Cita: In the Woods (Tana French)

How can I ever make you understand Cassie and me? I would have to take you there, walk you down every path of our secret shared geography. The truism says it’s against all odds for a straight man and woman to be real friends, platonic friends; we rolled thirteen, threw down five aces and ran away giggling. She was the summertime cousin out of storybooks, the one you taught to swim at some midge-humming lake and pestered with tadpoles down her swimsuit, with whom you practiced first kisses on a heather hillside and laughed about it years later over a clandestine joint in your granny’s cluttered attic. She painted my fingernails gold and dared me to leave them that way for work…We climbed out her window and down the fire escape and lay on the roof of the extension below, drinking improvised cocktails and singing Tom Waits and watching the stars spin dizzily around us.

No.

In the Woods (Tana French)

A Handful of Earth

A Handful of Earth está narrado en primera persona por Barney Bardsley y cuenta una historia real: la de su marido, que fue diagnosticado de cáncer a los 36 años, cuando la hija que ambos tenían en común acababa de cumplir un año de vida. Qué ironía… También es la historia de ella, pues ejerció como cuidadora incansable de su marido desde ese momento en que decidieron que aquello no era una sentencia en firme y durante los diez largos años que plantaron cara a la enfermedad.

Sin embargo, cuando Tim finalmente murió, Barney quedó sola, exhausta, con una hija a la que sacar adelante y prácticamente en bancarrota. Así las cosas, para hacer frente al día a día se entregó en cuerpo y alma a una pequeña y al principio descuidada parcela. El aire libre, el trabajo físico, el ejercicio y el observar los ritmos de la naturaleza (eternos ciclos de abundancia y decadencia) le ayudaron a afrontar el duelo y a superar tan dura experiencia.

El libro cubre el periodo de un año, de enero a diciembre, y a medida que se suceden las estaciones el ambiente meditativo del huerto ayuda a Barney a compartir sus sentimientos y recuerdos con el lector: recuerdos de infancia, de los primeros años de matrimonio o de cuando su hija era pequeña, los mitos y emociones vinculados a una planta en concreto, sus propios estados de ánimo que sobrevienen a medida que pasamos de una estación a otra, los momentos más duros de la enfermedad de su marido… Y, sobre todo, es una narración acerca de cómo superó su duelo y retomó las riendas de su vida gracias al poder sanador de su huerto y de los ritmos de la naturaleza.

Un libro para leer con calma, con el que entran unas ganas tremendas de cuidar de un jardín o huerto a modo de terapia, pero que puede ser a ratos una lectura dura porque mira al cáncer de frente y habla de esa vivencia sin tapujos. Confieso que al final tenía ganas de terminarlo y pasar a lecturas más alegres, si bien esta es una novela recomendable y muy inspiradora.

The beat of your foot on the earth, that is what counts. Get outside. If winter is in your heart, and not just outside the window, there will always be something in nature to soothe you. It's just the way it is. A garden lives and breathes: it offers stamina for a tired body and a soul worn thin with strain. But you have to work for it. And this is where the work starts – in the dead of January, when nothing grows, and everything has gone under. The work? Believing that life will resurface – that what is lost will return. Becoming a gardener is, first and foremost, an act of the imagination, of hope. And hope is not just a feeling, it is a muscle which can be developed, even in the most wintry of spirits. So go walking. And as you do so, think deep, and dream the garden back to life, right where it matters, in the dark of your mind. These are the messages I sing to myself. 

Lady Chatterley's Lover (cita)

Both sisters had had their love experience by the time the war came, and they were hurried home. Neither was ever in love with a young man unless he and she were verbally very near: that is unless they were profoundly interested, TALKING to one another. The amazing, the profound, the unbelievable thrill there was in passionately talking to some really clever young man by the hour, resuming day after day for months . . . this they had never realized till it happened! The paradisal promise: Thou shalt have men to talk to!—had never been uttered. It was fulfilled before they knew what a promise it was.

Lady Chatterley's Lover, D. H. Lawrence

We Need to Talk About Kevin (cita)

Early afternoon of my birthday, I was ordered to the backyard.

"Surprise!" When I was invited back in, I discovered that five of my friends had been sneaked in the front while I'd been trying to peek through the drawn kitchen curtains. In our bunted living room, they surrounded a card table spread with a paper lace cloth and set with colorful paper plates, beside which my mother had placed matching seating cards inscribed with the fluid calligraphy of her professional work. There were also store-bought party favors: miniature bamboo umbrellas, noisemakers that tongued and honked. The cake, too, was from a bakery, and she had dyed the lemonade a vivid pink to make it seem more festive.

Doubtless my mother saw my face fall. Children are so lousy at covering up. At the party, I was desultory, laconic. I opened and closed my umbrella and rapidly tired of it, which was odd; I had powerfully envied other girls who had gone to parties to which I hadn't been invited and returned to school with precisely these pink-and-blue parasols. Yet somehow it was revealed to me that they came in packets of ten in a plastic bag and could be purchased even by the likes of us, and that devalued the favors more than I could say. Two of the guests I did not much like; parents never get it right about your friends. The cake was sealed in fondant icing like a plastic puck, and flavorlessly sweet; my mother's baking was better. There were more presents than usual, but all I remember of them is that each was unaccountably disappointing. And I was visited by a prescient taste of adulthood, an unbracketed "No Exit" sensation, which rarely plagues children: that we were sitting in a room and there was nothing to say or do. The minute it was over, the floor messy with crumbs and wrapping, I cried.

I must sound spoiled, but I wasn't spoiled. Little had been made of my birthdays in the past. Looking back, I feel simply despicable, too. My mother had gone to so much trouble. Her business didn't make much money for the longest time; she would labor over one card for over an hour and then sell it for a quarter, a price at which her customers would still squawk. In terms of our family's midget economy, the outlay had been considerable. She must have been bewildered; if she were a different sort of parent, she'd have spanked my ungrateful behind. Whatever had I contemplated that in comparison made my surprise party such a letdown?

Nothing. Or nothing in particular, nothing that I could form concretely in my head. That was the problem. I had been awaiting something large and amorphous, a vast big thing so marvelous that I could not even imagine it. The party she threw was all too imaginable. For that matter, had she brought in a brass band and magicians I'd have still been crestfallen. There was no extravagance that would not have fallen short, because it would be finite and fixed, one thing and not another. It would be only what it was.

The point is, I don't know what exactly I'd foreseen would happen to me when Kevin was first hoisted to my breast. I hadn't foreseen anything exactly. I wanted what I could not imagine. I wanted to be transformed; I wanted to be transported. I wanted a door to open and a whole new vista to expand before me that I had never known was out there. I wanted nothing short of revelation, and revelation by its nature cannot be anticipated; it promises that to which we are not yet privy. But if I extracted one lesson from my tenth birthday party, it was that expectations are dangerous when they are both high and unformed.

I Capture the Castle (cita)

       I thought if I made myself write I should find out what is wrong with me, but I haven't, so far. Unless – Could I possibly be jealous of Rose?
       I will pause and search my innermost soul…
       I have searched it for a solid five minutes. And I swear I am not jealous of Rose; more than that, I should hate to change places with her. Naturally, this is mainly because I shouldn't like to marry Simon. But suppose I were in love with him, as Rose is? That's too hard to imagine. Then suppose it were Neil – because since he went away I have wondered if I am not just a little bit in love with him. All right, I'm in love with Neil and I'm marrying him and he is the rich one. A thousand pounds is being spent on my trousseau with furs and jewellery coming later. I am to have a wonderful wedding with everyone saying: "What a brilliant match that quiet little girl has made." We are going to live at Scoatney Hall with everything we can possibly want and, presumably, lots of the handsomest children. It's going to be "happy ever after," just like the fairy tales –
       And I still wouldn't like it. Oh, I'd love the clothes and the wedding. I am not so sure I should like the facts of life, but I have got over the bitter disappointment I felt when I first heard about them, and one obviously has to try them sooner or later. What I'd really hate would be the settled feeling, with nothing but happiness to look forward to. Of course no life is perfectly happy – Rose's children will probably get ill, the servants may be difficult, perhaps dear Mrs. Cotton will prove to be the teeniest fly in the ointment. (I should like to know what fly was originally in what ointment.) There are hundreds of worries and even sorrows that may come along, but – I think what I really mean is that Rose won't be wanting things to happen. She will want things to stay just as they are. She will never have the fun of hoping something wonderful and exciting may be just round the corner.
       I dare say I am being very silly but there it is! I DO NOT ENVY ROSE. When I imagine changing places with her I get the feeling I do on finishing a novel with a brick-wall happy ending – I mean the kind of ending when you never think any more about the characters…


Dodie Smith, I Capture the Castle

La lluvia amarilla (cita)

Este fin de semana he releído La lluvia amarilla, ese magnífico libro de Julio Llamazares (mi reseña, aquí), y os dejo un par de citas para que veáis el tipo de prosa que encontraréis en él:

«Pronto llegó noviembre con su pálido aliento de lunas y hojas muertas. Los días fueron haciéndose más cortos cada vez y las interminables noches junto a la chimenea comenzaron a sumirnos poco a poco en un profundo tedio, en una pétrea y desolada indiferencia contra la que las palabras se deshacían como arena y en la que los recuerdos daban paso casi siempre a inmensas extensiones de sombra y de silencio. Antes, cuando aún estaban Julio y su familia (y, antes aún, cuando Tomás todavía no había muerto y sostenía tenazmente en solitario la vieja casa y la memoria de Gavín), nos reuníamos todos en una de las casas, junto a la chimenea, y, allí, durante largas horas, mientras la nieve y la ventisca gemían en lo alto del tejado, pasábamos las noches del invierno contándonos historias y recordando personas y sucesos, casi siempre de otro tiempo. El fuego, entonces, nos unía más que la amistad y que la sangre. Las palabras servían, como siempre, para ahuyentar el frío y la tristeza del invierno. Ahora, en cambio, a Sabina y a mí, el fuego y las palabras nos volvían más distantes, los recuerdos nos hacían cada vez más silenciosos y lejanos. Y, así, cuando llegó la nieve, la nieve estaba ya, desde hacía mucho tiempo, en nuestros propios corazones.»

«El tiempo acaba siempre borrando las heridas. El tiempo es una lluvia paciente y amarilla que apaga poco a poco los fuegos más violentos. Pero hay hogueras que arden bajo la tierra, grietas de la memoria tan secas y profundas que ni siquiera el diluvio de la muerte bastaría tal vez para borrarlas. Uno trata de acostumbrarse a convivir con ellas, amontona silencios y óxido encima del recuerdo y, cuando cree que ya todo lo ha olvidado, basta una simple carta, una fotografía, para que salte en mil pedazos la lámina del hielo del olvido.»

La escarcha sobre los hombros

Por lo que veo en el pie de imprenta, en el 2006 este libro iba ya por la novena edición; a saber cuántas llevará ahora, pero está claro que es todo un best-seller, al menos para los estándares altoaragoneses. A Lorenzo Mediano lo conocí con Donde duermen las aguas, un libro que me gustó leer pero al que le encontré unas cuantas pegas. Este otro librito llevaba un tiempo esperándome en casa, pues se lo regalaron a mi hermano hace un par de años, y aproveché mi última visita a Barbastro para empezarlo.

Me ha gustado mucho; desde luego, mucho más que el otro libro que he leído de Mediano. Como en este, la acción se desarrolla en Biescas de Obago, un pueblo ficticio del Pirineo aragonés, en la década de 1930. Ramón es un valiente y obcecado pastor que decide rebelarse a su destino cuando se da cuenta de que, debido a su posición social, nunca podrá casarse con la mujer de la que se ha enamorado. A través de los ojos del maestro del pueblo nos adentramos en una sociedad cerrada, injusta, a veces cruel, en la que la casa a la que uno pertenece tiene mucha más importancia que los deseos de las propias personas. Poco a poco la trama avanza ofreciendo al lector un retrato de la sociedad rural altoaragonesa de no hace tantos años, y sin decaer el ritmo un instante culmina en un final inesperado.

Dejo aquí una cita, algo larga, que me ha gustado mucho y resume un poco los temas que toca el libro:

«Aquí, en las montañas, los sentimientos alcanzan una fuerza y una pureza incomprensibles para los que hemos nacido en una ciudad. Porque en las ciudades también nos enamoramos, o ambicionamos; pero apenas han pasado cinco minutos vemos un escaparate, o tenemos que pensar en nuestro trabajo, o nos atrae el último suceso político. Por esta causa, nuestro amor y nuestro odio no son sino un pálido reflejo de lo que podrían ser.

»En cambio, para los hombres y mujeres de estas tierras, no existen distracciones, no hay ni escaparates, ni radio, ni periódicos; sus corazones pueden inundarse de lo que contienen. Los sentimientos en las ciudades son como trigo que crece en un campo descuidado, que tiene que competir con multitud de malas hierbas y que por eso no da sino unos pocos cuartales; en cambio, los sentimientos en estos pueblos son como un frutal al que se estercola, se poda, se labra para que ni el más mínimo cardo le robe el alimento. Aquí no te cae alguien antipático: se le odia a muerte; ni te encaprichas de una mujer: se la ama con locura. Por un amigo, morirías; por una ofensa, matarías.»

Título: La escarcha sobre los hombros | Autor: Lorenzo Mediano
Fecha inicio: 13.06.2010 | Fecha fin: 15.06.2010

Una cita al vuelo

«And though you were grown up by then, you felt as lost as a child. And though your pride was broken, you felt as vast as your love for her. She was gone, and all that was left was the space where you'd grown around her, like a tree that grows around a fence.

»For a long time, it remained hollow. Years, maybe. And when at last it was filled again, you knew that the new love you felt for a woman would have been impossible without Alma. If it weren't for her, there would never have been an empty space, or the need to fill it.»

The History of Love, Nicole Krauss