Sfert De Secol

De mic copil am crescut intr-o casa plina de biblioteci indesate cu carti dar oricat s-ar fi chinuit ai mei sa ma oblige, sa ma constranga sau sa imi impuna ideea ca acest hobby este unul fructuos si satisfacator, m-am ferit de el ca de dracu’.

Iar cand prin holurile apartamentelor reverbera ecoul strigatelor disperate de genul “Citeste Jules Verne ca inveti multe CHESTII!!!”, din camerele mici se auzeau glasuri infundate rostind replici precum “Druidul asta nu se face de level 24 singur!”

Doar la sfarsitul anului I am prins gustul “lecturii” si am inceput sa citesc The Vampire Chronicles de Anne Rice, o autoare care ”zice” extrem de bine in domeniul ei. Am debutat cu Lestat si am terminat cu Vittorio, negasind celelalte volume in engleza in comertul librariilor din Romania. Insa asta nu inseamna ca pana la momentul respectiv nu am citit nimic. Am citit multe din cartile cerute la bacalaureat (nu la limba romana, acolo am invatat de pe clopotel.ro si afiliatii.  Nu mi-am cumparat nici macar culegerea de sinteze si comentarii.. am luat 9, apropo de sistemul nostru mirific).

O regula foarte importanta este aceea de a citi cartiile in limbile in care au fost scrise, deoarece prin traducere se pierde foarte mult din farmecul lor si se disipă multe subtilitati ale autorilor.

Scopul acestui post este sa creeam o colectie de carti bune si demne de timpul nostru pretios. Voi enumera aproape toate cartile citite de mine/care mi-au influentat puternic viata si gandirea (numarul este aproape acelasi defapt) si as fi extaziat daca ati veni si voi cu numeroase recomandari prin comment-uri.

Nu voi face un top, doar le voi enumera:

1. Faust, de J.W. (von) Goethe

“Vom Himmel fordert er die schönsten Sterne,
Und von der Erde jede höchste Lust,
Und alle Näh’ und alle Ferne
Befriedigt nicht die tiefbewegte Brust.”

Este opera de viata a lui Goethe, scrisa in (nu la) 60 de ani. O consider cea mai buna “poezie” scrisa vreodata. Este vorba despre Faust, un pamantean nesatisfacut de toate invataturiile reale ale vietii, pentru al carui suflet D-zeu si Mefisto pun un pariu in rai. Mefisto compara natura oamenilor cu cea a unor bestii ordinare si primitive iar D-zeu foloseste metafora plantelor, ce cresc spiralic spre ceruri. Adevarul este, ca de obicei, pe la mijloc.

2. Homo Faber, de Max Frisch

„Sunt inginer şi m-am deprins să văd lucrurile aşa cum sunt”

“It is always the moralists who do the most harm. Abortion is the logical outcome of civilization, only the jungle gives birth and molders away as nature decrees. Man plans. “

“We live technologically, with man as the master of nature, man as the engineer, and let anyone who raises his voice against it stop using bridges not built by nature… No electric light bulbs, no engines, no atomic energy, no calculating machines, no anesthetics—back to the jungle.”

Un roman care dovedeste futilitatea incercarilor omului tehnocrat de a controla complet viata si natura prin gandire rationala si statistici. Sunt descrise foate bine si disonantele de baza dintre cele doua sexe.

3. 1984, de George Orwell

“From where Winston stood it was just possible to read, picked out on its white face in elegant lettering, the three slogans of the Party:
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.”

O carte politica ce trebuie citita de catre orice om interesat de lumea in care traieste. Trateaza viziunea distopica a unui sistem totalitar din viitor, adevaratul sens al expresiei “Big Brother”. Cea mai buna ecranizare mi se pare Equilibrium. Cartea este scrisa in 1948.

4. Brave New World, de Aldous Huxley

“The most important lesson in history is that nobody learns history’s lesson.” (Cam ce se intampla acum in Statele Unite.. tragi-comic si ironic)

“Imagine the folly of allowing people to play elaborate games which do nothing whatever to increase consumption. It’s madness. Nowadays the Controllers won’t approve of any new game unless it can be shown that it requires at least as much apparatus as the most complicated of existing games.”

Seamana foarte mult cu opera lui Orwell, dar tema este dusa la un alt nivel. Temele aditionale includ: controlarea populatiei prin inginerie genetica si indoctrinare, societatea de consum, incompatibilitatea dintre fericire si adevar.

5. Parfumul, de Patrick Süskind

“In the period of which we speak, there reigned in the cities a stench barely conceivable to us modern men and women. Naturally, the stench was foulest in Paris, for Paris was the largest city in Europe. And nowhere in Paris was that stench more profoundly repugnant than in the city’s fish-market. It was here then, on the most putrid spot in the whole kingdom, that Jean-Baptiste Grenouille was born on the 17th of July, 1738. It was his mothers fifth birth, she delivered them all here under her fish-stand, and all had been stillbirths or semi-stillbirths. And by evening the whole mess had been shoveled away with the fish-guts into the river. It would be much the same today, but then… Jean-Baptiste chose differently.”

“He still had enough perfume left to enslave the whole world if he so chose. He could walk to Versailles and have the king kiss his feet. He could write the pope a perfumed letter and reveal himself as the new Messiah. He could do all this, and more, if he wanted to. He possessed a power stronger than the power of money, or terror, or death – the invincible power to command the love of man kind. There was only one thing the perfume could not do. It could not turn him into a person who could love and be loved like everyone else. So, to hell with it he thought. To hell with the world. With the perfume. With himself.”

Nascut in Paris intr-o gramada de peste, supravietuirea sa este o adevarata minune. Acest talent, dat de capacitatea supranaturala de a mirosi si cele mai sterse miresme ajunge sa il defineasca pe Grenouille. Putand sa recunoasca si sa isi aminteasca mirosurile, si deasemenea sa gaseasca ingredientele oricarui parfum, Grenouille cunoaste lumea prin miros. Finalul va va face probabil sa va puneti intrebari privind natura umana…o sa intelegeti si de ce. Ecranizarea este printre cele mai reusite din toate timpurile.

6. Woyzeck, de Georg Büchner

“Woyzeck, er hat keine Moral! Moral, das ist, wenn man moralisch ist! Es ist ein gutes Wort.” (adica morala este atunci cand esti moral)

Inspirat dintr-o fapta reala, Büchner trateaza in aceasta opera circumstantele de la inceputul secolului 19. Este conturata saracia ca fenomen social, impreuna cu exploatarea celor saraci (material si cu duhul). Opera mai trateaza si efectul dezumanizant al armatei.

7. The Picture of Dorian Gray, de Oscar Wilde

“I never tilt against beauty,” he said, with a wave of his hand.
“That is your error, Harry, believe me. You value beauty far too much.”
“How can you say that? I admit that I think that it is better to be beautiful than to be good. But on the other hand, no one is more ready than I am to acknowledge that it is better to be good than to be ugly.”
“Ugliness is one of the seven deadly sins, then?” cried the duchess. “What becomes of your simile about the orchid?”
“Ugliness is one of the seven deadly virtues, Gladys. You, as a good Tory, must not underrate them. Beer, the Bible, and the seven deadly virtues have made our England what she is.”

She shook her head. “I believe in the race,” she cried.
“It represents the survival of the pushing.”
“It has development.”
“Decay fascinates me more.”
“What of art?” she asked.
“It is a malady.”
“Love?”
“An illusion.”
“Religion?”
“The fashionable substitute for belief.”
“You are a skeptic.”
“Never! Skepticism is the beginning of faith.”
“What are you?”
“To define is to limit.”

La publicarea initiala, a fost considerata o opera extrem de imorala. Wilde a inclus apoi o prefata in care explica viziunea sa despre scopul artei, absolvind-o de datoria moralizatoare ce se oglindea din majoritatea operelor ale acelei epoci (Dickens, de exemplu). Temele prezentate includ: suprematia tineretii si a frumusetii, superficialitatea societatii, consecventele distructive ale manipularii, degradarea sufletului.

8. Mutter Courage, de Bertolt Brecht

“Mother Courage, with its theme of the devastating effects of a European war and the blindness of anyone hoping to profit by it, is said to have been written in a month. Judging by the almost complete absence of drafts or any other evidence of preliminary studies it must have been an exceptionally direct piece of inspiration.”

Aceasta opera este una din cele 9 piese ale lui Brecht, cu care a incercat sa contracareze ridicarea fascismului si a nazismului. Brecht instraineaza publicul sau prin tehnicile sale dramaturgice. Traind efectul opus catharsis-ului, publicul percepe opera ca pe o realitate si reuseste sa se desprinda de ea, devenind obiectivi si adoptand o pozitie critica, reusind astfel sa se automotiveze spre schimbarea lumii in mod pozitiv.

9. The Great Gatsby, de F.S. Fitzgerald

“He must have felt that he had lost the old warm world, paid a high price for living too long with a single dream. He must have looked up at an unfamiliar sky through frightening leaves and shivered as he found what a grotesque thing a rose is and how raw the sunlight was upon the scarcely created grass. A new world, material without being real, where poor ghosts, breathing dreams like air, drifted fortuitously about…like that ashen, fantastic figure gliding toward him through the amorphous trees.”

“All right…I’m glad it’s a girl. And I hope she’ll be a fool — that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.”

“He smiled understandingly-much more than understandingly. It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced–or seemed to face–the whole external world for an instant, and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just as far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself, and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey.”

Doamne cat de frumos si bine scrie omul asta! Da dovada de acea maretie lingvistica a lui Poe, insa nu te face sa transpiri precum modernizatorul literaturii gotice. Fitzgerald portretizeaza in aceasta opera mareata: declinul Visului American si goliciunea aristocratiei din America anilor 20’, o perioada de opulenta si risipa extraordinara.

10. The Vampire Chronicles, de Anne Rice

“Whatever may be my uncertainty as to the authenticity of what we are taught to call revelation, of one fact I am deeply and horribly convinced, that there does exist beyond this a spiritual world–a system whose workings are generally in mercy hidden from us–a system which may be, and which is sometimes, partially and terribly revealed. I am sure–I know. . . that there is a God–a dreadful God–and that retribution follows guilt, in ways the most mysterious and stupendous–by agencies the most inexplicable and terrific; –there is a spiritual system–great God, how I have been convinced!–a system malignant, and implacable, and omnipotent, under whose persecutions I am, and have been, suffering the torments of the damned!”

Aici ori te pasioneaza foarte tare motivul, ori te lasa complet rece. Nu prea exista cale de mijloc. Dar in caz ca vreti atmosfera si romantism in adevaratul sens al cuvantului, va recomand toate scrierile ei. Nu va irositi timpul cu kitsch-uri din seria Twilight, scrise cu limbaj mai usor de citit (cuvinte scurte si litere mari, coperti impresionante, bani multi incasati de la.. oameni) decat seria Harry Potter sau Coelho (am auzit ca el este in top la frizeritze). Am vazut filmul, arata bine actorii, Volvo-ul este foarte puternic si costa in varianta aia vreo 35.000 de euro… hai sa ne oprim aici.

I-as mai descrie si pe Shakespeare si pe Poe dar deja e prea lung articolul. Important despre ei este de retinut ca: nu ai citit in viata ta un adevarat sonet de dragoste pana nu l-ai citit pe Shakespeare, nu ai trait vreodata atmosferă adevarată intr-o povestire pana nu l-ai citit pe Poe.

Am uitat de The Reader, de Bernhard Schlink (si ala l-am avut la bac), dar mai bine va uitati direct la film. Ecranizarea este fenomenala si in cazul lui.

Multumesc pentru rabdare si interes. Sper ca v-a placut sa il cititi la fel de mult cum mi-a placut mie sa il scriu. Sa curga recomandarile de carti! Sunt curios si extrem de receptiv (ca de obicei).

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Tags: Literature, Wisdom