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Sunday, July 5th, 2009
 I'm glad Pontiero has included a translator's note with Baltasar and Bimunda (as he did with The History of the Siege of Lisbon) -- it is nice to have at hand the information that Bartolomeu Lourenço de Gusmão is a historical figure -- I could think of his story as being the initial piece of this novel, the love story of the two principal characters woven around it. Also: pictures!  Nice to have an idea what the man looks like. I hadn't come up yet with a mental image of him... I had started picturing the airship, and it looked a little bit like what the engravings show, as far as general shape; the details are great.
posted morning of July 5th, 2009: Respond
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Saramago's books are strongly united by the common voice and diction; but reading each of them is its own distinct experience. So far the experience of Baltasar and Blimunda is one of overpowering physical beauty; it feels a little bit like some of Faulkner's or GarcÃa Márquez' work, the kind of fractally detailed painting that draws you in and gets you lost in its details. This is very different from some of Saramago's later work, which I've approached in more of a top-down way, thinking about abstract ideas in the novels and relationships between the characters as the primary element of the story. It gives me less to write about; the experience of being overwhelmed by beauty, while a lot of fun, is not something I have the writerly chops to describe in an engaging way. (It is still early in the book though, something more on my blogging wavelength may come along.) I can totally see how this would be good material for an opera, hope it gets produced in NYC sometime.
posted morning of July 5th, 2009: Respond
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Saturday, July 4th, 2009
Today I made a raw tomato salsa that came out pretty well. Here is the recipe:
Note: part of the target audience for this is Sylvia, who does not like spicy food, so there is only a little bit of heat in it from the garlic. Add spicy peppers according to taste.Salsa Cruda
Spices: (all measurements extremely approximate)- 1 tbsp. fennel seed
- 2 tbsp. cumin seed
- 1½ tsp. rock salt
- 3 cloves garlic
Vegetables:- 2 large tomatoes
- 1 red onion
- 1 bunch cilantro
Wash vegetables; pluck leaves off of cilantro. Roast fennel and cumin until the seeds start to pop, i.e. about 2 or 3 min. over a high flame. Grind spices in a mortar; add and grind salt, then add the garlic and mash it all together. This is easier if you slice the garlic fairly thin first.Dice the tomatoes and onion fairly small, and chop the coriander fine. Put all ingredients in a bowl with a pinch of salt, toss together. This is ready to use right away but improves with an hour or two in the fridge.
posted afternoon of July 4th, 2009: Respond
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Yesterday I finished The History of the Siege of Lisbon and started reading Baltasar and Blimunda (wonder why the translation has this title; the original is called something like Memoir of the Convent) -- not much to say about it yet besides I loved the sex scene between João V and his queen -- especially nice in with the memory fresh of the very different sex scene between Raimundo and Marie Sara; Saramago can certainly write sex scenes! -- I wanted to note that this is the only of Saramago's novels to be made into an opera, by Azio Corghi, with a libretto written by Saramago himself. Corghi and Saramago also collaborated on the opera "Divara, Wasser und Blut," based on Saramago's play "The Name of God." And more music: Rudolf Kämper composed a chamber music suite called "Baltasar & Blimunda." I am happy to be reading these two novels set in Portuguese history now, I think they are going to be good ones to have fresh in mind when I start reading The Elephant's Journey -- I haven't seen a publication date for that yet but have my fingers crossed it will happen before the year is out.
posted morning of July 4th, 2009: Respond
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Wednesday, July first, 2009
I get home from the Spanish-language meetup this evening -- I mostly listened, talked a little bit -- and find a new post up on Saramago's blog, starting out "To write is to translate. It will always be, even when we're writing in our own language." The rest of it's a little beyond my meagre translating abilities, but interesting stuff. Reading The History of the Siege of Lisbon tonight, I found another reference to the Blindness epigraph -- ... Nonsense, I've simply done a little reading, I've amused or educated myself little by little, discovering the difference between looking and seeing, between seeing and observing, ...
posted evening of July first, 2009: Respond
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Tuesday, June 30th, 2009
We know that Mogueime has no such thoughts, he travels by a more straightforward route, whether death comes late or Ouroana comes soon, between the hour of her arrival and the hour of his departure there will be life, but the thought is also much too complicated, so let us resign ourselves to not knowing what Mogueime really thinks, let us turn to the apparent clarity of actions, which are translated thoughts, although in the passage from the latter to the former, certain things are always lost or added, which means that, in the final analysis, we know as little about what we do as about what we think.
I am not sure what to make of this: in the narration of Raimundo's book, Saramago makes reference to several different battlefield sex scenes -- e.g. the Portuguese troops raping and beheading Moorish women at Santarém; the prostitutes who offer their services to the troops next to the Portuguese army's cemetery; Mogueime's lust for Ouroana, the concubine of the crusader Heinrich. In each of these cases we see Raimundo identify more or less explicitly with the subjects of his writing; and particularly in the first case it is appalling. I haven't quite seen yet what the linkage is between this and Raimundo's love for Maria Sara, who could be concisely and pretty accurately termed "his muse" -- there was an indication near the beginning of the story that his previous sexual experiences had been generally with prostitutes, also it has been brought forth repeatedly that he has no military background and is guessing as to what things are like in war -- and clearly suggested that he has no experience with love and is guessing as to how that works as well.
posted evening of June 30th, 2009: Respond
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Sunday, June 28th, 2009
I'm really interested to know more about what Raimundo's experience is like in writing his History -- he has never written a story before, what is going through his head as he composes? Is Saramago making reference to his own experiences first picking up the pen? I have a vague understanding (quite possibly mistaken) that he made a living doing technical writing for a long time before he wrote any fiction -- possibly there is room to extrapolate from there to Raimundo's life. I am feeling like it's difficult for me to get this novel without knowing much of anything about the historical events at the center of the novel -- I don't know where (besides the obvious point) Raimundo's History is at odds with the accepted history. It looks (from where I am right now, about halfway through) like he is trying to write a story in which that key decision goes the other way, but everything ends up the same -- this is an unusual approach to "alternate history".
 ...What a great line, from Saramago's description of Raimundo's reconstruction of the Portuguese riding to a summit with the Moorish leaders:
...Roger or Rogeiro joined the expedition as a chronicler, as becomes clear when he starts removing writing materials from his knapsack, only the stylus and writing-tablets, because the swaying of his mule would spill the ink and cause his lettering to sprawl, all of this, as you know, the mere speculation of a narrator concerned with verisimilitude rather than the truth, which he considers to be unattainable.
posted afternoon of June 28th, 2009: Respond
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And early in the morning he came again into the temple, and all the people came unto him; and he sat down, and taught them. And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst, They say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act. Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou? This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with finger wrote on the ground, So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. And again he stooped down, and wrote on the ground. And they which heard, being convicted by conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst. -- John 8:2-9
...We are entitled to question whether the world at that time was so hardened by vice that its salvation could only be brought about by the Son of a God, for it is the episode itself about the adulteress which illustrates that things were not going all that badly there in Palestine, not like today when they are at their worst, consider how on that remote day not another stone was thrown at the hapless woman, Jesus only had to utter those fatal words for aggressive hands to withdraw, their owners declaring, confessing and even proclaiming in this manner that, yes, Sir, they were sinners.
This observation is striking. Cutting against it you can say either, Well Jesus uttered those fatal words because of his divinity, it was the saying that exposes him as the Son of God; or, Well Jesus was the Messiah you know, so he had to be pretty damn charismatic. But basically Saramago has got something here: it is a striking aspect of this parable that the persecutors listen to Jesus and heed his reproach. The modern world is not at all lacking in comparable situations, and I can't remember seeing the people throwing the stones stand down when they are reminded of their own all-too-human status.
posted afternoon of June 28th, 2009: Respond
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Saturday, June 27th, 2009
That would be just punishment, said the fat woman, in payment for all the misery they have caused our people, Scarceley in payment, rejoined the café-owner, since for every outrage commited against us, we have paid back in kind at least a hundredfold, But my eyes are like dead doves that will never more return to their senses, said the muezzin.
Are the scenes in The History of the Siege of Lisbon that take place in Moorish Lisbon part of the book Raimundo is writing? I got the strong sense during the first such scene that it was happeing in Raimundo's imagination; he had not started writing his book at this point, but it could certainly works to think of it as a precursor to that. But his book is about the crusaders -- I don't see room in it for the close portraits of what's happening among the Moors. Are they part of the book Saramago is writing about Raimundo writing his book? Obviously in a sense yes, but Saramago's book is set in modern Lisbon. I was thinking of saying this is a third book being written by a third author, one who shares attributes of both Saramago and Raimundo. Raimundo lives in a historically-Moorish section of Lisbon and a part of his imagination identifies with its inhabitants. The blind muezzin is the interface between his story and Saramago's.
 This idea needs heavy revision. Of course much of the book Raimundo is writing will take place in Moorish Lisbon; it is the History of the Siege of that town after all. Once the crusaders have refused to help King Afonso and left, he will need to write a lot about events in Lisbon. I think the author's voice in these sections sounds different, more confident, than the voice narrating the meetings between Afonso and the crusaders -- perhaps that is because Raimundo is more familiar with the world of daily affairs in Lisbon than with the world of noblemen planning warfare against Lisbon.
posted afternoon of June 27th, 2009: Respond
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 John Holbo's latest episode of Squid and Owl (if you haven't been reading along, view them as a slide show here -- funny stuff) mentioned the pleasantly-named Codex Zouche-Nutall, which sent me looking to find out more about it. Turns out scanned images of it and several other Aztec, Miztec and Mayan codices are online at the Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies website.
posted morning of June 27th, 2009: 2 responses
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