Carina Stander. …as if the wound were a well…
Een van my vyf gunsteling boeke van alle tye en uit alle genres is The Engslish Patient. Dat Michael Ondaatje in Sri Lanka gebore is, in Toronto woon en ‘n Booker Pryswenner is, is algemene kennis. Maar ek het vanjaar eers uitgevind dat die gevierde romansier ook die drif agter ‘n volle dertien digbundels is. Daar is heelwat oomblikke in The English Patient wanneer die digtersinstink oorneem. Oomblikke wat my haunt lank nadat ek die boek gebere het:
She nursed him for months and she knows the body well, the penis sleeping like a sea horse…- p3.
There are stories the man recites quietly into the room which slip from level to level like a hawk. - p4.
He remembers picnics, a woman who kissed part of his body that now are burned into the colour of aubergine. - p4.
He listens to her, swallowing her words like water. - p5
They had reached the valley within the red high canyon walls, joining the rest of the desert’s water tribe that spilled and slid over sand and stones, their blue robes shifting like a spray of milk or a wing. - p9.
The moon is on him like a skin, a sheaf of water - p31.
…as if the wound were a well… - p41
I wanted to touch the bone at your neck, collarbone, it’s like a small hard wing under your skin. - p103
…I love the word ‘curl,’ such a slow word, you can’t rush it…”- p103
A man in a desert can hold absence in his cupped hands knowing it is something that feeds him more than water. - p155
She turns back into the house. Now her hand is held out in front of her. She walks through the kitchen and up the stairs. The patient turns to face her as she comes in. She touches his foot with the hand that holds the ladybird. It leaves her, moving onto the dark skin. Avoiding the sea of white sheet, it begins to make the long trek towards the distance of the rest of his body, a bright redness against what seems like volcanic flesh. - p207.
Ja, Ondaatje is amper meer produktief as digter as romansier. En hy is goed — google maar The Cinnamon Peeler. Ai, daardie laaste re”el!
Carina, ek het Ondaatje se roman, “In the skin of a lion” net soveel, indien nie meer nie, as “The English Patient” geniet. Die twee moet in elk geval saam gelees word. Briljant.
Desmond, dankie vir die spoor. Ek het die vers gaan google. Hoendervel tot in my haarwortels. Hier’s hy:
The Cinnamon Peeler
If I were a cinnamon peeler
I would ride your bed
and leave the yellow bark dust
on your pillow.
Your breasts and shoulders would reek
you could never walk through markets
without the profession of my fingers
floating over you. The blind would
stumble certain of whom they approached
though you might bathe
under the rain gutters, monsoon.
Here on the upper thigh
at this smooth pasture
neighbour to your hair
or the crease
that cuts your back. This ankle.
You will be known among strangers
as the cinnamon peeler’s wife.
I could hardly glance at you
before marriage
never touch you
- your keen nosed mother, your rough brothers.
I buried my hands
in saffron, disguised them
over smoking tar,
helped the honey gatherers…
When we swam once
I touched you in the water
and our bodies remained free,
you could hold me and be blind of smell.
You climbed the bank and said
this is how you touch other women
the grass cutter’s wife, the lime burner’s daughter.
And you searched your arms
for the missing perfume
and knew
what good is it
to be the lime burner’s daughter
left with no trace
as if not spoken to in the act of love
as if wounded without the pleasure of a scar.
You touched
your belly to my hands
in the dry air and said
I am the cinnamon
peeler’s wife. Smell me.
- Michael Ondaatje
En hier lees Ondaatje “The cinnamon peeler” op YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3A2ekfA8Kn8
The Cinnamon Peeler is my gunsteling gedig op AARDE. Daar bestaan vir my niks mooier nie.
EK is ook mal oor hierdie gediggie:
Application For A Driving License
Michael Ondaatje
Two birds loved
in a flurry of red feathers
like a burst cottonball,
continuing while I drove over them.
I am a good driver, nothing shocks me.
Carina - dis baie mooi aanhalings wat jy gekies het uit The English Patient. Ek het die boek vreeslik verniel toe ek dit gelees het, oral by mooi gedeeltes die bladsye se ore omgevou, sommer twee kante toe op sommige blaaie. Toe die hele ding weer gelees en al die mooi gedeeltes oorgeskryf in blou pen, so asof ek dit self geskryf het. Ek is mal oor die reels “He is my despairing saint” en “Do you understand the sadness of geography?”
Dankie vir hierdie super blog.
Bibi, ek hou van hoe jy lees! Ek vou nie donkieore nie, maar ek verwoes ook die boeke wat ek lees. Ek leen nooit boeke nie - is te veel van ‘n kompulsief krabbelende, ontoerekeningsvatbare leser.
Lees altyd pen in die hand en bekrap die kantlyn met my eie stel geheime simbole: ‘n spiraal vir doerie soort truuk, ‘n ster vir daai taalverskynsel, pyle wat goete verbind, ‘n uitroepteken (dikwels ‘n hele peloton van hulle) wanneer ek wil gil van leesplesier en die letter “t” wanneer ek tegnies totaal verbyster staan. As ek klaar is herinner die bladsye aan iets uit ‘n oorlogvlugtelingskamp. Maar nou ja: watter skrywer sal nie kriewel van die lekkerte as hy weet sy boek word so intensief gelees nie?
Skokmooi gedig van Ondaatje wat jy aanhaal.
Ek het nie nou my kopie van die boek byderhand nie, maar een van my gunsteling sinne daaruit is iets soos: All I desired was to walk upon such an earth that had no maps.
Desmond, dis interessant om uit te pluis waarom ‘n spesifieke aanhaling met ‘n spesifieke leser praat. Was jyself bv al in so ‘n ongekarteerde landskap? Is dit ‘n ingebore begeerte? (a la Joseph Conrad & Hemmingway.)
Ek dink die laaste aanhaling van die lieweheersbesie, “a bright redness against what seems like volcanic flesh” tref my omdat ek as kind diere wat vermink was, versorg het. Duiwe, swaels, ganse, wilde boskatte,’n duikerlam. Later ook mense met psigiese verminking. En ek sweer, dis die vonk wat my laat skryf: I want to be that bright redness against volcanic flesh.
Carina, The English Patient gaan vir my eerstens oor die tirannie van grense, geopolitiese afbakening, identiteit. In ons era is die ongekarteerde en onbegrensde landskap amper ondenkbaar. Amper. Daardie sin spreek my aan op beide ‘n politieke vlak (’n w^reld met minder gestolde identiteite en grense, minder oorlog, minder grypsug, minder naamsug) en eksistensi”ele vlak wat seker met my persoonlikheid te make het (’n begeerte vir die reis, die nuwe, die gans-ander).
Maar lees In the Skin of a Lion ook. daar is wonderlike parallelle met The English Patient te vind.
Desmond, jou siening van onbegrensdheid teenoor grypsug herinner my aan die deel uit Fugitive Pieces van Anne Michaels: “Each island represented a victory and a defeat: it had either pulled itself free or pulled too hard and found itself alone.” Geologies, natuurlik, maar ook op ‘n politieke & persoonlike vlak.
In the Skin of a Lion is op my leeslys. Raaitou, ek sorg dat ek hom kry.
Ek is besig om uit my woonstel uit te trek, en onder klomp ander papiere op my yskasdeur kry ek toe die volgende gedig van Ondaatje - hy het duidelik ‘n ‘thing for maps’:
iii
With all the swerves of history
I cannot imagine your future.
Would wish to dream it, see you
in your teens, as I saw my son,
your already philosophical air
rubbing against the speed of the city.
I no longer guess a future.
And do not know how we end
nor where.
Though I know a story about maps, for you.
Flip man! Hy het ook ‘n thing vir belaglik-goeie laaste ree”ls.
Groete
Bibi
Belaglik-goeie ree”ls en belaglik-goeie bundeltitels: sy een bundel is mos “There’s a tricks with a knife I’m learning to do”. Om een of ander rede is dit vir my een van die beste titels ooit!
Hy het beslis ‘n ding met kaarte, geografiese konstrukte en identiteite. Miskien oor sy eie Sri Lankese agtergrond - lees maar sy mooi “familieroman” Running in the Family. In the Skin of a Lion handel weer deels oor die bou van ‘n reuse brug of tonnel in Toronto, sy “adopted” land en stad. Hy skryf oor Toronto net so mooi soos Anne Michaels; verbeel julle nou hulle het in ‘n beter stad soos Kaapstad gewoon!
Hier is sy wranger stem:
Application for a Driver’s License
Two birds loved
in a flurry of red feathers
like a burst cottonball,
continuing while I drove over them.
I am a good driver, nothing shocks me.
Haha Desmon - ek het dieselfde gedig hierbo aangehaal.
“There’s a trick with a knife i’m learning to do” is ‘n lyn uit ‘n Ella Fitzgerald-liedjie. Toe ek verlede jaar die bundel gelees het, het ek toevallig ook ‘n live-recording van Fitzgerald by die biblioteek uitgeneem en toe hoor ek die liriek terwyl ek lees… synchronicity, happy accident, serendipity - wat ook al! Dit kom uit “Everything I’ve got” - hier is die refrein:
I have eyes for you to give you dirty looks.
I have words that do not come from children’s books
there’s a trick with a knife I’m learning to do
And ev’rything I’ve got belongs to you.
I’ve a powerful anesthesia in my fist,
And the perfect wrist to give your neck atwist.
There are hammerlock holds,
I’ve mastered a few,
And ev’rything I’ve got belongs to you.
Share for share, share alike,
You get struck each time I strike.
You for me- me for me-
I’ll give you plenty of nothing.
I’m not yours for better but for worse,
And I’ve learned to give the well-known witches’ curse.
I’ve a terrible tongue, a temper for two,
And ev’rything I’ve got belongs to you.
Bibi, oeps, toe ek terugrol sien ek: inderdaad, jy het met daai een voorgespring! Oh well, dit is oulik genoeg om twee keer aangehaal te word…
Dankie vir die Fitzgerald-verwysing. Dis die ander ding wat Ondaatje natuurlik ‘n ding oor het: jazz. Het jy al sy jazz-novelle, Coming Through Slaughter gelees? Dit is ook die moeite werd. Ek moet sy laaste 2 romans nog lees, eendag: Anil’s Ghost en Divisidaro (of so iets).
Ek het verlede jaar Divisadero gelees en het dit nogal geniet - alhoewel dit my ook in sekere opsigte verwar het. (Ek kan nogal ‘n dom/lui leser wees.) Maar weereens vol mooi poetry so terloops-terloops tussen die prosa. Soos bv:
Many things changed me. There was a love affair that silenced me, there was the writer who lived in the house you are staying in, there were the donkeys…
en
With memory, with the reflection of an echo, a gate opens both ways. We can circle time. A paragraph or an episode from another era will haunt us in the night, as the words of a stranger can.
en laastens:
It is the hunger, what we do not have, that holds us together.
Ek sal die ander boeke op my lysie sit. My nimmereindigende lysie, langer as tyd…
Bibi, dis ‘n beautiful aanhaling uit “Divisadero”, veral die een oor die donkies. En die gedig! Ongelooflik ook is jou happy accident met “There’s a trick with a knife i’m learning to do.” Gebeur dit dikwels met jou, hierdie (on)toevallige gelukkies?
Desmond, ja, “There’s a tricks with a knife I’m learning to do” is ‘n titel wat vra om gelees te word. My gunsteling bundeltitel ooit is Breyten se “Skryt: Om ‘n sinkende skip blou te verf.”
Carina,ek wil my mos verbeel die lewe (en liefde en kuns) is uit sulke (on)toevaligge gelukkies aanmekaargeweef. Maar ek is nie altyd bewus genoeg van wat om my en in my aangaan om die goue draadjie deur te trek nie. Ek dink die gereeldheid van die happy accidents hang ook af van die pas waarteen ek lewe - se^ ‘n mens dis “omgekeer eweredig”? - hoe stadiger ek lewe hoe meer is die gelukkies. Dit laat my dink aan ‘n aanhaling uit ‘The unbearable lightness of being’ -
“If a love is to be unforgettable, fotuities must start fluttering down to it like birds”
En terwyl ek nou vir ‘n oomblik onthou van dit-stadiger-vat en so aan, hier is nog ‘n bietjie Kundera, die keer uit ‘Slowness’
“There is a secret bond between slowness and memory, between speed and forgetting. In existential mathematics, it takes the form of two basic equations: the degree of slowness is directly proportional to the intensity of memory; the degree of speed is directly proportional to the intensity of forgetting.”
Oe, en hierdie twee aanhalings so langs mekaar trek ‘n oulike (onbeplande) lyn tuseen liefde (lees lewe, lees kuns), ‘memory’ en ‘happy accidents’ - seker omdat ek dit stadig hier in die donker sit en tik.
Lekker dag!