Poems and Prose: A Bilingual Edition - Georg Trakl

Rating: ★★★

15/07/17

Georg Trakl was born in Austria in 1887. He started writing poetry at a very young age, however he later decided to study pharmacy. After that, he enlisted in the army but never stopped writing. During World War I, he worked as a medical official. He witnessed the harrowing consequences of the war (a battle in Grodek inspired one of his last poems). As he found himself surrounded by wounds and death, his depression – which he suffered all his life – worsened and eventually died of an overdose of cocaine at 27.

Many of these events and the emotions they prompted appear in his poetry, which is gracefully tinged with the colors of Expressionism.

Trakl’s poetry abounds with nostalgic reminiscences, the bleak colors of the evening, the reverberation of silence. But above all, with the images of death. A dark imagery which creates a sad and oppressive atmosphere.

His delectable language, which fluctuates between fragility and strength, brims over with allusions to death. It's definitely hard to explain, but despite the beauty of the language, the considerable amount of references to such theme started to get a little tiresome. After reading a bit about his life, I understand. Nonetheless, I felt like I was reading an obituary. A long, bluish lament that after a few pages became somewhat monotonous. It reminded me of my experience while reading Cioran and his overused concept of darkness.

In this sense, I wasn’t able to connect with Trakl’s verse – though I did enjoy his prose, and that explains the 3-star rating:

My levels of enthusiasm varied widely, regardless of my penchant for melancholic poetry (but this was beyond melancholic; I couldn't handle the lack of balance). After a while, the sense of expectancy was gone. I already knew that the next page was going to show me another shade of the recurring theme of this collection. Lethal predictability. 

The Book of Images - Rainer Maria Rilke

Rating: ★★★★

28/04/17

I would like to step out of my heart’s door
and be under the great sky.
— Rilke, “Lament”

A myriad of shades, a plethora of images, the juxtaposition of sentiments which soothe and unsettle. Das Buch der Bilder.

A miscellany of visuals and existential hues. A mélange of nuances and distinctive sounds. A sense of clarity with the scent of perplexity. The mystical and the ordinary fluctuate in harmony. Chaotic perfection takes this collection by storm. A vision. A metaphor. A book. A thousand mirrors. The book of images.

The last of his line

I have no paternal house,

nor have I lost one;

my mother birthed me out

into the world.

Here I stand now in the world and go

even deeper into the world

and have my happiness and have my woe

and have each one alone.

...

This poetry collection was first published in 1902, when Rilke was twenty-six years old. The second edition, which appeared in 1906, is the one I read, translated by Edward Snow and published in 2014. A work which apparently knew how to circumvent the challenges of poetry and translation, for Rilke’s verses acquire a natural fluency by virtue of Snow’s mastery.

Requiem

…

Life is only a part… of what?

Life is only a note… in what?

Life has meaning only joined with many

receding circles of increasing space, –

life is only the dream of a dream,

but waking is elsewhere.

The variety of themes and the original approach chosen by Rilke have distinguished his writing until evanescent categories were completely gone, elevating poetry to sometimes unfathomable levels. Sacred symbols and mundane illustrations coalesce in the land of polarity. If the reader finds a way to connect with the poetic expressions Rilke used to deconstruct the world, then a memorable journey will soon begin. A journey in which the light of day emphasizes the color of a rose, and the silence of a room shape the nights that never end. The days that bring solace. The nights that beg for poetry. The days of pressure. The nights that dislike the sound of echo; the nights that long for it afterwards amidst confusion. The nights of indifference and quick replacements too despicable to confess. The nights when childhood is a distant memory, when guardian angels seem oblivious, when life is heavier than the weight of all things.*

* From the poem “The Neighbor”
** Photo credit: Book cover via Goodreads.

Novemberland: Selected Poems, 1956-1993 - Günter Grass

Rating: ★★★★
14/12/14

...mirrors play at being nature. (5)

Our city our city.
All scattered lies Berlin,
leans with its fire walls against winds... (47)

For it was in this, ivy,
the growth rate of immortality,
that he surpassed us. (67)

Some rational nonsense in his lines.
A wounded Germany in his heart.
A little humor.
A little tragedy.
Absorbing creativity.

Two poems for a review:

Nursery Rhyme
Who laughs here, who has laughed?
Here we have ceased to laugh.
To laugh here now is treason.
The laugher has a reason.

Who weeps here, who has wept?
Here weeping is inept.
To weep here now means too
a reason so to do.

Who speaks here or keeps mum?
Here we denounce the dumb.
To speak here is to hide
deep reasons kept inside.

Who plays here, in the sand?
Against the wall we stand
players whose games are banned.
They've lost, they've burned their hand.

Who dies here, dares to die?
"Defector!" here we cry.
To die here, without stain,
is to have died in vain. (21)

*

Writing
In reality
the glass was filled only hip high.
Plump, well-rounded. Lies in the dregs.
Engrave syllables.
Live next to the garbage disposal unit
and distinguish between a stench and a smell.
Deprive the cake of its springform.
Books
in their cases
can't fall over.
That, often interrupted, is how my thoughts went.
When does the milk grow funny?
Measure progress in crayfish gait.
Wait patiently until metal tires.
Let the bridge slowly,
so that the writing keeps pace,
collapse.
Before that, calculate its value as scrap.
Sentences bid farewell to sentences.
When politics
become
the weather's way of speaking:
A high-pressure belt over Russia.
At home
to have gone abroad; on travels
to remain at home.
We will not change the climate.
Only naïveté
wants to make something live,
declare it dead.
Be stupid, always want to begin from scratch.
Please remind me as soon as I say
hay fever or the Corso of Flowers in Zoppot.
Retrospectively look out of the window.
Rhymes for snipes' droppings.
Loudly join in when anyone's talking nonsense.
Urbin, that's it!–Urbin, that's it!
Hit on the imprecise thing precisely.
Pockets
are full of old admission tickets.
Where is the car key?
Delete the car key.
Compassion with verbs.
Believe in the eraser.
Conjure an umbrella in the Lost and Found.
Bulldoze the moment with the rolling pin.
And take the connections apart again.
Because ... due to ... when ... so that ... to ...
comparisons and similar adhesive aids.
This story must come to an end.
Conclude with a colon:
I'm coming back. I'm coming back.
Remain cheerful in a vacuum.
Steal only things of one's own.
Chaos
more skillfully executed.
Not adorn-write: (*Yes, it ends there. 63/65)

* Note: This is a bilingual edition of selected poems from four decades. It would have been great to read some more notes for a little more context. If you don't do a research of your own, it is quite inaccessible.
** Photo credit: Drawing / Shoey Nam
Book cover via Goodreads.

Confusion - Stefan Zweig

Rating: ★★★★
22/06/14

...music has rests as well as notes. (19)

Master of the novella. Connoisseur of the human soul. His prose tears down the walls that separate the mind from the outside world. It finds its way towards the essence of being. And you will no longer inhabit your own body. You become one of his characters, for better or for worse.

A young man was wasting his life until he had a conversation with his father that enlightened his path. That is how he ended up assisting to a talk with a brilliant professor whose magnetic lecture bewitched his students with a fluent river of wisdom. Several lines are dedicated to convey that this professor is an excellent speaker, both concerning content and way of transmitting it.

However, other reflections were shining among so many praises.

These unruly and passionate hearts rage like lions, each trying to outdo the others in wild exuberance; all is permitted, all is allowed on stage: incest, murder, evildoing, crimes, the boundless tumult of human nature indulges in a heated orgy; as the hungry beasts once emerged from their cages, so do the inebriated passions now race into the wooden-walled arena, roaring and dangerous. It is a single outburst exploding like a petard, and it lasts for fifty years: a rush of blood, an ejaculation, a uniquely wild phenomenon prowling the world, seizing on it as its prey—in this orgy of power you can hardly hear individual voices or make out individual figures. Each strikes sparks off his neighbour, they learn and they steal from each other, they strive to outdo one another, to surpass each other’s achievement, yet they are all only intellectual gladiators in the same festive games, slaves unchained and urged on by the genius of the hour. …living respectable lives, ruffians, whore-masters, actors, swindlers, but poets, poets, poets every one. (18)

A beautiful statement about writers and their issues.

This story involves the relationship that develops between a married professor, a "man who moved from hot to cold like a bright flash of lightning" (31), and a college student.

When a person meets another, certain feelings start to wake. Likability, love, respect, indifference, hatred. Everything is allowed. The confusion begins when you can't really distinguish those feelings. A remarkable person often makes us feel admiration. A clever conversation reinforces the growing feeling of comfort. Looks can be in second place; intelligence and humor can conquer almost everything. Then, and only then, we start pondering about what we are actually experiencing. Is it love? Is love the sum of all those things? These reflections restlessly unleash a confusion of sentiments. What clearly draws the enigmatic line between love and admiration, I wouldn't know.

On one hand, we have an intense amount of feelings crying for attention and solutions. On the other hand, we have silence. Coldness. Absence.

Not that any tension or sense that they were at odds made itself felt in word or gesture: on the contrary, it was the absence of any such thing, the lack of any tension at all between them that enveloped them both so strangely and made their relationship opaque, a heavy silence of the feelings... (29)

There is a volcano of feelings waiting to erupt even in the quietest human being of all. You could hear the bustle of a colorful crowd just by taking a quick peek. A fervent desire of sharing everything you have inside. The inability to do so because of some unknown obstacle with the strength to hold you back. The fear of exposing too much, perhaps. The art of isolation.

Until you break.

Ah, secret place of my memories, where the word became magical to me and I knew the intoxication and enchantment of the intellect as nowhere else... (54)

This book covers all grounds. Zweig's prose is as clear, insightful and magnificent as ever. The act of transforming emotions into words without losing intensity is something that this writer can accomplish effortlessly. There is music in his words. There is art. Uncertainties. Melancholy. And passion. Above all.

Not just with application, my boy, but above all with passion. If you do not feel impassioned you’ll be a schoolmaster at best—one must approach these things from within and always, always with passion. (24)

Passion for your work. But also the purest form of passion, the one that has to be tamed to be acceptable for others, until you realize... that is not living.

Having this in mind, I can stop playing chess now.

Journey Into the Past - Stefan Zweig

Rating: ★★★
25/05/14

In the old park, in ice and snow caught fast

Two spectres walk, still searching for the past. (33)

I planned a review with all the things I did not like and quotes to back them up. However, after contemplating these pages for awhile, I realized I couldn't. It is not Zweig's fault. I cannot blame it on his writing, his idea and execution. I liked his lyrical prose and the psychological depth he gave to his characters, always haunted by their past. Past? “Nothing is lost, nothing is past” (20), he says, still accepting the fact that “it is not in human nature to live entirely on memories” (23). I also liked how the characters' pure feelings for each other contrasted with the dark and confusing social context of those times.

In conclusion, what I liked, I really liked. As for the rest, I didn't hate it, I was kind of indifferent to it. It was okay. This is an unfinished work and yet, it is not a fair reason for me. So, this rating is based on what I felt while reading this novella. By all means, read it yourself and form your opinion. Do not be afraid of this translation, Bell has done a superb job, again.

But I would like to keep playing chess for a little while longer, if you don't mind.

When you cannot connect with a story about a passionate love and soul mates resisting the power of time, then your heart must be in some sort of lethargic limbo, detachedly mourning the loss of something, the absence of something; cynically avoiding everything. I am just guessing; you might even do not know the cause. It is only temporary, to the lucky ones. The lucky ones. An ephemeral tragedy. But a tragedy, after all.

Chess - Stefan Zweig

Rating: ★★★★★
14/05/14

...nothing on earth exerts such pressure on the human soul as a void. (19)

Black. White. Which is it? Which one is our nature? We can be good, we can be cruel. We praise ourselves saying being human entails being good. We have daily proofs that is not necessary the case. If we are meant to be good and we are not, our mind have lost the battle against a deviation. Or against our true nature. 

Now that is a depressing thought.

I had this book on my to-read shelf for months. And I wasn't going to read it this soon. A Goodreads group crossed my path and here I am. I am so glad it did. I was missing a brilliant, perceptive observer of the human condition. Zweig had a keen eye to deal with the psychological aspects of human beings with the simplicity that characterizes great writers. Humble erudition is what makes me love an author. Complicated writing and pretentious words are fine if they are used properly; otherwise, everything is forgettable. I don't only need to know that you know; let me learn too.

Black. White. The mind has to choose. A million possibilities lying in a black and white board with sixty-four little squares dividing A from B. Day from night. Good from evil. A dichotomy present in every human life. It is there, inside, waiting for a decision. You are thinking: Which path should I take?

Time. Time is needed to decide. And often it is not enough.

Keep the pressure on, advance instead of defending! (14)

Zweig seems to be the kind of author that share the characters' psyches without hesitation. That help us understand more. Even while writing about how the mind is supposed to work, with the complexity that such a task entails. But he succeeded and with a beautiful, simple and refreshing prose. You feel what he wrote. He tended to repeat keywords in order to emphasize a particular situation, thought, feeling, etc.; that embellishes the sentence with a unique melody.

The novella starts with a recount of Mirko Czentovic's story, the world chess champion. A young man whose ignorance was universal in all fields, but played chess like no one in the world and was now visiting my dear Buenos Aires.

As soon as Mirko had done his chores around the house, he sat stolidly in the living-room with that vacant gaze seen in sheep out at pasture, paying not the least attention to what was going on around him. (5)

That was described as apathy. To be able to switch off the inner processes that often haunt us, just for a minute, in order to subtract yourself from reality and dwell in reverie... Or nothing. To think nothing. To want nothing. To put the restless soul in a lethargic state without knowing what is going on around us. Well...

Anyway, the boy learnt to play chess only by looking at some men playing it. (Hard to imagine, and I am not saying it because I tried that when I was younger. But why on earth would I question that fact in literature? Strangest things have happened.) Czentovic was a grotesque, simple-minded boy lost in the world of the mind. A boy that in a relatively short period of time, after tasting the bittersweet elixir of money and fame, became a cold, ostentatiously proud person. Unfortunately, several times I had the unpleasant experience of seeing how a simple person that came from a humble background could turn into an arrogant figure after achieving some material success.

Arrogance and confidence are two different things. And that relies on the fact that despite his annoying pride, Czentovic was still insecure. He never talked to well-educated people because he feared he would say something stupid. Behind that self-absorbed body language, an overwhelming insecurity was hidden.

There is psychological material in everyone, even in the apparently simplest man of all.

Black. White. A steppenwolf inside. Which nature will defeat the other? Does our opinion matter? And, which one are we? A. B. Both. The reckless combination of light and darkness. Always obsessively looking for a referent. An answer. A cure. The permanence of sanity.

You were left irredeemably alone with yourself, your body, and the four or five silent objects, table, bed, window, washbasin... There was nothing to do, nothing to hear, nothing to see, you were surrounded everywhere, all the time, by the void, that entirely spaceless, timeless vacuum. You walked up and down, and your thoughts went up and down with you, up and down, again and again. But even thoughts, insubstantial as they may seem, need something to fix on, or they begin to rotate and circle aimlessly around themselves; they can’t tolerate a vacuum either. You kept waiting for something from morning to evening, and nothing happened. You waited again, and yet again. Nothing happened. You waited, waited, waited, you thought, you thought, you thought until your head was aching. Nothing happened. You were left alone. Alone. Alone. (19)

This novella was a delight to read. All the characters amused me or disgusted me with the same intensity. Zweig described them so vividly. His writing reflects the characters' mood with perfection. I could almost hear the sneer coming from McConnor's rage after losing his first game. I could almost see Czentovic's cold and defying eyes while playing his insensitive game. Or Dr B. predicting all the possible moves with ecstatic frenzy. I suddenly became another eager witness in the middle of a growing excitement. I could also feel the oppression of his soul while he was narrating his confinement in an empty room. I read and absorbed it all. His despair, his tedium, sorrow and fear.

I was to retch and retch on my own thoughts until they choked me... (21)

In conclusion, intriguing plot, interesting characters, situations described so vividly that you can almost touch them and a magnificent, accessible writing with the power to dazzle you until the end. Yes and a thousand times “yes”. Another writer to admire.

Black. White. And we are in the middle, surrounded by many combinations, many possibilities, paths and decisions. Two sides of us coexisting in one body. Perhaps, two people writing these rambling thoughts. Thoughts and more thoughts. Questioning, torturing, haunting.

We are in the middle. No king has been defeated, yet Life ironically cries "Checkmate!".

* Photo credit: Book cover via Goodreads.
Photo 1 via schachzweig.de
Photo 2 via DataTracks

Duino Elegies/The Sonnets of Orpheus - Rainer Maria Rilke

Rating: ★★★★
01/06/14

Who's turned us around like this,so that whatever we do, we always havethe look of someone going away? Just as a manon the last hill showing him his whole valleyone last time, turns, and stops, and lingers -so we live, and are forever leaving. (70)

When was the last time you look at the stars? Feeling the bittersweet breeze of the night in your face. A face only illuminated by the distant light of the stars. Alone with your thoughts, feeling you can do anything. Go anywhere. 
This book is an invitation to look above and ponder about your own existence. About what makes you feel happiness, what troubles the mind, what confuses the heart. What you need. Time is merciless and will not stand still. Will you look at the stars tonight?

This book includes Rilke's most celebrated works: Duino Elegies and The Sonnets to Orpheus. The latter are masterfully written, faithfully portraying what a creative mind is capable of. They are also the most accessible part of the book. Written with a superb language, they are made of metaphors that express many emotions and reflections that define human beings. So I would recommend people to start with these sonnets first, and then tackle the elegies, a challenge in verse.

Like I said, this book starts with ten elegies. They contain an intense amount of mysticism. I wouldn't have like them if it wasn't for the fact that they are not like Sunday psalms but heartfelt manifestations of existential doubts and human suffering. So religion is also seen from a philosophical point of view. I think. That is what I understood, at least. Angels are a recurrent theme and they are used to express different thoughts, especially the contrast between their perfection and human flaws.

And if I cried, who'd listen to me in those angelic

orders? Even if one of them suddenly held me

to his heart, I'd vanish in his overwhelming

presence. Because beauty's nothing

but the start of terror we can hardly bear,

and we adore it because of the serene scorn

it could kill us with. Every angel's terrifying. (16)

Angels depict the distant and unbearable beauty that humans apparently will never reach on Earth. According to one of the notes in the book (I am extremely grateful for them, but they weren't enough), these angels have nothing to do with the angels of the Christian heaven. "The angel of the Elegies is that creature in whom the transformation of the visible into the invisible, which we are accomplishing, appears already consummated ... " (205)

There are also many images that portrays the fervent yearning for love in all its forms, but with more emphasis on the transcendental side of it, something that should define humanity. A spiritual experience that would elevate us all to where angels dwell without leaving life on Earth.

Hostility

is second nature to us. Having promised

one another distance, hunting, and home,

don't lovers always cross each other's boundaries? (38)

There is too much longing in his writing. His heartbreaking writing.

O hours of childhood,

when more than the mere past was behind

each shape and the future wasn't stretched out

before us. We were growing; sometimes we hurried

to grow up too soon, half for the sake of those

who had nothing more than being grown-up.

Yet when we were alone, we still amused

ourselves with the everlasting and stood there

in that gap between world and toy,

in a place which, from the very start,

had been established for a pure event. (42)

But there is also hope. And a strong desire to achieve something greater. And so much more.

Due to Rilke's symbolism, this book doesn't represent an easy read, at all. His exquisite lyricism and the images he described left me in awe. Mostly because while reading Rilke, I wasn't reading anyone else. I am certainly not an expert but I found his poetical melody quite unique. I must say, I haven't read something so beautifully strange since my encounter with Rimbaud.

It is a cruel norm established by one merciless being: tormented souls are the ones that can bring beauty to everything they touch. While purging themselves, they convert their sorrow into beautiful images that delight every reader willing to be taken for an intrepid journey without knowing the destination. Perhaps, it is a cruel norm. Or a blessing in disguise. A blessing that transforms a man into an artist, something that lets him live without drowning in a loud sea of despair.

...we vanish in our feelings. (24)

After reading Rilke's poetry, I had an implacable feeling of smallness. The last two elegies are brilliantly written. And yet, I think there is still so much mystery surrounding these verses. Mystery I hope I can unveil the next time I read this book.

Notes:
-This is a bilingual edition, so those who speak German will be able to appreciate Rilke's magnificent poetry without the intervention of another person.

* Photo credit: Book cover via Goodreads.
Painting: The Guardian, Marina Petro / via druma.co

El Mundo de Ayer - Stefan Zweig

Rating: ★★★★★
31/06/14

...after all, shadows themselves are born of light.

...toda sombra es, al fin y al cabo, hija de la luz.

- Stefan Zweig, The World of Yesterday/El Mundo de Ayer

There are people that breathe nostalgia every day. They enjoy it, they suffer it. They stare at some object and a million memories come to mind. People, friends, lovers, happiness, regrets. They are usually looking back wishing for the past to become present. For that little part of the world they knew and that it felt much safer than the one they inhabit today.

My nostalgia has a life on its own.

Well. There are many wonderful reviews about this book. I have nothing new to say. So I will simply share some rambling thoughts.

Stefan Zweig (1881-1942) has written a book where the universal sense of loss is omnipresent. What to do when the world you have always known crumbles in front of your eyes due to the acts of other human beings? I cannot imagine facing such cruelty. And then, I can. His writing is too vivid. I was the one remembering the past, enraptured by the feeling of a distant safety. A stateless individual on some strange ground, holding a pack of memories that contrasted so harshly with his present. I have read, I have lived through his words and I have learned.

I have been acquainted with other works by Zweig and his magnificent writing is obviously present in this book that is considered a real masterpiece. His prose, evocative, keen and clear as usual, deals with many issues of a society at the start of the 20th century; some ordinary, some controversial. It also describes his relationship with other relevant figures of his time. There is plenty of the external world and his perspectives.

Through his words, the author gave form to the world he has seen and lived before. Avoiding a detailed recount of his own life, this book portrays the sense of safety of those lost days. He gave his memories enough time to speak for him before he succumbed to a death made out of hopelessness and sealed by his bare hands. The defeated dream of humanity as a whole. A dream stolen by two wars that surpass every attempt of reasoning.

Reading this book was a strange experience. I have lost a lot while I was reading it and I have gained too much after finishing it. We are always returning to where we started, aren't we? Always moving from beginning to middle and vice versa. Our seeming incapacity to learn from our mistakes intoxicates our essence. Most of us are left with a bittersweet confidence in human nature. A naive optimism fighting for survival. For I am writing these nonsensical lines when, in another part of the world, people have fifteen seconds to save their lives from the atrocity of others.

We end up being wandering shadows looking for a safe place. For another soul who can feed or restore our faith in humanity. At least, some of it.

There are people that breathe nostalgia every day. Do not forget to breathe the air of the present. An existence perpetually longing for what has passed cannot see what is coming.

Notes:

-Since I could not find an English edition, I read this book in Spanish. And, in my opinion, this one was a pretty decent translation.

* Photo credit: Book cover via Goodreads.
Painting: Stefan Zweig, oil on canvas / via flickr

Essays and Aphorisms - Arthur Schopenhauer

Rating: ★★★★
25/03/14

Each individual misfortune, to be sure, seems an exceptional occurrence; but misfortune in general is the rule.

Arthur Schopenhauer, "On the Suffering of the World"

We are here to shatter your warm and fuzzy world inhabited by unicorns and puppies that eat cupcakes every time it rains. You may have the feeling of never leaving that world. And that's a valid choice, we all have our particular ways of dealing with our existence. If you do, avoid Schopenhauer's work. If you feel you can take it, proceed to read this book.

In 2005, I bought a little book called Schopenhauer para Principiantes. I was quite young and I am not sure where I found his name (I do remember the year because every time I buy a book, I write the date on them; a little quirk). I think it was during some period when I was obsessed with Hinduism and Buddhism and other aspects of the Eastern philosophy and religion. Schopenhauer was heavily influenced by the Upanishads.

Anyway, I felt so close to his points of view. I always thought I'd enjoy reading his books. And I did. I enjoyed reading this one, most of the times.

I decided to mention what I didn't like, first. And then, his other thoughts that truly emanate intelligence and creativity. That should be the last thing to be read.

Let's start with those simple-minded creatures whose only job is to have children and were born to be nurses and teachers. Yes, women.

One needs only to see the way she is built to realize that woman is not intended for great mental or for great physical labour. She expiates the guilt of life not through activity but through suffering, through the pains of childbirth, caring for the child and subjection to the man, to whom she should be a patient and cheering companion. (49)

After reading that, Schop certainly wasn't my favorite person in the world. And that is just the beginning. Do you think his misogynistic capabilities end there?

[they] are childish, silly and short-sighted, in a word big children... The nobler and more perfect a thing is, the later and more slowly does it mature. The man attains the maturity of his reasoning powers and spiritual faculties hardly before his twenty-eighth year; the woman with her eighteenth. And even then it is only reasoning power of a sort: a very limited sort. (50)

Yes, ignoble and imperfect ladies. Women are portrayed as little human beings that make babies and never mature, and have to hold on to their beauty and charm in order to get successful businessmen to support them (okay, I know a couple of those, but do not generalize, I beg you. Just like all men aren't noble and perfect, for god's sake). It has been said that, in his last years, he had a more favorable opinion about women. Well, I haven't seen the page. No redemption for you on that subject, my friend.

Next topic: freedom of the press. Or the permit to sell poison, whatever you want to call it.

For what cannot be put into the heads of the ignorant and credulous masses? – especially if you hold before them the prospect of gain and advantages. And of what misdeeds is man not capable once something has been put into his head? I very much fear, therefore, that the dangers of press freedom outweigh its usefulness, especially where there are legal remedies available for all grievances. In any event, however, freedom of the press should be conditional upon the strictest prohibition of any kind of anonymity. (89)

And then he focused on what he considered the perfect form of government... Yeah. I wasn't particularly fond of all his views developed in the essay "On law and politics".

Moving on to the things I enjoyed reading. First, Hollingdale's introduction. Thoroughly researched and well-written. He shared many facts of Schopenhauer's life and work and he managed to keep me interested. He chose several essays and aphorisms from the second volume of Parerga and Paralipomena (1851) to shed some light on his amazing work and form an idea of his philosophy.

Schopenhauer described brilliant ideas without using an extremely complicated language that only scholars would be able to understand. The complexity of his thoughts and the way they are written... simply outstanding. It reminded me of my experience with Bertrand Russell, while reading Why I Am Not a Christian and Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects. They have similar writing styles: straightforward and kind of humorous at times. Just the writing, though. Russell didn't think about S. with great enthusiasm since he considered him, basically, a hypocrite because he didn't lived according to what he preached... I wouldn't know.

The first essay is about a main characteristic of Schopenhauer's philosophy. Suffering. We seem to be doomed to suffer. And even if we wouldn't suffer, we would long for it.

Not the least of the torments which plague our existence is the constant pressure of time, which never lets us so much as draw breath but pursues us all like a taskmaster with a whip.

And yet if every desire were satisfied as soon as it arose how would men occupy their lives, how would they pass the time? (25)

If we wouldn't have misery in our world, we would create it, just to have something to worry about, apparently. (There is a funny Utopia reference, the land of More.) So, he recommended us to see the world not as the perfect work of a superior being because first, the world is full of misery; second, we live in it. Humans are considered highly developed beings but, in fact, they are not. However, think about it. It couldn't be otherwise since we are here thanks to a punishment for a forbidden desire (insert "story of the Fall" here). All in all, once you have accepted suffering, you'll see it as something ordinary, you won't be surprised because you will think of it as something normal. Considering we have such a tragic origin and we are doomed to suffer, we should conduct ourselves with some indulgence. We must treat each other with tolerance, patience, forbearance and charity. Everything has its silver lining.

The following chapter is about the vanity of existence, which I found brilliant.

Every moment of our life belongs to the present only for a moment; then it belongs for ever to the past. (31)

When I was younger, I used to be haunted by that thought. What is the present? What is now, this instant? Merely a second. Then it is all safe in the past. The past is not last year; it is already when I wrote "The past is not last year". That hopeless feeling of needing more time is universal.

He then continued squeezing and kicking my soul with his thoughts on the human life and our needs that are impossible to satisfy.

As things are, we take no pleasure in existence except when we are striving after something – in which case distance and difficulties make our goal look as if it would satisfy us (an illusion which fades when we reach it) – or when engaged in purely intellectual activity, in which case we are really stepping out of life so as to regard it from outside, like spectators at a play... Whenever we are not involved in one or other of these things but directed back to existence itself we are overtaken by its worthlessness and vanity and this is the sensation called boredom. (32)

There are other essays and aphorisms about religion, philosophy, ethics, books and writing (that ooze arrogance from time to time) and introspection that are written with the same accessible language and express impressive—sometimes provocative—ideas. We may not agree with a couple of them but we have to admit that this man was an endless source of creativity. He expressed his ideas and backed them up with his own arguments and created a representation of the world that influenced many people. He wasn't afraid of showing what he really thought about several subjects, no matter how miserable and disturbing it all might be.

So, here we are. I am full of contradictions, like any other person. I loved him and disliked him with the same intensity, at the same time.

Kant's fan, Hegel's foe and one of the greatest, most interesting and provocative philosophers I have read so far.

Actual rating: 3.5 3.9 stars.

Siddhartha - Hermann Hesse

Rating: ★★★★★


* There may be a little spoiler *

The time: an old one. The place: India.

There's this guy named Siddhartha, who was everyone's love and joy. A wise and decent young man who inspired everyone around him, but himself. He was not content with his life and everything around it, spiritually speaking. He felt it was not enough. And why wasn't it enough? I don't know, but it is in human nature to wonder about the essence of things, like the existence of God, of any god.

He was in a better position, though. He was certain that a superior entity existed, he just needed to know and feel more. Those who are not sure, who are floating in the middle, those people experience the worst kind of uncertainty, a painful one. Doubt mercilessly corrodes the body until it reaches the soul.

After a while, Siddhartha thought that everything he had was not enough to feel satisfied, blissful. He thought that his father and the other Brahmans already gave him all the wisdom they had. But <i>the vessel was not full, the spirit was not content, the soul was not calm, the heart was not satisfied</i>.

So, he leaves his family and good friend Govinda, and begins a life of contemplation, hoping to gain some spiritual enlightenment. He became a Samana. However, these guys' philosophy did not satisfy his heart either, therefore, he continues his quest, alone.

A river and a ferryman later, he finds a city called From living a peaceful, contemplative life to livin' la vida loca. Siddhartha meets a beautiful and intelligent woman who teaches him everything about love and... stuff. Nevertheless, after some years, this empty lifestyle of earthly pleasures tires him, and makes him go back to the river, which gave him the inspiration he was looking for.

After some time, after certain situations, he was able to listen to the river's voice with the ferryman, now Siddhartha's spiritual guide, and he finds enlightenment. He reaches the Nirvana on his own.

This is a beautiful story about a man's journey of self-discovery. A wise young man that had his ups and downs like every human being. After that time of pleasures and materialism, he went back to the spiritual life he was longing for. However, that time he spent with the woman, cannot be considered a waste. He needed that in order to achieve something greater. Everything helped him to gain experience and thus, to return to the path he was intended to walk. Sometimes, we all need to hit rock bottom just to go back to the right track again. And if staring to an apparently talking river helps you and your spiritual growth, so be it.

Despite any ironic comment, I loved this book. It kicks that Alchemist's butt; several times. It really is an inspirational book, in my opinion; it makes you wonder and think about things you thought you knew. I read it in English and Spanish at the same time; it was like reading two different books, of course. But I can say I liked Hesse writing, if there is something of his style in those translations. (I have to learn French, German and Italian, and thus, I shall find peace.)

Metaphors, reflections, descriptions, people, feelings; they are all beautifully written. He tends to repeat terms in one passage and that gives it a graceful sound when you read it (and sometimes it is just redundancy). I don't know if that only makes sense in my head. Probably.

I like philosophical novels, and this one was no exception. I don't know if it is going to change my perspective on life (I think I am still on my "discontent phase" and haven't found any rivers yet) but it was a delight to read.

Jun 23, 2013

***

I should reread this marvelous book, soon. Just to see if I found my talking river.

Ago 5, 2014

Carta al Padre - Franz Kafka

Rating: ★★★★★
21/01/13


No hay nada nuevo para decir sobre esta obra que ya no se haya dicho. Lo leí en la secundaria, fue uno de esos tantos libros que había que leer y analizar si se quería aprobar la materia. Y no lo sentí obligatorio, para nada. En ese momento, comenzó mi (¿sana?) obsesión por Kafka. Y, no sé por qué, hay un episodio en particular que recuerdo, relacionado con este libro. Al terminar de leerlo, mi profesora nos aclaró que teníamos que leer cada línea con la idea clara de que todo era una exageración, que su relación con su padre no había sido tan tortuosa. Y yo no veía un gramo de exageración, para mí era perfectamente posible todo lo relatado en esa carta, cada sentimiento, cada emoción, cada parálisis provocada por el miedo. Quizás fue por haberla leído en plena adolescencia, donde el "no" de un padre suena al relincho de los jinetes que anuncian el fin del mundo. Qué se yo. En definitiva, fue un libro que me dejó su marca, y al que vuelvo, de tanto en tanto.

The Sorrows of Young Werther - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Rating: ★★★★
17/08/13


I read this book in high school. So, I don't remember much of it, except the crying. I loved the story, I could relate to many of his thoughts about unrequited love and its tragic consequences, and feeling like it was the end of the world because I wasn't with that special someone and, well. High school: Maths and lovesickness. 

I cried quite a bit while reading this book, Bambi's-mother-shooting kind of tears. I'd probably wouldn't react that way now, I'd just think about how much easier is to move out and try to meet somebody else (or not) than crying a river and trying to kill yourself. I'd have to re-read it to find out. However, despite that particular part of the plot, it was beautifully and carefully written. Goethe described one of the most profound and dangerous kind of pain, in a most delicate and graceful manner. His prose is brilliant, powerful. Besides love, and lack of love, pain and whatnot, there are passages like:

"Oh! you people of sound understandings," I replied, smiling, "are ever ready to exclaim 'Extravagance, and madness, and intoxication!' You moral men are so calm and so subdued! You abhor the drunken man, and detest the extravagant; you pass by, like the Levite, and thank God, like the Pharisee, that you are not like one of them. I have been more than once intoxicated, my passions have always bordered on extravagance: I am not ashamed to confess it; for I have learned, by my own experience, that all extraordinary men, who have accomplished great and astonishing actions, have ever been decried by the world as drunken or insane. And in private life, too, is it not intolerable that no one can undertake the execution of a noble or generous deed, without giving rise to the exclamation that the doer is intoxicated or mad? Shame upon you, ye sages!"

So, what you can get out of this really helpful review is that: 

a) I cried. 

b) Goethe's writing is beautiful.

El Lobo Estepario - Hermann Hesse

Rating: ★★★★★

30/12/13

Solitude is independence. It had been my wish and with the years I had attained it. It was cold. Oh, cold enough! But it was also still, wonderfully still and vast like the cold stillness of space in which the stars revolve.

I wrote a review a couple of weeks ago and I am still not sure about sharing it. It is too personal. This book is so close to my heart and my first review reflects that; a little too much. I mean, I didn't know what to expect and it blew me away. It is a fascinating work nearly about everything. Everything I care about, everything I dislike, everything I want, everything I love. Even knowing that, clearly, the protagonist doesn't have all the stability of the world, are his statements that implausible?
Nonetheless, it is not all about his pessimist (yet real) points of view on life and society; there is also hope. Just a line, actually, but it is there. More than enough.

So, I am going to leave it at that for now, and share what I think it is a beautifully written and crucial passage.

I could not bear this tame, lying, well-mannered life any longer. And since it appeared that I could not bear my loneliness any longer either, since my own company had become so unspeakably hateful and nauseous, since I struggled for breath in a vacuum and suffocated in hell, what way out was left me? There was none. I thought of my father and mother, of the sacred flame of my youth long extinct, of the thousand joys and labors and aims of my life. Nothing of them all was left me, not even repentance, nothing but agony and nausea. Never had the clinging to mere life seemed so grievous as now.

...More and more plainly, with a wildly beating heart, I felt the dread of all dreads, the fear of death. Yes, I was horribly afraid of death. Although I saw no other way out, although nausea, agony and despair threatened to engulf me; although life had no allurement and nothing to give me either of joy or hope, I shuddered all the same with an unspeakable horror of a gaping wound in a condemned man's flesh.

Cuentos Completos de los Hermanos Grimm - Hermanos Grimm

Rating: ★★★★

23/06/13

Nunca dejé de leer cuentos infantiles. De vez en cuando, entre tanto Camus, tanto Borges, Kafka, sadasdsdaf, tengo la necesidad de salir de lo absurdo, lo opresivo, lo filosófico, la realidad, en definitiva... para volver a lo básico, a esa ingenuidad que caracteriza a la niñez, donde realmente crees en bosques mágicos y hermosas princesas que no hacen más que dormir hasta que su príncipe azul las despierta con el beso del amor verdadero aunque jamás las habían visto antes, y personajes con nombres que nunca podré pronunciar correctamente (¿Rumpelstiltskin?), y esas cosas. Espero nunca creerme tan estúpidamente superada como para dejar de leer cuentos. Es sano, y tengo a C.S. Lewis de mi lado.