In a 1961 column, Drummond fantasizes that one day Christmas will last the whole year, and then “the Martians, the animals and the plants will enter into a regime of brotherhood”, we will see “the washing machine kissing the flamboyant, the wedding of the flute and the egg, the cement mixer with the marmoset”.
With the end of “tedious or evil obligations”, there will be no more books, because “an angel, smiling, will show the earth printed with the inks of the sun and the galaxies, opened like a book”. While the surreal utopia may take up too much time, here are some bookish gifts to pass the time.
‘The Pole’ by JM Coetzee (Company of Letras). The main character is Witold, a 72-year-old pianist with a precise and dry style who meets, in Barcelona, Beatriz, a disenchanted 40-year-old music lover. The Pole has a passion for the Spanish woman equal to that of Dante for Beatrice in the “Divine Comedy”. But as Coetzee is anti-romantic, their connection neither binds nor looses; brings together, separates and frustrates two loners.
Behind it was “Dishonor,” a novel about the disappointments that followed the end of apartheid. South Africa disappears in “The Pole”, giving way to disagreements between two strangers. Coetzee sees them crudely and cruelly, as his body decays and his soul oxidizes.
“Bartleby the Clerk” by Herman Melville (Rocco). Published 30 years ago, the version translated by Luís de Lima and presented by Fernando Sabino is back in circulation in a new edition. It’s silly to speculate whether the story will ever have the fame of “Moby Dick,” Melville’s greatest work, but its reputation is only growing.
The underlying theme of both is obsession: Ahab’s killing the whale and Bartleby’s refusing to work, his boss, his colleagues, everything. For no reason at all, he begins to answer every question asked with three words: “I prefer not to ask.” And that’s really not the case.
The Wall Street clerk has more to do with the present than the captain of the Pequod. He is the non-conformist conformist, the living example of dead work, the revenge of the servant against the master, the automaton who acts without knowing why. Bartleby is what we are and we don’t know it.
“Threepenny Romance” by Bertolt Brecht (Light). Well, Brecht even wrote a novel. Published in a new translation, by Carla Bessa, his writing began in 1728, during the premiere of “A Ópera do Mendigo”, by the Englishman John Gay. 300 years had passed and Brecht used it as the basis for his biggest hit, “The Threepenny Opera,” a rousing satire of the Weimar Republic with songs by Kurt Weil.
“Romance” was released ten years later, in 1938, with Hitler in power and Brecht in exile. More thoughtful than scathing, he transfers the action to Africa, ruminates on the reasons for the fascist victory and asks non-rhetorical questions: “What is robbing a bank compared to founding a bank?” » ; “What is killing a man compared to employing a man?”
“Poetry in Hard Times” by Brecht (Hèdre). Further proof that the writer is still alive, despite the blows he received. Bilingual, the book features another new translation, this one by Tercio Redondo. There are six collections of his poetry from the 1920s to the 1950s, a time of hope and disappointment.
Written for grease-stained people, not legitimate literati, the verses speak of revolution, poverty, fascism, the revolt against Stalinism in Germany in 1953, and even a 16th-century tailor who wanted to steal. It is without demagoguery or belletrism that they reason and exhort.
In “The Changing of the Wheel,” Brecht also asks, “I don’t like the place I come from./I don’t like the place I’m going to./Why do I look forward to the changing of the wheel?” Because when the car moves, it will be able to change direction, go to a better place. It’s the same with history.
“Poems”, by François Villon (34). It’s an unusual classic, written in the late Middle Ages by a thief and a murderer — and that’s what’s least surprising. The fluidity, the synthetic verve of Villon, the lyric who sees no meaning in death and life, count more.
Classic is also Sebastião Uchoa Leite’s translation, last published 25 years ago. Relaunched, it reinvents archaic French into modern Portuguese and presents a new essay by Leo Spitzer.
Only once does Uchoa Leite limp, but only in Villon’s best-known verse, which deplores the melting of the past: “But where are the snows of yesteryear? (But where are the snows of yesteryear?) This touchstone becomes “And where are the snows of years?” – meaningless question or euphony.
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