Strangeways, here we come

I'll try to keep myself open up to you

Despejar o saco: 2008 em livros

É da praxe: no final do ano surgem os balanços, as listas que para alguns poderão funcionar enquanto últimas chamadas de atenção para obras e factos, personalidades e acontecimentos que ajudaram a criar uma espécie de memória comum daquilo que foi o período que agora se prepara para sair pela porta; enquanto para outros, mais não são do que exercícios masturbatórios, detestáveis porque públicos, petulantes porque parecem culpabilizar quem da matéria listada andou arredado. Abro, pois, especialmente para esses, a gabardina e dou a conhecer os livros que fizeram o meu 2008.



Livros editados em 2008*:

01. Fiódor Dostoiévski, Demónios (Presença) (~);
02. Lev Tolstoi, A morte de Ivan Ilitch (Booket / Dom Quixote);
03. Ivan Turguénev, O primeiro amor (Relógio D’Água);
04. Alphonse Daudet, Sapho (Booket / Dom Quixote);
05. José Donoso, Casa de campo (Cavalo de Ferro) (~);
06. Kate Chopin, O despertar (Relógio D’Água);
07. Adolfo Bioy Casares, O herói das mulheres (Cavalo de Ferro);
08. Philip Roth, Património (Dom Quixote);
09. José Cardoso Pires, Lavagante (Edições Nelson de Matos);
10. Mark Twain, Aventuras de Tom Sawyer (QuidNovi);
11. Júlio Verne, Viagem ao centro da Terra (QuidNovi);
12. Daniel Defoe, A vida e as aventuras de Robinson Crusoé (QuidNovi).


Outras leituras (e releituras)*:

01. Franz Kafka, Metamorfose (Livros do Brasil, 2007);
02. Fiódor Dostoiévski, Crime e castigo (Presença, 2001);
03. Harper Lee, Por favor, não matem a cotovia (Difel, 2007);
04. Fiódor Dostoiévski, Cadernos do subterrâneo (Assírio & Alvim, 2000);
05. Thomas Mann, A morte em Veneza (Relógio D’Água, 2004);
06. F. Scott Fitzgerald, O grande Gatsby (Relógio D’Água, 1996);
07. Ernest Hemingway, O adeus às armas (Livros do Brasil, 2003);
08. Ernest Hemingway, O velho e o mar (Livros do Brasil, 2006);
09. Joseph Conrad, Mocidade – Uma narrativa (Assírio & Alvim, 2003);
10. Ernest Hemingway, O Sol nasce sempre (Fiesta) (Livros do Brasil, 2007);
11. John Steinbeck, A um deus desconhecido (Livros do Brasil, 2007);
12. Ernest Hemingway, Por quem os sinos dobram (Livros do Brasil, 2007);
13. Nikolai Leskov, Lady Macbeth de Mtsensk (Hespéria, 2007) (~);
14. John Cheever, Falconer (Sextante, 2007) (~);
15. John Steinbeck, A pérola (Livros do Brasil, 2006);
16. John Steinbeck, O milagre de São Francisco (Livros do Brasil, 2007);
17. Orhan Pamuk, O meu nome é Vermelho (Presença, 2007);
18. Arthur Miller, A view from the bridge / All my sons (Penguin, 1961**);
19. Ernest Hemingway, As neves do Kilimanjaro (Livros do Brasil, 2005);
20. Saul Bellow, Aproveita o dia (Texto Editores, 2007);
21. Gabriel García Márquez, A revoada (Quetzal Editores, 2002);
22. Gonçalo M. Tavares, Jerusalém (Caminho, 2005);
23. Paul Auster, A trilogia de Nova Iorque (Asa, 1999);
24. Saul Bellow, A vítima (Texto Editores, 2006);
25. Ernest Hemingway, Paris é uma festa (Livros do Brasil, 2005);
26. Ernest Hemingway, As verdes colinas de África (Livros do Brasil, 2001);
27. Ian McEwan, Na praia de Chesil (Gradiva, 2007);
28. Philip Roth, Traições (Bertrand, 1991);
29. Daniel Defoe, Diário da Peste de Londres (Bonecos Rebeldes, 2007);
30. Gonçalo M. Tavares, O senhor Walser (Caminho, 2006);
31. Haruki Murakami, Em busca do carneiro selvagem (Casa das Letras, 2007);
32. Gonçalo M. Tavares, Água, cão, cavalo, cabeça (Caminho, 2006);
33. David Mourão-Ferreira, Um amor feliz (Presença, 1986);
34. Phillip Margolin, Gone, but not forgotten (Doubleday, 1993**).

* Segundo a data de edição ou reedição em Portugal, excepto em **.

O senhor Walser

Despejar o saco: 2008 em discos

Dezassete discos lançados num ano em que andei desatento (e, por essa razão, é favor consultar o que se diz aqui):







01. Fleet Foxes, Fleet Foxes; 02. Vampire Weekend, Vampire Weekend; 03. Hot Chip with Robert Wyatt and Geese, Hot Chip with Robert Wyatt and Geese; 04. Brian Eno & David Byrne, Everything that happens will happen today; 05. Lambchop, OH (ohio); 06. Beach House, Devotion; 07. R.E.M., Accelerate; 08. Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds, Dig!!! Lazarus dig!!!; 09. The Dodos, Visiter; 10. Portishead, Third; 11. Tv on the Radio, Dear Science,; 12. Tindersticks, The hungry saw; 13. Tahiti 80, Activity center; 14. Benge, Twenty systems; 15. Van der Graaf Generator, Trisector; 16. Why?, Alopecia; 17. Black Mountain, In the future.

Um poema para os dias que se aproximam

S'io credesse che mia risposta fosse

A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,

Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.

Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo

Non torno vivo alcun, s'i'odo il vero,

Senza tema d'infamia ti rispondo.

Let us go then, you and I,

When the evening is spread out against the sky

Like a patient etherized upon a table;

Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,

The muttering retreats

Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels

And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:

Streets that follow like a tedious argument

Of insidious intent

To lead you to an overwhelming question…

Oh, do not ask, "What is it?"

Let us go and make our visit.

In the room the women come and go

Talking of Michelangelo.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,

The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes

Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,

Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,

Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,

Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,

And seeing that it was a soft October night,

Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

And indeed there will be time

For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,

Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;

There will be time, there will be time

To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;

There will be time to murder and create,

And time for all the works and days of hands

That lift and drop a question on your plate;

Time for you and time for me,

And time yet for a hundred indecisions,

And for a hundred visions and revisions,

Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and go

Talking of Michelangelo.

And indeed there will be time

To wonder, "Do I dare?" and, "Do I dare?"

Time to turn back and descend the stair,

With a bald spot in the middle of my hair—

[They will say: "How his hair is growing thin!"]

My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,

My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin—

[They will say: "But how his arms and legs are thin!"]

Do I dare

Disturb the universe?

In a minute there is time

For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all—

Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,

I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;

I know the voices dying with a dying fall

Beneath the music from a farther room.

So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all—

The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,

And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,

When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,

Then how should I begin

To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?

And how should I presume?

And I have known the arms already, known them all—

Arms that are braceleted and white and bare

[But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!]

Is it perfume from a dress

That makes me so digress?

Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.

And should I then presume?

And how should I begin?

. . . . .

Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets

And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes

Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? …

I should have been a pair of ragged claws

Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

. . . . .

And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!

Smoothed by long fingers,

Asleep… tired… or it malingers,

Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.

Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,

Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?

But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,

Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald] brought in upon a platter,

I am no prophet—and here's no great matter;

I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,

And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,

And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all,

After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,

Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,

Would it have been worth while,

To have bitten off the matter with a smile,

To have squeezed the universe into a ball

To roll it toward some overwhelming question,

To say: "I am Lazarus, come from the dead,

Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all"—

If one, settling a pillow by her head,

Should say: "That is not what I meant at all.

That is not it, at all."

And would it have been worth it, after all,

Would it have been worth while,

After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,

After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—

And this, and so much more?—

It is impossible to say just what I mean!

But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:

Would it have been worth while

If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,

And turning toward the window, should say:

"That is not it at all,

That is not what I meant, at all."

. . . . .

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;

Am an attendant lord, one that will do

To swell a progress, start a scene or two,

Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,

Deferential, glad to be of use,

Politic, cautious, and meticulous;

Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;

At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—

Almost, at times, the Fool.

I grow old… I grow old…

I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?

I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.

I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves

Combing the white hair of the waves blown back

When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea

By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown

Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

T. S. Eliot, The love song of J. Alfred Prufrock