De Oostenrijkse dichter Georg Trakl werd op 3 februari 1887 in Salzburg geboren. Zie ook alle tags voor Georg Trakl op dit blog. Georg Trakl stierf op 4 november 1914. Daarom is dit jaar een Trakl jaar.
Kindheit
Voll Früchten der Hollunder; ruhig wohnte die Kindheit
In blauer Höhle. Über vergangenen Pfad,
Wo nun bräunlich das wilde Gras saust,
Sinnt das stille Geäst; das Rauschen des Laubs
Ein gleiches, wenn das blaue Wasser im Felsen tönt.
Sanft ist der Amsel Klage. Ein Hirt
Folgt sprachlos der Sonne, die vom herbstlichen Hügel rollt.
Ein blauer Augenblick ist nur mehr Seele.
Am Waldsaum zeigt sich ein scheues Wild und friedlich
Ruhn im Grund die alten Glocken und finsteren Weiler.
Frömmer kennst du den Sinn der dunklen Jahre,
Kühle und Herbst in einsamen Zimmern;
Und in heiliger Bläue läuten leuchtende Schritte fort.
Leise klirrt ein offenes Fenster; zu Tränen
Rührt der Anblick des verfallenen Friedhofs am Hügel,
Erinnerung an erzählte Legenden; doch manchmal erhellt sich die Seele,
Wenn sie frohe Menschen denkt, dunkelgoldene Frühlingstage.
An Novalis
In dunkler Erde ruht der heilige Fremdling.
Es nahm von sanftem Munde ihm die Klage der Gott,
Da er in seiner Blüte hinsank.
Eine blaue Blume
Fortlebt sein Lied im nächtlichen Haus der Schmerzen.
Zang van de afgezonderde
Aan Karl Borromaeus Heinrich
Vol harmonieën is de vlucht der vogels. De groene bossen hebben zich
’s Avonds in stillere hutten verzameld;
De kristallen weiden van het ree. Iets donkers kalmeert het gekabbel van de beek, de vochtige schaduwen
En de bloemen van de zomer, welluidend in de wind.
Reeds schemert het voorhoofd van de peinzende mens.
En er schijnt een lampje, het goede, in zijn hart
En de vrede van het maal; want geheiligd is brood en wijn
Door Gods handen, en uit nachtelijke ogen kijkt
De broeder jou stil aan, opdat hij uitrust van doornige reizen.
O het wonen in de bezielde blauwte van de nacht.
Liefhebbend omgeeft het zwijgen in de kamer ook de schimmen der ouden,
De purperen martelingen, klacht van een groot geslacht,
Dat vroom nu uitsterft in de eenzame nakomeling.
Want stralender steeds ontwaakt uit zwarte minuten van waanzin
De verdraagzame bij versteende drempel
En hem omvatten geweldig de koele blauwte en het lichtende eind van de herfst,
Het stille huis en de sagen van het bos,
Norm en wet en de maanachtige paden van de afgezonderden.
Vertaald door Frans Roumen
Georg Trakl (3 februari 1887 – 4 november 1914)
Borstbeeld door Hans Pacher voor het Trakl-Haus in Salzburg
De Amerikaanse dichter, schrijver en essayist Paul Auster werd geboren op 3 februari 1947 in Newark, New Jersey. Zie ook alle tags voor Paul Auster op dit blog.
Uit: Travels in the Scriptorium
“He is dressed in blue-and-yellow striped cotton pajamas, and his feet are encased in a pair of black leather slippers. It is unclear to him exactly where he is. In the room, yes, but in what building is the room located? In a house? In a hospital? In a prison? He can’t remember how long he has been here or the nature of the circumstances that precipitated his removal to this place. Perhaps he has always been here; perhaps this is where he has lived since the day he was born. What he knows is that his heart is filled with an implacable sense of guilt. At the same time, he can’t escape the feeling that he is the victim of a terrible injustice.
There is one window in the room, but the shade is drawn, and as far as he can remember he has not yet looked out of it. Likewise with the door and its white porcelain knob. Is he locked in, or is he free to come and go as he wishes? He has yet to investigate this matter–for, as stated in the first paragraph above, his mind is elsewhere, adrift in the past as he wanders among the phantom beings that clutter his head, struggling to answer the question that haunts him.
The pictures do not lie, but neither do they tell the whole story. They are merely a record of time passing, the outward evidence. The old man’s age, for example, is difficult to determine from the slightly out-of-focus black-and-white images. The only fact that can be set down with any certainty is that he is not young, but the word old is a flexible term and can be used to describe a person anywhere between sixty and a hundred. We will therefore drop the epithet old man and henceforth refer to the person in the room as Mr. Blank. For the time being, no first name will be necessary.
Mr. Blank stands up from the bed at last, pauses briefly to steady his balance, and then shuffles over to the desk at the other end of the room. He feels tired, as if he has just woken from a fitful, too short night of sleep, and as the soles of his slippers scrape along the bare wood floor, he is reminded of the sound of sandpaper. Far off in the distance, beyond the room, beyond the building in which the room is located, he hears the faint cry of a bird–perhaps a crow, perhaps a seagull, he can’t tell which.”
Paul Auster (Newark, 3 februari 1947)
De Zweedse schrijver Henning Mankell werd geboren in Stockholm op 3 februari 1948. Hij woont afwisselend in Mozambique en in zijn vaderland Zweden. Zie ook alle tags voor Henning Mankell op dit blog.
Uit: The Man From Beijing (Vertaald door Laurie Thompson)
“When he gets there he finds another carcass. He drags his large meal back to the trees. He has not been discovered, not even the village dogs have stirred. The silence is total this freezing cold morning.
The wolf starts eating when he comes to the edge of the trees. It is easy, as the flesh has not yet frozen. He is very hungry now. Having pulled off a leather shoe, he starts gnawing away at an ankle.
It snowed during the night but stopped before dawn. As the wolf eats his fill, snowflakes once again start dancing down toward the frozen ground.
When Karsten Höglin woke up he remembered dreaming about a photograph. He lay motionless in bed and felt the image returning slowly, as if the negative of his dream were sending a copy into his conscious mind. He recognized the picture. It was black and white and depicted a man sitting on an old iron bed, with a hunting rifle hanging on the wall and a chamber pot at his feet. When he saw it for the first time, he had been gripped by the old man’s wistful smile. There was something timorous and evasive about him. Much later Karsten had discovered the background. A few years earlier the man had accidentally shot and killed his only son while hunting seabirds. From then on the rifle had never come down from the wall, and the man had become a hermit.
Höglin thought that of all the thousands of photographs and negatives he had seen, this was the one he would never forget. He wished he had taken it himself.
The clock on his bedside table read half past seven. Höglin usually woke up very early, but he had slept badly that night, the bed and its mattress were uncomfortable. He made up his mind to complain about them when he checked out of the hotel.”
Henning Mankell (Stockholm, 3 februari 1948)
De Amerikaanse schrijver Richard Yates werd geboren op 3 februari 1926 in Yonkers, New York. Zie ook alle tags voor Richard Yates op dit blog.
Uit: Revolutionary Road
“But there wasn’t plenty of time, and they all knew it, and a doubling and redoubling of their rehearshal schedule seemed only to make matters worse. Long after the time had come for what the director called “really getting this thing off the ground; really making it happen,” it remained a static, shapeless, inhumanly heavy weight; time and again they read the promise of failure in each other’s eyes, in the apologetic nods and smiles of their parting and the spastic haste with which they broke for their cars and drove home to whatever older, less explicit promises of failure might lie in wait for them there.
Scene uit de film uit 2008 met Kate Winslet en Leonardo DiCaprio
And now tonight, with twenty-four hours to go, they had somehow managed to bring it off. Giddy in the unfamiliar feel of make-up and costumes on this first warm evening of the year, they had forgotten to be afraid: they had let the movement of the play come and carry them and break like a wave; and maybe it sounded corny (and what if it did?) but they had all put their hearts into their work. Could anyone ever ask for more than that?
The audience, arriving in a long clean serpent of cars the following night, were very serious too. Like the Players, they were mostly on the young side of middle age, and they were attractively dressed in what the New York clothing stores describe as Country Casuals. Anyone could see they were a better than average crowd, in terms of education and employment and good health, and it was clear too that they considered this a significant evening.”
Richard Yates (3 februari 1926 – 7 november 1992)
De Amerikaanse dichteres en schrijfster Gertrude Stein werd geboren op 3 februari 1874 in Allegheny (Pennsylvania). Zie ook alle tags voor Gertrude Stein op dit blog.
Stanzas In Meditation: Stanza II
I think very well of Susan but I do not know her name
I think very well of Ellen but which is not the same
I think very well of Paul I tell him not to do so
I think very well of Francis Charles but do I do so
I think very well of Thomas but I do not not do so
I think very well of not very well of William
I think very well of any very well of him
I think very well of him.
It is remarkable how quickly they learn
But if they learn and it is very remarkable how quickly they learn
It makes not only but by and by
And they may not only be not here
But not there
Which after all makes no difference
After all this does not make any does not make any difference
I add added it to it.
I could rather be rather be here.
Gertrude Stein (3 februari 1874 – 27 juli 1946)
Portret door Francis Picabia, 1933
De Oostenrijkse schrijver Michael Scharang werd geboren in Kapfenberg in de provincie Steiermark op 3 februari 1943. Zie ook alle tags voor Michael Scharang op dit blog.
Uit: Komödie des Alterns
„Hunderte Briefe, sorgsam gesammelt, gern wiedergelesen, waren es im Lauf der Jahrzehnte geworden, der Abstand von Brief zu Brief wurde nicht länger, die Briefe nicht kürzer. In ihnen offenbarten die zwei Männer Gefühle, die sonst im Verborgenen geblieben und dort erstickt wären, weil ihnen die Lebensluft gefehlt hätte, und sie vertrauten einander Gedanken an, vor deren Kühnheit sie, mit sich allein, zurückgeschreckt wären, Gedanken, die, wie die beiden sich ausdrückten, mit dem Kopf durch die Wand, nicht an ihr zerschellen sollten.
Und dann, im Alter, dieser Haß. Sinnesverwirrt und kraftlos traten sie gegeneinander an, zwei brüchige Windmühlen, die sich für Ritter hielten, bereit zum tödlichen Hieb gegen den Halunken, der, so wüst dachten sie voneinander, diese schöne Freundschaft gemein verraten hatte. Für beide gab es nur einen Schuldigen: den anderen. Sie konnten, zerfressen von Haß, das Glas nicht mehr halten, verschütteten den Wein, mit dem sie sich Mut hätten antrinken wollen, Mut, um das Maul aufzureißen, damit der Fluch herauskann und sich im Feind verkrallt.“
Michael Scharang (Kapfenberg, 3 februari 1943)
De Oostenrijkse dichter en schrijver Ferdinand Schmatz werd geboren op 3 februari 1953 in Korneuburg. Zie ook alle tags voor Ferdinand Schmatz op dit blog.
Anstehen
etwas streckt sich, ausser mir, was vor,
und übt sich ein, die hand erreicht,
was aufwärts strebt, nie ausgeht, immer fort
auf zug ist – bis fuss stockt, dort hält,
auf sich gar vieles, steht darauf an
und ruht im stand, der wider tritt
in form, die nimmer kann ihm gleichen –
will es zwar, doch selbes fehlt:
egal, der finger zieht das eingelagerte
der stirn hervor, hebt auf, doch ab –
fällt es dem vorgesetzten ein, zu trimmen,
was zu schreiben drängt, im hirn sich fängt, und siebt:
gelegentliches durch, verirrt sich keines wegs,
und bleibt, wo jenes ist, das war, was wird.
Ferdinand Schmatz (Korneuburg, 3 februai 1953)
Zie voor nog meer schrijvers van de 3e februari ook mijn drie blogs van 3 februari 2013.