READIN

Sunday, November 15th, 2009

🦋 Margaritas before swine

I'm a little over a quarter of the way through my rough draft translation of El viaje -- whether I end up revising it into something actually readable or no, it is a very useful exercise from the standpoint of helping me read the story -- it brings the imagery really sharply into focus, this process of reading the passage, sort-of understanding, setting out to render it in my own language, looking up unfamiliar terms, reading again...

Goytisolo's punctuation of dialog (which seems to be shared pretty generally in the Spanish stories I've been reading) is to set quoted text off with em dashes -- I've been using this in the translation although it's possible that quotation marks would read more naturally. Not sure about that yet. Here is a passage of dialog I liked a lot, at the end of a drunken rant in which a circus impressario is assuring some of his performers (who have been stuck in this Andalusían town for several months without any money to pay for carriage) that he's got feelers out, he's going to get them passage to Lisbon, he's going to pay everybody...

The man took the bottle by its neck and guzzled another slug. His face was soaked in sweat and he was drumming his fingers on the top of his boot.

--People today, only interested in the vulgar --he said, looking at us--. The movies, every day at the movies... The work of an artist counts for nothing...

His tongue was giving him trouble with speaking and he looked around him, his gaze full of irritation.

--I had offers from Algeciras, from Tangiers, from Morocco, and I preferred to come here... They told me that in this town people appreciate art and now look... A sacrifice in vain... Like mixing margaritas for swine...

He was too drunk to go on and he hid his head between his hands. The waiter went and came back with the bottles and, passing by us, gave a wink.

--Don't pay him any attention... Every day it's like this.

Just then, the clock on the town hall struck nine.

It was time to go back; we got up.

The very brief paragraphs and heavy use of ellipses are characteristic of the story.

I read a quote from Goytisolo somewhere that he considered Marks of Identity (1966, so half a decade after this) his "first real novel" -- maybe I should put that on my list.

posted evening of November 15th, 2009: Respond
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Saturday, November 14th, 2009

🦋 Goytisolo, Varda

I'm glad I watched La Pointe-Courte when I did, as I'm now seeing loose parallels between it and everything I am reading... Sort of the archetypal melancholy romance.

Paco se había sentado en cuclillas, algo más lejos y antes de abandonarme del todo, le pregunté:

--¿De qué vive la gente aquí?

Se entretenía en escurrir la arena entre sus dedos y no levantó, siquiera, la cabeza:

--De la pesca.

--¿Y tú? --Me extendí boca arriba y cerré los ojos--. ¿Qué quieres ser?

Su respuesta, esta vez, llegó en seguida:

--Mecánico.

Me dormí. Tenía conciencia de que, al cabo de unas horas, olvidaría la fatiga del viaje y no deseaba otra cosa que cocerme lentamente, cara al sol.

En una o dos ocasiones, me desperté y vi que Dolores dormía también.

Con la vista perdida en el mar, Paco hacía escurrir aún la arena entre sus dedos.

Paco was squatting a bit further down the beach; before giving myself up to sleep, I asked him:

--What do people live on, here?

He was distractedly letting the sand run through his fingers; he didn't even raise his head:

--On fish.

--And you? --I turned my mouth up(?) and closed my eyes--. What do you want to be?

His response, this time, came directly:

--Mechanic.

I slept. I was aware that after a few hours, I'd forget the fatigue of the journey; I didn't want anything besides to let myself bake slowly, my face to the sun.

Once or twice, I woke up and saw that Dolores was sleeping too.

His gaze lost in the sea, Paco was still letting the sand run between his fingers.

posted morning of November 14th, 2009: Respond
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Friday, November 13th, 2009

🦋 El viaje

A book of short stories by Juan Goytisolo, Para vivir aquí (1960, and containing the story La guardia that I was reading a couple of weeks ago), arrived in the mail this week, and I have been reading bits and pieces of it. The first two stories did not really grab me but as I look at the beginning of the third I am feeling pretty interested.

The journey

El cartel indicador se alzaba al final de la recta, con las letras pintadas de blanco, sobre el yugo y las flechas descoloradas. Desde la carretera se divisaba de nuevo el mar, liso y como bruñido por el sol y, más cerca, una zona cubierta de rastrojeras se extendía hasta los muros cuarteados de la fábrica en ruinas. A un extremo del campo, dos hombres batían la paja con sus bieldos. Era casi las doce y la calina que envolvía el paisaje, inventaba caprichosas espirales de celofán sobre el asfalto medio derretido.

Dolores frenó más allá del cartel y nos detuvimos a mirar, junto a la cuneta. El pueblo se extendía sobre una pendiente escalonada de terrazas y la cúpula de mosaico de la iglesia reverberaba a la luz del sol. De no ser por el bullicio y griterío de los chiquillos, se hubiera dicho que nadie vivía en él. Muchas casas estaban desmoronadas o en alberca, y sus fachadas maltrechas testimoniaban la existencia de una época de prosperidad y trabajo de la que la chimenea agrietada del teso y los restos alcinados de un molino constituían un recuerdo nostálgico. Ahora, toda la vida parecía concentrarse en el mar, y el puerto abrigaba medio centenar de embarcaciones protegidas por un espigón de obra, liso y curvado como una hoz.

-- ¿Qué te parece? --dije, señalando con el brazo, hacia el mar.

--Como sitio tranquilo, lo es --repuso Dolores, sin gran entusiasmo.

The sign was up at the end of the block, with letters painted in white, over the cross-piece(?) and the faded arrow. From the road you could see the ocean again, flat and as if burnished by the sun and, closer in, a stubbled region stretched to the broken-down walls of a factory in ruins. At one end of the field two men were beating straw with their winnowing-forks. It was almost noon and the haze that shrouded the landscape was making up capricious spirals of cellophane above the half-melted asphalt.

Dolores slowed down a bit by the sign and we turned to look, close by the ditch. The town extended across a spreading, terraced slope and the tile cúpola of the church reflected the sunlight. By not being a-bustle, full of children's cries, it let us know there was no one living in it. Many houses were dilapidated or fallen down(?), and their beaten-down façades were testament to there having been an epoch of prosperity and work, of which the cracked chimney at the top(?) and the remnants of a windmill constituted a nostalgic reminder. Now, all the life appeared concentrated in the sea, and the port sheltered half a hundred vessels, protected by a breakwater, smooth and curved like a sickle.

--How does it look? --I said, gesturing with my arm toward the sea.

--Like a peaceful spot, I guess --replied Dolores, without much enthusiasm.

↻...done

posted evening of November 13th, 2009: Respond

Sunday, November 8th, 2009

🦋 Reading and understanding

Buscaba inútilmente la forma de soportar el dolor, daba vueltas por la casa, me daba un baño muy caliente, me acostaba, me volvía a levantar, daba un paseo, me dejaba caer sobre el sofá, de nuevo fatigada...

Soledad Puértolas, "Masajes"

Many of the constructions in this story seem strange to me and hard to make sense of -- this is contributing certainly to the fuzziness of my reading experience.

Me inquietó y acabó, sobre todo, molestándome, porque me hacía estar pendiente de la hora y del silencio de la casa y imaginar, antes de escucharse, el ruido del timbre abriéndose camino hacia mí.

I'm sort of happy to find an author that I like but am not heavily invested in to practice this kind of language comprehension on... I am also thinking Goytisolo will fit the bill in this way.

Another example (the narrator is speaking of a health club employee who had in the previous paragraph shown her around the facility) --

Su amiabilidad, su interés por mí, tenían una nota atificial, falsa, como si alguien la hubiera convencido de que tenía que ser así. O sencillamente era así como quien es hosco y antipático desde la cuña o como quien tiene una especial habilidad para los idiomas o para las installaciones eléctricas.

"Her friendliness, her interest in me, bore a note of artificiality, falsehood, as if someone had convinced her she needed to act like that. Or simply like when somebody is hostile and antisocial from the cradle, or somebody has a particular ability for languages or for electrical work." -- None of the entities separated here by or's seem to me like they can sustain that kind of relationship with one another.

↻...done

posted evening of November 8th, 2009: 1 response
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Saturday, October 10th, 2009

🦋 In the penal colony

What a way to be introduced to a character! From Juan Goytisolo's La guardia:

Recuerdo muy bien la primera vez que lo vi. Estaba sentado en medio del patio, el torso desnudo y las palmas apoyadad en el suelo y reía silenciosamente. Al principio, creí que bostezaba o sufría un tic o del mal de San Vito pero, al llevarme la mano a la frente y remusgar la vista, descubrí que tenía los ojos cerrados y reía con embeleso. ...

El muchacho se había sentado encima de un hormiguero: las hormigas le subían por el pecho; las costillas, los brazos, la espalda; algunas se aventuraban entre las vedijas del pelo, paseaban por su cara, se metían en sus orejas. Su cuerpo bullía de puntos negros y permanecía silencioso, con los párpados bajos.

I remember well the first time I saw him. He was sitting in the middle of the courtyard, his torso naked and his palms resting on the ground, laughing silently. At first, I thought he was yawning or he suffered from a tic or from St. Vitus' Dance; when I raised my hand to my forehead and cleared my view, I found he had his eyes closed and was laughing, in a trance. ...

The kid had sat himself down on top of an anthill: ants were crawling across his chest; his ribs, his arms, his back, some were venturing among his tangled hair, passing over his face, entering into his ears. His body swarmed with dots of black and he remained silent, his eyelids down.

Update: added a little context from the first paragraph.

posted afternoon of October 10th, 2009: 1 response
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Sunday, October 4th, 2009

🦋 Frivolity

He notado que esas personas hablan con la mayor liviandad, sin tener en cuenta que hablar es también ser.

I've noticed that these people [European colonists] speak with the greatest frivolity, without taking into account that to speak is also to be.

posted evening of October 4th, 2009: Respond

🦋 More Spanish stories

I've been poking around in Cuentos Españoles this weekend -- I got another similar book yesterday, Cuentos en Español (Penguin, 1999)* and the story that really caught my attention was La indiferencia de Eva, by Soledad Puértolas. The pace and rhythm of the story are almost perfect and I'm finding it easy to identify with her characters, to place myself in her scenes. I would like recommendations for further reading of her work, if any of you have read it -- she has several novels and collections of short stories, though I am finding nothing in translation.**

* and apparently Penguin also published bilingual collections of Spanish stories in 1966 and 1972 -- I'm surprised at how much of this I am finding!

** This is wrong -- the novel Bordeaux has been translated; and at least Google Books thinks that one of her stories appears in the collection After Henry James, though I haven't been able to find any reference to this collection elsewhere.

posted evening of October 4th, 2009: 2 responses

Sunday, September 27th, 2009

🦋 Double Standard?

-- Y para guardar un secreto que lo era a voces, para ocultar un enigma que no lo era para nadie, para cubrir unas apariencias falsas ¿hemos vivido así, Tristán? ¡Miseria y nada más! Abrid esos balcones, que entre la luz, toda la luz y el polvo de la calle y las moscas, mañana mismo se quitará el escudo.

-- And so to guard a secret which was no secret, to shroud a mystery which was clear to everyone, to conceal our false appearances we have lived like this, Tristán? -- Misery, nothing more! Open these balonies, let the light in, all the light and the dust of the street and the flies, and tomorrow we will take down the coat of arms.

• Unamuno is "foreign" -- he is of Spain, he is of the 19th Century, he is of Catholicism. I am exoticising the story by attributing these things to it, which are all outside my experience. This seems like a not-great way of reading, like something that would prevent me from really understanding the story. ...There may be some truth to this but I would be leery of giving it too much weight.
• I am a less sophisticated reader in Spanish than in English. The barrier separating me from the text, the time it takes to figure out what is being said, is making my reaction to the story more immediate, and delaying my critical/analyical reaction... I'm not sure that this is a coherent idea -- it is sort of tantalizing, to think that I can get into a younger, more naïve head by reading foreign language.

But in the end I think what is making the plotting of this story work, where I might find the same plot elements cornball in another context, is Unamuno's imagery, his descriptive voice. The reading of the story has felt up until this point like looking at dark paintings, there was a sense of claustrophobia imagining the characters as figures on dimly-lit canvasses -- so much so that when Carolina speaks out and orders the windows and balconies uncovered, I get the sense of her figure tearing itself away from the canvas -- this is an interesting image regardless of how much verisimilitude I'm prepared to accord the plot elements.

posted morning of September 27th, 2009: Respond
➳ More posts about Miguel de Unamuno

Friday, September 25th, 2009

🦋 ...and speaking of movies based on stories from Cuentos Españoles,

I hope a movie has been made of Unamuno's El marqués de Lumbría; this opening paragraph would be spectacular on the screen:

La casona solariega de los marqueses de Lumbría, el palacio, que es como se le llama en la adusta ciudad de Lorenza, parecía un arca de silenciosos recuerdos del misterio. A pesar de hallarse habitada, casi siempre permanecía con las ventanas y los balcones que daban al mundo cerrados. Su fachada, en la que destacaba el gran escudo de armas del linaje de Lumbría, daba al Mediodía, a la gran plaza de la Catedral, y frente a la ponderosa fábrica de ésta, pero como el sol bañaba casi todo el día, y en Lorenza apenas hay días nublados, todos sus huecos permanecían cerrados. Y ello porque el exelentísimo señor marqués de Lumbría, Don Rodrigo Suárez de Tejada, tenía horror a la luz del sol y al aire libre. "El polvo de la calle y la luz del sol-solía decir-no hacen más que deslustrar los muebles y hechar a perder las habitaciones, y luego, las moscas..." El marqués tenía verdadero horror a las moscas, que podían venir de un andrajoso mendigo, acaso de un tiñoso. El marqués temblaba ante posibles contagios de enfermedades plebeyas. Eran tan sucios los de Lorenza y su comarca...

The ancestral mansion of the Marquéses of Lumbría, the palace as it was called in the gloomy city of Lorenza, appeared as a chest of silent memories of the mysterious. In spite of its being in fact occupied, the windows and balconies which gave out onto the world were almost always closed. The façade, where the great coat of arms of the Lumbrían lineage stood forth, looked south*, onto the great square of the Cathedral, whose ponderous construction it faced, but as the sun was shining all day long, and in Lorenza there are hardly any cloudy days, all of its openings remained closed. And this was because the excellent Señor Marqués of Lumbría, don Rodrigo Suáres de Tejada, abhorred the light of the sun and fresh air. "The dust of the street and the light of the sun -- he used to say -- do no more than dull the furniture's shine and spoil the rooms; not to mention the flies..." The Marqués was deathly afraid of flies, which might have come from a ragged, miserable beggar. The Marqués trembled at the thought of catching plebian diseases. And they were so filthy, the Lorenzans and the countryfolk...

...But it looks like no; several of his stories and books have been filmed but not this.

*How great a dialect for "south" is "noon"? A lovely one.

posted evening of September 25th, 2009: Respond
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Sunday, September 20th, 2009

🦋 El Libro Talonario

Next story in Cuentos Españoles after La fuerza de la sangre (skipping over several centuries -- did nothing happen in Spain between the early 1600's and the late 1800's?) is El libro talonario by Pedro Antonio de Alarcón. A good solid story, a narrative voice I can relate to. And I find that a couple of years ago, it was made into a short movie! The movie is well done -- it gets across the idea of the story without adhering slavishly to its plot, and brings a modern perspective to it. Take a look, it's a pleasant 20 minutes:

posted evening of September 20th, 2009: Respond

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