as immigrants to a new land, this memoir is written in an intimate way, never banal and always compelling. It challenges notions of fixed identity, of blackness and whiteness - her skin is sometimes lighter, other times the same as that of her Italian American friends, but it is always perceived as different by others. It strikes me that the two communities are different and similar in ways that I didn't expect: the neighboorhood of La Kalsa, in Palermo, getting rough at night time, resembles the Harlem and the Bronx of her childhood and teenage years. There, as well, civilizations meet: African and Asian immigrants living side by side with the Sicilian people, who also show the signs of the Arabian and the Norman dominations. Also, on her maternal side she can go back several generations to Sybela, a slave who escaped slavery with the master's son, but on her paternal side things are dimmer: one would expect the opposite. The trauma of immigration, together with the ghost of racial segregation add to the picture of a conflicted identity, but her "family portraits" are always affectionate and above all honest. Written with an evident gusto for storytelling, "The Skin Between Us" is a bridge between cultures, an ode to every family and every painful story that nonetheless hides a pleasant aftertaste.

About the author: Kym Ragusa was born in New York City in 1966. She is a writer and a documentary filmmaker. Her short movies "Passing" and "Fuori/Outside" explore her double heritage. This is her first book.

Jackie Kay, 'Things Fall Apart'

2011-03-29T18:21:00.001+02:00

Não tenho ambiçôes nem desejos

Ser poeta não é uma ambição minha

É a minha maneira de estar sozinho.

Fernando Pessoa ('O guardador de Rebanhos' in "Poemas Completos de Alberto Caeiro")

I don't have ambitions or desires

Being a poet isn't my ambition,

It's my way of being alone.

Fernando Pessoa ('The Keeper of Flock' in "Alberto Caeiro: The Complete Poems")

I never speak about poetry in my blog and I don't know why. I don't know if poetry works on the internet, where people come into a blog like this and read quickly a post in multitasking mode, hardly reaching the end of it. I'll try anyway.

I'll start with a poet some of you may not know. My intention is not to post Wordworth's "Daffodils"; for that you can go everywhere on the net. I want to post something that I find interesting, slightly different from the poems we are used to read in literature classes, and then write something about it.

The first poet I’d like to talk about is Jackie Kay. She was born in 1961 in Scotland, from a Nigerian father and a Scottish mother. She was adopted by a white couple and raised in Glasgow. She has written poetry ("The Adoption Papers", “Off Colour”, “Life Mask”), novels for both adults (“Trumpet”) and children (“Strawgirl”) and, more recently, a memoir (“Red Dust Road”). Some years ago she went to Nigeria to meet her biological father and had written a piece for the Guardian whose copyright is now expired. To know that story I guess you’ll have to read her memoir (I’m eager to, by the way, as I’ve read her novel “Trumpet” some years ago and loved it). Alternatively, you can read this poem:

Things Fall Apart

My birth father lifted his hands above his head

and put the white mask of God on his handsome face.

A born-again man now, gone were the old tribal ways,

the ancestral village - African chief's nonsense, he says.

I could see his eyes behind the hard alabaster.

A father, no more real, still less real - not Wole Soyinka.

Less flesh than dark earth; less blood than red dust.

Less bone than Kano camels; less like me than Chinua Achebe.

Christianity had scrubbed his black face with a hard brush.

'You are my past sin, let us deliberate on new birth.'

The sun slips and slides and finally drops

into the swimming pool, in Nico hotel, Abuja; lonely pinks.

I knock back my dry spritzer, take in the songs

of African birds. I think he had my hands, my father.

(From "Life Mask", 2005)

I have chosen this poem, over several others by Jackie Kay, because it is highly resonant with names and tropes of postcolonial literatures: two great Nigerian writers are named, not to mention that the title immediately takes us back to the atmospheres of Achebe’s most important novel, “Things Fall Apart”. The discordance between expectations and real events is the main focus of this short poem. The old tribal ways swept away by the religion and the customs of the colonizers, as it happens in Achebe’s novel, are paired to her disappointment at a father she has long imagined and now that he is in front of her, in flesh and blood, looks like dark earth and red dust to her. Unable to reconcile her father with the figure of the Nigerian intellectuals she knows, she is finally left alone in the hotel and thinks of his father’s hands, so similar and dissimilar from hers, those same hands that were lifted above his head to take God's white mask and to put it on his handsome face (Frantz Fanon’s “Black Skin, White Masks” is the obvious reference here).

I like this poem for its simplicity, its refusal of the idea that poems use difficult words and complex figures of speech. It blends the narrative intent and the lyric moment, lending words in a most crystalline way to an emotion that we have all felt: disappointment and disenchantment.

“The Gift” by Vladimir Nabokov

2011-03-21T22:04:00.005+01:00

Year of first publication: 1937-38
Genre: novel
Country: Russia

At some point in “The Gift” a man called Valentin Linëv from Warsaw reviews the book written by the protagonist, a mock biography of revolutionary democrat and author Nikolay Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky. The reviewer dismisses the work, considering that its author has, among other faults, a poor use of the Russian language. This fictitious reviewer, I learn from the afterword to the novel, failed to recognize all the allusions to great Russian authors in the book, thus missing its prominent aesthetic value. I am exactly like this wicked reviewer, because my grasp of Russian literature is sketchy, if not worse. “The Gift” has in fact been written for those readers who are familiar with the works of Pushkin, Tolstoj, Turgenev and many other important Russian authors. If you are not one of these lucky readers, then you are excluded from “The Gift”, because the book is entirely about literature and the plot has little importance.

Fëdor Kostantinovich Godunov-Cherdyncev, a Russian expatriate in 1920s Berlin, has just published a book of poetry in a magazine for Russian émigrés, but nobody seems to care or hail him as one of the new talents among the not-so-tiny Russian community in Germany. The verses, reported at length together with a reviewer’s commentary, are mainly about the author’s childhood in his native Russia. Fëdor Kostantinovich describes that poetry comes to him in sudden blazes and he struggles to catch all the words, an adjective sometimes escaping him. Like Nabokov, Godunov-Cherdyncev also experiences synesthesia, a contamination between the senses that allows him to perceive words or sounds as colours or textiles (he recommends the reader to try his ‘flannel cotton “m”’). What does Fëdor Kostantinovich do apart from musing over his own writing, anyway? He often visits other Russian émigrés, for example the Chernyshevskys, who oddly enough are not related to the aforementioned revolutionary hero. They had a son, Jasha, who died in a way highly reminiscent of Goethe’s “The Sorrows of Young Werther”, although the afterword to the novel mentions Pushkin’s “Eugene Onegin” as the implied allusion. This is how the novel works: in a now-common postmodern way that scatters metaliterary references all over the novel. It is not hard to spot the influence of Proust’s “In Search of Lost Time” (1913-1927), for instance, in the constant remembrance and nostalgia for the protagonist’s childhood. With regards to this, Robert Scholes, an influential literary critic, once said that ‘once we knew that fiction was about life and criticism was about fiction – and everything was simple. Now we know that fiction is about other fiction, is criticism in fact, or metafiction’.
As the novel progresses, the reader understand that the plot revolves around Godunov-Cherdyncev’s maturation as a writer. At first his intention is writing a book about his father, who was an adventurer and an lepidopterist, but then he abandons the project. He meets Zina, a character moulded on Nabokov’s real wife Vera, who is the only one who loved his poems and wants to have a signed copy. She suggests that he should write a biography of Chernishevsky, as an exercise. Here begins the book within the book: more than one hundred pages are devoted to this fake biography of a real man. This chapter of the novel was censored, in the first Russian edition, for the same reasons given for the dismissal of the biography in the novel as a ‘reckless, antisocial, mischievous improvisation’. These words tell us that Nabokov was constantly playing with the reception of the book, because he knew it was not a book for everyone. He constantly mocks and scorns those readers who cannot spot the literary allusions, which can be a little annoying.
In spite of this metafictional feast, the novel failed to arouse my interest above a certain (low) level. Full of juicy titbits (‘the street began as a post office and ended like a church, like an epistolary novel’, p.16 my translation from the Italian), the novel does have some charms, but they are diluted, watered down in a drawn-out book of 450-odd pages, with almost no plot and maybe ruined by a translation that was difficult to make, not to mention an inadequate reader with only a few notions of Russian literature. As he always does, Nabokov tells in a preface what “The Gift” is not: it is not an autobiographical novel, he says, because he did not have an explorer as a father and he never courted Zina Mertz. The problem is that Nabokov never says what his novels really are. It seems to me that, as his other two works I have read so far (read here and here), this is ultimately a novel about writing, the novel that we read being the same novel that the protagonist starts at the end of the book, as if we were in a Moebius strip, a continuum where the end is also the beginning of the novel. The gift of the title is of course the gift of the pen, of poetry and literature, which is all that mattered to Nabokov.

"A Writer's People. Ways of Looking and Feeling" by V.S. Naipaul

2011-03-12T21:11:00.006+01:00

Year of first publication: 2007
Genre: non-fiction / memoir
Country: Trinidad and Tobago / UK

In this book Naipaul writes about those writers he came into contact with, helping him find his own way of looking and feeling, that is to say his style and his way of observing the world. As a writer who comes from a place without solid traditions and culture, he had to work out his own material. He examines various writers, as different as Derek Walcott and Cicero, Flaubert and Anthony Powell, not to mention his own father Seepersad Naipaul, trying to explain their ways of seeing the world and of translating their feelings and impressions into words. Halfway between memoir and non-fiction, “A Writer’s People” is not scared to express strong opinions (wink to Vladimir Nabokov) such as ‘ I didn’t do English in the sixth form; and when I saw the text books, the “Lyrical Ballads” and so on, I considered myself lucky’ (p.8) or again ‘what a relief it was to feel that I need never read another letter of sweet nothings from Henry James again’ (p.56). Even though these sentences could sound arrogant out of context, I think that Sir Vidia was honest and humble in this work. He never thinks he is (or was) any better than the writers he assesses, though one must be very careful because the distinction is sometimes subtle. Many things he says about writing are undeniably true: ‘There is a kind of writing that undermines its subject. Most good writing , I believe is like that’ (p.40) and he manages to say what he wants with terse, simple language.

In the first chapter, sardonically called ‘The Worm in the Bud’, Naipaul writes about his nemesis Derek Walcott. Naipaul mocks those who, like Walcott, celebrate the culture of the Caribbean, suggesting that things like the steel band or the calypso are not really worth being called ‘culture’. He claims that Walcott tried to fill up the cultural emptiness felt by the inhabitants of the West Indies by borrowing from other cultures (Greek mythology, for instance) and giving people distorted ways to fill this lack, such as racial hatred and rage against the white people who exploited the islands. Walcott’s mind, according to Naipaul, remained anchored to his small little island, refusing to see the greater picture. For his pessimism, Naipaul has been dubbed by Walcott (a Nobel Prize apiece they are!) V.S. Nightfall and a mocking poem has even been written on the to pic. The problem is that by the end of this chapter (and this book) I still haven’t grasped what really is his particular way of seeing and feeling. Apart from feeling disconnected from most writers on the face of the earth, the author does not say it.

In the second chapter ‘The English Way of Looking’, the author writes at length about his friend and fellow-writer Anthony Powell, an influential English writer in the 1950s. He laments that Powell wrote about English society in great detail, but without undermining the subject from within. Probably true. The reason is, according to Naipaul, that every aspect of English society, and especially of English country life, has already been written. However, he also criticized English travel writers (Graham Greene, Evelyn Waugh, Somerset Maugham) for assuming that people knew about the socio-political entanglements of the countries they were writing about. He thinks that ‘it seemed, in strange way, that at the end, when the dust had settled, the people who wrote as though they were at the centre of things might be revealed as the provincials’ (p.55). He did not convince me. Naipaul seems to ignore the fact that society is always changing and so is history: a novel written about the English society in 2011 will not be the same as a novel written about that same society in, say, 2007. The recession has happened and the Arab world is in revolt, for instance. Relationships, reactions and lifestyles continually change and are affected by a multitude of factors, so there will always be new material to write on.

The last three chapters follow a circular pattern: the author starts writing about what he believes is an Indian way of seeing and then passes on to some Latin authors, only to shed light on his ideas about Indian contemporary culture, which he essentially condemns as materialistic and culturally dependent on the West. Naipaul details the life of Gandhi, whom he portrays essentially as a provincial man whose view of the world was rather dim, but who had some great intuitions. Strangely enough, the ‘half-view’ of classical authors resembles the Indian way of seeing and feeling, that the author calls ‘looking and not seeing’. Naipaul laments that Indians claim they know Gandhi, without acknowledging the various elements that created his philosophy (his experience in London studying law, his imprisonment in South Africa, the observation of his mother’s faults and essentially the conflict between his admiration and his disgust for the colonizers). Indians, according to Naipaul, are confused. ‘India has no autonomous intellectual life’ he writes at the end of the book, blaming expatriate writers for writing overtly autobiographical novels moulded on creative writing courses that ultimately look all the same.
I don’t know what to make of this book. Did I like it? Did I not like it? I am uncomfortable with some of the conclusions, but I was spellbound while I was reading it. Written in spare prose, with anecdotes that are affectionate and cruel at the same time, Naipaul knows how to use his words and understands what it means to be a writer, the challenges and frustrations of the job. I had never imagined, for instance, that a writer like V.S. Naipaul never got over his shyness in seeing his name in print!

About the author: V.S. Naipaul was born in 1932 in Trinidad. He belongs to a family which descends from the indented workers brought from India to replace the African slaves who refused to work on the sugar plantations. His father Seepersad was a pioneer writer in the small intellectual community in Trinidad. Naipaul left his island for England with a scholarship and studied in Oxford. After his studies he began to write and has pursued no other profession. Among his first novels are “The Mystic Masseur” (1957), “A House for Mr Biswas” (1961) and “In A Free State” (1971). The latter has won the Booker Prize. He has also travelled the world and written about it: his acclaimed Indian Trilogy (“An Area of Darkness”, “India: A Wounded Civilization” and “India: A Million Mutinees Now”) and “Among the Believers: An Islamic Journey” are some examples of his travel writing. Naipaul has been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2001 ‘for having united perceptive narrative and incorruptible scrutiny in works that compel us to see the presence of suppressed histories’. His work has raised a lot of controversy, mainly for political reasons and for his unsympathetic portrayal of the developing world, especially in his travel writing.

"Felicia's Journey" by William Trevor

2011-03-04T22:22:00.002+01:00

Year of first publication: 1994

Genre: novel, crime fiction, thrille

Country: Ireland

Where does crime fiction start? Where does it end? When is one allowed to sympathize with the evil characters of a book? These are some questions that "Felicia's Journey" raises.

William Trevor is one of the most important living Irish writers, a master of short stories, always compared to Joyce. This is one of his novels, which slowly explores the story of Felicia and Mr Hilditch, who are opposites. She is a young innocent Irish girl who is looking for her boyfriend in England and he is a middle-age English man, lonely and apparently benevolent. Ok, now I have spoiled everything with only one adjective and you know already how the story will end. Or not?

La recensione di questo libro è disponibile a questo link.

"No New Land" by M.G. Vassanji

2011-02-20T22:52:00.003+01:00

Year of first publication: 1991
Genre: novel
Country: Canada / Tanzania / India

Nurdin Lalani is new in Toronto. He arrived with his family from East Africa, where his father had moved in 1906 from India, his country of origin, when Germany employed Indians to build their empire in Tanganyka. Nurdin can’t find a job in Toronto because he has no “Canadian experience”, in spite of having sold shoes in his country for eight years. All he can get are degrading menial jobs. He lives in an apartment building called Sixty-nine, full of immigrants, many are East Africans of Indian origin, like him. The immigrants have business going on in the building: they cook samosas and chapattis to take away, they offer babysitting services and open-houses. Nurdin and his family experience racism and attempts of exploitation when, newly-arrived in town, they are all invited to a party, which reveals to be a strange kind of fashion show. Moreover, a friend is beaten up by locals - only he reinvents himself as a painter and goes back to Dar, becoming a fashionable exotic artist for Western tourists. Nurdin bonds particularly with two people from his community: a part-time university professor called Nanji who once had a girlfriend in New York but is now lonely and lives in a unfurnished apartment, and Jamal, a successful lawyer who likes expensive cars.
One day Nurdin gives shelter for one night to a couple visiting from Guyana (he didn’t even know where Guyana was, but he had heard there were Indian people there too!) and he’s offered a job by his host’s brother, Romesh. Romesh gives him pork sausage to eat, therefore Nurdin reflects on the prohibition to eat pork. He thinks that’s when he began to “rot”. He’s changed, his well-educated friend Nanji tells him, after having eaten pork. After that, Romesh offers him a sip of his beer and takes him to a peep show. Nurdin even starts a “romantic friendship” with a lady he knew back in Dar. He feels guilty because he’s being “corrupted” by the Western way, the Canadian way. In spite of considering the CN Tower a sort of lighthouse, his fixed mark in his new country, he's confused by a new whirlwind of experiences and temptations.

He offers help to a girl who is crying but she accuses him of rape (echoes of “A Passage to India” are blatant here). Ironically enough, the girl is also from an immigrant community, the Portuguese who abound in Toronto. The novel finishes with Nurdin and Jamal fixing the situation by promising help to come to Canada to the girl’s relatives in Portugal (Jamal is an influential lawyer by now and he lies by saying he is about to open an office in Lisbon).
It’s the usual immigrant-in-a-new-land-novel, only some coordinates are different: the émigré is from Dar es Salaam, but eats samosas while he drinks gallons of tea, and the new city is Toronto, instead of New York or London.

The title of the novel nonetheless suggests that the land where Nurdin and his friends have settled is not new, but it has seen many other “layers of migrations”: the English and the French first, the Portuguese and the Italians after that, and the Africans at last. “No New Land” is well-written, but could have elaborated more on some topics (for example, when Indians are sent away from Uganda and neighbouring countries or on the situation of feeling East African but being Indian and identification – or non identification – with other Indian people).

About the author: M.G. Vassanji was born in Kenya, from a family of Indian origin. He was raised in Tanzania and moved to Toronto, Canada, in 1978. He's now considered one of Canada's most acclaimed writers. He has published six novels (The Book of Secrets and The In-between World of Vikram Lall are some other titles), two collections of short stories, a memoir of his travels in India and a biography of Mordecai Richler.

"Rich Like Us" by Nayantara Sahgal

2011-02-16T18:33:00.003+01:00

Year of first publication: 1983
Genre: novel
Country: India

“Rich Like Us” is the portrait of two families of the Indian elite at the time of the Emergency (1975-1977), the darkest period in modern Indian history, when Prime Minister India Gandhi suspended elections and civil liberties. The author, nonetheless, is Indira Gandhi’s first cousin and Jawaharlal Nehru’s niece. Nayantara Sahgal belongs in fact to the most powerful family of the country, yet she has always had a critical attitude towards the decisions of some of her relatives, her cousin in particular. This made her lose her job (she was about to be appointed India’s ambassador to Italy), which is an experience she recounts in this novel through the story of Sonali, also abruptly dismissed by the unnamed President in favour of her ex-fiancé Ravi Kachru.
“Rich Like Us” is partly narrated from the point of view of Sonali , who ives in a “joint family” with her sister Kiran and her brother-in-law. She’s friends with Rose, an English lady who unconvincingly tries to hide her Cockney accent from her high-born friends. Rose is nursing her Indian husband who has just had a stroke and cannot run his family business like he used to. Ram’s son, an indolent young man who has seriously been affected by the unusual double marriage of his father, is forging cheques to get his father’s money on his account. As time goes by, Rose learns that her rights as a woman and wife are deteriorating, so she turns to her friend Sonali for help.
The narration is told through flashbacks from the characters’ past: for instance how Rose came to marry Ram and how she accepted to be his second wife, living on the second floor while the first wife was downstairs with her children Dev and Nishi, and how Sonali got engaged with Ravi while in Oxford and then split up with him, only to see him married with the youngest daughter of the second cousin of the Prime Minister’s mother (Nishi).
On the background, the political upheaval, the vasectomies and the corruption of this horrible time in Indian history. Sonali’s father, who owns a shop, is sent to prison, apparently for no reason.
The title suggests that the book aims at criticizing the system that prevents richness to “trickle down” to poor people in India. Politics in Sahgal’s novel is of primary importance. In a 1959 flashback, for instance, Sonali discusses communism with Ravi, stating that she doesn’t want to stick to any doctrine. Her motivation is personal: being a woman she has lived too many restrictions to voluntarily have another one in her life. Sonali states ‘I don’t like dictatorships, not even of the proletariat, not even as a passing phase because who knows the phase might get stuck and never pass’ (p.112). That is basically the reason while they broke up: ‘the actual break had come because they couldn’t agree on step three and step four of the Marxist process, whatever that was, and especially what happened to artists and writers and thinkers at that point’ (ibid). The implied motivation, according to Sonali, is that Ravi is actually bossy, rigid and selfish and if she married him she’d have to agree with him all the time. Patriarchal power and arbitrary power are one of the main themes of the book, especially towards the end of the book when Rose has to face her limitations as a woman in Indian society.
Sahgal’s style is impeccable and she manages to portray the lifestyle of the ruling classes with cynicism and detachment. The narrative is almost entirely built through flashbacks, which freezes the story in a timeless reality. Only in the second half of the novel the story takes off, offering us strikes of genius, like the following:

“What is Divali?” Rose asked. “It’s the beginning of winter,” he replied. Why hadn’t he said it was the return and enthronement of Rama, a festival of rejoicing, of lights and feasting and gambling? The beginning of winter and another exile was what it had been for Sita” (p.244)

Mona, Ram’s first wife, is compared to Sita, the heroine and suffering wife of “The Ramayana”. It is not the only allusion to mythology. References to Draupadi and her five husbands abound, but it is the island of Cythera, where according to Greek mythology Aphrodite was born, that bears the most ironic relevant signification in the novel. Rose buys an old postcard of Cythera, after having heard her husband compare India to the island of love. In the end, Rose dead in the most horrible way, it stands for our disillusionment, because this India narrated by Sahgal is no island of love, but a country where patriarchal power wins over everything else, in spite of the refined manners of its ruling glass.

“The English Patient” by Michael Ondaatjie

2011-02-06T16:47:00.003+01:00

Year of first publication: 1992
Genre: novel
Country: Canada/Sri Lanka (even though the novel is set in Italy and North Africa)

You might have seen the movie adaptation of this novel, because it was very successful and won many Academy Awards (as if that was a guarantee of good quality). Well, forget that movie, because the novel is nothing like it. “The English Patient” was in fact considered unfilmable (is that even a word?) for quite some time, before Anthony Minghella decided to shoot it. The reason for this is that it goes back and forth a lot, and it it is an exceptionally fragmentary novel which jumps from a quotation from the great Greek historian Herodotus’ writings to a character musings on the precarious life he is leading. But don’t take me wrong, it is not a bad novel. If you can overcome these hurdles you’ll be rewarded. The author explores different layers of his characters' history and personality with the use of exceptionally-detailed short snapshots.
Ondaatje’s novel is set in an abandoned villa in Tuscany, at the end of the Second World War. Four characters take shelters in the villa: a nurse named Hana and her patient, horribly burned after a plane crash, David Caravaggio, who’s a thief turned intelligence agent, and Kip, the Indian sapper who’s trying to dispose of bombs and mines scattered in the countryside around the villa San Girolamo. In a sense they’re all outsiders: they fought this war not for their people but for somebody else and their lives have been shattered by the war. Hana and Caravaggio are in fact Canadian (they also appear in a previous novel by Ondaatje called “The Skin of a Lion”), while the patient doesn’t remember (or doesn’t want to remember) where he’s from. Together with the Sikh sapper, they form an unlikely quartet: they bond because they can find ways to feel similar. A can of condensed milk, for instance, is the object through which Kip and the man who’s slowly dying and can’t move from his bed become friends. On the background the reader learns the story of the English patient, through his scrapbook, a copy of Herodotus’ histories with a lot of marginalia, photos and papers glued into it. He experienced quite an adventurous life in North Africa and lived a love story that has nothing to envy from Rick and Ilsa of “Casablanca”. Ondaatje’s background as a poet is evident in his use of language: it is often said that prose is different from poetry because in the latter you are choosing you words very carefully, while in the former you can let it go a little a write more freely. In the case of this novel, however, the language is carefully chosen even though it is prose. While I liked some of the themes in the novel and the author’s poetic imagination, I found Ondaatje’s style a bit too dry for my taste, resulting in characters I could not get into, like Caravaggio. I remember, though, that I read a section of one of his poetry books (The Collected Works of Billy the Kid) and I was struck by its originality.

About the author: Michael Ondaatje was born in Sri Lanka in 1943. His family is of Colombo Chetty and Burgher origin (which means he has mixed South Asian and Dutch ancestry). He moved with his mother to the UK when he was eleven and he relocated to Canada in 1962. Although he is known as a novelist, he is also a poet, having published thirteen volumes of poetry to date. The Collected Works of Billy the Kid (1970) is his most famous work in this genre. So far he has also written five novels and a memoir, Running in the Family (1982). The English Patient won him the Booker Prize and it is his most-important book to date.