Mostrando entradas con la etiqueta Margaret Atwood. Mostrar todas las entradas
Mostrando entradas con la etiqueta Margaret Atwood. Mostrar todas las entradas
10/11/09
8/8/09
En el plano de lo [real]
[...] Will I ever be in a hotel room again? How I wasted them, those rooms, that freedom from being seen.
Rented license.
[...]
But now it's the rooms themselves I miss as well, even the dreadful paintings that hung on the walls, landscapes with fall foliage or snow melting in hardwoods, or women in period costume, with china-doll faces and bustles and parasols, or sad-eyed clowns, or bowls of fruit, still and chalky looking. The fresh towels ready for spoilage, the wastebaskets gaping their invitations, beckoning in the careless junk. Careless. I was careless, in those rooms. I could lift the telephone and food would appear on a tray, food I had chosen. Food that was bad form me, no doubt, and drink too. There were Bibles in the dresser drawers, put there by some charitable society, though probably no one read them very much. There were postcards, too, with pictures of the hotel on them, and you could write on the postcards and send them to anyone you wanted. It seems like such an impossible thing, now; like something you'd make up.
So. I explored this room, not hastily, then, like a hotel room, wasting it.
Rented license.
[...]
But now it's the rooms themselves I miss as well, even the dreadful paintings that hung on the walls, landscapes with fall foliage or snow melting in hardwoods, or women in period costume, with china-doll faces and bustles and parasols, or sad-eyed clowns, or bowls of fruit, still and chalky looking. The fresh towels ready for spoilage, the wastebaskets gaping their invitations, beckoning in the careless junk. Careless. I was careless, in those rooms. I could lift the telephone and food would appear on a tray, food I had chosen. Food that was bad form me, no doubt, and drink too. There were Bibles in the dresser drawers, put there by some charitable society, though probably no one read them very much. There were postcards, too, with pictures of the hotel on them, and you could write on the postcards and send them to anyone you wanted. It seems like such an impossible thing, now; like something you'd make up.
So. I explored this room, not hastily, then, like a hotel room, wasting it.
22/6/09
Histórica ficción
One's own personal doings look small indeed, when faced with the momentous travails of History, which we can only trust are for the greater good.
---Margaret Atwood. Alias Grace (1996).6/5/09
29/12/08
Decisivo
About her childhood in the Canadian wilderness, Margaret Atwood wrote: “On fine days we spent our time turning over rocks to see what was underneath. The most disappointing was nothing. Then, in ascending order, came worms, millipedes, spiders, beetles, ants' nests, toads, snakes, mice, and newts and salamanders. Newts and salamanders were the ultimate; they were extremely rare. Sometimes we just looked, and meditated, and put the rock back. Sometimes we poked things with a stick to see what would happen.”
“People often ask me, ''What's the difference between writing poetry and writing fiction?'' And surely it is this: with a poem, you look, and meditate, and put the rock back. With fiction you poke things with a stick to see what will happen.”
---
The Poetry of Margaret Atwood
Roger Fritts
Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist Church
Bethesda, Maryland
December 2, 2007
“People often ask me, ''What's the difference between writing poetry and writing fiction?'' And surely it is this: with a poem, you look, and meditate, and put the rock back. With fiction you poke things with a stick to see what will happen.”
---
The Poetry of Margaret Atwood
Roger Fritts
Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist Church
Bethesda, Maryland
December 2, 2007
29/10/08
Toronto y el asesino ciego
Should is a futile word. It's about what didn't happen. It belongs in a parallel universe. It belongs in another dimension of space.
---Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin
---Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin
En 2005 tuve la oportunidad de visitar a un amigo en Toronto: ciudad de la cual quedé prendado desde el momento en que la vi desde el aire. Recién se había aprobado en el Parlamento el matrimonio para los homosexuales. Había un ambiente festivo en las calles (particularmente en Church St.), aún cuando el fin del verano era inminente. En ese entonces nada sabía yo de Margaret Atwood. Mucho menos que reside en Toronto.
Cinco años antes se publicó la novela que recién terminé de leer: The Blind Assassin. Una verdadera obra maestra: la novela dentro de la novela, la confesión de una octogenaria, las noticias del periódico, articuladas por medio de una confección cuidadosa y con la precisión de un escalpelo. Lo que diga será muy corto a comparación de lo que la novela ofrece. Es necesario leerla para descubrir el trabajo artesanal de Atwood. No en balde recibió este año el Asturias de las Letras.
La historia se sitúa en ocasiones en Toronto. Fui presa de una sensación rara (y al mismo tiempo familiar) al descubrir en ella calles, casas y edificios en donde anduve (al igual que Iris Chase): el Royal Ontario Museum, el Eaton's en Navidad, Union Station, Queen, Yonge, King, Spadina y la mismísima Church St. En dos momentos aparece una metáfora que alude a un equilibrista caminando sobre el flujo estruendoso de la caída en Niágara. El frágil balance entre ignorar el rugido del agua y concentrar la atención en la difícil acrobacia. A pesar de que la narración está situada alrededor de la Segunda Guerra Mundial, los edificios siguen ahí y las calles se llaman igual. La sensación es parecida al estar y no estar, el haber estado y el "qué tal si yo hubiera".
La novela fue recomendación de Liliana Blum, a quien le agradezco profundamente. Pienso en las ocasiones en que he estado cerca que he estado de llevar otra vida diferente a ésta. De vivir en otra ciudad. Haberme quedado en Toronto. Ser otro. Pero como reza el epígrafe de arriba, eso pertenece a otra dimensión del espacio.
---
ATWOOD, Margaret, The Blind Assassin. Anchor Books, New York, 2001.
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