André Gide, George Eliot, Viktor Pelevin, Suresh en Jyoti Guptara
De Franse schrijver André Gide werd geboren op 22 november 1869 in Parijs. Zie ook mijn blog van 22 november 2006 en ook mijn blog van 22 november 2007 en ook mijn blog van 22 november 2008 en ook mijn blog van 22 november 2009.
Uit: La symphonie pastorale
“Mais je crois inutile de noter ici tous les échelons premiers de cette instruction qui, sans doute, se retrouvent dans l’instruction de tous les aveugles. C’est ainsi que, pour chacun d’eux, je pense, la question des couleurs a plongé chaque maître dans un même embarras. (Et à ce sujet je fus appelé à remarquer qu’il n’est nulle part question de couleurs dans l’Évangile.) Je ne sais comment s’y sont pris les autres ; pour ma part je commençai par lui nommer les couleurs du prisme dans l’ordre où l’arc-en-ciel nous les présente ; mais aussitôt s’établit une confusion dans son esprit entre couleur et clarté ; et je me rendais compte que son imagination ne parvenait à faire aucune distinction entre la qualité de la nuance et ce que les peintres appellent, je crois, « la valeur ». Elle avait le plus grand mal à comprendre que chaque couleur à son tour pût être plus ou moins foncée, et qu’elles pussent à l’infini se mélanger entre elles. Rien ne l’intriguait davantage et elle revenait sans cesse là-dessus.
Cependant il me fut donné de l’emmener à Neuchâtel où je pus lui faire entendre un concert. Le rôle de chaque instrument dans la symphonie me permit de revenir sur cette question des couleurs. Je fis remarquer à Gertrude les sonorités différentes des cuivres, des instruments à cordes et des bois, et que chacun d’eux à sa manière est susceptible d’offrir, avec plus ou moins d’intensité, toute l’échelle des sons, des plus graves aux plus aigus. Je l’invitai à se représenter de même, dans la nature, les colorations rouges et orangées analogues aux sonorités des cors et des trombones, les jaunes et les verts à celles des violons, des violoncelles et des basses ; les violets et les bleus rappelés ici par les flûtes, les clarinettes et les hautbois. Une sorte de ravissement intérieur vint dès lors remplacer ses doutes :
– Que cela doit être beau ! répétait-elle.
Puis, tout à coup :
– Mais alors : le blanc ? Je ne comprends plus à quoi ressemble le blanc...
Et il m’apparut aussitôt combien ma comparaison était précaire. – Le blanc, essayai-je pourtant de lui dire, est la limite aiguë où tous les tons se confondent, comme le noir en est la limite sombre. – Mais ceci ne me satisfit pas plus qu’elle, qui me fit aussitôt remarquer que les bois, les cuivres et les violons restent distincts les uns des autres dans le plus grave aussi bien que dans le plus aigu. Que de fois, comme alors, je dus demeurer d’abord silencieux, perplexe et cherchant à quelle comparaison je pourrais faire appel.”
André Gide (22 november 1869 – 19 februari 1951)
Portret door Jacques Emile Blanche, 1912
De Engelse schrijfster George Eliot werd geboren op 22 november 1819 in Nuneaton in Warwickshire. Zie ook mijn blog van 22 november 2006 en ook mijn blog van 22 november 2008 en ook mijn blog van 22 november 2009.
Count That Day Lost
If you sit down at set of sun
And count the acts that you have done,
And, counting, find
One self-denying deed, one word
That eased the heart of him who heard,
One glance most kind
That fell like sunshine where it went --
Then you may count that day well spent.
But if, through all the livelong day,
You've cheered no heart, by yea or nay --
If, through it all
You've nothing done that you can trace
That brought the sunshine to one face--
No act most small
That helped some soul and nothing cost --
Then count that day as worse than lost.
In a London Drawingroom
The sky is cloudy, yellowed by the smoke.
For view there are the houses opposite
Cutting the sky with one long line of wall
Like solid fog: far as the eye can stretch
Monotony of surface & of form
Without a break to hang a guess upon.
No bird can make a shadow as it flies,
For all is shadow, as in ways o'erhung
By thickest canvass, where the golden rays
Are clothed in hemp. No figure lingering
Pauses to feed the hunger of the eye
Or rest a little on the lap of life.
All hurry on & look upon the ground,
Or glance unmarking at the passers by
The wheels are hurrying too, cabs, carriages
All closed, in multiplied identity.
The world seems one huge prison-house & court
Where men are punished at the slightest cost,
With lowest rate of colour, warmth & joy.
George Eliot (22 november 1819 – 22 december 1880)
Op 30-jarige leeftijd, portret door François D'Albert Durade
De Russische schrijver Viktor Pelevin werd geboren op 22 november 1962 in Moskou. Zie ook mijn blog van 22 november 2006 en ook mijn blog van 22 november 2008 en ook mijn blog van 22 november 2009.
Uit: The Life Of Insects (Vertaald door Andrew Browmfield)
„The main building of the old resort hotel, half hidden from view behind a screen of old poplars and cypresses, was an oppressive, gray structure which seemed to have turned its back to the sea at the bidding of some crazed fairy-tale conjuror. The facade, with its columns, cracked stars, and sheaves of wheat bent eternally before a plaster wind, faced into a shallow courtyard where the smells of the kitchen, the laundry, and the hairdresser's mingled; the massive wall which faced onto the shoreline had only two or three windows. A few yards from the colonnade there was a high concrete wall, beyond which the rays of the sunset glinted on the smokestacks of the local power plant. The tall formal doors concealed in the shade on the cyclopean balcony had been locked for so long that even the crack between them had disappeared under several layers of caked paint, and the yard was usually empty, except when an occasional truck cautiously squeezed its way in, bringing milk and bread from Feodosia.
This evening there wasn't even a truck in the yard, so there was no one to notice the individual leaning on the molded balustrade of the balcony, except perhaps for a pair of seagulls out on patrol, two white specks drifting across the sky. The stranger was looking down and to the right, toward the shelter on the dock and the cone of a loudspeaker lodged under the edge of its roof. The sea was noisy, but when the wind blew toward the hotel, it carried audible snatches of a radio broadcast directed at the deserted beach.
"... not at all the same as each other, not cut to the same pattern ... created us all different; is not this part of the grand scheme of things, counted, unlike the transient plans of man, in many ... What does the Lord expect of us, as He turns His hopeful gaze in our direction? Will we be able to make use of His gift? ... For He Himself does not know what to expect from the souls that He has sent to ..."
Viktor Pelevin (Moskou, 22 november 1962)
De Brits-Indische schrijverstweeling Suresh en Jyoti Guptara werd geboren op 22 november 1988 in Frimley, Hants in het zuidoosten van Engeland. Zie ook mijn blog van 22 november 2008 en ook mijn blog van 22 november 2009.
Uit: Conspiracy of Calaspia
„After throwing a wary look around him, Galar stooped to look at the man. He was in a nasty state, battered and bloody – however, miraculously all in one piece. Alive, but barely so. Although the fight had not taken place all that long ago, the man’s wounds had already dried. That wasn’t much of a surprise in this accursed heat.
A sigh escaped the man’s lips. He tried to sit up, but collapsed under the strain and gasped in pain.
‘Monsters,’ he finally stammered.
‘O’course,’ Galar rumbled. ‘What did yeh expect, butterflies?’
The Dwarf felt sorry for the man, but what had he expected? Anyone nosing around this part of Calaspia was asking for trouble. It was home to the worst of creatures, although thankfully it no longer supported certain predators. A ludicrous thought popped into Galar’s mind, and he chuckled at the notion of the Ministry for Ecology or whatever the Numenii now called it, labelling the monsters here ‘endangered species’. No, nobody was sad that these beasts were dying out. And no one regretted obliterating the monstrous Ostentum.
‘Come on, let’s get yeh outta here,’ the Dwarf said gently to the whimpering man, ‘before they return.’ He would get to ask him who he was and what stroke of insanity had led him here later. But the man resisted Galar’s powerful arms, shaking his head and muttering, as if to ward off a nightmare.
‘Sun must’ve got to yeh head, but we’ll have yeh sorted in no time. Here, this’ll help.’ Galar fumbled around in his beard until he found what he was looking for. Retrieving a crystal vial, Galar bent over his wounded charge and prepared to administer the liquid. Again a feeble protest ensued, and so instead the Dwarf cradled the man’s head in one enormous hand and helped him to sit up. The man took several gulps of the scorched air. His eyelids fluttered as he fought to keep them open. He opened his mouth to speak and his cracked lips struggled to form the words.”
Suresh en Jyoti Guptara (Frimley, 22 november 1988)
Zie voor nog meer schrijvers van de 22 november ook mijn vorige blog van vandaag.
