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Sunday, December 14th, 2008
(Yikes! four posts about The Stone Raft this morning -- it's taken over my consciousness pretty completely.) Interesting: With the addition of Joana to group of travelers, there will be no more conversations that everybody understands. Pedro speaks only Spanish, Joana speaks only Portuguese -- José and Joachim are bilingual. I guess I had been vaguely assuming that most people in Portugal were competent in Spanish, not really sure why I would think such a thing though. When Pedro did not understand what was happening between Joachim and the border guard, it surprised me to realize that Joachim and José had not been speaking their native language with him. I think it's easy to fall into a trap of viewing the two languages as more similar than they actually are, if most of your exposure to them is reading. It seems like if you just do some letter substitutions, written Portuguese looks pretty similar to written Spanish. I was surprised watching City of God last night, that I had mostly no clue what the characters were saying -- when I watch a Spanish film with subtitles, I can generally map the meanings in the subtitles to the sounds of what people are saying -- but here it was very much the exception for me even to recognize a word of the spoken dialog. I don't know how different the spoken Portuguese of Brazil is from that of Europe. (By the way, Paolo Lins' City of God is now on my list of books to read in 2009 -- the movie made me really want to find out more about the characters, and I think I'll be able to understand them better in book form.)
posted afternoon of December 14th, 2008: Respond
➳ More posts about José Saramago
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 The Mondego crossing at Ereira, 1952  Church at Ereira I had the thought maybe Ereira was Saramago's birthplace, and went to check -- but it is not. He was born in Azinhaga, near where José Anaiço lives. (And I think it makes sense to identify José Anaiço with the author of this story.)
 (With regards to Joana's feminine mystique: as they are walking to see the line, she says she will tell them the rest of her story. "You could have told us sooner, either in Lisbon or during the journey, José Anaiço remarked, I don't see why, ...As a reward for having believed in you, It's for me to decide your reward and when it should be given, José Anaiço refrained from answering,... but she heard Joachim Sassa murmur, What a girl, Joana Carda smiled, I'm no girl, and I'm not the bitch you think I am, I don't think you're a bitch, Domineering, stubborn, conceited, affected, Good heavens, what a list, why not say mysterious and leave it at that,...") *Not quite -- her home is in Coimbra, but she's been living with relatives in Ereira for about a month, since separating from her husband.
posted morning of December 14th, 2008: Respond
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This positively Baroque passage just made me dissolve in a fit of giggles. Hope you like it! José and Joachim are driving back to the hotel after dinner:
They finished their dinner, resumed their journey without haste, at the slow pace of the Deux Cheveaux, there was little traffic on the road, probably because of the scarcity of gasoline, they were fortunate in having a car that got such good mileage, But we would still run the risk of grinding to a halt somewhere or other, then our journey would really be over, Joachim Sassa remarked, then suddenly remembering, he asked, Why did you say the starlings must have gone away, Anyone can tell the difference between farewell and so long, what I saw was definitely farewell, I can't explain it, the starlings went away the moment Joana appeared, Joana, That's her name, You could have said the lady, the woman, the girl, that's how male diffidence refers to the opposite sex, when to use their names might seem much too familiar, Compared to your wisdom, mine is rudimentary, but, as you've just seen, I spoke her name quite naturally, proof that my inner self has nothing to do with this matter, Unless, at heart, you're much more Machiavellian than you appear, trying to prove the opposite of what you really think or feel so that I will think that what you think or feel is precisely what you only appear to be trying to prove, I don't know if I've made myself clear, You haven't, but never mind, clarity and obscurity cast the same shadow and light, obscurity is clear, clarity is obscure, and as for someone being able to say factually and precisely what he feels and thinks, don't you believe it, not because he doesn't want to, but because he cannot, Then why do people talk so much, Because that's all we can do, talk, perhaps not even talk, it's all a question of trial and error, The starlings went away, Joana arrived, one form of companionship went, another took its place, you should consider yourself fortunate, That remains to be seen.
This is a little uncharacteristic of Saramago's constructions: the "punch line", which I am identifying as "trying to prove the opposite of what you really think or feel so that I will think that what you think or feel is precisely what you only appear to be trying to prove," comes in the middle of the sentence -- then there is a digression into the nature of clarity and whether it can be achieved, leading into a second, fainter punch line, "That remains to be seen."
posted morning of December 14th, 2008: Respond
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In the ninth chapter of The Stone Raft I find the second explicit reference to a work of literature that I've come across in Saramago's work. (The first was in The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis, to Borges' "Examination of the Works of Herbert Quain".) -- Pedro and Joachim are telling José about the stressful time they've had being examined by Portuguese authorities, and Joachim says (after Pedro has gone to bed), "...shall I tell you what this reminds me of, a story I read years ago entitled At the Mercy of the Quacks, Do you mean the story by Rodrigues Miguéis, That's the one." Miguéis, 1901 - 1980, was a Portuguese author and illustrator. The best source for information about him on the net in English appears to be this page at Brown University. I don't see this story in the abbreviated bibliography offered there, but there are plenty of links for further research.
posted morning of December 14th, 2008: Respond
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Saturday, December 13th, 2008
In the eighth chapter of The Stone Raft, a fourth person joins the group of pilgrims -- the first female pilgrim, and the first person who was mentioned in the book -- back in the first sentence of the whole story, "When Joana Carda scratched the ground with the elm branch all the dogs of Cerbère began to bark..." This is key -- references to Ms. Carda and her elm branch have appeared throughout the story but no information about who she is, where she lives, what she was doing. Now here she is, still carrying the branch* -- she has come by train seeking the other three. The group is still one person short of the full complement -- I wonder if the final person to join them will be Maria Dolores. I'm still curious why she was given a name, when the only other characters with names are the members of this group of pilgrims. A point for research -- when José, Joachim and Pedro return to Portugal they cross the border at "the mouth of the Guadiana", which is Vila Real de Santo António; but the starlings, "swept away by the volley of gunfire from Rosal de la Frontera of bitter memory,... made a wide circle northward..." I wonder what battle is being referenced here. Something from the Spanish Civil War? Or earlier, maybe part of a border conflict between Spain and Portugal? In Lisboa, José, Joachim and Pedro stay at the Hotel Bragança, where Ricardo Reis stayed a long time ago -- the narrator references this point, saying, ...the book where that name was once registered, many, many, years ago, is stored away in the archives, covered with dust in the attic, written on a page that may never come to light, and if it should, most likely the name will be illegible, the line will be faded, or even the entire page, that's one of the effecs of time, to blot out everything. It is deemed unwise for Joana to stay in the same hotel -- the authorities have by now found out about the travelers and are giving them some grief -- so she moves in up the street, at the Hotel Borges. Ha!
*"...which unfortunately is neither telescoping nor easily packed away, so that people stare in amazement as she passes, and the receptionist at the desk, jesting to disguise his genuine curiosity, makes a discreet reference to wands that are not walking sticks, Joana Carda responded with silence, after all, there is no law to prohibit guests from taking even a branch of Holm Oak into their room, much less a thin little stick, not even two meters long, which fits easily into the elevator and can be neatly stored away out of sight in a corner."
posted morning of December 13th, 2008: Respond
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Tuesday, December 9th, 2008
Returned to Pedro's house in Orce, the three travellers watch Gibraltar slipping past on TV, and get a glimpse of José's starlings -- he admits he had forgotten them on the drive. There they are now, as Unamuno described them, his swarthy face cupped in the palms of his hands, Fix your eyes where the lonely sun sets in the immense sea, all nations with the sea to the west do the same,... Interesting -- what poem of Unamuno's is this? It's a beautiful line. Google gives no hits for the phrase, "Fix your eyes where the lonely sun sets in the immense sea" -- perhaps it has not been translated precisely this way before. What is hellish about Orce? Repeatedly in the text, Saramago is describing this town as the abode of the Devil -- pictures of the region I can find on the internet seem pretty idyllic though. This is where Pedro asks to join the travellers in their journey.
posted evening of December 9th, 2008: Respond
➳ More posts about Miguel de Unamuno
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Sunday, December 7th, 2008
They are seated on the ground, under a Cordoban olive tree, the kind that, according to the popular quatrain, makes the oil yellow, as if olive oil weren't yellow, or only occasionally slightly greenish...
Any ideas what the popular verse referenced is? Google's not doing much for me. Is Cordoban/Cordovan a variety of olive in addition to being a place where olives are grown?
posted evening of December 7th, 2008: Respond
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I sort-of knew that Spain does not have sovereignty over Gibraltar. I would have needed some kind of prompt to remember it though. Saramago gave me the prompt today, when he had Gibraltar break away from the Iberian peninsula, remaining with Europe as Iberia floats away. Strikes me as hilarious, to have the supernatural tectonic forces in the novel respect political boundaries rather than just physical ones. (Taking the Pyrenees as a natural physical boundary.) So: it was interesting to see the Spaniards celebrating the departure of Gibraltar. I got the sense this passage was intended in fun -- I am curious to know what the Spanish national attitude toward British sovereignty there is. (Another point of sovereignty I found out about in today's reading is the dispute over Olivenza in Badajoz, which Portugal does not officially recognize the Spanish claim to. Joachim Sassa's car is not interested in seeing Gibraltar, since as a Portuguese car, "his ancient grief is Olivença, and this road does not lead there.")
Work on the Stone Raft Map proceeds apace -- this is really fun and will make a useful companion to the book.
posted afternoon of December 7th, 2008: 2 responses
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Saturday, December 6th, 2008
Near the end of the fifth chapter of The Stone Raft, José and Joachim are in a tourist office in Granada getting directions from the newly introduced* Maria Dolores, who describes herself as "an anthropologist by training and a militant feminist by inclination." She asks if they are doing research on Orce Man, the fossilized skull discovered "some years ago" which is the oldest human fossil found yet in Europe. There is an article about Orce Man at talkorigins.org which says it was discovered in 1982 and that in 1984 a symposium about it was cancelled when French scientists suggested the skull was probably not human. So perhaps this narrows down the setting of the novel to sometime around late 1983 or early 1984? It was published in 1986.
*(Anyway I don't think she was mentioned in the first chapter. Should go back and double-check.)
posted evening of December 6th, 2008: Respond
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 Citroën Deux Cheveaux -- Joachim's wheels. I'm trying to embed it here but haven't quite figured that out yet. Embedded map is below the fold.
posted evening of December 6th, 2008: Respond
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