miercuri, 4 martie 2009

îi dau cuvântul

domnului pamuk, pe care prea l-am lăsat să aştepte. luaţi o cafea, un ceai, ceva, un vinişor, că îi place să vorbească mult.

"To carry a book in your pocket or in your bag, particularly in times of sadness, is to be in posession of another world, a world that can bring you happiness. During my unhappy youth, the thought of such a book - a book I looked forward to reading - was a consolation that helped me through the school day, as I yawned so much my eyes would fill with tears; later on in life, it helped me bear the boring meetings I attended out of obligation or a desire not to be rude. Let me list the things that make reading something I do, not for the purpose of work or for my edification, but for pleasure:

1. The pull of that other world I mentioned earlier. This could be seen as escapism. Even if only in your imagination, it is still good to escape the sadness of everyday life and spend some time in another world.

2. Between the ages of sixteen and twenty-six, reading was central to my efforts to make something of myself, elevate my consciousness, and thereby give shape to my soul. What sort of man should I be? What was the meaning of the world? How far could my thoughts stretch, my interests, my dreams, the lands I could see in my mind's eye? While following others' lives, dreams, and ruminations in their stories and their essays, I knew I would keep them in the deepest recesses of my memory and never forget them, the way a small child never forgets his first sight of a tree, a leaf, a cat. With the knowledge I gathered from my reading, I would chart my path to adulthood. Having set out with such childish optimism to make and shape myself, my reading during those years was an intense and playful enterprise that drew deeply from my imagination. But these days I almost never read this way, and perhaps this is why I read so much less.

3. Another thing that makes reading so pleasurable for me is self-awareness. When we read, there is a part of our minds that resisist total immersion in the text and congratulates us on our having undertaken such a deep and intellectual task: in other words, reading. Proust undersood this very well. There is, he said, a part of us that stays outside the text to contemplate the table at which we sit, the lamp that illuminates the plate, the garden around us, or the view beyond. When we notice such things, we are at the sime time savoring our solitude and the workings of our imagination and congratulating ourselves on possessing greater depth than those who do not read. I understand how a reader might, without going too far, wish to congratulate himself, though I have little patience for those who take pride in boasting.

(...) Nothing can penetrate into the cracks, holes, and invisible gaps of life as fast or as thoroughly as words can. It is in these cracks that the essence of things - the things that make us curious about life, about the world - can first be ascertained, and it is good literature that first reveals them. Good literature is a piece of wise counsel that has yet to be given, and as such it has the same aura of needfulness as the latest news; that is mainly why I still depend on it.

(...) For me, to read is to create one's own mental film version of a text. We may raise our heads from the page to rest our eyes upon a picture on the wall, the scene outside the window, or the view beyond, but our minds do not take these things in: We are still occupied with filming the imaginary world in the book. To see the world imagined by the author, to find happiness in that other world, one must bring one's own imagination into play. By giving us the impression of being not just spectators of an imaginary world but in part its creators, a book offers us the creator's bliss in seclusion. And it's that bliss-in-seclusion that makes reading books, reading great works of literature, so alluring to all and so essential to the writer."

(orhan pamuk, "on reading: words or images", other colours. writings on life, art, books and cities, transl. by maureen freely, london, faber and faber, 2008)

a, să nu uit. orhan mă roagă să vă transmit că vă mulţumeşte pentru atenţie şi vă doreşte o seară bună.

4 comentarii:

Anonim spunea...

Mulţumesc pentru cafeaua cu domnul Pamuk, mi-a limpezit ziua (îmi place cu deosebire punctul 3).

luiza spunea...

cafea cu bumbac (cică asta înseamnă pamuk în turcă, am văzut pe discurile demachiante :D)

Anonim spunea...

Nu ştiam că înseamnă ”bumbac”, ceea ce nu ne suprinde deloc, cunoştinţele mele de turcă reducîndu-se la teleorman, caraorman, ildîrîm, culă, fîstîc... Am avut odată doi colegi turci, Huseyin şi Burtan, îi ascultam vorbind între ei, i-am rugat să mă înveţe cîte ceva, dar urechile mele ghiaure nu auzeau decît un buluc (din tc. bölük : ) de consoane stropşite. Huseyin lucra la un roman, revenea vingt fois sur le mestier, infatigabil. Într-o zi, cînd l-am întrebat dacă mai şlefuieşte mult la el, mi-a răspuns ”je travaille mes allitérations” şi mi-a explicat că turca e, de fapt, foarte melodioasă.

En tout cas, graţie lui Huseyin am descoperit Kara Kitap şi Beyaz Kale. Cel mai mult din Pamuk mi-au plăcut poveştile cu mătuşi, seamănă un pic cu mătuşile ferme şi ataşante ale domnului Radu Cosaşu (a, la ei, mătuşa din partea tatălui se cheamă diferit de cea din partea mamei, motiv pentru care Huseyin găsea franceza şi engleza foarte sărăcăcioase). Mai ţin minte din Cartea neagră o descriere a Istanbulului scufundat, dublul celui de pe uscat.

luiza spunea...

rudimentele mele de turcă vin ori din toate pânzele sus, ori de pe pachetele de biscuiţi sau de gumă de mestecat.
iar mă numesc roşu mi s-a părut o gură de literatură adevărată după o sumedenie de falsuri cu care avusesem de-a face :)