De Nederlandse schrijver Godfried Bomans werd geboren in Den Haag op 2 maart 1913. Zie ook mijn blog van 2 maart 2007 ook mijn blog van 2 maart 2008. en ook mijn blog van 5 december 2009 en eveneens mijn blog van 2 maart 2009.

 

Uit: Spookjes (De bramenplukker)

 

“En zij trokken een donker woud door, zwommen twee rivieren over, sprongen over sloten en heggen, en waren bij de bramenplukker. "Bramenplukker!" riep de reiziger, "hier zijn we!" "Wat aardig!" riep de bramenplukker, "u laat er geen gras over groeien, dat moet ik zeggen. Hemeltje lief, wat hebt u daar een mensen bij u! Het zijn er wel een paar duizend! Wat gaat u daarmee beginnen?" "Wij komen de parels halen," sprak de burgemeester, naar voren tredend, "en wij gaan in het paleis wonen waar de zoldering van beweegbaar mozaïek is en de zuilen van groen smaragd. Wij komen luisteren naar de muziek en de spiegels moeten we ook hebben." "Wel, dat is heerlijk!" riep de bramenplukker, hem omhelzend, "ik ben zo blij dat jullie het ook waarderen! Dat jullie inziet hoe mooi dat alles is! Welkom, welkom! Ontbijtkoek heb ik niet zoveel, maar wel goed brood en fris water."

"Wij moeten geen ontbijtkoek," sprak de burgemeester langzaam, "wij moeten parels." "Die krijgen jullie!" riep de bramenplukker, "zoveel als je dragen kunt. Wacht tot morgen!" "Kan het niet vanavond?" vroeg de burgemeester bezorgd, "tijd is geld!" "Nee," hernam de bramenplukker hoofdschuddend, "nu is het donker. En in het donker ziet men de parels niet. Maar morgenochtend vroeg zult u eens wat zien! Gaan jullie nu wat slapen, we hebben alle tijd." "Goed," sprak de burgemeester, "slapen, mannen! We hebben alle tijd!"
De volgende morgen lagen de velden glinsterend en flikkerend onder de rode hemel; aan elke grashalm, ook de kleinste, hingen prachtige, zilveren diamanten, en toen de zon opging, veranderden deze in topazen, smaragden en blauwe saffieren, stralend van licht, flonkerend van zuiverheid, schitterender dan aardse juwelen. En daartussen stonden de mensen en spraken over de parels die nu weldra gevonden zouden worden, hele grasvelden vol. Werd nu de bramenplukker maar wakker; zij hielden de ogen strak gevestigd op de kleine deur.
Eindelijk ging zij open; de bramenplukker trad naar buiten en schouwde zwijgend over de velden; zijn ogen stonden vol tranen. "Jullie treffen het wel," sprak hij zachtjes. "Wat zegt ie?" mompelde de burgemeester. "Ik zeg: jullie treffen het wel," hernam de bramenplukker glimlachend, "zoveel parels liggen er anders nooit." "Ik zie geen parels," sprak de burgemeester. "Zien jullie geen parels?" vroeg de bramenplukker verbaasd. "Wij zien niets," riepen de mensen, "wij zien helemaal niets."

 

 

 

 

Godfried Bomans (2 maart 1913 - 22 december 1971)

Sculptuur van Wim Jonker in de Janstraat te Haarlem

 

 

 

 

De Nederlandse schrijver Multatuli (pseudoniem van Eduard Douwes Dekker werd geboren in Amsterdam op 2 maart 1820. Zie ook mijn blog van 2 maart 2007  en ook mijn blog van 2 maart 2008. en eveneens mijn blog van 2 maart 2009.

 

Uit: Ideën I

 

“Wees door de Natuur bedeeld met zucht naar kennis... maak van 't streven naar waarheid uw hoofddoel, uw eenig doel... offer alles op aan dat streven... verwaarloos alle belangen om dat ééne belang... betaal de geringe kans op slagen met uw rust, met uwe gezondheid, met uw welvaart, met alles wat een mensch offeren kàn... verlaat vrouw en kind, zeggende: Vrouwe, wat heb ik met u te doen? Kind, wat heb ik met u te doen? Ik zoek de waarheid... ziedaar myne vrouw, ziedaar het kind van m'n hart.

Trek naar de woestyn... sla u een kemelhuid om de lenden... omgord u met lederen riem... voed u met sprinkhanen en wilde honig.

Denk, peins, overweeg... twyfel... overweeg nogmaals, en weder, en nogeens... altyd door, altyd op-nieuw.

Rek uw begrip tot de uiterste grens der mogelykheid van kennen, kunnen, weten, en begrypen.

Schroef uw denkvermogen op tot de hoogste mate van bevatting.

Span uwe gedachten voor de logge vracht van alle onopgeloste vraagstukken... zweep ze voort met de kracht van uwen wil, tot raders en zeelen kraken...

Hebt ge dit alles gedaan?

Als ge dit zult gedaan hebben tot uwe ziel vermoeid is, tot uw vleesch zich afscheidt van 't gebeente...

Als ge dan eindelyk meent iets te hebben geleerd, iets te weten, iets te begrypen...

Keer dan terug uit de woestyn. Volg de inspraak van uw hart dat aandryft tot meedeeling, en zeg:

- Broeders, ik geloof deze zaak is alzoo.

- Dan zal er afscheiding zyn tusschen wie u hooren.

Een gedeelte zal roepen:

- Deze mensch is slecht.

Dit zeggen zy die nadachten over de onderwerpen welke u bezighielden, maar die niet nadachten als gy in de woestyn. Zy noemen u slecht, wyl ze vreezen dat het volk offer zal schatten boven gebrek aan offer, en inspanning nemen tot maatstaf om 't slagen te meten.

Antwoord denzulken door te wyzen op uw versleten kleed van kemelvel.

En een ander gedeelte zal bestaan uit hen die nooit hoorden van de dingen die ge overdacht, uit lieden die zich bezighielden met niets, al den tyd dien gy sleet in zoo zwaren arbeid.

En weder zullen dezen zich verdeelen.

Het eerste deel zal zeggen:

- M'nheer, net m'n idee.”

 

 

 

Multatuli (2 maart 1820 - 19 februari 1887)

 

 

 

 

De Amerikaanse schrijver en journalist Thom Wolfe werd geboren op 2 maart 1930 in Richmond, Virginia. Zie ook mijn blog van 2 maart 2007 en eveneens mijn blog van 2 maart 2009.

 

Uit: The Painted Word

 

“All these years, along with countless kindred souls, I am certain, I had made my way into the galleries of Upper Madison and Lower Soho and the Art Gildo Midway of Fifty-seventh Street, and into the museums, into the Modern, the Whitney, and the Guggenheim, the Bastard Bauhaus, the New Brutalist, and the Fountainhead Baroque, into the lowliest storefront churches and grandest Robber Baronial temples of Modernism. All these years I, like so many others, had stood in front of a thousand, two thousand, God-knows-how-many thousand Pollocks, de Koonings, Newmans, Nolands, Rothkos, Rauschenbergs, Judds, Johnses, Olitskis, Louises, Stills, Franz Klines, Frankenthalers, Kellys, and Frank Stellas, now squinting, now popping the eye sockets open, now drawing back, now moving closer--waiting, waiting, forever waiting for . . . it . . . for it to come into focus, namely, the visual reward (for so much effort) which must be there, which everyone (tout le monde) knew to be there--waiting for something to radiate directly from the paintings on these invariably pure white walls, in this room, in this moment, into my own optic chiasma. All these years, in short, I had assumed that in art, if nowhere else, seeing is believing. Well--how very shortsighted! Now, at last, on April 28, 1974, I could see. I had gotten it backward all along. Not "seeing is believing," you ninny, but "believing is seeing," for Modern Art has become completely literary: the paintings and other works exist only to illustrate the text.

Like most sudden revelations, this one left me dizzy. How could such a thing be? How could Modern Art be literary? As every art-history student is told, the Modern movement began about 1900 with a complete rejection of the literary nature of academic art, meaning the sort of realistic art which originated in the Renaissance and which the various national academies still held up as the last word.

 

 

 

Thom Wolfe (Richmond, 2 maart 1930)

 

 

 

 

De Amerikaanse schrijver John Irving werd geboren op 2 maart 1942 in Exeter, New Hampshire. Zie ook mijn blog van 2 maart 2007 en ook mijn blog van 2 maart 2008. en eveneens mijn blog van 2 maart 2009.

 

Uit: Last Night in Twisted River

 

„The young canadian, who could not have been more than fifteen, had hesitated too long. For a frozen moment, his feet had stopped moving on the floating logs in the basin above the river bend; he'd slipped entirely underwater before anyone could grab his outstretched hand. One of the loggers had reached for the youth's long hair — the older man's fingers groped around in the frigid water, which was thick, almost soupy, with sloughed-off slabs of bark. Then two logs collided hard on the would-be rescuer's arm, breaking his wrist. The carpet of moving logs had completely closed over the young Canadian, who never surfaced; not even a hand or one of his boots broke out of the brown water.

Out on a logjam, once the key log was pried loose, the river drivers had to move quickly and continually; if they paused for even a second or two, they would be pitched into the torrent. In a river drive, death among moving logs could occur from a crushing injury, before you had a chance to drown — but drowning was more common.

From the riverbank, where the cook and his twelve-year-old son could hear the cursing of the logger whose wrist had been broken, it was immediately apparent that someone was in more serious trouble than the would-be rescuer, who'd freed his injured arm and had managed to regain his footing on the flowing logs. His fellow river drivers ignored him; they moved with small, rapid steps toward shore, calling out the lost boy's name. The loggers ceaselessly prodded with their pike poles, directing the floating logs ahead of them. The rivermen were, for the most part, picking the safest way ashore, but to the cook's hopeful son it seemed that they might have been trying to create a gap of sufficient width for the young Canadian to emerge. In truth, there were now only intermittent gaps between the logs. The boy who'd told them his name was "Angel Pope, from Toronto," was that quickly gone.

"Is it Angel?" the twelve-year-old asked his father. This boy, with his dark-brown eyes and intensely serious expression, could have been mistaken for Angel's younger brother, but there was no mistaking the family resemblance that the twelve-year-old bore to his ever-watchful father. The cook had an aura of controlled apprehension about him, as if he routinely anticipated the most unforeseen disasters, and there was something about his son's seriousness that reflected this; in fact, the boy looked so much like his father that several of the woodsmen had expressed their surprise that the son didn't also walk with his dad's pronounced limp.“

 

 

 

John Irving (Exeter, 2 maart 1942)

 

 

 

 

De Amerikaanse dichter en performer Michael Salinger werd geboren op 2 maart 1962 in Cleveland, Ohio. Zie ook mijn blog van 2 maart 2009.

 

Stingray (Fragment)

 

The young man believed

he had hooked an angel

shark

line ripping from his bait casting real

drag click whizzing away

a New Year's Eve noisemaker

attached to an electric drill

the rest of the anglers

at his end of the pier

grabbing their gear

clearing way

to watch this fight

big fish

big fish

 

big fish on

passes

tide steady

down 600 foot fishing pier

as tackle lay abandoned

on wheather cured panks

so that the owners

could  catch this show

50 pound test line

stretching tight

gutteral cvat howling

like an out of tune violin

while the young man

repels down a mountainside

back leaning with all his weight

gaining three feet

giving up

two

towed from one rough hewn railing

to the other

for three tortuous quarters of an hour

before we even see

the fish

 

 

 

 

Michael Salinger (Cleveland, 2 maart 1962)

Zie voor nog meer schrijvers van de 2e maart ook mijn vorige blog van vandaag.

De Franse schrijver en letterkundige Pascal Rannou werd geboren op 2 maart 1958 in Laval. Zie ook mijn blog van 2 maart 2009.

 

Uit: Noire la neige

 

«Lavaida !... Non, Alvaida !... Zut, Valaida !...» Trois frimousses pouffent de rire et se cachent derrière leurs pupitres relevés. Maîtresse n'en peut plus. «Bon sang ! A-t-on idée de donner à trois soeurs des prénoms si semblables ! Je m'y perds, moi ! Lavaida !» Le pupitre se baisse et l'aînée apparaît, joli visage long et bien dessiné, petit nez mutin et tresses bouclées.
«Oui, m'dame !
- Viens donc me faire cette division, que les autres comprennent !»
Le groupe se tait, car Lavaida est la plus avancée, et son intelligence impose le respect. L'école est une baraque de planches et de tôles, située dans les bas quartiers de Chicounago, faubourg de Chattanooga. C'est même curieux qu'il y ait une école. Quand elle a ouvert, les blancs du coin ont haussé les épaules : «Une école pour nègres ! Ça sert à rien, sont incapables d'apprendre à lire... tout juste bons à tapiner et à brailler leur damné blues», a éructé Jim Crow. Sûr que si les blancs avaient dû cracher au bassinet, il y aurait eu des manifs, et même des lynchages. Mais l'école est financée par un couple de philanthropes, des blancs, Mr et Mrs Lawson, un pasteur presbytérien et sa femme qui se sont un peu enrichis en étant les premiers, dans le Tennessee, à proposer des spectacles de cinéma ambulant. Le public se rassemble dans ces granges qu'on appelle Odeon Nickel, puisqu'on y entre pour quelques sous, et assiste le plus souvent debout aux projections. Les plus chanceux s'asseyent sur des bottes de paille, les enfants s'accroupissent au premier rang. Vers 1910, le cinéma est encore balbutiant, mais le public en raffole. Le pasteur noir, Mr Cooke, et parfois aussi Ma', quand les tournées familiales lui en laissent le temps, accompagnent au piano les images muettes : films burlesques ou sentimentaux, actualités ou dessins animés. Quand Ma' joue, on a le droit d'y aller. On est accroupies auprès d'elle, et le rythme sautillant des ragtimes nous ravit.“

 

 

 

 

Pascal Rannou (Laval, 2 maart 1958)

 

 

 

 

De Hongaarse dichter János Arany werd geboren op 2 maart 1817 in Nagyszalonta. Zie ook mijn blog van 2 maart 2007 en ook mijn blog van 2 maart 2009.

 

 

Auf dem Friedhof

 

Hier ist das stille Gräberfeld,
wo Pietät die Wache hält,
sie schützt den Schlaf der Toten.
Die Hügel grünen in der Au,
die Nachwelt zahlt den Zoll genau
auf wohlbestelltem Boden.

 

Wohl ein Jahrhundert ist es jetzt,
seitdem man hier die Bäumchen setzt,
die mit den Blütenkerzen.
Grabkreuze werden aus dem Wald,
sie mehren sich erstaunlich bald,
so wie gebrochne Herzen.

 

 

Vertaald door Géza Engl

 

 

 

Dieses Leben

 

Ein Gelage ist dies Leben:
Auch du mußt dein Glas erheben,
Freud und Leid gilt es zu grüßen,
sei's vom Sauren, sei's vom Süßen.

 

Trinke wie aus tiefster Brust,
Lust folgt Leid und Leid folgt Lust.
Viele schlürften wild das Naß,
wenige wie ich mit Maß.

 

Die mit mir beim Wein gesessen,
liegen drunten schon indessen,
ich, der stets den Rausch vermieden,
halt den Platz, der mir beschieden.

 

Blick ich auf die Trümmerreste,
scheinen öd mir solche Feste!
Trank ich denn nicht zur Genüge,
daß ich nicht dort unten liege?

 

 

 

 

Vertaald door Annemarie Bostroem

 

 

 

 

János Arany (2 maart 1817 – 22 oktober 1882)

Standbeeld in Boedapest

 

 

 

 

De Russische dichter Jevgeni Baratynski werd geboren op 2 maart 1800 in Sint Petersburg. Zie ook mijn blog van 2 maart 2007 en ook mijn blog van 2 maart 2009.

 

 

The Skull

 

Departed brother, who has disturbed your sleep

And trampled on the sanctity of the tomb?

Into your house, all dug up, I stepped down —

I took your skull in my hands, dusty and yellow.

 

The remnants of your hair — it wore them still.

I saw the slow course of decay upon it.

Horrible sight! How powerfully it struck

The sensible inheritor of that ruin.

 

Along with me a crowd of mindless youths

Above the open pit laughed mindlessly.

If only then, if only in my hands

Your head had burst forth into prophecy!

 

If only it had taught us — rash, in bloom,

And menaced hourly by the hour of death —

The truths that lie within the ken of tombs,

Uttering them in its impassive voice!

 

What am I saying? A hundred times is blessed

That law which has embalmed its lips in silence.

And righteous is that custom which demands

Respect for the solemn sleep of the departed.

 

Let the living live! Let the dead decay in peace!

O man, worthless creation of the Almighty,

Recognize finally that you were made

Neither for wisdom nor for omniscience!

 

We need our passions as we need our dreams.

They are the law and nourishment of our being:

You will not bring under the selfsame laws

The noise of the world and the silence of the graveyard.

 

Wise men will not extinguish natural feelings.

The answer they search for no grave shall supply.

Let life bestow its joys upon the living —

And death itself will teach them how to die.

 

 

 

 Vertaald door Ilya Bernstein

 

 

 

 

Jevgeni Baratynski (2 maart 1800 – 11 juli 1844)

 

 

 

De Russisch-joodse schrijver Sholom Aleichem werd geboren in Pereyslav bij Kiev op 2 maart 1859. Zie ook mijn blog van 2 maart 2009.

 

Uit: Wandering Stars (Vertaald door Aliza Shevrin)

 

„After the meal, and after Sholom-Meyer’s little speech, and after the cantor’s wife had cleared the table and the cantor said grace, the director felt it was time to get to the matter for which they had come. First he lifted his top hat, revealing a large bald pate, smoothed his fringe of pomaded hair, and wiped the sweat from his forehead. Then he began speaking. By nature he was a man of few words, but once he got going, it was hard for him to stop himself. His tongue would carry him off God knew where, so that he often ended up saying things he didn’t intend. Sholom-Meyer, his right-hand man, knowing his weakness, would try to take over, but the director would persist in speaking in his own style.

“You must understand, dear cantor,” Shchupak began, “that this is the way it is. Listen, I myself was once a cantor’s chorister. Actually I carried the slop pot. I mean I sang. I had a true soprano voice and caught more than a few slaps — I helped out on the pulpit. Then I went out on my own, sang at weddings, circumcisions, and pidyon habens chanting a kol m’koydesh that I had actually composed by myself. You should see this book full of my songs with my portrait on the cover. My kol m’koydesh goes like this, just listen.”

 

He began to warble:

 

Kol m’koydesh [Tzipkele my wife],

Sh’vii [may the devil take you],

K’rui lo [this very night!]

 

Albert Shchupak was into his role. He was preparing to sing kol m’koydesh in another key when Sholom-Meyer signaled him with a kick under the table that the sooner he stopped the better. Then Sholom-Meyer began explaining in plain words to the cantor exactly why they had come.“

 

 

 

Sholom Aleichem (2 maart 1859 - 13 mei 1916)

Standbeeld in Kiev

 

 

 

 

De Britse schrijfster Olivia Manning werd geboren op 2 maart 1908 in Portsmouth. Zie ook mijn blog van 2 maart 2009.

 

Uit: The Balkan Trilogy (The spoilt city)

 

„„One morning, while the city quivered like a mirage in the August heat, Harriet came face to face with Bella in the Calea Victoriei. Bella gave a smile and hurried into a shop. So she had not gone to Sinai after all, but had remained here, like everyone else, the prisoner of uncertainty and fear.

The Rome Conference had broken down. This time no one imagined that that was the end of the matter. There would be another conference. When it was announced, there was no stir and no more talk of defiance. The new Cabinet had announced complete fealty to the Führer and the Führer required a peaceful settlement. A settlement of any kind could only mean Rumania’s loss. Around the cafés and bars this fact was beginning to be accepted with a half-humorous resignation. What else was there to do? Yakimov, inspired by the tenor of conversation about him, had thought up a little joke. “Quel débâcle!” he said whenever opportunity arose: “As you walk cracks appear on the pavement,” and even Hadjimoscos had not the heart to snub him.

The young men still stood with their banners on the palace pavement, supported now by an admiring crowd. As for the King, having made his speech, his declaration of constancy, he had retired into silence, and a song was being sung which David did his best to put into English verse:

 

“They can have Bessarabia. We don’t like corn.

The best wheaten bread’s the stuff in our New Dawn.

Let them have the Dobrudja. Ma’s palace, anyway,

Has been sold to the nation for a million million lei.

 

Who wants Transylvania? Give it ’em on a plate.

Let them take what they damn well like. I’ll not abdicate”

The last phrase “Eu nu abdic” was the slogan of the moment. Jokes were told and the point was “Eu nu abdic”. Riddles were asked and the answer was always “Eu nu abdic”. However recondite, it was the smartest retort to any request or inquiry. It always raised a laugh.“

 

 

 

 

Olivia Manning (2 maart 1908 - 23 juli 1980)

 

 

 

 

De Duitse dichter en schrijver Gerhard Anton von Halem werd geboren op 2 maart 1752 in Oldenburg. Zie ook mijn blog van 2 maart 2009.

 

Eifersucht

 

Du, Eifersucht, wärst Amors Kind?
So sei von mir bewundert.
Dein Vater, sagt man, ist blind;
Du hast der Augen hundert.

 

 

 

 

Gerhard Anton von Halem (2 maart 1752 – 4 januari 1819)

 

De Nederlandse dichter, vertaler en journalist Jan Eijkelboom werd op 1 maart 1926 in Ridderkerk geboren. Zie ook mijn blog van 1 maart 2008 en ook mijn blog van 28 februari 2008 en ook mijn blog van 1 maart 2009.

 

 

Sluitertijd

 

Zie de afbladderende dichter.

Heb ik het goed? Kijkt hij

vanuit die plooien, de gelaagdheid

van aanzicht en overjas

nog steeds de lens tegemoet?

 

Zal ik hem vertellen hoe het

eindtraject moet worden afgelegd?

Ach, je gelooft je ogen niet

en wat hij zegt of prevelt

gaat ook al op de prent verloren -

 

De plek heeft hij zelf uitgekozen.

Een dichtgemetseld godshuis.

Maar in verweerde steen en brokkelige

kalk schuilt een betekenis

die nog verwoord wil zijn

wie weet nog uitgelegd.

 

 

 

 

Dreamtime

 

Er is geen begin en het einde is zoek.

 

Moge het sterven sereen zijn

toch zet het zich voort

in het bloedbad van een geboorte,

de geboorte van iemand anders dan,

dat valt niet te ontkennen.

 

Maar in het leven is ons gegeven

te doen alsof er geen dood was,

niet met de kop in het zand

maar juist op de uitkijk

naar weer een ander land,

een te bevaren kust.

 

En onderweg vermaan je nog een kind

dat zegt dat het zich dood verveelt:

ga in gods naam wat doen.

En het kind roept: maar ik bèn er toch?

 

Liefst zijn ook wij ons van geen kwaad bewust.

 

 

 

 

Lege kerk 1

 

Het hoog karkas, de nutteloze ruimte,

preekstoel en orgel afgedekt, een leegte

die het licht naar binnen zuigt.

 

De jongen die daar zat op bikkelharde,

nu weggehaalde banken, verzon eens

hoe je slingerend van lichtkroon

 

naar lichtkroon als Tarzan kon ontkomen

aan 't herderlijke dwangbevel

dat onder hem de kudde deed verstarren.

 

Wat bleef is een afwezigheid

die heel die ruimte vult en reikt

tot aan het tongewelf, het schedeldak

 

van wie hier staat en ongeschonden

straks weer het heiligdom verlaat.

 

 

 

 

Jan Eijkelboom (1 maart 1926 – 28 februari 2008)

 

 

 

 

De Oostenrijkse schrijver, dichter en schilder Franzobel werd geboren op 1 maart 1967 in Vöcklabruck. Zie ook mijn blog van 1 maart 2007 en ook mijn blog van 28 februari 2008 en ook mijn blog van 1 maart 2009.

 

 

Deutschland marschiert

 

Es dampfte das Entgegenkommen, Mensch

mit Wandervereinen, Pokalen gesteinigt,

als man noch schlechte Kragenknöpfe hatte,

mit Schmerzen ging, um die Zehen Watte,

da man noch nichts von Pediküre geahnt,

Blasen, als ob das Erdreich jählings zerrisse

und Schritte linkshin zur Fläche

ekligen Leichnams Schwarzfinsternis,

Gesichter, todmüde, fertig die Nacht,

die halbvollen aus unendlichen Rücken

kommenden Blasen, die stinken im Schritt

und faulend noch schreien:

Deutschland marschiert.

 

 

 

 

Autoscooter/Loveparade: Sehne

 

Wie Sehnen, Sucht und See  
Schnecken tief im Gras wie  
Füße hat es nie gegeben,  
keine Sonne, Flüstern nicht,  
Milchgefühl, mit Abstand,  
Blümchenmuster wie wir sind  
unnahbar, Zuseher und/oder was  
hat uns gestülpt. Heraus.  

 

 

 

 

Franzobel (Vöcklabruck, 1 maart 1967)

 

 

 

 

De Engelse schrijver Jim Crace werd geboren op 1 maart 1946 in St. Albans, Hertfordshire. Zie ook mijn blog van 1 maart 2009.

 

Uit: The Pesthouse

 

„Everybody died at night. Most were sleeping at the time, the lucky ones who were too tired or drunk or deaf or wrapped too tightly in their spreads to hear the hillside, destabilized by rain, collapse and slip beneath the waters of the lake. So these sleepers (six or seven hundred, at a guess; no-one ever came to count or claim the dead) breathed their last in passive company, unwarned and unexpectedly, without experiencing the fear. Their final moments, dormant in America.

But there are always some awake in the small times of the morning, the love-makers, for instance, the night workers, the ones with stone hard beds or aching backs, the ones with nagging consciences or bladders, the sick. And animals, of course.

The first of that community to die were the horses and the mules, which the travelers had picketed and blanketed against the cold out in the tetherings, between the houses and the lake, and beyond the human safety of stockades. They must have heard the landslide – they were so close and unprotected – though it was not especially bulky, not bulky enough, probably, to cause much damage on its own. In the time that it would take to draw a breath and yawn, there was a muted stony splash accompanied by a barometric pop, a lesser set of sounds than thunder, but low and devious, nevertheless, and worrying – for how could anyone not know by now how mischievous the world could be? The older horses, connoisseurs of one-night stands when everything was devious and worrying, were too weary after yet another day of heading dawnways, shifting carts, freight and passengers, to do much more than tic their ears and flare their nostrils. Even when, a moment later, the displaced waters of the lake produced a sloshing set of boisterous waves where there had not been any waves before, the full-growns would not even raise their heads. But the younger horses and the ever-childish mules tugged against their ropes, and one or two even broke free but hadn’t the foresight to seek high ground in the brief time that remained.“

 

 

 

 

Jim Crace (St. Albans, 1 maart 1946)


Zie voor nog meer schrijvers van de 1e maart en de 29e februari ook mijn vorige drie blogs van vandaag.

De Zwitserse schrijver, cabaretier en liedjesmaker Franz Hohler werd geboren op 1 maart 1943 in Biel. Zie ook mijn blog van 1 maart 2009.

 

Uit: Die Steinflut

 

„Als die siebenjährige Katharina Disch mit ihrem vierjährigen Bruder Kaspar am Freitag, dem 9. September 1881 das Haus ihrer Großmutter betrat, wußte sie nicht, daß sie erst wieder bei ihrer Hochzeit von hier weggehen würde.

Ihr Vater hatte sie für ein paar Tage weggeschickt, weil die Geburt eines Kindes bevorstand, und ohne

Widerspruch hatte Katharina das Bündelchen mit den beiden Nachtgewändern und etwas Leibwäsche, das ihre älteste Schwester Anna bereitgemacht hatte, genommen, hatte noch ihre Holzpuppe Lisi so hineingesteckt, daß sie mit dem Kopf herausschaute, und war dann mit Kaspar

an der Hand aufgebrochen. Sie war froh, daß sie nicht daheim bleiben mußte.

Wie verändert war ihr die Mutter beim Abschied vorgekommen!

Sie lag im Schlafzimmer im oberen Stock, ihre Haare, die sie sonst immer aufgesteckt hatte, waren

offen über das Kissen ausgebreitet und hingen sogar über den Bettrand hinunter, sie war bleich und schwitzte, von Zeit zu Zeit preßte sie die Lippen zusammen, kniff die Augen zu und drückte mit beiden Händen auf die Bettdecke, unter der sich ihr Bauch wölbte. Katharina wollte ihr nur schnell von der Türschwelle aus auf Wiedersehn sagen, aber die Mutter winkte sie zu sich heran, strich ihr mit ihrer Hand, die ganz kalt war, über die Haare und sagte leise, sie solle die Großmutter grüßen, und sobald ihr neues Geschwisterehen da sei, werde sie jemanden schicken. Dann drehte sie sich tief einatmend

zur Seite, griff in die Schublade des Nachttischchens, holte einige gedörrte Zwetschgen heraus und gab sie ihrer Tochter mit, »für unterwegs, für dich und Kaspar«,

fügte sie hinzu und versuchte zu lächeln. Katharina steckte sie schnell in die Tasche ihrer Schürze, blieb stumm stehen und suchte immer noch mit den Augen die Mutter, die sie kannte und die derjenigen, die dalag, so wenig glich. »Muesch ke Angscht ha«, flüsterte ihr die Frau aus dem Bett zu, legte sich wieder auf den Rücken und schloß ihre Augen.“

 

 

 

 

Franz Hohler (Biel, 1 maart 1943)

 

 

 

 

De Franstalige, Zwitserse schrijver Jacques Chessex werd geboren op 1 maart 1934 in Payerne. Zie ook mijn blog van 1 maart 2009.

 

Uit: Le vampire de Ropraz

 

„Ropraz, dans le Haut-Jorat vaudois, 1903. C'est un pays de loups et d'abandon au début du vingtième siècle, mal desservi par les transports publics à deux heures de Lausanne, perché sur une haute côte au-dessus de la route de Berne bordée d'opaques forêts de sapins. Habitations souvent disséminées dans des déserts cernés d'arbres sombres, villages étroits aux maisons basses. Les idées ne circulent pas, la tradition pèse, l'hygiène moderne est inconnue. Avarice, cruauté, superstition, on n'est pas loin de la frontière de Fribourg où foisonne la sorcellerie. On se pend beaucoup, dans les fermes du Haut-Jorat. A la grange. Aux poutres faîtières. On garde une arme chargée à l'écurie ou à la cave. Sous prétexte de chasse ou de braconne on choie poudre, chevrotine, gros pièges à dents de fer, lames affûtées à la meule à faux. La peur qui rôde. A la nuit on dit les prières de conjuration ou d'exorcisme. On est durement protestants mais on se signe à l'apparition des monstres que dessine le brouillard. Avec la neige, le loup revient. Il n'y a pas si longtemps qu'on a tué le dernier, en 1881, sa dépouille empaillée s'empoussière à douze kilomètres dans une vitrine du musée du Vieux-Moudon. Et l'horrible ours venu du Jura. Il a éventré des génisses il n'y a pas quarante ans dans les gorges de la Mérine. Les vieux s'en souviennent, ils ne rient pas à Ropraz ni à Ussières. Au temps de Voltaire, qui a habité le château d'en bas, au hameau d'Ussières, les brigands attendaient sur la route principale, celle de Berne, des Allemagnes, plus tard les soldats revenus des guerres de la Grande Armée rançonnaient les honnêtes gens. On fait très attention quand on engage un trimardeur pour la moisson ou la pomme de terre. C'est l'étranger, le fouineur, le voleur. Anneau à l'oreille, sournois, le laguiole glissé dans la botte.“

 

 

 

 

Jacques Chessex (1 maart 1934 – 9 oktober 2009)

 

 

 

 

De Britse schrijver Giles Lytton Strachey werd geboren op 1 maart 1880 in Londen. Zie ook mijn blog van 1 maart 2007 en ook mijn blog van 28 februari 2008 en ook mijn blog van 1 maart 2009.

 

Uit: Lytton Strachey (Biografie door R. A. Scott-James)

 

„MANNING was now thirty-eight, and it was clear that  he was the rising man in the Church of England.'  Eminent Victorians, from which these words are  quoted, appeared in 1918, when Lytton Strachey himself  was thirty-eight and was recognized as a rising man -- perhaps  the rising man -- in the world of letters. Frank Swinnerton  has said that he and another publisher's reader, Geoffrey  Whitworth, 'were as excited before publication as the world  was after it'. Augustine Birrell responded as wit to wit; the  Liberal leader, Asquith, in his Romanes Lecture spoke of  'Mr. Strachey's subtle and suggestive art'. In the fourth  year of war this provocative book vied with the war itself  as a topic of conversation. It delighted and it scandalized.
By some it was admired for its subtle portraiture, its deft  handling of the theme, its irony, its flexible prose. Others  were thrilled by this cool attack, this scathing flanking movement, against old idols of the market-place already slightly  discredited by the Edwardians and now sufficiently demoded
to invite hue and cry. Later, Strachey was to write a more  important and equally entertaining book, Queen Victoria,  but it was Eminent Victorians which made his name and fixed  his reputation; and by that more than anything else he has  been judged and often misjudged.

He was acclaimed as a new writer, but he was not a new  writer. He had been almost continuously contributing articles  to weeklies, monthlies, or quarterlies for over fourteen years,  and a piece of masterly critical writing, Landmarks in French  Literature, had appeared in book form in 1912 -- but hardly  anybody at that time read it. He is perhaps generally thought  of as a man of letters belonging essentially to the decade that  followed the Great War -- that period of disillusion and  clever flippancy, ingenious experiment and delicate fantasy,  unsentimental, anti-romantic, playfully frank, and gracefully uninsistent upon anything too serious.“

 

 

 

Lytton Strachey (1 maart 1880 – 21 januari 1932)

Buste van Stephen Tomlin

 

 

 

 

De Japanse dichter en schrijver Ryūnosuke Akutagawa werd geboren op 1 maart 1892 in Tokio. Zie ook mijn blog van 1 maart 2009.

 

Uit: Rashomon

 

"I'm taking this hair… I'm taking this woman's hair to… Well, I thought I'd make a wig."

The servant was disappointed that the old woman's answer was so unexpectedly dull. Along with the disappointment, those old feelings of hatred and contempt came flooding back to him. And somehow, he must have conveyed these feelings to the old woman. With the hairs she had stolen from the corpse still clutched in one hand, she mumbled in a raspy, toadish voice:

"I see. Well, perhaps it is immoral to pull out the hairs of the dead. But these corpses up here—all of them—they were just the sort of people who wouldn't have minded. In fact, this woman whose hair I was just pulling out a moment ago—she used to cut snakes into 5-inch pieces, dry them, and go sell them at the camp of the crown prince's palace guard, saying it was dried fish. If she hadn't died in the plague, she would probably still be going there now. And yet, the guards said this woman's dried fish tasted good, and they always bought it to go with their rice. I don't think what she did was immoral. If she hadn't done it, she would have starved to death, so, she just did what she had to. And this woman, who understood so well these things we have to do, would probably forgive me for what I'm doing to her too."

 

 

 

Ryūnosuke Akutagawa (2 maart 1892 – 24 juli 1927)

De Franse schrijver Jean-Edern Hallier werd geboren op 1 maart 1936 in Saint-Germain-en-Laye. Zie ook mijn blog van 1 maart 2009.

 

Uit: Un barbare en Asie du Sud-Est

 

« Et comment aurait-on pu, après la paix de Genève, en 1975, penser que l’Asie du Sud-Est intéresserait encore ? Las, les conséquences de la fin de la guerre du Vietnam et de la défaite des Américains auront été incalculables : tout un sous-continent, en proie à l’érosion interne et à un formidable glissement de terrain, est en train de s’effondrer comme une falaise d’où nous contemplerions paisiblement l’océan, assis tout en haut, tandis que les vagues invisibles la minent implacablement en dessous. Boat-people, pirates, réfugiés, famine au Cambodge, colonie de peuplement, nouveau capitalisme sauvage chinois, montée de l’Islam sont autant d’intersignes - termes désignant dans les légendes de la mort de Basse Bretagne les mauvais présages - de ce prochain changement de la carte du monde, sur de vastes territoires, qu’aucun traité de Yalta n’aura fixé… »

 

 

 

 

Jean-Edern Hallier (1 maart 1936 – 12 januari 1997)

 

 

 

De Amerikaanse dichter, schrijver en criticus William Dean Howells werd geboren op 1 maart 1837 in Martinsville, Ohio. Zie ook mijn blog van 1 maart 2009.

 

 

Tomorrow

 

Old fraud, I know you in that gay disguise,

That air of hope, that promise of surprise:

Beneath your bravery, as you come this way,

I see the sordid presence of Today;

And I shall see there, before you are gone,

All the dull Yesterdays that I have known.

 

 

 

 

Earliest Spring

 

Tossing his mane of snows in wildest eddies and tangles,

Lion-like March cometh in, hoarse, with tempestuous breath,

Through all the moaning chimneys, and 'thwart all the hollows and

angles

Round the shuddering house, threating of winter and death.

 

But in my heart I feel the life of the wood and the meadow

Thrilling the pulses that own kindred with fibres that lift

Bud and blade to the sunward, within the inscrutable shadow,

Deep in the oak's chill core, under the gathering drift.

 

Nay, to earth's life in mine some prescience, or dream, or desire

(How shall I name it aright?) comes for a moment and goes--

Rapture of life ineffable, perfect--as if in the brier,

Leafless there by my door, trembled a sense of the rose.

 

 

 

 

William Dean Howells (1 maart 1837 – 11 mei 1920)

 

 

 

 

De Mauritiaanse dichter, schrijver en journalist Marcel Cabon werd geboren op 29 februari 1912 in Curepipe. Zie ook mijn blog van 1 maart 2009.

 

 

 

Kélibé-Kéliba (Fragment)

 

Une coiffure de plumes.

Kélibé-Kéliba.

Une coiffure de plumes,

des reins plus souples que le feu.

 

Des bracelets de coquillages

Kélibé-Kéliba,

des bracelets de coquillages,

des reins plus souples que le feu.

 

Des nattes de passiava.

Kélibé-kéliba,

des nattes de passiava,

des reins plus souples que le feu.

 

Et dans mes bras ma Kélibé.

 

Et dans tes bras ta kéliba.

 

Et dans mes bras ma Kélibé.

 

Et le vieux roi d'Asakali

qui avait perdu sa couronne

disait à la veuve jolie

qu'il avait prise dans ses bras:

"Hâtons-nous d'aimer:l'heure est douce.

Hatons-nous d'aimer:l'heure est brêve..."

 

 

 

 

Marcel Cabon
(29 februari 1912 – 31 januari 1972)

 

 

 

 

De Engelse dichter en vertaler  John Byrom werd geboren op 29 februari 1692 in Manchester. Zie ook mijn blog van 29 februari 2008 en ook mijn blog van 1 maart 2009.

 

 

Uit: Miscellaneous Poems

 

"God bless the King, I mean the Faith's Defender;
God bless - no harm in blessing - the Pretender;
But who Pretender is, or who is King,
God bless us all - that's quite another thing."

 

 

 

 

John Byrom (29 februari 1692 – 26 september 1763)

 

 

 

 

De Spaans-Amerikaanse schrijfster en dichteres Mercedes de Acosta werd geboren op 1 maart 1893 in New York. Zie ook mijn blog van 1 maart 2007 en ook mijn blog van 1 maart 2009.

 

 Uit: Here Lies the Heart

 

„In Madras I hired a car, and so anxious was I to arrive in Tiruvannamalai that I did not go to bed and traveled by night, arriving about seven o'clock in the morning after driving almost eleven hours. I was very tired as I got out of the car in a small square in front of the temple [Arunachaleswara Temple]. The driver explained he could take me no farther. I turned toward the hill of Arunachala and hurried in the hot sun along the dust-covered road to the abode about two miles from town where the Sage dwelt. As I ran those two miles, deeply within myself I knew that I was running toward the greatest experience of my life.When, dazed and filled with emotion, I first entered the hall, I did not quite know what to do. Coming from strong sunlight into the somewhat darkened hall, it was, at first, difficult to see; nevertheless, I perceived Bhagavan at once, sitting in the Buddha posture on his couch in the corner. At the same moment I felt overcome by some strong power in the hall, as if an invisible wind was pushing violently against me. For a moment I felt dizzy. Then I recovered myself. To my great surprise I suddenly heard an American voice calling out to me, "Hello, come in." It was the voice of an American named Guy Hague, who originally came from Long Beach, California. He told me later that he had been honorably discharged from the American Navy in the Philippines and had then worked his way to India, taking up the study of yoga when he reached Bombay. Then he heard about Sri Ramana Maharshi and, feeling greatly drawn to him, decided to go to Tiruvannamalai. When I met him he had already been with the Maharshi for a year, sitting uninterruptedly day and night in the hall with the sage.”

 

 

 

 

Mercedes de Acosta (1 maart 1893 – 9 mei 1968)

De Amerikaanse dichter Robert Traill Spence Lowell werd geboren op 1 maart 1917 in Boston. Zie ook mijn blog van 1 maart 2007 en ook mijn blog van 28 februari 2008 en ook mijn blog van 1 maart 2009.

 

 

Waking in the Blue 

 

The night attendant, a B.U. sophomore,

rouses from the mare's-nest of his drowsy head

propped on The Meaning of Meaning.

He catwalks down our corridor.

Azure day

makes my agonized blue window bleaker.

Crows maunder on the petrified fairway.

Absence! My hearts grows tense

as though a harpoon were sparring for the kill.

(This is the house for the "mentally ill.")

 

What use is my sense of humour?

I grin at Stanley, now sunk in his sixties,

once a Harvard all-American fullback,

(if such were possible!)

still hoarding the build of a boy in his twenties,

as he soaks, a ramrod

with a muscle of a seal

in his long tub,

vaguely urinous from the Victorian plumbing.

A kingly granite profile in a crimson gold-cap,

worn all day, all night,

he thinks only of his figure,

of slimming on sherbert and ginger ale--

more cut off from words than a seal.

This is the way day breaks in Bowditch Hall at McLean's;

the hooded night lights bring out "Bobbie,"

Porcellian '29,

a replica of Louis XVI

without the wig--

redolent and roly-poly as a sperm whale,

as he swashbuckles about in his birthday suit

and horses at chairs.

 

These victorious figures of bravado ossified young.

 

In between the limits of day,

hours and hours go by under the crew haircuts

and slightly too little nonsensical bachelor twinkle

of the Roman Catholic attendants.

(There are no Mayflower

screwballs in the Catholic Church.)

 

After a hearty New England breakfast,

I weigh two hundred pounds

this morning. Cock of the walk,

I strut in my turtle-necked French sailor's jersey

before the metal shaving mirrors,

and see the shaky future grow familiar

in the pinched, indigenous faces

of these thoroughbred mental cases,

twice my age and half my weight.

We are all old-timers,

each of us holds a locked razor.

 

 

 

 

Robert Lowell (1 maart 1917 - 12 September 1977)

 

 

 

 

De Amerikaanse dichter Richard Wilbur werd geboren op 1 maart 1921 in New York. Zie ook mijn blog van 1 maart 2007 en ook mijn blog van 28 februari 2008 en ook mijn blog van 1 maart 2009.

 

 

Boy at the Window 

 

Seeing the snowman standing all alone

In dusk and cold is more than he can bear.

The small boy weeps to hear the wind prepare

A night of gnashings and enormous moan.

His tearful sight can hardly reach to where

The pale-faced figure with bitumen eyes

Returns him such a God-forsaken stare

As outcast Adam gave to paradise.

 

The man of snow is, nonetheless, content,

Having no wish to go inside and die.

Still, he is moved to see the youngster cry.

Though frozen water is his element,

He melts enough to drop from one soft eye

A trickle of the purest rain, a tear

For the child at the bright pane surrounded by

Such warmth, such light, such love, and so much fear.

 

 

 

 

The Beautiful Changes 

 

One wading a Fall meadow finds on all sides

The Queen Anne's Lace lying like lilies

On water; it glides

So from the walker, it turns

Dry grass to a lake, as the slightest shade of you

Valleys my mind in fabulous blue Lucernes.

 

The beautiful changes as a forest is changed

By a chameleon's tuning his skin to it;

As a mantis, arranged

On a green leaf, grows

Into it, makes the leaf leafier, and proves

Any greenness is greener than anyone knows.

 

Your hands hold roses always in a way that says

They are not only yours; the beautiful changes

In such kind ways,

Wishing ever to sunder

Things and Thing's selves for a second finding, to lose

For a moment all that it touches back to wonder.

 

 

 

 

Richard Wilbur (New York, 1 maart 1921)

 

 

 

 

De Amerikaanse dichter, schrijver, acteur, rapper en musicus Saul Stacey Williams werd geboren in

Newburgh, New York op 29 februari 1972. Zie ook mijn blog van 28 februari 2008 en ook mijn blog van 1 maart 2009.

 

 

She (Fragment)

 

i presented
my feminine side
with flowers

she cut the stems
and placed them gently
down my throat

and these tu lips
might soon eclipse
your brightest hopes

 

***

she had nothing
but time on her hands:
silver rings, turquoise stones
and purple nails

i rubbed my thumb
across her palm:
a featherbed
where slept a psalm

yea, though i walk
i used to fly
and now we dance

i watched
my toenails blacken
and walked a deadened trance

until she woke me
with the knife edge
of her glance

i have the scars to prove
the clock strikes
with her hands

 

 

 

Saul Williams (Newburgh, 29 februari 1972)

 

 

 

 

De Afro-Amerikaanse schrijver Ralph (Waldo) Ellison werd geboren in Oklahoma City op 1 maart 1913. Zie ook mijn blog van 1 maart 2007 en ook mijn blog van 1 maart 2009.

 

 

Uit: Ralph Ellison (Biografie door Arnold Rampersad)

 

„Decades after the blazing hot afternoon in June 1933 when Ralph Ellison, in his first and last outing as a hobo, climbed fearfully and yet eagerly aboard a smoky freight train leaving Oklahoma City on a dangerous journey that he hoped would take him to college in Tuskegee, Alabama, his memories of growing up in Oklahoma continued both to haunt and to inspire him. For a long time he had suppressed those memories; then the time came when he began to crave them.

The turning point had been his triumph in 1952 with his novel Invisible Man. That success had led to a cascading flow of honors such as no other African-American writer had ever enjoyed. In 1953, he won the National Book Award, besting The Old Man and the Sea, by Ernest Hemingway, one of his idols. Later, the American Academy of Arts and Letters elected him a member, one of the fifty distinguished American men and women who formed its inner core. At the White House, first Lyndon B. Johnson and then Ronald Reagan awarded him presidential medals. At the behest of the novelist and critic André Malraux, another of his idols, France made him a Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters. The most venerable social club in America connected to the arts, the Century, in New York, elected him as its first black member. Harvard University, awarding him an honorary degree, offered him a professorship. Never out of print and translated into more than twenty languages, Invisible Man maintains its reputation as one of the jewels of twentieth-century American fiction.

Ellison’s triumph in 1952 had also led to a tangled mess of fears and doubts about his ability to finish a second novel at least as fine as Invisible Man. By the time of his death in 1994, his failure to produce that second novel had made Ellison, a proud man, the butt of surreptitious jokes and cruel remarks. The snickering and giggling behind his back often left him prickly and tart, if not downright hostile. Clinging fearlessly and stubbornly to the ideal of harmonious racial integration in America, he found it hard to negotiate the treacherous currents of American life in the volatile 1960s and 1970s.“

 

 

 

Ralph Ellison (1 maart 1913 –  16 april 1994)

 

 

 

 

De Amerikaanse schrijver Steven Barnes werd geboren op 1 maart 1952 in Los Angeles. Zie ook mijn blog van 1 maart 2007 en ook mijn blog van 1 maart 2009.

 

Uit: Shadow Valley

 

„Summer’s warm rains had long since riven the earth, then dried again to dust. Three moons would wax and wane before the winter rivers swelled within their graveled banks.
Hot Tree had lived most of her adult life in Fire boma, the bamboowalled cluster of huts a day’s walk southeast of Great Sky. Now her hair was streaked with white, her brown skin deeply wrinkled, her breasts empty sacks. Years had cooled the fire in her dancing feet. She felt both hollow and heavy, and knew it would not be long before Father Mountain summoned her bones. 
So much had changed in the past few moons. 
For generations unknown the Ibandi had lived within the sheltering shadows of the mountains called Great Sky and Great Earth. The peaks were home to Father Mountain and Great Mother, whose timeless passion had birthed the world. 
Three moons ago, Great Sky had exploded, the cataclysm wreathing the sky in stinking smoke and spewing rivers of boiling mud down its verdant slopes. Trees had been wrenched up by the roots, tumbling like dead brush. The Ibandi hunt chiefs had died. Some believed the god Himself had perished, but Hot Tree did not, though she well believed that the explosion was a sign of His displeasure with their wickedness.“ 

 

 

 

Steven Barnes (Los Angeles, 1 maart 1952)