Neruda chain poem...

Because our Truly Outrageous Petitpoussin has got marvellous ideas, here we go:

Agua Sexual

Rodando a goterones solos,
a gotas como dientes,
a espesos goterones de mermelada y sangre,
rodando a goterones,
cae el agua,
como una espada en gotas,
como un desgarrador río de vidrio,
cae mordiendo,
golpeando el eje de la simetría, pegando en las costuras del
alma,
rompiendo cosas abandonadas, empapando lo oscuro.

Solamente es un soplo, más húmedo que el llanto,
un líquido, un sudor, un aceite sin nombre,
un movimiento agudo,
haciéndose, espesándose,
cae el agua,
a goterones lentos,
hacia su mar, hacia su seco océano,
hacia su ola sin agua.

Veo el verano extenso, y un estertor saliendo de un granero,
bodegas, cigarras,
poblaciones, estímulos,
habitaciones, niñas
durmiendo con las manos en el corazón,
soñando con bandidos, con incendios,
veo barcos,
veo árboles de médula
erizados como gatos rabiosos,
veo sangre, puñales y medias de mujer,
y pelos de hombre,
veo camas, veo corredores donde grita una virgen,
veo frazadas y órganos y hoteles.

Veo los sueños sigilosos,
admito los postreros días,
y también los orígenes, y también los recuerdos,
como un párpado atrozmente levantado a la fuerza
estoy mirando.

Y entonces hay este sonido:
un ruido rojo de huesos,
un pegarse de carne,
y piernas amarillas como espigas juntándose.
Yo escucho entre el disparo de los besos,
escucho, sacudido entre respiraciones y sollozos.

Estoy mirando, oyendo,
con la mitad del alma en el mar y la mitad del alma
en la tierra,
y con las dos mitades del alma miro al mundo.

y aunque cierre los ojos y me cubra el corazón enteramente,
veo caer un agua sorda,
a goterones sordos.
Es como un huracán de gelatina,
como una catarata de espermas y medusas.
Veo correr un arco iris turbio.
Veo pasar sus aguas a través de los huesos.

And here the Translation in English

Sexual Water

Rolling down in big and distinct drops,
in drops like teeth,
in heavy drops like marmalade and blood.
rolling down in big drops, the water
is falling,
like a sword made of drops,
like a river of glass that tears things,
it is falling, biting,
beating on the axle of symmetry, knocking on the seams of the soul,
breaking abandoned things, soaking the darkness.
It is nothing but a breath, more full of moisture than crying,
a liquid, a sweat, an oil that has no name,
a sharp motion,
taking shape, making itself thick,
the water is falling
in slow drops
toward the sea, toward its dry ocean,
toward its wave without water.


I look at the wide summer, and a loud noise coming from a barn,
wineshops, cicadas,
towns, excitements,
houses, girls
sleeping with hands over their hearts.
dreaming of pirates, of conflagarations,
I look at ships,
I look at trees of bone marrow
bristling like mad cats,
I look at blood, daggers and women's stockings,
and men's hair,
I look at beds, I look at corridors where a virgin is sobbing,
I look at blankets and organs and hotels.

I look at secretive dreams,
I let the straggling days come in,
and the beginnings also, and memories also,
like an eyelid held open hideously
I am watching.

And then this sound comes:
a red noise of bones,
a sticking together of flesh
and legs yellow as wheatheads meeting.
I am listening among the explosions of the kisses,
I am listening, shaken among breathings and sobs.

I am here, watching, listening,
with half of my soul at sea and half of my soul on land,
and with both halves of my soul I watch the world.

And even if I close my eyes and cover my heart over entirely,
I see the monotonous water falling
in big monotonous drops.
It is like a hurricane of gelatin,
like a waterfall of sperm and sea anenomes.
I see a clouded rainbow hurrying.
I see its water moving over my bones.


or, even, Dorfman reads Sexual Water

On Murakami... [recent thoughts about Murakami. to be continued]

In his Kafkaesque novels, Murakami explores the themes of loss, reminiscence of the past, defilement, void (seeking to be filled), social alienation, self-discovery, sexual perversion, lost connection to the inner-self. His characters attempt come to terms with their past, in narratives where crisp realism and fantastic elements mix up to explore a concept of double-consciousness, or connection between the real world and another dimension (is it what we call the subconscious? Is it Death? Or altogether another world?).

In Norwegian Wood, Naoko lives in the past, and so does, through her, Toru Watanabe. An absence (Kizuki’s - her boyfriend, and his best-friend) both links and separates them; meanwhile, he is drawn to Midori, whose own deficiencies are explained by parental abandonment. Throughout the novel, the characters endeavour to fill each other’s void.
Similarly, in Dance, Dance, Dance, in his quest to discover what happened to the woman he loved, the protagonist is drawn to a thirteen-years-old fan of the Talking Heads (Yuki), who tries to evolve between a careless mother and an inept father. What will be unveiled is a sordid story of sexual perversion and murder.
Toru Watanabe’s wife disappears without explanation (The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle); in his quest to find her – and their cat –, he meets the teenager May Kasahara, but also unveils a difficult truth (‘defilement’ and incest), which outcomes he can only fight (literally) through the powers of his mind.

Sputnik Sweetheart (perhaps my favourite) deals again with the theme of defilement (Miu’s chilling story) while K. desperately tries to find out what happened to Sumire. Loss again is at the centre of this short but deep novel, which explores in a very poetic way the complexity of emotions.

Perhaps the most original of the lot, because so different, is Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World – isn’t it a wonderful title? this is what first attracted me to Murakami: find out what story hid itself behind such a title. The main character, a ‘Calcutec’ (or ‘human data processor’) is charged to encrypt a message, while he is also, in another dimension, a ‘dream-reader’. In the process, he is not only saving a scientist and his (sexy) granddaughter, but also himself. Interestingly, none of the characters in this novel are named : ‘chubby girl’, ‘librarian’, ‘the old man’, ‘Junior’ and ‘Big Boy’… is all the author offers of their identity.
Finally, young Kafka Tamura (Kafka on the Shore) runs away from home to go in search of his disappeared mother, and finds himself connected to an eccentric old man who converses with cats and predicts (accurately) fish and leeches falling from the sky.

All his main characters, are, without exception, idle, male, and share, as Joseph Kugelmass says, this ‘vacant state of ordinariness’; teenagers are effortlessly cool; women beautiful, sexy (often unwillingly) and dressed with tasteful simplicity. There is nearly always a (gruesome) murder; if not, a rape (or both).
Dimensions (otherworld? underworld? death?) are connected through a ‘door’, either place or object, enabling the protagonist to communicate with: the Sheep Man through the Dolphin Hotel (Dance, Dance, Dance), his wife through a well (the Wind-Up Bird Chronicle), his inner-self through the skull of a unicorn (Hard-Boiled Wonderland), people from the past through a forest (Kafka on the Shore), etc.
Finally, each of the novels breathe through a liberating element, who brings relief as much as the key to find the truth, in the form of clairvoyants: Yuki (Dance, Dance, Dance), Malta and Creta Kano (Wind-Up Bird Chronicle), Nakata (Kafka on the Shore) etc…

What one could explain as ‘consistency’ is finally the repetition of a successful formula, which dramatically tones down the eccentricity and sheer originality of his work; or is it precisely this continuity that brings stability to the metaphysical universes he creates, a familiarity which protects the reader from the protagonists increasing insanity?


[originally posted as a comment on The Kugelmass Episodes]

Chronicles of the Box-Office # 4

Customer: 'At what time is the next Tate-to-Tate?'
[note: no 'hello', 'please' or whatever. as usual]
Me: 'I don't know'
C.: 'What do you mean 'I don't know'? Don't you work here?'
Me:'Well, I surely do work here, but not for that company.'
C., to his friend:'You really can't ask anything to these people, they don't understand anything about art, why would they bother knowing anything about the Tate!'
Me: 'Yeah, you're right, I am certainly much less interested about art than you. I am only writing a PhD in History of Art. Still, I do not treat you, nor anyone else, no matter what job one happens to do for a living, like a vulgar ignorant. Have a nice day, Sir. I hope you will enjoy the Holbein exhibition'.