domingo, 30 de marzo de 2014

Quotes from PA's "The New York Trilogy"


"Quinn paused to consider this. Was "fate" really the word he wanted to use? It seemed like such a ponderous and old-fashioned choice. And yet, as he probed more deeply into it, he discovered that was precisely what he meant to say. Or, if not precisely, it came closer than any other term he could think of. Fate in the sense of what was, of what happened to be. It was something like the word "it" in the phrase "it is raining" or "it is night." What that "it" referred to Quinn had never known. A generalized condition of things as they were, perhaps; the state of is-ness that was the ground on which the happenings of the world took place. He could not be any more definite than that. But perhaps he was not really searching for anything definite."

"There was something so attractive about him that you always wanted him beside you, as if you could live within his sphere and be touched by what he was. He was there for you, and yet at the same time he was inaccessible. You felt there was a secret core in him that could never be penetrated, a mysterious centre of hiddenness. To imitate him was somehow to participate in that mystery, but it was also to understand that you could never really know him."

"I would get so close to Fanshawe, would admire him so intensly, would want so desperately to measure up to him- and then, suddenly, a moment would come when I realized that he was alien to me, that the way he lived inside himself could never correspond to the way I needed to live. I wanted too much of things, I had too many desires, I lived too fully in the grip of the immediate ever to attain such indifference. It mattered to me that I do well, that I impress people with the empty signs of my ambition: good grades, varsity letters, awards for whatever it was they were judging us on that week. Fanshawe remained aloof of from all that, quietly standing in spite of himself, with no struggle, no effort, no stake in the thing he had done. This posture could be unnerving, and it took me a long time to learn that what was good for Fanshawe was not necessarily good for me."

"For Fanshawe this was essential business- another step toward proving oneself- but for me it was only sordid, a miserable lapse into something I was not. Still, I continued to go along with him, a befulddled witness, sharing in the quest but not quite part of it, an adolescent Sancho astride my donkey, watching my friend do battle with himself."

"Stories without endings can do nothing but go on forever, and to be caught in one means that you must die before your part in it is played out. My only hope is that there is an end to what I am about to say, that somewhere I will find a break in the darkness. This hope is what I define as courage, but whether there is reason to hope is another question entirely."


Paul Auster's "The New York Trilogy" personal """""review"""""

I'm not a big fan of Auster's style, his type of fiction, one that plays with your mind, self-awarness and gives you a wide range of queer emotions. Still, he makes some very interesting points along the story, hidden in the mental logorrhea of the narrator. I don't tend to allow myself to have agressive opinions on books, specially with this kind of litterature, where one is constantly confused, troubled, and yet somewhat joyful altoghether. 

This particular story leaves a great deal of doors open, which is not my favorite thing, but the icing on the confussion cake is the lack of ability the brain has to piece toghether the first two novels with the couple of names and facts the last provides. 
That said, I went looking for interpretations on forums or discussions/review wesites to see if I had missed something crucial to achieve this, but without succes. However, I found some interesting comments on the book that in one way or another express ome thoughts I had on it:

"However, I honestly don't think Auster needed to write it that way, and while you can argue that the third part's power is cumulative, that you've got to pound through the first two wondering whether you were being mind-fucked or just pointlessly bored in order to win the prize at the end, I absolutely do not agree. After all that I do believe Auster is a great writer, but he needs to cut out this cutesy-poo monkeyfart "meta" crap and just make a damn story"

"City of Glass (1985), Ghosts (1986) and The Locked Room (1986): Meta as in metafiction, also metaphysics and metaphor. This is fiction about fiction, writing about the writer. Who’s writing whom? Who’s the author and who’s the imagined character? Auster's characters aren’t “real” people (even when they are autobiographical) in the sense that you might invite one over for dinner, but are real in the sense that you might imagine yourself dissolving into fiction, or have the sense that the self is fiction.
These are stories that demand that the reader NOT check her brain at the door: disquieting, self-weary perhaps, not particularly plot-driven. They include elements of detective fiction, of mysteries and thrillers. Detective stories in the sense that characters follow one another around and spy on one another. Characters disappear and/or mirror one another: one “self” becomes the “other.” Everyone here is lost and almost no one is found. Who is trailing whom becomes undecidable or indecipherable. Characters disappear. We don’t know where they go and neither does the author."

If this were a true review I would have to say whether I like the book or not, and give it a certain amount of stars, but luckily for me, this is not a true review, so I don't have to do anything :). The truth is the book was deeply interesting, and very Auster, and I enjoyed reading it. I don't feel I've learned something new so much as I've reafirmed some old convictions. And that's that. That's all I can say after reading so many times that words fail many times.

miércoles, 26 de marzo de 2014

Tarde gris en la ciudad

El cielo se encapricha, no tiene ganas de dar señales de vida hoy. No tiene ganas de hacer esfuerzos. No quiere observar la realidad, cubre todo como un manto gris y empieza la cuasi ficción en que se transforman los días de no lluvia, esos días en que parece que está constantemente a punto de desatarse la tormenta. 
Y ahí es cuando mi rutina encaya, cuando se evapora mi vitalidad. La tormenta que se desata es la de emociones viejas que se despertaron por el clima, como los animales que salen de las cuevas cuando terminan de hibernar. 

Baldes de colores fríos mezclados con gris y amarillo salpican las paredes de mi alma y mis ojos adquieren un brillo distinto, como perlados por el aburrimiento. No es sueño. Es darse cuenta de la falta de aventura. 
Día gris como cualquier otro, como un lunes feriado, que me retrotrae a tardes del 2003 cuando, enferma y en cama, pasaba el tiempo mirando películas de acción con mi padre. O noches del 1999, en casa de mis abuelos, recortando papelitos de colores o pegando figuritas en álbumes infinitos. O días de campo de deportes, allá por el 2006. Los días grises me retrotraen a momentos especiales, instantes enterrados en el cajón de recuerdos, momentos que resultaron ser súper especiales (sin saberlo en el momento, obvio). 
Los días grises son transición; no brilla el sol, no nos inunda la lluvia. Es una pausa cósmica, una coma eterna, un período de música de espera al teléfono. 

Los días grises me teletransportan a otra dimensión. 


Quizá sea bueno dar un paseo por los rincones olvidados de la mente una vez cada tanto, quizá sea sano. Quizá no es una mala manera de tramitar aquellas emociones que hubo que posponer porque no teníamos la capacidad mental y/o anímica para lidiar con ellas en su momento. Quizá los dias grises son nuestros comodines, después de todo, se saca una hora de acá y se la reordena más allá, uno se organiza, las cosas terminan hechas de todos modos. Quizá los días grises sean nuestro entre paréntesis; concepto últra interesante y necesario, donde se guardan aclaraciones y detalles que era imperioso mencionar pero no sabíamos cómo mostrarlas. 

Tarde gris en la ciudad y nadie me espera
Ya no habrá manera de decir adiós.

Las horas pasan y mi día comodín ve su cielo sucumbir y llenarse de tinta negra azulada. El día no termina sin embargo, aquí es cuando la reconexión con la realidad de la rutina comienza y debemos tramitar las actividades pospuestas por la urgencia de reflexiones filosóficas que el día impone y terminarlas para poder amanecer mañana con la agenda limpia y la conciencia al día. 
Hasta pronto entonces, hasta la próxima pausa.

martes, 4 de marzo de 2014

Nido de caranchos (noche como cualquier otra)

Desorden, caos. Viene a mi mente una vez más, como una ráfaga de viento caliente, el poema de juana de ibarbouru, el único poema que puedo recitar de memoria. No es angustia. No es estrés. Bueno, siempre es estrés (y nunca). No es como otras veces. No es entrar en otra etapa. O quizá sí. 
Me encuentro en un punto anímico nuevo. No se siente particularmente especial, pero sé que es diferente. Lo sé justamente porque no lo siento. Quizá sea que finalmente decidí sentir lo que sea que el viento me ofrezca y no chequear mi puntaje en la tabla de hollywood o editorial planeta. Live and let live.
No, no es eso.
Algo raro en el ambiente se hace cargo de mi ser y me arrastra, vagabunda, aquí y allá, desde hace meses. Algo en mí se fue de vacaciones. Como una empresa de revistas que de repente se informatiza y no se imprime más. Como una fábrica abandonada mientras la reciclan para convertirla en algo básico, meses antes de que la descubra la magia y la transforme en algo increíble. Siento que en mi camino hacia tierra, paré en una isla desierta a estirar las piernas y el barco se esfumó. 
Pasan cosas raras. Tengo miedo. Mucho, poquito, nada. No me asusta caminar hacia adelante, sino perderme en el bosque y no poder avanzar. No siento el viento contra la cara, como si estuviera en uno de esos sueños en que uno quiere desesperadamente correr y no lo consigue.

Al infinito y más allá. Miro para adelante y veo la bruma que antecede a la tormenta. O que precede a la tormenta? Quizá ambas. Como un virus silencioso que por años se mantiene apagado, conquistando territorio en silencio, y muere antes de atacar, dejando toda su tierra débil, gris, vacía.

Soñar no cuesta nada. Pero qué pasa cuando se cumplen los sueños? Sobre todo aquellos sueños que consisten en procesos y no en instantes... Cómo flucúan las sensaciones anímicas en los procesos. 
No es miedo, no. Creo que es desesperanza. Supongo que es lo que pasa cuando uno tira a la basura la escala con la que venía midiendo los momentos, cuando uno llega a la cima, cuando uno se para a descansar demasiado tiempo. 

Hoy no tengo una respuesta. Sólo nudos y pequeñas cicatrices. Un inconsciente que quiere gritar debilidades. Una consciencia que quiere seguir durmiendo. 

....que será, será.











Inmovilidad

En la playa que el viento de otoño hace más sola
Noche a noche me siento frente a la tentación
De este mar que en sus ondas lleva y trae los navíos
Que me envían, de lejos, su muda invitación.

Los veo hundirse en la niebla salpicados de luces.
Mundos breves y vivos que se echan a andar,
En busca de horizontes distintos e imprevistos,
Entre la hechicería de la luna y el mar.

Más allá... ¡Oh Dios mío, y yo aquí tan inmóvil
Cual si fuera una piedra que nada ha de mover!
¡Ya me agobia el cansancio de soñar imposibles!
¡Se ha hecho espina mi ansia de tocar y de ver!

Juana de Ibarbouru.

lunes, 3 de marzo de 2014


..."Looking back,
                         it's easy to see when a mistake has been made,
                   to regret a choice that seemed like a decent idea at the time,
                                                        but if we used our best judgement,
                                                                                      and listened to our hearts,
                                                 we're more likely to see that we chose wisely,
                                                        and avoided the deepest, most painful regret of them all...
                                 the regret that comes from letting something amazing pass you by."

Grey's Anatomy
Season 10, episode 13.