William Styron, Christoph Meckel
De Amerikaanse schrijver William Styron werd op 11 juni 1925 in Newport News in de staat Virginia geboren. Zie ook alle tags voor William Styron op dit blog.
Uit: Set This House on Fire
“My name is Peter Leverett. I am white, Protestant, Anglo-Saxon, Virginia-bred, just past thirty, in’ good health, tolerable enough looking though possessing no romantic glint or cast, given to orderly habits, more than commonly inquisitive, and strongly sexed—though this is a conceit peculiar to all normal young men. I have lived and worked for the past few years in New York. It is with neither pride nor distress that I confess that—in the idiom of our time—I am something of a square. By profession I am a law-yer. I am ambitious enough to wish to succeed at my trade, but I am no go-getter and, being constitutionally unable to scrabble and connive, I suspect that I shall remain at that decent, mediocre level of attainment common to all my ancestors, on both branches of the tree. This is not, on the one hand, cynicism, nor is it, on the other, self-abasement. I am a realist, and I wish to tell you on good authority that the law—even in my drab province, where only torts, wills, and contracts are at stake—demands as much simple deviousness, as much shouldering-aside of good friends, as any other business. No, I am not up to it. I am stuck, so to speak, with my destiny and I am making the pleasant best of it. While maybe not as satisfying as the role of the composer I once had an idea I might try to play, it is more than several times as lucrative; besides, in America no one listens to composers, while the law, in a way that is at once subtle and majestic and fascinating, still works its own mu-sic upon the minds of men. Or at least I hope to think so. A few years ago, when I came back from Italy and Sambuco and took a job in a New York firm (somewhat second-rate, I must admit, and not on Wall Street yet laggardly nearby, which caused our office wits to suggest the slogan “Walk a block and save”)—several years ago I found myself in a really rather bad state. The death of a friend—especially under the circumstances that befell Mason Flagg, even more especially when one has been on the scene, witnessed the blood and the tumult and the shambles—is not something that can be shaken off easily at all. And this applies even when, as in my case, I had thought myself alienated from Mason and all that he stood for. I will come to Mason’s ending presently, and it will be described, I hope, in all its necessary truth; for the moment let me say only that it left me quite desperately stunned.”
William Styron (11 juni 1925 – 1 november 2006)
De Duitse dichter, schrijver en graficus Christoph Meckel werd geboren op 12 juni 1935 in Berlijn. Zie ook alle tags voor Christopher Meckel op dit blog.
Fluisteren
Dat je haar hebt gekust, met haar langs de kust
hebt gewandeld en de maan was er—
Dat je jurken voor haar hebt gekocht,, rokken en lijfjes
sieraden en gouden prullaria zoals de mijne, en zomerhoeden,
wijn uit de heuvels en lepels zilver—
En dat je haar een naam hebt geschonken,
nachtdruppel van mijn ziel, vogelblauw—
dat je met haar onderweg was in de heldere maand juni,
onvindbaar in de herfst, in aards onkruid —
Maar dat je met haar hebt gefluisterd
in de nacht, de kaars brandde, de uil riep—
Het is het gefluister. Het is het gefluister.
Vertaald door Frans Roumen
Christoph Meckel (12 juni 1935 – 29 januari 2020)
Zie voor nog meer schrijvers van de 11e juni ook mijn blog van 11 juni 2020 en eveneens mijn blog van 11 juni 2019 en ook mijn blog van 11 juni 2017 deel 2.
