Italiensehnsucht

    Kennst du das Land, wo die Zitronen blühn,

    Im dunkeln Laub die Gold-Orangen glühn,

    Ein sanfter Wind vom blauen Himmel weht,

    Die Myrte still und hoch der Lorbeer steht?

    Kennst du es wohl?

    Dahin! dahin

    Möcht’ ich mit dir, o mein Geliebter, ziehn.

    Kennst du das Haus? Auf Säulen ruht sein Dach.

    Es glänzt der Saal, es schimmert das Gemach,

    Und Marmorbilder stehn und sehn mich an:

    Was hat man dir, du armes Kind, getan?

    Kennst du es wohl?

    Dahin! dahin

    Möcht’ ich mit dir, o mein Beschützer, ziehn.

    Kennst du den Berg und seinen Wolkensteg?

    Das Maultier sucht im Nebel seinen Weg;

    In Höhlen wohnt der Drachen alte Brut;

    Es stürzt der Fels und über ihn die Flut!

    Kennst du ihn wohl?

    Dahin! dahin

    Geht unser Weg! O Vater, laß uns ziehn!

    Goethe

There is too much writing and not enough reading

 

"Er wordt teveel geschreven en te weinig gelezen".

Frits van Oostrom in an interview with Garrelt Verhoeven in Online Boekensalon, Universitaire Bibliotheek Leiden.

21/09/2023

never die

'No, I think it's pretty easy, Nick. It all depends.'
They were seated in the boat, Nick in the stern, his father rowing. The sun was coming up over the hills. A bass jumped, making a circle in the water. Nick trailed his hand in the water. It felt warm in the sharp chill of the morning.

In the early morning on the lake sitting in the stern of the boat with his father rowing, he felt quite sure that he would never die.

( Indian Camp - Hemingway )

If Not, Winter - Fragments of Sappho translated by Anne Carson, Folio Society edition

 I’m very pleased with my purchase of this beautiful edition. The letterpress printing and cream-colored paper are simply exquisite—Homer himself might have called it “a wonder to behold.”

The aesthetic quality is especially striking when compared to the Cambridge University Press edition of Sappho, translated by Diane J. Rayor and André Lardinois. That edition, while scholarly and comprehensive, is printed on stark white paper that gives it a "print-on-demand" appearance—somewhat jarring and far less refined than this elegant hardcover.

Yet this comparison highlights a recurring dilemma I’ve encountered with historical Folio Society editions. As physical objects, they are often unmatched in beauty and craftsmanship. However, the content inside sometimes lacks scholarly rigor or up-to-date editorial standards.

In this case, the Cambridge edition contains over 100 more fragments than the Folio, making it the better choice for scholars and serious readers. Still, the Folio edition offers the original Greek text alongside the translation—a rare and valuable feature.

When it comes to the translations themselves, Rayor’s approach is careful, measured, and free from excessive embellishment. In contrast, the Folio edition features Anne Carson’s translation, whose poetic voice (with all due respect) tends to dominate. That said, Sappho’s surviving fragments have long invited imaginative interpretation, and Carson’s rendition fits squarely within that tradition.

Ultimately, each edition has its strengths: the Cambridge for accuracy and completeness; the Folio for beauty and poetic boldness. I’m grateful to have both on my shelf.

Reading Oscars 2022

All along the year 2022, I crawled slowly further over the lines of Dante Alighieri's Commedia. One canto each evening before bedtime (if not distracted by something else).

By now, I finished the Inferno and moved on to the Purgatorio. Virgil is still guiding Dante, but I expect the elusive Beatrice any day now.

I am reading Dante's poetry from a beautiful bilingual hardcover edition in which every canto is preceded with a synopsis and followed by a detailed commentary.

This is necessary to orientate oneself within this large and strange medieval canvas. The Reader needs guidance to explain the figures, the politics, the hates and loves of the poet. I was able to put the Commedia in context thanks to two excellent and nicely illustrated works that I consult regularly: Dante in Love by A.N. Wilson and Dante's Divine comedy: a journey without end by Ian Thomson.

Still, I interrupt my Dante readings too frequently to plunge into other interesting books.

Recently, while trawling at book markets, I have been buying second hand "La Pléiade" editions of French and Classic works still missing in my library. With a bit of negotiating, one can buy these beautiful orphaned leather-bound tomes at a third of their actual prices. The beauty of these physical books encourages new readings.

So, it comes that I have made lengthy reading excursions within the collections of gems written down by the Greek tragic poets Aeschylus and Sophocles (The Persians, Prometheus bound, Agamemnon, Oedipus and a few more). Whilst not unknown to me, these mythical texts read in the spare surviving text is something quite different than all the modern versions one finds now. (Euripides is planned for 2023).

I have now started the "ordeals of Théagène et Chariclée" better known as the Aethiopica by Heliodorus of Emesa. An adventure story, playing out in Egypt and what now is known as Sudan, written 1800 years ago!

While reading these second hand Pléiades, I have also returned to old friends, heroes of my youth: Saint -Exupéry for instance with his deep Human "Terre des Hommes" and "Vol de Nuit". With nearly half a century gone since my first readings, it is a strange experience to reread those familiar books through older eyes. The remembrance of the text has been superseded by the remembrance of the experience of my first readings.

My dear Father passed away in the last days of 2021. While cleaning up the apartment where he and my mom lived, I have sifted through hundreds of his books and divided them with my sisters. The sheer number of volumes forced us to still give boxes filled away. Cleaning up the library of a loved one is a difficult process. Each book a memory, each quote a remembered moment.

 Still, I recuperated my part and lost myself in some of Dad's most beloved "livres de chevet". I could hear his voice quoting whole chunks of his books (what a memory he had) and laughed with the parts that I knew that had amused him.

Dipping in and out my Dad's best loved books: Histoire de France by Jacques Bainville,  Histoire de France et s'amuser, Les rois maudits by Druon

Totally different but a great experience nonetheless was the reading of the Anabasis by Xenophon. Especially experiencing it in the splendid Robert Strassler's Landmark edition. What a brilliant series! I can’t wait for THE LANDMARK Polybius which is expected for 2023.

Another Classic, as fresh as 2000 years ago was "The Poetics" by Aristotle translated, rearranged and introduced by Philip Freeman. Both books enthused me enough to write a review.

I also read two Herzog's this year. The Twilight World is a short story about Hiroo Onada, a Japanese officer hiding on the island of Lubang in the Philippines, who misses the end WW2 and remains in hiding until 1972. In the last days of the year, I rushed through Herzog latest memories "Jeder für sich und Gott gegen alle: Erinnerungen. He fills in the last gaps of his biography, settles some scores and excuses himself for a few of the errors he made in his life. What a Man!

Heinrich Mann's ( Thomas' brother ), Professor Unrat ( Better known as the blue Angel ), I could not finish for the moment.

But I did finish Bartleby, the Scrivener by Melville, not the original book, but the story memorized and retold within the scope of the Art project "time has fallen asleep in the afternoon sunshine" by Mette Edvardsen

I read another Harsch, Adriatica Deserta / Kramberger with Monkey and enjoyed it. I hope that with his Eddy Vegas book, now in an American edition, he can make his breakthrough.

Finally, two books that I read with a lot of pleasure: "The Bookseller of Florence: The Story of the Manuscripts That Illuminated the Renaissance" by Ross King (2021) and "The Burgundians" by Bart Van Loo. Both books were very instructive. One about the history of Florence at the moment of the introduction of the first printing press. The other about a large chunk of history when the Kings of France competed with the dukes of Flanders about the hegemony of Western Europe.

First prize goes to Xenophon.

Once more a great reading year.

Time has fallen asleep in the afternoon sunshine

The loss of irreplaceable books has recently been on my mind. 

While visiting the fair for Artbooks in Ghent, I was attracted by a stand with slim books where they sold transcripts of books learned by heart and remembered by readers. These works were the results of the Art project "time has fallen asleep in the afternoon sunshine" by Mette Edvardsen, who, inspired by the characters of Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, enthused participants to become living books.

From a Homer writing down his epics 2700 years ago to avoid forgetting, to people learning whole books by heart to remember them even if books are destroyed, the circle has come to a full close.

To become a "living book" could be a final chapter in Valéry Larbaud's tongue in his cheek portrait of a passionate reader. 

Which book would you learn by heart ?

"The Poetics" by Aristotle

"How to tell a Story, An ancient Guide to the Art of Storytelling for Writers and Readers" is nothing less than Aristotle's classic masterwork "The Poetics", translated, rearranged and introduced by Philip Freeman.

Freeman is a university professor in Malibu California ( yes, some guys just have it all ) and to reassure  his readers that he has not tinkered with the text while rearranging, the book is printed with the original Greek text on the left-hand side and the English translation on the right.

Aristotle's "Poetics" is of course THE seminal text in literary theory which cannot be absent from your library. It's a thin book with a huge content and reading it you are reminded of all these concepts and idea's which we take for granted nowadays but which were posited and explained first by the great Aristole: there is the Mimesis ( imitation ) of Auerbach's fame, the Catharsis ( purification ),  the apò mēkhanês ( Deus ex Machina ) and even the Homeric Anagnorisis ( Recognition ).

Reading the  Poetics invariably comes with this sad awareness that writings, these repositories of  narratives and knowledge, are fragile and fleeting. Throughout his book, Aristotle illustrates his literary concepts with numerous examples of texts and authors, most of which have been lost. Lost, probably forever, altough they were once written down and numerous copies existed. The Margites, a comic epic by Homer Himself for instance, gone...The Antheus by Agathon dissapeared, the Lynceus by Theodectes, lost; the Cresphontes by Euripides and the treatise "On Poets" by Aristotle forgotten...

This sad feeling culminates when the book frustratingly ends with chapter two "on Comedy" followed by white pages. The second part of the "Poetics" is lost too.

Umberto Eco, in his "In the name of the rose" fantasizes that the last copy of Aristotle's Comedy is destroyed by the fictional Jorge, the obsessive blind librarian, in a bonfire that sets the whole medieval library ablaze.

An interesting read!