De Oostenrijkse schrijver Albert Drach werd op 17 december 1902 in Mödling geboren. Zie ook alle tags voor Albert Drach op dit blog.
Uit: Das Goggelbuch
„Bei Ermittlung seines Ahnennachweises, den Klaus Xaver Johann Guckelhupf, öffentlicher Notar, emsig und ehrlich zusammenzustellen im Begriffe stand und der ihn zunächst auf eine lange Reihe gleich und ähnlich benamster, zumeist dem Notarsstande angehöriger Blutsvorgänger führte, mit Ausnahme eines aus der Art gefallenen, der neben den noch bestehenden Erdteilen Eurasien, Afrika, Australien, Polynesien, Amerika und Antarktis auch noch das versunkene Eiland Atlantis anführte, das sich bisweilen neben die noch nicht untergegangenen als siebentes in unser Bewußtsein einschiebt, kam schließlich der Nachforscher auf den letzterweislichen Urzeuger zurück, der nicht einmal ein phantastischer Geograph oder Erdkundler gewesen, sondern kurzweg ein deutscher Diener mit dem einfachen Namen Xaver Johann Gottgetreu Goggel, der außerdem über sein Dasein in früher Neuzeit einen Bericht hinterlassen hatte, dessen Ursprünglichkeit auch noch durch die Bearbeitung dreier Notare und eines Erdkundlers seine nackte Haut zeigte, wie auch noch immer, wenn auch in Folianten gepreßt, die reine Einheit der Seele eines deutschen Dieners mit seinem Gotte, über den er trotz seinem Stande und seiner Zeit nicht allzulange nach Erfindung des Schießpulvers gehörig nachgedacht hat, sich urtümlich bekundet.
Mithin das Goggelbuch, welches gleich mit der Feststellung beginnt, daß ein deutscher Mann sich niemals in den Spiegel sehe, es sei denn zum Trotz. Hier kann es sich freilich nur um eine allegorische Meinungsäußerung handeln, zumal es in deutschen Landen durchaus üblich und vermutlich immer üblich gewesen ist, sich zwecks Bindens der Krawatte, solange es eine solche gibt, zwecks Rasierens und Haarbürstens eines Spiegels zu bedienen, ohne daß damit eine Herausforderung des Rückstrahlungsgerätes beabsichtigt wäre. Im übrigen beginnt Goggel selbst seinen Bericht mit einer eingehenden Besichtigung seiner Person mit Hilfe einer solchen Fläche“.
De Amerikaanse schrijver John Kennedy Toole werd geboren op 17 december 1937 in New Orleans. Zie ook alle tags voor John Kennedy Toole op dit blog.
Uit: A Confederacy of Dunces
„Ignatius snorted at the movie credits. All of the people involved in the film were equally unacceptable. A set designer, in particular, had appalled him too many times in the past. The heroine was even more offensive than she had been in the circus musical. In this film she was a bright young secretary whom an aged man of the world was trying to seduce. He flew her in a private jet to Bermuda and installed her in a suite. On their first night together she broke out in a rash just as the libertine was opening her bedroom door.”Filth!” Ignatius shouted, spewing wet popcorn over several rows. “How dare she pretend to be a virgin. Look at her degenerate face. Rape her!”
(..)
“Then you must begin a reading program immediately so that you may understand the crises of our age,” Ignatius said solemnly. “Begin with the late Romans, including Boethius, of course. Then you should dip rather extensively into early Medieval. You may skip the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. That is mostly dangerous propaganda. Now that I think of it, you had better skip the Romantics and the Victorians, too. For the contemporary period, you should study some selected comic books.”
De Amerikaanse dichter en hervormer John Greenleaf Whittier werd geboren in Haverhill, Massachusetts op 17 december 1807. Zie ook alle taggs voor John Greenleaf Whittier op dit blog.
A Dream Of Summer
Bland as the morning breath of June
The southwest breezes play;
And, through its haze, the winter noon
Seems warm as summer’s day.
The snow-plumed Angel of the North
Has dropped his icy spear;
Again the mossy earth looks forth,
Again the streams gush clear.
The fox his hillside cell forsakes,
The muskrat leaves his nook,
The bluebird in the meadow brakes
Is singing with the brook.
‘Bear up, O Mother Nature!’ cry
Bird, breeze, and streamlet free;
‘Our winter voices prophesy
Of summer days to thee!’
So, in those winters of the soul,
By bitter blasts and drear
O’erswept from Memory’s frozen pole,
Will sunny days appear.
Reviving Hope and Faith, they show
The soul its living powers,
And how beneath the winter’s snow
Lie germs of summer flowers!
The Night is mother of the Day,
The Winter of the Spring,
And ever upon old Decay
The greenest mosses cling.
Behind the cloud the starlight lurks,
Through showers the sunbeams fall;
For God, who loveth all His works,
Has left His hope with all!
De Canadese schrijver Thomas Chandler Haliburton werd geboren op 17 december 1796 in Windsor, Nova Scotia. Zie ook alle tags voor Thomas Haliburton op dit blog.
Uit: The Clockmaker
“[After these sketches had gone through the press, and were ready for the binder, we sent Mr. Slick a copy; and shortly afterwards received from him the following letter, which characteristic communication we give entire.
To MR. HOWE,
Sir–I received your letter, and note its contents; I ain’t over half pleased, I tell you; I think I have been used scandalous, that’s a fact. It warn’t the part of a gentleman for to go and pump me arter that fashion and then go right off and blart it out in print. It was a nasty dirty mean action, and I don’t thank you nor the Squire a bit for it. It will be more nor a thousand dollars out of my pocket.
There’s an eend to the clock trade now, and a pretty kettle of fish I’ve made of it, havn’t I? I shall never hear the last on it, and what am I to say when I go back to the States? I’ll take my oath I never said one half the stuff he has set down there; and as for that long lochrum about Mr. Everett, and the Hon. Alden Gobble, and Minister, there ain’t a word of truth in it from beginnin’ to eend. If ever I come near hand to him agin, I’ll larn him–but never mind,
I say nothin’. Now there’s one thing I don’t cleverly understand. If this here book is my “Sayin’s and Doin’s,” how comes it your’n or the Squire’s either? If my thoughts and notions are my own, how can they be any other folks’s? According to my idee you have no more right to take them, than you have to take my clocks without payin’ for ‘em. A man that would be guilty of such an action is no gentleman, that’s flat, and if you don’t like it, you may lump it–for I don’t vally him, nor you neither, nor are a Bluenose that ever stepped in shoe leather the matter of a pin’s head. I don’t know as ever I felt so ugly afore since I was raised; why didn’t he put his name to it, as well as mine? When an article hain’t the maker’s name and factory on it, it shows it’s a cheat, and he’s ashamed to own it. If I’m to have the name I’ll have the game, or I’ll know the cause why, that’s a fact.“
De Poolse dichter en militair Władysław Broniewski werd geboren op 17 december 1897 in Plock. Zie ook alle tags voor Władysław Broniewski op dit blog.
Ballads and Romances
“Listen, girl! She’s not listening…
It’s daylight, it’s a town…”
There is no town, not a living creature,
a naked, red-headed Ryfka runs in the ruins,
thirteen-year-old.
Well-fed Germans in a fat tank passed by.
(Run, Ryfka, run!)
“Mama’s under the ruins, papa in Majdanek…”
She laughed, turned around, disappeared.
A good old chap from Lubartow passed by:
“Here, Ryfka, a white roll, so that you’re healthy…”
She took it, had a bite, her teeth glistened:
“I’ll bring it to Mama and to Papa.”
A peasant passed by, threw a penny,
a peasant woman passed by, gave her something,
many, many people passed by,
all were stunned that she was naked and red-headed.
And a sorrowful Jesus passed by,
the SS were leading him to die,
they put them both by a hedge,
then took their guns in their hands.
“Listen, Jesus, listen, Ryfka, sie Juden,
for this thorn crown, for that red hair,
for your nakedness, for your guilt,
you both should be dead.”
And it sounded Alleluia
in the Galilee,
and they both were turning
into angels,
and then a round of gunfire exploded…
“Listen, girl!…
She’s not listening…”
Vertaald door Joanna Schier
Zie voor onderstaande schrijver ook mijn blog van 17 december 2010.
De Braziliaanse schrijver Érico Veríssimo werd geboren op 17 december 1905 in Rio Grande do Sul. Zie ook alle tags voor Érico Veríssimo op dit blog.