Velha senhora

«
Sempre entremeadas com as observações relativas a Cottard, encontram-se também nos cadernos numerosas notas, muitas vezes dispersas, algumas das quais dizem respeito a Grand (agora convalescente e que tinha voltado ao trabalho como se nada se tivesse passado) e outras evocam a mãe do Doutor Rieux. As poucas conversas que a coabitação autorizava entre esta e Tarrou, atitudes da velha senhora, o seu sorriso, as suas observações sobre a peste, são escrupulosamente anotadas. Tarrou insistia sobretudo no retraimento da senhora Rieux; na maneira que ela tinha de exprimir tudo em frases simples no gosto particular que ela mostrava por certa janela que dava para a rua calma e atrás da qual ela se sentava à noite, um pouco direita, com as mãos tranquilas e o olhar atento, até que o crepúsculo invadisse a sala, fazendo dela uma sombra negra na luz cinzenta que escurecia pouco a pouco e que dissolvia então a silhueta imóvel; na ligeireza com que ela se deslocava de sala para sala; na bondade de que nunca dera provas precisas diante de Tarrou, mas que ele julgava ver transparecer em tudo o que ela dizia ou fazia; no facto, enfim, de que, segundo ele, ela conhecia tudo sem nunca refletir e que, com tanto silêncio e sombra, podia ficar à altura de qualquer luz, mesmo a da peste. Aqui, de resto, a letra de Tarrou mostrava estranhos sinais de abatimento. As linhas que se seguiam eram dificilmente legíveis e, como para dar uma nova prova deste abatimento, as últimas palavras eram as primeiras que tinha um carácter pessoal: “A minha mãe era assim; eu apreciava nela o mesmo retraimento e foi a ela que sempre quis juntar-me. Há oito anos, não posso dizer que ela tenha morrido. Diluiu-se apenas um pouco mais que de costume e, quando me voltei, ela já lá não estava.”
»
Albert Camus, “A Peste” (1947). Tradução de Ersílio Cardoso. Lisboa: Relógio D’Água, 2018, p. 234.

A change of being

«
Since a phenomenological inquiry on poetry aspires to go so far and so deep, because of methodological obligations, it must go beyond the sentimental resonances with which we receive (more or less richly — whether this richness be within ourselves or within the poem) a work of art. This is where the phenomenological doublet of resonances and repercussions must be sensitized. The resonances are dispersed on the different planes of our life in the world, while the repercussions invite us to give greater depth to our own existence. In the resonance we hear the poem, in the reverberations we speak it, it is our own. The reverberations bring about a change of being. It is as though the poet’s being were our being. The multiplicity of resonances then issues from the reverberations’ unity of being. Or, to put it more simply, this is an impression that all impassioned poetry-lovers know well: the poem possesses us entirely.
This grip that poetry acquires on our very being bears a phenomenological mark that is unmistakable. The exuberance and depth of a poem are always phenomena of the resonance-reverberation doublet. It is as though the poem, through its exuberance, awakened new depths in us. In order to ascertain the psychological action of a poem, we should therefore have to follow the two perspectives of phenomenological analysis, towards the outpourings of the mind and towards the profundities of the soul.
Needless to say, the reverberation, in spite of its derivative name, has a simple phenomenological nature in the domain of poetic imagination. For it involves bringing about a veritable awakening of poetic creation, even in the soul of the reader, through the reverberations of a single poetic image. By its novelty, a poetic image sets in motion the entire linguistic mechanism. The poetic image places us at the origin of the speaking being.
Through this reverberation, by going immediately beyond all psychology or psychoanalysis, we feel a poetic power rising naïvely within us. After the original reverberation, we are able to experience resonances, sentimental repercussions, reminders of our past. But the image has touched the depths before it stirs the surface. And this is also true of a simple experience of reading. The image offered us by reading the poem now becomes really our own. It takes root in us. It has been given by another, but we begin to have the impression that we could have created it, that we should have created it. It becomes a new being in our language, expressing us by making us that it expresses; in other words, it is at once a becoming of expression, and a becoming of our being. Here expression becomes being.
»
Gaston Bachelard, “The Poetics of Space”. Translated by Maria Jolas. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1969. Reprint 1994, pp. xxii-xxiii (emphasis in original).

After Paul Valéry

«
Indeed, in the art of the latter half of the twentieth century, mystery has been lost. Today artists want instantaneous and total recognition — immediate payment for something that takes place in the realm of the spirit. In this respect the figure of Kafka is outstanding: he printed nothing during his lifetime, and in his will instructed his executor to burn all he had written; in mentality he belonged, morally speaking, to the past. That was why he suffered so much, being out of tune with his time.
What passes for art today is for the most part fiction, for it is a fallacy to suppose that method can become the meaning and aim of art. Nonetheless, most modern artists spend their time self-indulgently demonstrating method.
The whole question of avant-garde is peculiar to the twentieth century, to the time when art has steadily been losing its spirituality. The situation is worst in the visual arts, which today are almost totally devoid of spirituality. The accepted view is that this situation reflects the despiritualised state of society. And of course, on the level of simple observation of the tragedy, I agree: that is what it does reflect. But art must transcend as well as observe; its role is to bring spiritual vision to bear on reality: as did Dostoievsky, the first to have given inspired utterance to the incipient disease of the age.
The whole concept of avant-garde in art is meaningless. I can see what it means as applied to sport, for instance. But to apply it to art would be to accept the idea of progress in art; and though progress has an obvious place in technology — more perfect machines, capable of carrying out their functions better and more accurately — how can anyone be more advanced in art? How could Thomas Mann be said to be better than Shakespeare?
»
Andrey Tarkovsky, “Sculpting in Time: Reflections on the Cinema”. Translated by Kitty Hunter-Blair. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1986. Reprint 2017, pp. 96-97 (emphasis in original).

About being at a crossroads

«
Dear Mary and Emilia,
When I stop to examine the major crossroads of my own life, it seems that the impelling force behind the direction of travel has almost always been intuitive, even accidental, without any serious consideration given as to whether it was the right decision or not. But accompanying those vague, arbitrary decisions was an intense commitment and application to bring them into being. A simple, often barely felt intuition swept along by dogged determination to get the job done. And all around these impulsive life decisions dance little corrective serendipities that nudge me, this way and that, along the course of my life.
I once felt the path of existence was entirely random and unplanned, but now I am not so sure. At this stage in my life I feel these contingent decisions are amounting to something, that destiny is at work and, as the pieces fall mysteriously into place, that there is some sort of ultimate meaning. Life appears not random at all but part of a superior system, where the sum of these intuitions have an order, a greater purpose, an eventual orientation beyond what we ourselves can perceive. Even in the whorl of our own personal tragedies, when the cosmos appears at its most chaotic and impartial, I have come to see the world, in its complexity, rearranging itself toward meaning.
»
Nick Cave, a reply to Mary, “The Red Hand Files #269”.
Available in full here.

A New Year’s resolution?

«
Dear Saverio and Ellen,
Three of my favourite words, and ones I find myself using more and more these days, are ‘Having said that’. I am also fond of saying ‘On the other hand’, and Seán O’Hagan tells me that the word I use most in our book, Faith, Hope and Carnage, is ‘However’.
I like all of these phrases because they acknowledge one point of view but also tender another, they preface the presentation of a stabilising counterargument. This is something not much liked in our contemporary culture, it is unpopular on social media that trades primarily in a currency of performative moral outrage. ‘Having said that’ is the bothersome and deflating enemy of polarisation, self-righteousness, intolerance and hubris.
But as the world divides into its various factions, these are words that are increasingly important. Difficult as it can be, I try my best to apply them by questioning my own thoughts – what actually is the argument from the other side? In doing so I have found that there are very few disputes, conflicts, disagreements and ideas that these three unassuming words can’t help to mediate by broadening and strengthening the conversation. Some may feel they are the undermining opponent of conviction, hostile to progress and action, but they are not. These three small words give conviction its sense of humanity and prevent it hardening into a blinkered and uncharitable stringency. ‘Having said that’ is the precondition of empathy, it is the capacity to see and understand the other side, to show that we have the necessary willingness to hold two contrasting ideas in our hand at the same time.
»
Nick Cave, a reply to Saverio and Ellen, “The Red Hand Files #267”.
Available in full here.

Superstar

«
There’s a light going out tonight
Driving fast
Flashing lines
It’s too late now to say goodbye
The stars were there
In our eyes
When you were mine
We fell across the sky
Backlit up against the wall
Out there on the run
You’re not the only one
Shadow from the sun
Somewhere out on the radio
Look up high
Now you’re gone
I see it now in this photograph
Something good
Never meant to last
Don’t wanna know how the story ends
From now to then
When you were mine
We fell across the sky
It may be out of sight, but never out of mind
Out there on the run
You’re not the only one
Shadow from the sun
Backlit up against the wall
Superstar
Shining far
When you were mine
We fell across the sky
It may be out of sight, but never out of mind
Out there on the run
You’re not the only one
Shadow from the sun
Backlit up against the wall
Superstar
Shining far
When you were mine
It may be out of sight, but never out of mind
Backlit up against the wall
Superstar
Shining far
»
“Superstar”, by the ethereal duo Beach House. Taken from their 8^th studio album, “Once Twice Melody”, 2022 (emphasis added).

Learning from fables

«
To begin with, let me tell you a story. There were once two jackals: Karataka, whose name meant Cautious, and Damanaka, whose name meant Daring. They were in the second rank of the retinue of the lion king Pingalaka, but they were ambitious and cunning. One day, the lion king was frightened by a roaring noise in the forest, which the jackals knew was the voice of a runaway bull, nothing for a lion to be scared of. They visited the bull and persuaded him to come before the lion and declare his friendship. The bull was scared of the lion, but he agreed, and so the lion king and the bull became friends, and the jackals were promoted to the first rank by the grateful monarch.
Unfortunately, the lion and the bull began to spend so much time lost in conversation that the lion stopped hunting and so the animals in the retinue were starving. So the jackals persuaded the king that the bull was plotting against him, and they persuaded the bull that the lion was planning to kill him. So the lion and the bull fought, and the bull was killed, and there was plenty of meat, and the jackals rose even higher in the king’s regard because they had warned him of the plot. They rose in the regard of everyone else in the forest as well, except, of course, for the poor bull, but that didn’t matter, because he was dead, and providing everyone with an excellent lunch.
This, approximately, is the frame-story of On Causing Dissension Among Friends, the first of the five parts of the book of animal fables known as the Panchatantra. What I have always found attractive about the Panchatantra stories is that many of them do not moralise. They do not preach goodness or virtue or modesty or honesty or restraint. Cunning and strategy and amorality often overcome all opposition. The good guys don’t always win. (It’s not even always clear who the good guys are.) For this reason they seem, to the modern reader, uncannily contemporary – because we, the modern readers, live in a world of amorality and shamelessness and treachery and cunning, in which bad guys everywhere have often won.
I have always been inspired by mythologies, folktales and fairytales, not because they contain miracles – talking animals or magic fishes – but because they encapsulate truth. For example, the story of Orpheus and Eurydice, which was an important inspiration for my novel The Ground Beneath Her Feet, can be told in fewer than 100 words, yet it contains, in compressed form, mighty questions about the relationship between art, love and death. It asks: can love, with the help of art, overcome death? But perhaps it answers: doesn’t death, in spite of art, overcome love? Or else it tells us that art takes on the subjects of love and death and transcends both by turning them into immortal stories. Those 100 words contain enough profundity to inspire 1,000 novels.
(…)
And what does the world of fable have to tell us about peace? The news is not very good. Homer tells us peace comes after a decade of war when everyone we care about is dead and Troy has been destroyed. The Norse myths tell us peace comes after Ragnarök, the Twilight of the Gods, when the gods destroy their traditional foes but are also destroyed by them. The Mahābhārata and Ramayana tell us peace comes at a bloody price. And the Panchatantra tells us that peace is only achieved through treachery.
(…)
And we speak of peace now, when war is raging, a war born of one man’s tyranny and greed for power and conquest; and another bitter conflict has exploded in Israel and the Gaza Strip. Peace, right now, feels like a fantasy born of a narcotic smoked in a pipe. Peace is a hard thing to make, and a hard thing to find. And yet we yearn for it, not only the great peace that comes at the end of war, but also the little peace of our private lives, to feel ourselves at peace with ourselves, and the little world around us. It is one of our great values, a thing ardently to pursue. There is also something decidedly fabulist about the notion of peace prizes. But I like the idea that peace itself might be the prize, a whole year’s supply of it, delivered to your door, elegantly bottled. That’s an award I’d be very happy to receive. I am even thinking of writing a story about it, The Man Who Received Peace as a Prize.
(…)
We live in a time I did not think I would see, a time when freedom – and in particular, freedom of expression, without which the world of books could not exist – is everywhere under attack from reactionary, authoritarian, populist, demagogic, half-educated, narcissistic, careless voices; when places of education and libraries are subject to hostility and censorship; and when extremist religion and bigoted ideologies have begun to intrude in areas of life in which they do not belong. And there are also progressive voices being raised in favour of a new kind of bien-pensant censorship, one that appears virtuous, and which many people, especially young people, have begun to see as a virtue.
So freedom is under pressure from the left as well as the right, the young as well as the old. This is something new, made more complicated by our new tools of communication, the internet, on which well-designed pages of malevolent lies sit side by side with the truth, and it is difficult for many people to tell which is which; and our social media, where the idea of freedom is every day abused to permit, very often, a kind of online mob rule, which the billionaire owners of these platforms seem increasingly willing to encourage, and to profit by.
What do we do about free speech when it is so widely abused? We should still do, with renewed vigour, what we have always needed to do: to answer bad speech with better speech, to counter false narratives with better narratives, to answer hate with love, and to believe that the truth can still succeed even in an age of lies. We must defend it fiercely and define it broadly. We should of course defend speech that offends us, otherwise we are not defending free expression at all.
To quote Cavafy, “the barbarians are coming today”, and what I do know is that the answer to philistinism is art, the answer to barbarianism is civilisation, and in a culture war it may be that artists of all sorts – film-makers, actors, singers, writers – can still, together, turn the barbarians away from the gates.
»
An edited extract from Salman Rushdie’s acceptance speech for the German peace prize awarded at the last Frankfurt book fair. Please read the expanded version published by The Guardian — and support good independent journalism if you’re able to.

A subtle form

«
“. . . How many words does a person know?” she asks her mother rhetorically. “How many does he use in his everyday vocabulary? One hundred, two, three? We wrap our feelings up in words, try to express in words sorrow and joy and any sort of emotion, the very things that can’t in fact be expressed. Romeo uttered beautiful words to Juliet, vivid, expressive words, but they surely didn’t say even half of what made his heart feel as if it was ready to jump out of his chest, and stopped him breathing, and made Juliet forget everything except her love?
“There’s another kind of language, another form of communication: by means of feeling, and images. That is the contact that stops people being separated from each other, that brings down barriers. Will, feeling, emotion—these remove obstacles from between people who otherwise stand on opposite sides of a mirror, on opposite sides of a door . . . The frames of the screen move out, and the world which used to be partitioned off comes into us, becomes something real . . . And this doesn’t happen through little Andrey, it’s Tarkovsky himself addressing the audience directly, as they sit on the other side of the screen. There’s no death, there is immortality. Time is one and undivided, as it says in one of the poems. “At the table are great-grandfathers and grandchildren . . .” Actually mum, I’ve taken the film entirely from an emotional angle, but I’m sure there could be a different way of looking at it. What about you? Do write and tell me please . . .”
»
A most beautiful letter sent by a mother to Andrey Tarkovsky, transcribed in the introduction to “Sculpting in Time: Reflections on the Cinema”. Translated by Kitty Hunter-Blair. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1986. Reprint 2017, pp. 12-13 (emphasis in original).

Aparições e símbolos

«
Nós falamos muito. Devíamos falar menos, e desenhar. Gostaria de perder o hábito do discurso e de me exprimir apenas como a Natureza, através de desenhos expressivos. Esta figueira, esta pequena serpente, este casulo, são, todos eles, “assinaturas” carregadas de sentido. Na verdade, quem pudesse decifrar com exactidão os seus significados seria muito provavelmente capaz de prescindir do discurso escrito e oral. É verdade, quando mais reflicto sobre isto, mais me parece haver algo de inútil, de insípido, direi mesmo, de excessivo, no discurso humano, de modo que ficamos espantados com a gravidade silenciosa da natureza e com o seu silêncio.
»
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, “Goethes Gespräch mit J. D. Falk” (1809), in Pierre Hadot, “Não Te Esqueças de Viver: Goethe e a Tradição dos Exercícios Espirituais” (2008). Lisboa: Relógio D’Água, 2019, p. 165.

O olhar do alto e a viagem cósmica

«
Se, desde o início, os homens percebessem que são mortais e que, depois de uma breve estada na vida, têm de a abandonar como se saíssem de um sonho, deixando lá ficar tudo, viveriam mais sabiamente e morreriam com menos arrependimentos. (…) Tomada de consciência da pequenez e da grandeza do homem era, exactamente, como Kant definia o efeito causado pelo sublime, porque o infinito esmaga-nos, mas o pensamento sobre o infinito eleva-nos, de modo que o sentimento do sublime provoca, em simultâneo, dor, medo e prazer. (…) O olhar do alto, para quem é capaz de tomar consciência do carácter sublime daquilo que vê, permite-lhe ultrapassar o que é compreensível e concebível, para o pôr em presença do infinito e do insondável. (…) É preciso ultrapassar “as inquietações secretas do nosso coração, que, mais do que as nuvens e as tempestades, se agitam em todos os sentidos para ensombrar aos nossos olhos o universo inteiro.” (…) A vida é um voo que se situa entre o celeste e o terrestre, entre o céu estrelado e as cores da terra (…) se a vida é um voo, ela é também um ímpeto, uma aspiração dirigida ao infinito, que não deve ser perturbada pela ideia de fim e de limite. Nesta acepção, Goethe é discípulo de Espinosa: “O homem livre em nada pensa menos que na morte; e a sua sabedoria não é uma meditação da morte, mas da vida.” (…) O olhar do alto é, antes de mais, um ímpeto em direcção ao infinito, mas também deslumbramento perante o esplendor do mundo e da vida. No entanto, como na Antiguidade, é um exercício espiritual que exige daquele que o pratica uma certa disposição ética. O olhar do alto abre perspectivas improváveis sobre o cosmos e sobre a vida humana, e provoca uma espécie de êxtase cósmico. Mas para lhe aceder é necessário, como Wilhelm ao contemplar as estrelas, proceder a uma elevação espiritual, libertar-se das preocupações, e dos interesses materiais, para ser capaz de espanto e de admiração e vislumbrar o sublime. É possível que as teorias kantianas sobre o belo e o sublime tenham exercido influência em Goethe. Podemos dizer que, para Kant, só uma alma boa é capaz de sentir a beleza da Natureza, porque não se deixa cegar por interesses egoístas.
»
Pierre Hadot, “Não Te Esqueças de Viver: Goethe e a Tradição dos Exercícios Espirituais” (2008). Lisboa: Relógio D’Água, 2019, pp. 74-99.