De Amerikaanse schrijver en essayist Jonathan Franzen werd geboren op 17 augustus 1959 in Western Springs, Illinois. Zie ook alle tags voor Jonathan Franzen op dit blog.

Uit: Freedom

“The news about Walter Berglund wasn't picked up locally-he and Patty had moved away to Washington two years earlier and meant nothing to St. Paul now-but the urban gentry of Ramsey Hill were not so loyal to their city as not to read the New York Times. According to a long and very unflattering story in the Times, Walter had made quite a mess of his professional life out there in the nation's capital. His old neighbors had some difficulty reconciling the quotes about him in the Times ("arrogant," "high-handed," "ethically compromised") with the generous, smiling, red-faced 3M employee they remembered pedaling his commuter bicycle up Summit Avenue in February snow; it seemed strange that Walter, who was greener than Greenpeace and whose own roots were rural, should be in trouble now for conniving with the coal industry and mistreating country people. Then again, there had always been something not quite right about the Berglunds.

Walter and Patty were the young pioneers of Ramsey Hill - the first college grads to buy a house on Barrier Street since the old heart of St. Paul had fallen on hard times three decades earlier. They paid nothing for their Victorian and then killed themselves for ten years renovating it. Early on, some very determined person torched their garage and twice broke into their car before they got the garage rebuilt.

Sunburned bikers descended on the vacant lot across the alley to drink Schlitz and grill knockwurst and rev engines at small hours until Patty went outside in sweatclothes and said, "Hey, you guys, you know what?" Patty frightened nobody, but she'd been a standout athlete in high school and college and possessed a jock sort of fearlessness. From her first day in the neighborhood, she was helplessly conspicuous. Tall, ponytailed, absurdly young, pushing a stroller past stripped cars and broken beer bottles and barfedupon old snow, she might have been carrying all the hours of her day in the string bags that hung from her stroller. Behind her you could see the baby-encumbered preparations for a morning of baby-encumbered errands; ahead of her, an afternoon of public radio, the Silver Palate Cookbook, cloth diapers, drywall compound, and latex paint; and then Goodnight Moon, then zinfandel. She was already fully the thing that was just starting to happen to the rest of the street.”

Jonathan Franzen (Western Springs, 17 augustus 1959)

Time Cover, augustus 2010

De Amerikaanse dichter en schrijver Ted Hughes werd geboren op 17 augustus 1930 in Mytholmroyd, Yorkshire. Zie ook mijn blog van 17 augustus 2010 en eveneens alle tags voor Ted Hughes op dit blog.

The Seven Sorrows

    
The first sorrow of autumn
Is the slow goodbye
Of the garden who stands so long in the evening-
A brown poppy head,
The stalk of a lily,
And still cannot go.

The second sorrow
Is the empty feet
Of a pheasant who hangs from a hook with his brothers.
The woodland of gold
Is folded in feathers
With its head in a bag.

And the third sorrow
Is the slow goodbye
Of the sun who has gathered the birds and who gathers
The minutes of evening,
The golden and holy
Ground of the picture.

The fourth sorrow
Is the pond gone black
Ruined and sunken the city of water-
The beetle’s palace,
The catacombs
Of the dragonfly.

And the fifth sorrow
Is the slow goodbye
Of the woodland that quietly breaks up its camp.
One day it’s gone.
It has only left litter-
Firewood, tentpoles.

And the sixth sorrow
Is the fox’s sorrow
The joy of the huntsman, the joy of the hounds,
The hooves that pound
Till earth closes her ear
To the fox’s prayer.

And the seventh sorrow
Is the slow goodbye
Of the face with its wrinkles that looks through the window
As the year packs up
Like a tatty fairground
That came for the children.

Ted Hughes (17 augustus 1930 – 28 oktober 1998)

De Britse schrijver Sir Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul werd geboren op 17 augustus 1932 in Chaguanas, Trinidad en Tobago. Zie ook alle tags voor V. S. Naipaul op dit blog.

Uit: A House for Mr. Biswas

“Shortly before he was born there had been another quarrel between Mr Biswas's mother Bipti and his father Raghu, and Bipti had taken her three children and walked all the way in the hot sun to the village where her mother Bissoondaye lived. There Bipti had cried and told the old story of Raghu's miserliness: how he kept a check on every cent he gave her, counted every biscuit in the tin, and how he would walk ten miles rather than pay a cart a penny.

Bipti's father, futile with asthma, propped himself up on his string bed and said, as he always did on unhappy occasions, 'Fate. There is nothing we can do about it.'

No one paid him any attention. Fate had brought him from India to the sugar-estate, aged him quickly and left him to die in a crumbling mud hut in the swamplands; yet he spoke of Fate often and affectionately, as though, merely by surviving, he had been particularly favoured.

While the old man talked on, Bissoondaye sent for the midwife, made a meal for Bipti's children and prepared beds for them. When the midwife came the children were asleep. Some time later they were awakened by the screams of Mr Biswas and the shrieks of the midwife.

'What is it?' the old man asked. 'Boy or girl?'

'Boy, boy,' the midwife cried. 'But what sort of boy? Six-fingered, and born in the wrong way.'

The old man groaned and Bissoondaye said, 'I knew it. There is no luck for me.'

At once, though it was night and the way was lonely, she left the hut and walked to the next village, where there was a hedge of cactus. She brought back leaves of cactus, cut them into strips and hung a strip over every door, every window, every aperture through which an evil spirit might enter the hut.”

V. S. Naipaul (Chaganuas, 17 augustus 1932)

De Duitse dichter en schrijver Theodor Däubler werd geboren op 17 augustus 1876 in Triëst. Zie ook alle tags voor Theodor Däubler op dit blog.

Zum Wind und Nebelreigen wehn

Zum Wind und Nebelreigen wehn

Rings Wiesenwische gar geschwind,

Man sieht sie durch die Fenster sehn,

Ob Träume etwa munter sind.

Halloh, da folgt ein loser Traum

Dem Schattenwink mit einem Satz

Und gibt dem Waldgespenst aus Schaum

Auf Bauch und Schenkel einen Schmatz!

Der Mond reißt seinen Silberspind

Auf einmal für die Tänzer auf,

Und manche kalte Hand von Wind

Beputzt bereits den Schemenhauf.

Das zieht sich ganz in Flitter an,

Die Nebel nicken, thut es nur,

Und glaubt, daß man uns trauen kann,

Auch wir sind Träume der Natur!

Nun schwebt mit leichtem Windestritt

So mancher Traum mit seinem Dunst,

Der Mond beleuchtet ihren Ritt

Und seine Thiere sind in Brunst.

Ein Traum wird über Feld gebracht,

Durch Haine, die noch unbewohnt;

Ein Märchen, das ein Elf erdacht,

Erzählt man ihm vom Silbermond.

Theodor Däubler (17 augustus 1876 – 13 juni 1934)

De Duitse schrijfster Herta Müller werd geboren op 17 augustus 1953 in Nitzkydorf, Roemenië. Zie ook alle tags voor Herta Müller op dit blog.

Uit: Atemschaukel

„Je mehr ich mich davon abhielt, desto schneller ging ich wieder hin – nach zwei Tagen. Zum Rendezvous, so hieß das im Park.

Ich ging zum zweiten Rendezvous mit demselben ersten Mann. Er hieß Die Schwalbe. Der zweite war ein neuer, er hieß Die Tanne. Der dritte hieß Das Ohr. Danach kam Der Faden. Dann Der Pirol und Die Mütze. Später Der Hase, Die Katze, Die Möwe. Dann Die Perle. Nur wir wussten, welcher Name zu wem gehört. Es war Wildwechsel im Park, ich ließ mich weiterreichen. Und Sommer war es und weiße Haut an den Birken, im Jasmin- und Holundergestrüpp wuchs die grüne Wand aus undurchdringlichem Laub.

Die Liebe hat ihre Jahreszeiten. Der Herbst machte dem Park ein Ende. Das Holz wurde nackt. Die Rendezvous zogen mit uns ins Neptunbad. Neben dem Eisentor hing sein ovales Emblem mit dem Schwan. Jede Woche traf ich mich mit dem, der doppelt so alt war wie ich. Er war Rumäne. Er war verheiratet. Ich sage nicht, wie er hieß, und nicht, wie ich hieß. Wir kamen zeitversetzt, die Kassenfrau in der Bleiverglasung ihrer Loge, der spiegelnde Steinboden, die runde Mittelsäule, die Wandkacheln mit dem Seerosenmuster, die geschnitzten Holztreppen durften nicht auf den Gedanken kommen, dass wir verabredet sind. Wir gingen zum Bassin mit allen anderen schwimmen. Erst bei den Schwitzkästen trafen wir uns.

 Damals, kurz vor dem Lager und genauso nach meiner Heimkehr bis 1968, als ich das Land verließ, hätte es für jedes Rendezvous Gefängnis gegeben. Mindestens fünf Jahre, wenn man mich erwischt hätte. Manche hat man erwischt. Sie kamen direkt aus dem Park oder Stadtbad nach brutalen Verhören ins Gefängnis. Von dort ins Straflager an den Kanal. Heute weiß ich, vom Kanal kehrte man nicht zurück. Wer trotzdem wiederkam, war ein wandelnder Leichnam. Vergreist und ruiniert, für keine Liebe auf der Welt mehr zu gebrauchen.“

Herta Müller (Nitzkydorf, 17 augustus 1953)
De Orthodoxe kerk van Nitzkydorf

De Ethiopische dichter en schrijver Tsegaye Gabre-Medhin werd geboren op 17 augustus 1936 in Boda bij Ambo. Zie ook alle tags voor Tsegaye Gabre-Medhin op dit blog.

Nile (Fragment)

I am the first Earth Mother of all fertility

I am the Source I am the Nile I am the African I am the beginning

O Arabia, how could you so conveniently have forgotten

While your breath still hangs upon the threads of my springs

O Egypt, you prodigal daughter born from my first love

I am your Queen of the endless fresh waters

Who rested my head upon the arms of Narmer Ka Menes

When we joined in one our Upper and Lower Lands

to create you

bosom of my being

How could you so conveniently count down

In miserable billions

of petty cubic yards

The eternal drops of my life giving Nile to you

Beginning long before the earth fell from the eye ball of heaven,

O Nile, that gush out from my breath of life

Upon the throats of the billions

of the Earth's thirsty multitudes,

O World, how could you so conveniently have forgotten

That I, your first fountain, I your ever Ethiopia

I your first life still survive for you?

I rise like the sun from the deepest core of the globe

I am the conqueror of scorching pestilences

I am the Ethiopia that "stretch her hands in supplication to

God"

I am the mother of the tallest traveler on the longest journey on Earth

Tsegaye Gabre-Medhin (17 augustus 1936 – 25 februari 2006)

De Franse schrijver en diplomaat Roger Peyrefitte werd geboren op 17 augustus 1907 in  Castres. Zie ook alle tags voor Roger Peyrefitte op dit blog.

Uit: Jeunes proies

“J’éprouvais, comme je ne l’avais jamais éprouvée, la fatalité d’un amour lié au culte d’un âge, âge qui s’envole tandis que nous le cueillons ou que nous hésitons à le cueillir. Ces formes dont l’ambiguïté va disparaître, ces joues lisses qui vont être adolescentes, cette ardeur qui se cherche et n’a pas encore trouvé l’autre sexe, ne durent qu’une saison.
« Un été suffit pour faire du gentil chevreau un bouc velu », dit une épigramme de l’Anthologie grecque. Un conteur japonais a exprimé la même idée plus poétiquement : « La beauté des jeunes garçons s’évanouit, dès que la boucle de leur front est coupée et qu’ils revêtent des robes à manches courtes. Leur amour n’est donc qu’un songe passager. » Je me rappelais également les paroles de Pausanias dans le Banquet de Platon : « Une loi devrait interdire d’aimer les jeunes garçons, pour qu’on ne gaspillât pas tant de soins à une chose incertaine. »
Cette loi est venue depuis longtemps, sous l’empire d’autres motifs, mais elle complique à peine davantage la question qui occupa, en Grèce et ailleurs, quelques raffinés. L’homme qui est soumis à cet amour, n’a pas besoin d’être menacé par les lois sociales ou religieuses : il est frappé d’une malédiction plus terrible, qui est de vivre sans amour. Il sait qu’il ne sera jamais aimé et qu’il n’aimera jamais. À moins d’être naïf ou de vouloir être dupe, se fiera-t-il à l’amour d’une « chose incertaine » et acceptera-t-il de l’aimer ? Il aura eu à envier, non seulement les amours ordinaires, mais ceux de ses pareils qui, aimant l’homme ou le jeune homme, peuvent être payés de retour. Cependant, il ne renoncera pas à ses goûts, parce qu’on ne renonce pas à soi-même. Il les savourera d’autant mieux qu’il les satisfera moins. Il les cultivera dans un autre siècle, dans une autre civilisation. Ils seront pour lui un beau rêve ou de dangereuses et piètres réalités.
De l’amour, il n’aura eu que des à peu près ou des contrefaçons ; sa part de volupté et de bonheur, il l’aura obtenue en jouant chaque fois son honneur et sa liberté. Il aura nourri son existence de plaisirs furtifs, de polissonneries d’écoliers. Resté pour la vie à l’âge de l’école, il aura été contraint d’en garder les pratiques, sans avoir l’excuse de les colorer du nom d’amitié.”

Roger Peyrefitte (17 augustus 1907 – 5 november 2000)

Zie voor nog meer schrijvers van de 17^e augustus ook mijn vorige blog van vandaag.

17-08-2013 om 14:07 geschreven door Romenu  

De Amerikaanse schrijfster Nicola Kraus werd geboren op 17 augustus 1974 in New York. Zie ook alle tags voor Nicola Kraus op dit blog.

Uit: Over you

“Outfitted in a chic pair of black riding pants, which provide the grounding she’s craving, and a cozy cashmere sweater from her awesome Etsy knitting hookup, which allows her to radiate the comfort necessary on Day One, Max slips inside Bridget’s bedroom. She has already breezed passed Mrs. Stetson with a fluid hand-off of a dozen homemade cranberry muffins and a mention of “last-minute flashcard drills.” With a quick appraisal of Bridget, Max reaches into her red bag, pulls out a stainless steel thermos, and sets it on the nightstand. She glances toward the windows across the street. Taylor’s are still dark. Good.

“Morning, Bridget. ”

As Bridget’s eyes focus on Max, Max lifts her head as if she were a wounded soldier and puts the thermos lid of espresso to Bridget’s lips. Bridget sips.

“Rule number one: caffeine is your new best friend. Liquid optimism.”

“I just . . . it hurts. So. Much.”

“Mornings and evenings are the worst,” Max says as she pulls her up to sitting to give her the Day One speech, noticing she might be saying it as much for herself this particular morning as for Bridget. “But every day there’s going to be a little window of time where you feel not just ‘barely alive’, not just ‘okay’, but positively euphoric. Winning American Idol euphoric. And that window, offering you a glimpse in which you discover you’re getting though it, is going to get longer and longer each and every day. Because your body knows that surviving this . . . elephant is going to bring you a level of strength you have not yet known. I promise. And my system will speed what organically can take months, years, to a few weeks. Today we’re aiming for about a thirty second window, okay?”

Nicola Kraus (New York, 17 augustus 1974)

Emma McLaughlin en Nicola Kraus (rechts)

De Ierse dichter en schrijver Oliver St. John Gogarty 17 augustus 1878 in Dublin. Hij werkte ook als arts, piloot. Zie ook alle tags voor  Oliver St. John Gogarty op dit blog en ook mijn blog van 17 augustus 2009 en ook mijn blog van 17 augustus 2010.

The Song of the Cheerful (but slightly sarcastic) Jesus

I'm the queerest young fellow that ever was heard.

My mother's a Jew; my father's a Bird

With Joseph the Joiner I cannot agree

So 'Here's to Disciples and Calvary.'

If anyone thinks that I amn't divine,

He gets no free drinks when I'm making the wine

But have to drink water and wish it were plain

That I make when the wine becomes water again.

My methods are new and are causing surprise:

To make the blind see I throw dust in their eyes

To signify merely there must be a cod

If the Commons will enter the Kingdomof God

Now you know I don't swim and you know I don't skate

I came down to the ferry one day and was late.

So I walked on the water and all cried, in faith!

For a Jewman it's better than having to bathe.

Whenever I enter in triumph and pass

You will find that my triumph is due to an ass

(And public support is a grand sinecure

When you once get the public to pity the poor.)

Then give up your cabin and ask them for bread

And they'll give you a stone habitation instead

With fine grounds to walk in and raincoat to wear

And the Sheep will be naked before you'll go bare.

The more men are wretched the more you will rule

But thunder out 'Sinner' to each bloody fool;

For the Kingdom of God (that's within you) begins

When you once make a fellow acknowledge he sins.

Rebellion anticipates timely by 'Hope,'

And stories of Judas and Peter the Pope

And you'll find that you'll never be left in the lurch

By children of Sorrows and Mother the Church

Goodbye, now, goodbye, you are sure to be fed

You will come on My Grave when I rise from the Dead

What's bred in the bone cannot fail me to fly

And Olivet's breezy-- Goodbye now Goodbye.

Oliver St. John Gogarty (17 augustus 1878 – 22 september 1957)

Op 21-jarige leeftijd 

De Franse dichter en schrijver Robert Sabatier werd geboren op 17 augustus 1923 in Parijs. Zie ook alle tags voor  Robert Sabatier op dit blog.

Passage de l’arbre

Un arbre passe, un homme le regarde
Et s’aperçoit que ses cheveux sont verts
Il bouge un bras tout bruissant de feuillages
Une main douce à cueillir les hivers
Lentement glisse à travers la muraille
Et forme un fruit pour caresser la mer.

Quand l’enfant vient, c’est la forêt qui parle
Il ne sait pas qu’un arbre peut parler
Il croit entendre un souvenir de sable
La vieille écorce aussi le reconnaît
Mais elle a peur de ce visage pâle.

Chacun s’éloigne – il vole quelques feuilles
Tout l’arbre bouge et jette son adieu
Pour une veine il pleure sept étoiles
Pour une étoile il a donné ses yeux
Il a jeté ses racines aux fleuves.

Les derniers cris déserteront les gorges
Quand les oiseaux ne s’y poseront plus
Quelqu’un déchire un à un les automnes
Le fils de l’arbre écarte ses bras nus
Et dit des mots pour que le vent les morde.

Robert Sabatier (17 augustus 1923 – 28 juni 2012)

De Russische dichter Anton Delvig werd geboren op 17 augustus 1798 in Moskou. Zie ook alle tags voor  Anton Delvig op dit blog.

Romance

Oh what a lovely, happy day!

There's love, the sun, the plain!

The shadows all have gone away

My heart is light again.

Wake up, you groves and fields, and see

That all is filled with life!

She's mine! - my heart is telling me,

She's mine, and all is live.

Why do you, little swallow cling

Onto to my windowpane?

Perchance, you sing about the spring

Inviting love again?

It's not for me, as I can see,

The singer's love, divine.

It is my heart who's telling me:

She's mine, oh yes she's mine!

Vertaald door Alec Vagapov

To A Bird Set Free

In the name of lovely Delia,
In the name of burning love,
Winged warbler, I give you
Freedom - Fly away!
And my beloved has dealt me
An equally happy lot:
As you owe her your freedom
I owe her my captivity.

Anton Delvig (17 augustus 1798 – 26 januari 1831)

De Poolse dichter en schrijver Józef Wittlin werd geborern in Podolien op 17 augustus 1896 in het toenmalige Oostenrijk-Hongarije. Zie ook alle tags voor  Józef Wittlin op dit blog.

Hymn of Hatred (Fragment)

And when a boy walked down the street to buy his father bread, when
he was buying
the bread
--hatred gazing upon it--
the bread turned to poison--
The boy poisoned his father... Oh what bitter bread!...
And when a farmer walked his plough (with hatred tromping through
the field)
and hatred plunges into him
like an eagle's claw
her green gaze--black clods turn to sand, blowing yellow sand...
from barren work, comes barren waste--
and worthless, miserable toil...
As a young man walks in springtime through a whispering grove, some
dreamy scented night
When from the branches a nightingale sings its gentle trill
as hatred drifts in with the wind (coming from the nearby city, whence
she has her kingdom) through the crown of trees: there he proudly
grabs a stone, briskly hurls it--
right where that bird sings--
and kills it in the tree for its pretty song...
When hatred walks along a bank, wherever there is water, pure and
spring fresh water,
be it wellspring, be it river, or pool, or lake--
when a thirsty traveler
stops and wants to drink:
hatred turns his water muddy
(from the distant city's gutter--)
let him pour a drink, a drink of city streets,
He'd grow sick from that journey, and after every day he would curse
his god!...

Józef Wittlin (17 augustus 1896 – 28 februari 1976)

De Zweedse schrijfster Fredrika Bremer werd geboren op 17 augustus 1801 in Tuorla bij Piikkiö. Zie ook alle tags voor  Frederika Bremer op dit blog.

Uit: Hertha or the Story of a Soul (Vertaald door Mary Howitt)

"And we shall always continue to be minors, if we do not go to law with our father, because it is his will that we should ever be dependent upon him, and the laws of our country forbid us to act as if we were rational, independent beings! Look, Alma, it is this injustice towards us, as women, which provokes me, not merely with my father, but with the men who make these my country's unjust laws, and with all who contrary to reason and justice maintain them, and in so doing contribute to keep us in our fettered condition. We have property which we inherit from our mother; yet can we not dispose of one single farthing of it. We are old enough to know what we desire, and to be able to take care of ourselves and others, yet at the same time we are kept as children under our father and guardian, because he chooses to consider us as such, and treat us as such. We are prohibited every action, every thought which would tend to independent activity or the opening of a future for ourselves, because our father and guardian says that we are minors, that we are children, and the law says, 'it is his right; you have nothing to say!'"

        "Yes," said Alma, "it is unjust, and harder than people think. But, nevertheless, our father means well by us, and manages our property justly and prudently with regard to our best interests."

        "And who will be the better for it? We? When we are old and stupid, and no more good for anything? See, I shall soon be twenty-seven, you are twenty-nine already, and for what have we lived?"

        Alma made no reply, and Hertha continued:

        "If we had even been able to learn anything thoroughly, and had had the liberty to put forth our powers, as young men have, I would not complain. Is it not extraordinary, Alma, that people always ask boys what they would like to be, what they have a fancy or taste for, and then give them the opportunity to learn, and to develop themselves according to the best of their minds, but they never do so with girls! “

Fredrika Bremer (17 augustus 1801 – 31 december 1865)

Portret door Johan Gustaf Sandberg, rond 1840

17-08-2013 om 13:59 geschreven door Romenu