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80 Jaar Philip
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De Amerikaanse schrijver Philip
Roth werd geboren op 19 maart 1933 in Newark. Zie ook alle tags voor Philip
Roth op dit blog. Philip Roth viert vandaag zijn 80e verjaardag.
Uit: Portnoy's
Complaint
how do they get so
gorgeous, so healthy, so blonde?
my contempt for what they believe in is more than neutralized by my adoration
of the way they look, the way they move and laugh and speak - the lives they
must lead behind those goyische
curtains! maybe a pride of shikses
is more like it - or is it a pride of shkotzim?
for these are the girls whose older brothers are the engaged, good-natured,
confident, clean, swift, and powerful halfbacks for the collage football teams
called northwestern and texas christian and ucla. their fathers are men with
white hair and deep voices who never use double negatives, and their mothers
the ladies with the kindly smiles and the wonderful manners who say things
like, "i do believe, mary, that we sold thirty-five cakes at the bake
sale." "don't be too late, dear," they sing out sweetly to their
little tulips as they go bouncing off in their bouffant taffeta dresses to the
junior prom with boys whose names are right out of the grade-school reader, not
aaron and arnold and marvin, but johnny and billy and jimmy and tod
not portnoy and
pincus, but smith and jones and brown! these people are the americans, doctor -
like henry aldrich and homer, like the great gildersleeve and his nephew LeRoy,
like corliss and veronica, like "oogie pringle" who gets to sing
beneath jane powell's window in a date wth judy - these are the people for whom
nat "king" cole sings every christmastime, "chestnits roasting
on an open fire, jack frost nipping at your nose..." an open fire, in my
house? no, no, theirs are the noses whereof he speaks. not his flat black one
or my long bumpy one, but those tiny bridgeless wonders whose nostrils point
northward automatically at birth. and stay that way for life! these are the
children from the coloring books come to life, the children they mean on the
signs we pass in union, new jersey, that say CHILDREN AT PLAY and DRIVE
CAREFULLY, WE LOVE OUR CHILDREN - these are the girls and boys who live,
"next door," the kids who are always asking for "the
jalopy" and getting into "jams" and then out of them again in
time for the final commercial - the kids whose neighbors aren't he silversteins
and the landaus, but fibber mcgee and molly, and ozzie and harriet, and ethel
and albert, and lorenzo jones and his wife belle, and jack armstrong! jack
armstrong, the all-american goy! - and jack as in john, not jack as in jake,
like my father... look, we ate our meals with the radio blaring right away through
to the dessert, the glow of the yellow station band is the last light i see
each night before sleep - so don't tell me we're just as good as anybody else,
don't tell me we're americans just like they are. no, no, these blond-haired
christians are the legitimate residents and owners of this place, and they can
pump any song they want into the streets and no one is going to stop them
either. o america! america! it may have been gold in the streets to my
grandparents, it may have been a chicken in every pot to my father and mother,
but to me, a child whose earliest movie memories are of ann rutherford and
alice faye, america is a shikse nestling under your arm whispering love love
love love love!
Philip
Roth (Newark, 19 maart 1933)
De Amerikaanse
schrijfster Lynne Sharon Schwartz werd geboren op 19 maart 1939 in New York. Zie ook
alle tags voor
Lynne
Sharon Schwartz op dit blog.
Uit: Referred Pain and
Other Stories (Heat)
When I was a young woman I had a secret
passion. At first I didn't quite grasp that it was a genuine passion. I was
married and thought I already had what I wanted. This other thing, I thought,
was just fascination and fondness. Also he was too old and a little ugly. But
as time passed I recognized it for what it was.
It was his size, first of all. Very large.
Imposing. When he got up out of a chair I could see the air shifting
deferentially to make room for him, as if the very air at his proximity
undulated in its yielding, like fabric or flesh. He was infused with gravity,
like a rooted tree or a large piece of machinery, and walked with deliberation,
as if he drew strength from the ground and was reluctant to lose touch with it.
And his darkness. His skin was leathery, his hair so black and smooth it looked
like metal. And his voice. Deep, as if it snaked up from someplace near his
groin. Deep and a trifle harsh, almost with a sneering edge. Yet full of
kindness. A kindly sneer, if such a thing is possible. And courteous, safe,
gray eyes.
He came to our house, sometimes with his
wife. He sat in the big armchair, a golden drink in his hand, his feet rooted
to the floor, his arms resting on the armrests like Lincoln in his stone chair
in his monument. He spoke in his deep, pebbly, sneering, warm voice and smoked
cigarettes, wrinkling his brow with each puff, holding the end facing inward so
I wondered how his palm didn't get burned. He befriended my young, boyish
husband, took him under his wing in their shared line of work. He was kind. And
I wanted to be near him and hear his voice.
He felt it too. He looked at me with
appreciation and desire, the kind of desire that is civilized and tamed when it
would be out of the question to let it run free. The kind of desire that in a
man of his age grows wry and ironic and mellow, yet doesn't shrivel or seep
away.
Lynne
Sharon Schwartz (New York, 19 maart 1939)
De Duitse
literatuurwetenschapper, schrijver, criticus, jurist en socioloog Hans Mayer werd geboren op 19 maart 1907 in Keulen. Zie
ook alle tags voor Hans
Mayer op dit blog.
Uit: Du störst mich nicht (Über Thomas und Heinrich Mann: Briefwechsel
1900-1949)
Im übrigen scheint Thomas allein zu dem
Älteren zu sprechen: launenhaft, übermütig, gelegentlich boshaft, dann wieder
herzlich, fast gefühlvoll. Aber dem Leser ergeht es dabei sonderbar. Heinrich
Mann ist stets präsent. Sein Schweigen, zunächst als Verlust und Zufall zu
verstehen, ist tönend; es hat Funktion in der merkwürdigen Partitur dieses
Briefwechsels. So gewinnt der Leser bei den Briefen nach 1933 nicht den
Eindruck, nun erst sei Heinrich Mann vernehmbar geworden. Er war auch vorher
stets gegenwärtig. Jeder Brief nämlich von Thomas war gegen den Älteren
gleichsam "angeschrieben" worden.
Heinrich Mann hat es gewußt. Auf dem
Höhepunkt ihrer öffentlichen und privaten Entzweiung, gegen Ende des Ersten
Weltkrieges, in einem Brief, der konzipiert, aber nicht abgeschickt wurde,
erläuterte er die Konstellation ebenso hart wie zutreffend: "Du hast, nach
allem was ich sehe, Deine Bedeutung in meinem Leben unterschätzt, was das
natürliche Gefühl betrifft, und überschätzt hinsichtlich der geistigen
Beeinflussung. Die letztere, negativ von Gestalt, ist einseitig von Dir
erlitten worden, Du mußt diese Wahrheit schon hinnehmen, es ist keine bloße
Schmähung, wie alle die mehr pathetischen als ethischen Wendungen Deines
Briefes." Worauf der Briefschreiber auch die eigene Position fixiert:
"Was mich betrifft, ich empfinde mich als durchaus selbständige
Erscheinung, und mein Welterlebnis ist kein brüderliches, sondern eben das
meine. Du störst mich nicht."
So wie er nun vorliegt, bestätigt der
Briefwechsel diese Diagnose einer brüderlich-literarischen Beziehung. Jeder
Brief Thomas Manns, selbst dort, wo er auf materielle Not eingehen muß, Schwierigkeiten
des Exils, Krankheiten, Unglücks- und Todesfälle. Literatur und Politik, steht
-- darin völlig adäquat seinem literarischen Gesamtwerk -- unter dem Motto, das
als Schlußsatz des autobiographischen Essays "Bilse und ich" schon
1906 formuliert wurde: "Nicht von Euch ist die Rede, gar niemals, seid des
nun getröstet, sondern von mir, von mir ..."
Hans Mayer
(19 maart 1907 19 mei 2001)
De Oekraïense schrijfster en dichteres Lina Kostenko werd op 19 maart
1930 geboren in Rzhyshchiv. Zie ook alle tags voor Lina Kostenko op dit blog.
Wings
But also true winged soil is not necessary.
Earth is not, it will be heaven.
No field, it will be done.
No steam, it will cloud.
This is probably true bird ...
But what about the man? And what about the man?
He lives on the ground. I do not fly.
A wing has. A wing has!
They are the wings, not down, now, "I
And of truth, virtue and trust "me.
Who - with fidelity in love.
Who - with eternal aspirations.
Who - with sincerity to work.
Who - with generosity to care.
Who - the song, or hope,
Or with poetry, or dreams.
Man allegedly does not fly ...
A wing has. A wing has!
In the days
lived sadly and simply
In the days lived sadly and simply,
Everything was as pure snow.
As a dark-eyed wonderful guest
I waited for you from roads.
You were late, came not soon.
I whiled away the time in sorrow,
And in times not good for the heart
I told someone: I love you.
Someone lifted me into the sky.
I inhaled, it was blue
And didnt dream of you anymore.
And sometimes I stopped,
Spread my hands speechless,
As if waiting for wonderful news
From the land no one knows
There is hearts expiation
To forget evil is easier,
Than what was supposed to be
But never happened in life.
Lina
Kostenko (Rzhyshchiv,
19 maart 1930)
De Ierse dichter William Allingham werd geboren op 19 maart 1824 in
Ballyshannon, Donegal. Zie ook alle tags voor
William Allingham op dit blog.
In Snow
O English mother,
in the ruddy glow
Hugging your baby closer when outside
You see the silent, soft, and cruel snow
Falling again, and think what ills betide
Unshelter'd creatures,--your sad thoughts may go
Where War and Winter now, two spectre-wolves,
Hunt in the freezing vapour that involves
Those Asian peaks of ice and gulfs below.
Does this young Soldier heed the snow that fills
His mouth and open eyes? or mind, in truth,
To-night, his mother's parting syllables?
Ha! is't a red coat?--Merely blood. Keep ruth
For others; this is but an Afghan youth
Shot by the stranger on his native hills.
William
Allingham (19 maart 1824 18 november 1889)
Ballyshannon met St
Anne's Church
Zie
voor nog meer schrijvers van de 19e maart ook mijn blog van 19 maart 2012 deel 1 en ook mijn blog van 19 maart 2011 deel 1 en eveneens deel 2.
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