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Spisak kompozicija

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Igor Stravinsky and Claude Debussy in the latter’s apartment in the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne, Paris; photo by Erik Satie, June 1910.

Claude Debussy and Erik Satie

Claude Debussy leaning on his bass clarinet in Pierre Louÿs’ home, Paris, 1894 – by Pierre Louÿs

Claude Debussy sur la plage d’Houlgate

Claude Debussy au piano dans la propriété d’Ernest Chausson à Luzancy, août 1893. Anonyme. Paris, musée d’Orsay.

Claude Debussy dans la maison de famille des Fontaine à Mercin, Aisne, circa 1898.

Claude Debussy having a picnic with his daughter.

Edgar’s Brother Rene Degas (standing), French Romantic Composer Ernest Chausson and Impressionist Composer Claude Debussy at the Chateau de Menil. Edgar Degas, c. 1897

Claude Debussy, les Chausson et Raymond Bonheur près de Luzancy, 1893 .

Pierre Louÿs: Contre-type d’un portrait de Debussy, 1895 (Portrait déchiré par Debussy et récupéré par sa femme Emma Bardac. L’original est perdu, seul un contre-type existe) Vers 1940.

Izvor / Source

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I’d rather be the devil, to be that woman man
I’d rather be the devil, to be that woman man
Aw, nothin’ but the devil, changed my baby’s mind
Was nothin’ but the devil, changed my baby’s mind

I laid down last night, laid down last night
I laid down last night, tried to take my rest
My mind got to ramblin’, like a wild geese
From the west, from the west

The woman I love, woman that I loved
Woman I loved, took her from my best friend
But he got lucky, stoled her back again
And he got lucky, stoled her back again

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Mnogi slikari su se odrekli prikazivanja ljudskog tela. Ili, ako ga već prikazuju, kakvi su to sve čudni oblici! kakva je to dezorganizacija! sa kakvom nevericom to rade! Ova faza predstavljanja ljudske figure biće jedan od značajnih simptoma opšte krize umetnosti. Kamij Brijen je nekada govorio da je uzrok ovoj krizi jedna vrsta „dehumanizacije“, kojom se i sam opravdava. Drugi isto to kažu, ali na drugi način, tj. da umetnost ovog veka ide stopama nauke – da veoma voli sisteme i apstrakciju. Ili kažu da stvara čudovišta. Ili da postaje sopstvena karikatura.

Veličkovićevo slikarstvo ide putem jedne druge moderne umetnosti, dramatične, pune napetosti, nepopustljive. U centru tog slikarstva je ljudska figura koja se ponavlja u mnogobrojnim položajima i iz raznih uglova. Ali telo je prikazano bez glave. To telo je nago, često zarobljeno u nekom neutralnom, praznom i napuštenom prostoru, ponekad u zamahu kao da se baca odozgo nadole, od praznog plavetnila slobodnog neba ka dubini ponora.

To telo je nasilno kao i praznina kojoj se suprotstavlja. Njegovo nasilje je ono što je moderno u tom slikarstvu. Čovek u ovom svom liku je sličan samom sebi, uprkos onome što ogoljava njegovo telo, što ga napada i muči.

Čovek je predstavljen u pokretu, zamahu, skokovima, grčevima, a ponekad isto tako u trenutcima iznemoglosti. Njega muči nešto što dolazi spolja, a njegovu unutrašnjost prožimaju impulsi.  Ovi pokreti izazivaju vrtoglavicu u mahnitim položajima tela. Ponekad on izgleda lud od straha, muče ga, on postaje plen pacova, pasa ili ih on sam ubija i raspinje na krst.

Nagost

Nagost tela je prvi oblik nasilja. Zategnutih mišića i u trčećem položaju u želji da umakne ovo telo je često obuzeto panikom ili je žrtva svirepsoti. Njegov lik odvodi gledaoce do granice nezamislivog. Pogled na njega izaziva nestvarne slike pacova i grabljivica, zarobljenosti u nekim ogradama, uzleta sličnih eksplozijama.

Zamišljena mesta kojima čovek hoda, skače ili beži i podsećaju na lavirinte u koje se zatvaraju životinje za naučne eksperimente. Na crnim podovima i visokim zidovima ispisani su grafikoni: brojevi i slova, apscise i ordinate, dijagrami, strelice. Taj prostor je premerila jedna svirepa volja. Njegove dimenzije su određene: iza i ispred, iznad i ispod, levo i desno. Svaki oblik prikazan na slici simbolično je potčinjen jednom računskom znanju i ta nauka kvantiteta htela bi da telo pretvori u onu bezimenu realnost, što ono i jeste kada se tretira kao stvar.

Nije ni čudo što lica najčešće nema: njegovo mesto je označeno mrljama boje, oteklinama na slici. Lice je mesto na telu na kome kulminira neizdržljivo nasilje. Veličkovićevo slikarstvo podseća na onu misao Artoa koji kaže:  da čovekovo lice još nema oblik i na slikaru je da ga izmisli. Arto govori o slikarstvu kao o nekom strasnom „podrhtavanju“, kao da slikar kada slika „kopa njuškom“ da bi tako izazvao nemoguću sliku. Svaka Veličkovićeva slika bi na taj način bila nasilni udarac: sva zamišljena nasilja kojim se podvrgava telo imala bi za cilj stvaranje lika koji još nije stvoren.

Napadačev at

Izgleda kao da su figure i prostor sačinjeni od jedne jedinstvene materije: meso tela je analogno materiji stvari, bojom i oznakom, nagošću i usamljenošću. Ponegde dominiraju crni i beli tonovi. Ponekad su sivi tonovi ugašeni bojama: slojevi raznih boja su nabacani jedan preko drugog; ponekad jedna ili druga proviruje ispod neutralno sivog, pa ugrozi oko svojom jačinom. Na drugim platnima zasićena boja kao da hoće da obuhvati ceo prostor.

Veličković tretira slikarski materijal kao telo. Namaz boje tretira kao nešto telesno, ponekad ogoljava platno, slojeve boje nanosi jedan preko drugog, tako da zadržava svoju prozračnost. To stvara utisak živog tela koje pulsira.

Ovi efekti mogu postati tako intezivni da ono što vidimo može da akumulira toliku snagu da ona pomuti pogled.  To zamućenje pogleda ne može isprva biti uočljivo , već onda kada oči odbijaju da vide ono što vide. Zamućenje se stvarno odigrava na čpovršini islikanog platna. Ljudi i životinje, konture silueta ili samo kratki potezi premrežavaju površinu, ili samo mrlje koje označavaju dinamiku svojstvenu slikarstvu.

Snaga

Snaga izbija iz svakog dodira kičice, iz svake figure. Iz nje se rađa impuls duha i bezgranične osećajnosti. Pustiti je da raste značilo bi uništenje svega: i samog slikarstva i njene moći prikazivanja. O takvoj snazi, koja se nalazi u svakoj umetnosti, govori i Kafka. Govoreći u svom „Dnevniku“ o tolikoj destruktivnoj snazi, on preporučuje da je treba okrenuti protiv same sebe, promeniti joj pravac, pretvoriti je u pisanje ili u slike ili u muziku. On kaže: „Iskoristiti napadačevog ata da sami jezdimo na njemu“.

Možda i nema drugog izlaza. Zagonetka Veličkovićevog slikarstva je u tome što iz takve agresivne snage stvara slike, što su to slike ljudskog tela i što svaka za sebe dopire do najdublje skrivenih rezonanci ljudskog bića.

Mark Le Bot, „Kriza ljudskog tela“, prevod Maristela Veličković, Mira Milošević, u: Vladimir Veličković, priredili Stojan Ćelić i Irina Subotić, Galerija Srpske akademije nauka i  umetnosti, Beograd, 1986.

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Vladimir Veličković

Umetnik i njegov pas

Autoportret

I

RUŽIČASTO BELO, ŽUTO, SREBRNO

Svetlosni vrtlog prati me preko trga,
Dim tamjana
Penje se iz četri roga mog starog kreveta,
Vodeni mlaz zlatne svetlosti podiže nas kroz tavanicu;
Obavijen zlatno obojenim plamenom silazim kroz etar.
Srebrna lopta oblikuje se u mojoj ruci,
Pada i kotrlja se do tvojih nogu.

II

SALTUS (2)

Otvorila se sfera koja se vrti
I uhvaćena si u nebesima,
Pretvorena si u loptu u mom safiru.
Io! Io! (3)
Primetila si plamene jezike
Lepet sandala sa oštrim ivicama.

Obavijanje i lako zapljuskivanje sjaja
Zadržalo se pred tobom u vazduhu.
Primetila si lišće plamena.

III

CONCAVA VALLIS

Obavijene obojene trake slične žici penju se sa mojih prstiju;
Omotao sam vetar oko tvojih ramena
A otopljena građa tvojih ramena
savija se pri okretanju vetra,
AOI! (4)
Vrložna tkanina svetlosti
tkana je i pouzdano narasta ispod nas;
Morski-čisti safir vazduha, morska-tamna bistrina,
istovremeno grabi morski-greben i okean.

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Napomene:

(1)    Phanopoeia (gr.) – reči koje izazivaju ili određuju vizualne pojave.

(2)    Saltus (lat.) – livada, pašnjak

(3)    Io, Io (gr.) – uzvik koji se javlja u grčkom dramskom pesništvu.

(4)    Concava vallis (lat.) – dubodolina

(5)    AOI – neobjašniva slova koja se pojavljuju na kraju nekih strofa oksfordskog rukopisa „Pesme o Rolandu“

Prevod sa engleskog i napomene:  Milan T. Đorđević

Pesme su preuzete iz časopisa „Poezija“ (br. 19-20), Beograd, 2002.

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Manuscript Page of Eliot’s ‘The Waste Land’ with Notes by Ezra Pound

U nastavku sledi odlomak iz intervjua koji je T. S. Eliot dao za magazin The Paris Review iz koga sam izdvojila deo koji se odnosi na Paundovu intervenciju nad pesmom Pusta zemlja.

INTERVIEWER

Do you remember the circumstances of your first meeting with Pound?

ELIOT

I think I went to call on him first. I think I made a good impression, in his little triangular sitting room in Kensington. He said, “Send me your poems.” And he wrote back, “This is as good as anything I’ve seen. Come around and have a talk about them.” Then he pushed them on Harriet Monroe, which took a little time.

INTERVIEWER

You have mentioned in print that Pound cut The Waste Land from a much larger poem into its present form. Were you benefited by his criticism of your poems in general? Did he cut other poems?

ELIOT

Yes. At that period, yes. He was a marvelous critic because he didn’t try to turn you into an imitation of himself. He tried to see what you were trying to do.

INTERVIEWER
Does the manuscript of the original, uncut Waste Land exist?

ELIOT
Don’t ask me. That’s one of the things I don’t know. It’s an unsolved mystery. I sold it to John Quinn. I also gave him a notebook of unpublished poems, because he had been kind to me in various affairs. That’s the last I heard of them. Then he died and they didn’t turn up at the sale.

INTERVIEWER
What sort of thing did Pound cut from The Waste Land? Did he cut whole sections?

ELIOT
Whole sections, yes. There was a long section about a shipwreck. I don’t know what that had to do with anything else, but it was rather inspired by the Ulysses canto in The Inferno, I think. Then there was another section which was an imitation Rape of the Lock. Pound said, “It’s no use trying to do something that somebody else has done as well as it can be done. Do something different.”

INTERVIEWER

Did the excisions change the intellectual structure of the poem?

ELIOT

No. I think it was just as structureless, only in a more futile way, in the longer version.

Full Interview

Postcard from Eliot to Pound, Dec 8th, 1925.

U nastavku slede neki od meni najzanimljivijih odlomaka iz intervjua koji je Maja Angelou dala za magazin The Paris Review. Autor intervjua bio je Džordž Plimton, osnivač i dugo godina glavni i odgovorni urednik ovog književnog magazina.

INTERVIEWER

You once told me that you write lying on a made-up bed with a bottle of sherry, a dictionary, Roget’s Thesaurus, yellow pads, an ashtray, and a Bible. What’s the function of the Bible?

MAYA ANGELOU

The language of all the interpretations, the translations, of the Judaic Bible and the Christian Bible, is musical, just wonderful. I read the Bible to myself; I’ll take any translation, any edition, and read it aloud, just to hear the language, hear the rhythm, and remind myself how beautiful English is. Though I do manage to mumble around in about seven or eight languages, English remains the most beautiful of languages. It will do anything.

INTERVIEWER

When you are refreshed by the Bible and the sherry, how do you start a day’s work?

ANGELOU

I have kept a hotel room in every town I’ve ever lived in. I rent a hotel room for a few months, leave my home at six, and try to be at work by six-thirty. To write, I lie across the bed, so that this elbow is absolutely encrusted at the end, just so rough with callouses. I never allow the hotel people to change the bed, because I never sleep there. I stay until twelve-thirty or one-thirty in the afternoon, and then I go home and try to breathe; I look at the work around five; I have an orderly dinner—proper, quiet, lovely dinner; and then I go back to work the next morning. Sometimes in hotels I’ll go into the room and there’ll be a note on the floor which says, Dear Miss Angelou, let us change the sheets. We think they are moldy. But I only allow them to come in and empty wastebaskets. I insist that all things are taken off the walls. I don’t want anything in there. I go into the room and I feel as if all my beliefs are suspended. Nothing holds me to anything. No milkmaids, no flowers, nothing. I just want to feel and then when I start to work I’ll remember. I’ll read something, maybe the Psalms, maybe, again, something from Mr. Dunbar, James Weldon Johnson. And I’ll remember how beautiful, how pliable the language is, how it will lend itself. If you pull it, it says, OK.” I remember that and I start to write. Nathaniel Hawthorne says, “Easy reading is damn hard writing.” I try to pull the language in to such a sharpness that it jumps off the page. It must look easy, but it takes me forever to get it to look so easy. Of course, there are those critics—New York critics as a rule—who say, Well, Maya Angelou has a new book out and of course it’s good but then she’s a natural writer. Those are the ones I want to grab by the throat and wrestle to the floor because it takes me forever to get it to sing. Iwork at the language. On an evening like this, looking out at the auditorium, if I had to write this evening from my point of view, I’d see the rust-red used worn velvet seats and the lightness where people’s backs have rubbed against the back of the seat so that it’s a light orange, then the beautiful colors of the people’s faces, the white, pink-white, beige-white, light beige and brown and tan—I would have to look at all that, at all those faces and the way they sit on top of their necks. When I would end up writing after four hours or five hours in my room, it might sound like, It was a rat that sat on a mat. That’s that. Not a cat. But I would continue to play with it and pull at it and say, I love you. Come to me. I love you. It might take me two or three weeks just to describe what I’m seeing now.

INTERVIEWER

How much revising is involved?

ANGELOU

I write in the morning and then go home about midday and take a shower, because writing, as you know, is very hard work, so you have to do a double ablution. Then I go out and shop—I’m a serious cook—and pretend to be normal. I play sane—Good morning! Fine, thank you. And you? And I go home. I prepare dinner for myself and if I have houseguests, I do the candles and the pretty music and all that. Then after all the dishes are moved away I read what I wrote that morning. And more often than not if I’ve done nine pages I may be able to save two and a half or three. That’s the cruelest time you know, to really admit that it doesn’t work. And to blue pencil it. When I finish maybe fifty pages and read them—fifty acceptable pages—it’s not too bad. I’ve had the same editor since 1967. Many times he has said to me over the years or asked me, Why would you use a semicolon instead of a colon? And many times over the years I have said to him things like: I will never speak to you again. Forever. Goodbye. That is it. Thank you very much. And I leave. Then I read the piece and I think of his suggestions. I send him a telegram that says, OK, so you’re right. So what? Don’t ever mention this to me again. If you do, I will never speak to you again. About two years ago I was visiting him and his wife in the Hamptons. I was at the end of a dining room table with a sit-down dinner of about fourteen people. Way at the end I said to someone, I sent him telegrams over the years. From the other end of the table he said, And I’ve kept every one! Brute! But the editing, one’s own editing, before the editor sees it, is the most important.

INTERVIEWER

So you don’t keep a particular reader in mind when you sit down in that hotel room and begin to compose or write. It’s yourself.

ANGELOU

It’s myself . . . and my reader. I would be a liar, a hypocrite, or a fool—and I’m not any of those—to say that I don’t write for the reader. I do. But for the reader who hears, who really will work at it, going behind what I seem to say. So I write for myself and that reader who will pay the dues. There’s a phrase in West Africa, in Ghana; it’s called “deep talk.” For instance, there’s a saying: “The trouble for the thief is not how to steal the chief’s bugle but where to blow it.” Now, on the face of it, one understands that. But when you really think about it, it takes you deeper. In West Africa they call that “deep talk.” I’d like to think I write “deep talk.” When you read me, you should be able to say, Gosh, that’s pretty. That’s lovely. That’s nice. Maybe there’s something else? Better read it again. Years ago I read a man named Machado de Assis who wrote a book called Dom Casmurro. Machado de Assis is a South American writer—black father, Portuguese mother—writing in 1865, say. I thought the book was very nice. Then I went back and read the book and said, Hmm. I didn’t realize all that was in that book. Then I read it again, and again, and I came to the conclusion that what Machado de Assis had done for me was almost a trick: he had beckoned me onto the beach to watch a sunset. And I had watched the sunset with pleasure. When I turned around to come back in I found that the tide had come in over my head. That’s when I decided to write. I would write so that the reader says, That’s so nice. Oh boy, that’s pretty. Let me read that again. I think that’s why Caged Bird is in its twenty-first printing in hardcover and its twenty-ninth in paper. All my books are still in print, in hardback as well as paper, because people go back and say, Let me read that. Did she really say that?

INTERVIEWER

Aren’t the extraordinary events of your life very hard for the rest of us to identify with?

ANGELOU

Oh my God, I’ve lived a very simple life! You can say, Oh yes, at thirteen this happened to me and at fourteen . . . But those are facts. But the facts can obscure the truth, what it really felt like. Every human being has paid the earth to grow up. Most people don’t grow up. It’s too damn difficult. What happens is most people get older. That’s the truth of it. They honor their credit cards, they find parking spaces, they marry, they have the nerve to have children, but they don’t grow up. Not really. They get older. But to grow up costs the earth, the earth. It means you take responsibility for the time you take up, for the space you occupy. It’s serious business. And you find out what it costs us to love and to lose, to dare and to fail. And maybe even more, to succeed. What it costs, in truth. Not superficial costs—anybody can have that—I mean in truth. That’s what I write. What it really is like. I’m just telling a very simple story.

INTERVIEWER

Aren’t you tempted to lie? Novelists lie, don’t they?

ANGELOU

I don’t know about lying for novelists. I look at some of the great novelists, and I think the reason they are great is that they’re telling the truth. The fact is they’re using made-up names, made-up people, made-up places, and made-up times, but they’re telling the truth about the human being—what we are capable of, what makes us lose, laugh, weep, fall down, and gnash our teeth and wring our hands and kill each other and love each other.

INTERVIEWER

James Baldwin, along with a lot of writers in this series, said that “when you’re writing you’re trying to find out something you didn’t know.” When you write do you search for something that you didn’t know about yourself or about us?

ANGELOU

Yes. When I’m writing, I am trying to find out who I am, who we are, what we’re capable of, how we feel, how we lose and stand up, and go on from darkness into darkness. I’m trying for that. But I’m also trying for the language. I’m trying to see how it can really sound. I really love language. I love it for what it does for us, how it allows us to explain the pain and the glory, the nuances and the delicacies of our existence. And then it allows us to laugh, allows us to show wit. Real wit is shown in language. We need language.

Full Interview

U nastavku sledi odlomak iz intervjua koji je Margerit Jursenar nekoliko meseci pre smrti dala za književni magazain The Paris Review.

INTERVIEWER

Let’s go back to the beginning. You were very close to your father. He encouraged you to write and he published your first poems. It was a limited edition and I believe is now unobtainable. What do you think of them in retrospect?

YOURCENAR

My father had them published at his own expense—a sort of compliment from him. He shouldn’t have done it—they were not much good. I was only sixteen. I liked writing, but I had no literary ambitions. I had all these characters and stories in me, but I had hardly any knowledge of history and none of life to do anything with them. I could say that all my books were conceived by the time I was twenty, although they were not to be written for another thirty or forty years. But perhaps this is true of most writers—the emotional storage is done very early on.

INTERVIEWER

Next came Memoirs of Hadrian, which was immediately hailed as a masterpiece and became a best-seller all over the world. Why did you choose the historical novel as a genre?

YOURCENAR

I have never written a historical novel in my life. I dislike most historical novels. I wrote a monologue about Hadrian’s life, as it could have been seen by himself. I can point out that this treatise-monologue was a common literary genre of the period and that others besides Hadrian had done it. Hadrian is a very intelligent man, enriched by all the traditions of his time, while Zenon, the protagonist of The Abyss (L’Oeuvre au noir) is also very intelligent and in advance of his time—indeed of all other epochs too—and is defeated at the end. Nathanaël, the hero of the third panel, Two Lives and a Dream, is by contrast a simple, nearly uneducated man who dies at twenty-eight of tuberculosis. He is a sailor at first who becomes shipwrecked off the coast of Maine in America, marries a girl who dies of TB, travels back to England and Holland, marries a second time a woman who turns out to be a thief and a prostitute, and is finally taken up by a wealthy Dutch family. For the first time he comes into contact with culture—listens to music, looks at paintings, lives in luxury. But he keeps a clear head and sharp eyes, because he knows that while he is listening to music in the hospital, opposite his house, men and women are suffering and dying of disease. Eventually he is sent away to an island in the north and dies in peace, surrounded by wild animals and nature. The question is: How far can one go without accepting any culture? The answer is, for Nathanaël, very far, through lucidity of mind and humility of heart.

INTERVIEWER

One striking aspect of your work is that nearly all your protagonists have been male homosexuals: Alexis, Eric, Hadrian, Zenon, Mishima. Why is it that you have never created a woman who would be an example of female sexual deviance?

YOURCENAR

I do not like the word homosexual, which I think is dangerous—for it enhances prejudice—and absurd. Say “gay” if you must. Anyway, homosexuality, as you call it, is not the same phenomenon in a man as in a woman. Love for women in a woman is different from love for men in a man. I know a number of “gay” men, but relatively few openly “gay” women. But let us go back to a passage in Hadrian where he says that a man who thinks, who is engaged upon a philosophical problem or devising a theorem, is neither a man nor a woman, nor even human. He is something else. It is very rare that one could say that about a woman. It does happen, but very seldom; for example, the woman whom my father loved was very sensuous and also, in terms of her times, an “intellectual,” but the greatest element of her life was love, especially love for her husband. Even without reaching the high level of someone like Hadrian, one is in the same mental space, and it is unimportant whether one is a man or a woman. Can I say also that love between women interests me less, because I have never met with a great example of it.

INTERVIEWER

Since your election to the academy you have become much better known to the general public and lionized by the literary world. Do you mix with the Parisian literary society?

YOURCENAR

I do not know what being lionized means, and I dislike all literary worlds, because they represent false values. A few great works and a few great books are important. They are aside and apart from any “world” or “society”.

INTERVIEWER

Of course, but there are always certain affinities with various writers. Who are they in your case? Baudelaire, Racine, the Romantics?

YOURCENAR

Baudelaire certainly; and some of the romantics. The French middle ages much more, and certain poets of the seventeenth century, such as Ménard, “La Belle Vieille,” and many, many other poets, French and non-French. Racine up to a point, but he is such a unique case that no one can be compared to him.

INTERVIEWER

Except for Britanicus all his protagonists were women: Phedre, Berenice, Nathalie, Roxane, et cetera . . .

YOURCENAR

Proust had this idea that Racine’s Phedre could be indentified with a man as well as a woman. But Racine’s Phedre is much more French than Greek: You will see it at once if you compare her to the Greek Phedre. Her passionate jealousy is a typical theme of French literature, just as it is in Proust. That is why even in Phedre, Racine had to find her a rival, Aricie, who is an insignificant character, like a bridal from a popular dress shop. In other words, love as possession, againstsomeone. And that is prodigiously French. Spanish jealousy is quite different: It is real hatred, the despair of someone who has been deprived of his/her food. As for the Anglo-Saxon love, well, there is nothing more beautiful than Shakespeare’s sonnets, while German love has produced some wonderful poetry too.

INTERVIEWER

I have this theory that the French do not understand Baudelaire and never have. They speak of his rhetoric, yet he is the least rhetorical of poets. He writes like an Oriental poet—dare I say like a Persian poet?

YOURCENAR

Baudelaire is a sublime poet. But the French don’t even understand Hugo, who is also a sublime poet. I have—as Malraux also did—taken titles from Hugo’s verses: Le Cerveau noir de piranèse, and others. Whenever I am passing by Place Vendôme in Paris I recall Hugo’s poem in which he is thinking of Napoleon, wondering if he should prefer “la courbe d’Hannibal et l’angle d’Alexandre au carré de César.” A whole strategy contained in one line of alexandrine! Of course there are times when Hugo is bad and rhetorical—even great poets have their off days—but nonetheless he is prodigious.

INTERVIEWER

So who was a decisive influence on you in youth?

YOURCENAR

As I said in the preface to Alexis, at the time it was Rilke. But this business of influence is a tricky one. One reads thousands of books, of poets, modern and ancient, as one meets thousands of people. What remains of it all is hard to tell.

INTERVIEWER

You mentioned modern poets. Which ones for example?

YOURCENAR

There is a Swedish poet whom I have never succeeded in introducing to my French friends: Gunnard Ekelof. He has written three little books called Divans, I suppose influenced by Persian poetry. And, of course, Borges, and some of Lorca’s poems, and Pessoa, Apollinaire.

INTERVIEWER

Talking about Borges, what about other South American writers, the whole school of magical realism?

YOURCENAR

I don’t like them—they are like factory products.

INTERVIEWER

What about the literature of your adopted country, the United States?

YOURCENAR

I’m afraid I haven’t read much. I have read a lot of things unconnected with Western literature. At the moment I am reading a huge book by a Moroccan Sufi poet, books on ecology, sagas from Iceland, and so on.

INTERVIEWER

But surely you must have read writers like Henry James, Faulkner, Hemingway, Edith Wharton?

YOURCENAR

Some. There are great moments in Hemingway, for example “The Battler” or, even better, “The Killers,” which is a masterpiece of the American short story. It is a tale of revenge in the underworld, and it is excellent. Edith Wharton’s short stories seem to me much better than her novels. Ethan Frome, for example, is the story of a peasant of New England. In it the protagonist, a woman of the world, puts herself in his place and describes the life of these people in winter, when all the roads are frozen, isolated. It is short and very beautiful. Faulkner brings with him the true horror of the South, the illiteracy and racism of poor whites. As for Henry James, the best definition is the one by Somerset Maugham, when he said that Henry James was an alpinist, equipped to conquer the Himalayas, and walked up Beaker Street! Henry James was crushed by his stifling milieu—his sister, his mother, even his brother who was a genius but of a more philosophical and professorial kind. James never told his own truth.

INTERVIEWER

Traveling extensively as you do, how do you manage to write? Where do you find so much energy, and what is your work routine?

YOURCENAR

I write everywhere. I could write here, as I am talking to you. When in Maine or elsewhere, when I am traveling, I write wherever I am or whenever I can. Writing doesn’t require too much energy—it is a relaxation, and a joy.

Full Interview

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Jedan od najvećih utisaka dokumentarnog filma o Arsenu Dediću „Moj zanat“ jeste ova kompozicija, kao i Krležina izjava o terasi jednog zagrebačkog hotela za koju je tvrdio (a Dedić nam je kroz film preneo) da se upravo na njenom tlu Evropa i Balkan sastaju i – rastaju. Dakle, ipak je Zagreb poslednja stanica (?) . Predivno muzičko delo koje je Arsen Dedić komponovao za televizijski film „Glembajevi“.

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Ono što svaki grad treba da poseduje jeste univerzalnost. To je ono što meni znači i što me čini srećnom. Pod tim podrazumevam Putovanje. Unutrašnju, podjednako koliko i spoljašnju dinamiku.

Pre nekoliko godina imala sam običaj da izjutra vozim bicikl od svog predgrađa do donjeg Dorćola, sve do kraja biciklističke staze, pa opet natrag. Bilo je to čak i pre 10 ujutru tako da nebo tada nije imalo veliku draž za mene. Nije bilo visoko kao u Pragu, nije bilo nisko kao u Holandiji (ili bar kao na slikama holandskih majstora), nije bilo kao osušene kore pomorandže nad Rimom. Obično letnje nebo, ni belo ni žuto ni plavo. Jednostavno. Banalno, čak neki bi se usudili reći.

Onda, nekoliko godina potom, moj prijatelj se zaposlio na jednom splavu na Dunavu, tik pored 25. maja na Dorćolu pa me je vozio na svojoj bicikli od Trga do reke. Smejali smo se, bilo je leto, svi bi nas gledali dok smo se vrišteći spuštali niz ulicu Knjeginje Ljubice da bismo se potom vozili biciklističkom stazom pored reke kojom sam nekad sama vozila.

Tada, ja sam postala svesna da grad poseduje jedno ostrvo koje je nad sobom meko i nečujno pridržavalo nebo, a ono se u sumrak osipalo nad vrhovima njegovog drveća. Videla sam taj pejsaž i pre.

Nikolaj Hartman je tvrdio da oku posmatrača zapravo umetnost otkriva prirodu. To je bila moja prva misao kada sam videla zalazak sunca i boje neba, nijanse koje su se međusobno prožimale, topile jedna kroz drugu. Setila sam se gde sam videla taj predeo. Na slici onog čija su neba bila ambisi, mogućnosti za sanjarenja, melanholiju, kontemplaciju, unutrašnju dinamiku. Te slike nudile su Putovanja.

Upravo sam tada otkrila univerzalnost koju sam pomenula. Pejsaži su i van nas i u nama. Ja sam toliko u Beogradu tražila nešto što će me vezati za njega, nešto što je „spolja“, van mene i mojih sećanja od kojih sam ga izgradila i koja sam, poput reljefa na fasadama, ugradila u sve te zgrade, sve te ulice kojima sam lutala. Kojima sam volela da lutam, da tražim i bivam izdana. Nisam pronalazila ono što sam želela.

Univerzalnost je postignuta jer sam otkrila umetnost koja me je doživotno odredila. Kaspar David Fridrih naslikao je priloženu sliku – „Ljudi posmatraju Mesec“ – 1822. godine. Ja sam istu videla ispred sebe toliko godina kasnije. Boje su mi se učinile identične.

Naravno, delo je „prevazišlo“ prirodu samo u jednom: ono ima, ili je bar u mogućnosti da stvori (a ta moć je strahovita!), raspoloženje kod posmatrača koje transcendira, koje izmešta. Pejsaž koji sam videla pred sobom jednostavno je bio lep, prijatan oku i uporediv sa slikom, ali nikad nije imao moć nadamnom kao ona, ona koja je u muzeju, ona koja je od drveta i boje.

Nedavno sam opet prolazila tuda i utisak je bio isti kao i pre. Odlučila sam da fotografišem ono što vidim i da fotografiju ne doterujem u nekom od programa. Sve je upravo onako kao što izgleda na njoj. Ili, naprotiv, nije..

„Postoje beznačajna, siva, prljava i sumorna mesta, za koja nas nekim čudnim slučajem veže ljubav. Nalazimo bezbroj misterija u kakvoj trafici, osećamo strašnu tajnu iza odškrinutog prozora na periferijskoj straćari, a neki nasip pokraj želetničke pruge, zarastao u korov, postaje nam očajnički cilj kome se omađijano vraćamo čitavog života.Kakvo je to prokletstvo?

S druge strane, postoje gradovi čuveni zbog svoje lepote, ali nam ne znače baš ništa, jer ih nikad nije ozarila naša ljubav, neki tajni smisao.Koračamo kroz njih zevajući od dosade. Krivica nije do tih gradova – ona je u nama. Tražimo neke slične ptice, ali njih nema u našoj prosečnoj građanskoj sredini. Ipak, osećamo da negde postoje neka divna, pametna stvorenja koja će jedne večeri sleteti u naš mali pakao i izbaviti nas bede i poniženja.“

Momo Kapor

Ignazio Danti – Map of Venice

Tih sam godina i upoznao onog starca koji je u moju sobu doneo sa sobom i neku duboku tugu. Od mene je morao biti stariji nekih deset do petnaest godina. Zvao se Evlija, i čim sam ugledao setu na njegovom licu, zaključio sam da ga je mučila usamljenost, ali on to nije kazao: čitav svoj život, reče, posvetio je bio putovanjima i jednom desetotomnom putopisu koji je upravo završavao; nameravao je da pre no što umre, poseti Meku i Medinu, mesta najbliža Bogu, i njih će opisati, ali postojalo je nešto što je nedostajalo u njegovoj knjizi i što ga je onespokojavalo. Želeo je svojim čitaocima da opiše i Italiju, jer je o lepoti njenih fontana i mostova mnogo toga čuo, pa bih mu možda o njoj mogao pričati ja, kojeg je došao da vidi zbog onoga što je o meni čuo u Istambulu. Kada mu rekoh da Italiju nikad nisam video , on je pojasnio kako kao i svi drugi on to zna, ali ja sam nekad imao roba koji je došao odande, a on je meni sve to opisao; a kada bih sada ja njemu to prepričao, on bi meni, zauzvrat, pripovedao neke zabavne stvari: nije li najlešta stvar u životu bila smišljanje i slušanje lepih priča? Stidljivo je iz torbe izvadio jednu mapu, bila je to najgora mapa Italije koju sam video, odlučio sam da mu pričam.

Svojom bucmastom šakom koja je podsećala na dečiju, pokazao bi neki grad na mapi,  i nakon što bi sričući pročitao njegovo ime, pažljivo je na papir prenosio moje snove koje sam mu pripovedao. Za svaki grad želeo je po jednu neobičnu priču. I tako smo mi idući od severa ka jugu , provodeći trinaest noći u trinaest različitih gradova, prošli čitavu tu zemlju koju sam video prvi put u životu. Nakon ovog posla koji nam je uzeo čitavo jutro, on se sa Sicilije brodom vratio u Istambul. Pošto je bio veoma zadovoljan mojim pripovedanjima, a odlučivši da i on mene obraduje, stade mi opisivati akrobate koji su se gubili u nebesima nad Akrom, ženu koja je u Konji rodila slona i tog njenog sina, plave krilate bikove na obalama Nila, ružičaste mačke, sahat-kulu u Beču, svoje prednje zube koje su mu tamo napravili a koje mi je pokazivao kroz osmeh, pećinu koja govori na obali Azovskog mora, crvene mrave koji žive u Americi. Ove su priče iz nekog razloga u meni budile neku neobičnu tugu, čak mi je dolazilo da zaplačem: zalazeće sunce je svojim crvenilom potpuno obojilo sobu; kada me je Evlija upitao imam li i ja nekih tako začuđujućih priča, u želji da ga istinski začudim, pozvao sam ga da sa svojim ljudima provede noć kod mene: imao sam jednu priču koja bi mu se mogla dopasti a koja je govorila o dva čoveka koji su zamenili mesta.

Te noći smo se vratili u moju sobu, nakon što su se svi povukli na počinak, a kuću ispunila tišina koju smo obojica čekali. Ovu priču na čijem ste vi sada kraju, ja sam tada prvi put izmaštao! A kao da ono što sam pripovedao nije bilo izmišljeno, kao da mi je sve te reči, tiho i nežno šaputao neko drugi, rečenice su se lagano nizale jedna za drugom: „Plovili smo od Venecije prema Napulju kada nas presretoše turske lađe…“

Orhan Pamuk, „Bela tvrđava“, preveo Ivan Panović, Geopoetika, Beograd, 2008.

07.06.1926.
Iz Berlina u sanatorijum St. Blazien u Švarcvaldu,
na jugu Nemačke.

Majmunče moje,
juče sam oko devet izašao da se prošetam [...], osećajući po čitavom telu onu olujnu
napetost, što glasnik je stihova. Vrativši se kući do deset nekako sam se zavukao u sebe, pretražio, malo se pomučio i ispuzao praznih ruku. Ugasio sam svetlo – i iznenada se pojavi prizor – sobičak u tulonskom lošem hotelu, baršunasto crna dubina prozora, otvorenog prema noći i negde daleko u toj tami – šumorenje mora, kao da neko sporo uvlači i ispušta vazduh kroz zube. Istovremeno sam se prisetio kiše, koja je pre neko veče tako fi no romorila po dvorištu, dok sam ti pisao. Osetio sam da će biti stihova o tihom šumu – ali uto mi se u glavi zamuti od umora i kako bih zaspao, počeo sam da mislim na tenis, da zamišljam kako ga igram. Pričekavši, opet sam upalio svetlo, oteturao se do klozeta. Tamo voda dugo šljiska i žubori posle toga, kako je povučeš. I eto, vrativši se u krevet, uz taj tihi šum u cevi – praćen prisećanjem-osećajem crnog prozora u Tulonu i skorašnje kiše, napisao sam dve strofe pesme koju ti prilažem – drugu i treću: prva se iskobeljala skoro odmah, u celini – drugu sam čupao duže, nekoliko puta je ostavljajući, kako bih izravnao ćoškove ili razmislio o još nepoznatim, no osetnim preostalim strofama. Napisavši te dve, drugu i treću, umirio sam se i zaspao – a izjutra, kada sam se probudio, osetih da sam zadovoljan – i odmah sam počeo da pišem dalje. Kada sam u pola jedan krenuo kod Kaplan (madam) na čas, četvrta, šesta i delimično sedma su bile gotove – i tada osetih ono zadivlju 148 juče, neobjašnjivo, što je verovatno najprijatnije u toku stvaralaštva, a zapravo – preciznu meru pesme, koliko će u njoj biti ukupno strofa; i tada sam znao – iako možda trenutak pre toga nisam znao – da će tih strofa biti ukupno osam i da će u poslednjoj biti drugačiji raspored rima. Stvarao sam na ulici i zatim u toku ručka (bila je džigerica sa pireom i kompot od šljiva) i posle ručka, pre nego što ću poći kod Zaka5 (u tri sata). Padala je kiša, bilo mi je drago što sam uzeo plavo odelo, crne cipele, kišnu kabanicu i u tramvaju sam dovršio pesmu ovim redom: osma, peta, prva. Prvu sam završio one minute dok su otvarali kapiju. Sa Šurom sam se igrao sa loptom, zatim smo čitali Velsa uz strašnu grmljavinu: čarobna se oluja razbesnela – kao da je u skladu sa mojim oslobađanjem – jer sam potom, vraćajući se kući i gledajući u bare što su se presijavale, kupujući „Kariku“ i „Obzerver“ na stanici Šarlotenburga, osetio raskošnu lakoću. U „Karici“ se obrelo obaveštenje „Ruske volje“ (šaljem ti ga, a zbornik ću uzeti sutra). Usput sam svratio kod Anjute,6 video J. L.,7 on je baš dobio pismo od S. B. Oko sedam oni krenuše u nekakvu prodavnicu, a ja sam pošao kući i po
dogovoru sa Anjutom izvukao ispod novina i naftalina tvoju bundicu (sa takvim milim
majmunčetom na okovratniku…). Sutra će je Anjuta upakovati i poslaću ti je. Do večere
sam čitao novine (od mame sam dobio pismo; tesno im je, ali ne žive loše), zatim sam jeo krompir sa komadićima mesa i mnogo švajcarskog sira. Seo sam da ti pišem oko devet, to jest posegnuo sam za notesom i iznenada spazih pisamce koje je stiglo za vreme mog odsustva i koje ja nekako nisam primetio. Milo moje. Kakvo majmuničasto pisamce… Čini mi se da te iz S. B. ne tera toliko vazduh koliko „porodični poslovi“? Anjuta kaže, i ja mislim da je u pravu, da planinski vazduh često u početku tako deluje, ali zatim se, posle dva, tri dana navikneš i bude ti veoma dobro. Ne, majmunče, ne vraćaj se – u najstariji, najodvratniji kofer ću te spakovati i vratiti nazad. Katolicima ću sutra poslati tvoj odgovor – hvala, majmunče. Ostaviću poleđinu ovog lista belu, spava mi se. Bez mene je čovek doneo cigare. Uzeo sam od Anjute 30 maraka i sutra ću isto toliko dobiti od Kaplanovih. Volim te, majmunče.
V.

Prvobitno objavlejno u časopisu Polja, prevela Melina Panaotović.

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