🦋 More exhortations
Another Saramago epigraph from El libro de los consejos -- at the front of his Small Memories is the line, "Déjate llevar por el niño que fuiste/(roughly) Allow the child you were to carry you." The first time I've been able to find a lead suggesting affirmatively that these quotations are actual quotations from somewhere else, not invented by Saramago -- this line takes me to Juan Pedro Villa-Isaza's blog
Casi un objeto, which gives some context for it:
Mientras no alcances la verdad, no podrás corregirla. Pero si no la corriges, no la alcanzarás. Mientras tanto, no te resignes.*
Déjate llevar por el niño que fuiste.
As long as you do not know the truth, you will not be able to alter it. But if you do not alter it, you will never be able to reach it. Still, do not resign yourself. Allow the child you were to carry you.
 (Also, Googling for the original Portuguese rendering of this quote "Deixa-te levar pela criança que foste" leads me to a 2006 interview with Saramago, where he talks about his life and his writing process.) ..."llevar/levar" can also mean "to lead" -- indeed that appears to be the primary meaning in Portuguese; a better rendering of this line might be "Let yourself be led by the child you were." *... and now I am remembering that this line is the epigraph for The History of the Siege of Lisbon... and am back to thinking the whole thing is Saramago's invention.
posted evening of Tuesday, November 9th, 2010
➳ More posts about Blindness
➳ More posts about José Saramago
➳ More posts about Readings
➳ More posts about Epigraphs
➳ More posts about An Object, Almost
➳ More posts about Short Stories
➳ More posts about Translation
➳ More posts about Writing Projects
➳ More posts about Projects
➳ More posts about O Livro dos Conselhos
Saramago's epigraphs are really something, no. I think Small Memories is not yet available in book, only in Kindle. A pity because I really want to read this. Now. I'm fascinated by writers' memoirs of their childhoods. The ones I read are so far excellent - Boyhood by J. M. Coetzee & Gathering Evidence by Thomas Bernhard.
Btw, I found two links to Senhor's interview, if you haven’t checked them out already.
http://bombsite.com/issues/999/articles/3565
http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/1032/the-art-of-fiction-no-155-jose-saramago
posted morning of November 10th, 2010 by Rise
Great! Thanks for the links.
posted morning of November 10th, 2010 by Jeremy
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