De Noorse schrijver Jostein Gaarder werd geboren op 8 augustus 1952 in Oslo. Zie ook alle tags voor Jostein Gaarder op dit blog.
Uit: The Orange Girl (Vertaald door James Anderson)
“But Georg, a new dilemma can emerge here, and one that possibly isn’t so difficult — or malignant —as the first one. If you answer that, despite everything, you would have chosen to live, even if only for a short while, then I don’t really have any right to wish I hadn’t been born. So there can be a kind of balancing of accounts, one item can mitigate the other. Of course that’s what I’m hoping for. Indeed, that’s why I’m writing. You can’t give me a direct answer to the great question I’ve posed. But you can reply indirectly. You can answer in the way you choose to live this life you began when Veronika and I and a disobedient hospital doctor drank your health in champagne. That champagne doctor was a good omen for you, I’m certain of it.
Now you can lay aside this greeting from me. Now it’s your turn to live.
As for me, I’m being admitted to hospital tomorrow. That was the important appointment. Mum will be taking you to nursery school from now on. I had to write that too. And I must add: I can’t promise that I’ll ever return to Humleveien. Georg! I have one final question: can I be certain that there is no life after this one? Can I be totally sure that I won’t be somewhere else when you come to read this letter? No, I can’t completely exclude the possibility. Because the world exists, the limits of probability have already been exceeded. Do you know what I mean by that? I’m already so full of amazement that there is a world, that I have no room for more amazement should there turn out to be another one afterwards.
I remember how, a couple of days ago, you and I killed a couple of hours with a computer game. Perhaps the game amused me more than it did you; I desperately needed a little respite from all my thoughts. But each time we ‘died’ in that game, a new screen immediately came up, and we were off again. How can we know that there isn’t a ‘new screen’ for our souls as well? I don’t think there is, I really don’t. But the dream of something unlikely has its own special name. We call it hope.
I REMEMBERED THAT NIGHT OUT ON THE PATIO! It had penetrated my marrow, been etched on my heart. And reading about it now made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up more than once. Until then I’d sort of forgotten everything, because I’d never have remembered that starry night if I hadn’t read about it, but now I recalled it almost too vividly. PERHAPS THIS IS THE ONLY GENUINE MEMORY I HAVE OF MY FATHER. I couldn’t remember him at Fjellstolen. However hard I tried, I couldn’t bring back any of the walks around Lake Sognsvann, either. But I remembered that enchanted night on the patio. That is, I remembered it in a totally different way. I remembered it like a fairytale, or like some motley-coloured dream. I had woken up. Then Dad came in from the conservatory and lifted me high in the air. He said we were going out to fly. We were going to look at the stars, he said. We were going out to fly through space.”
De Engelse dichter Philip Larkin werd op 9 augustus 1922 geboren in Coventry. Zie ook alle tags voor Philip Larkin op dit blog
Aubade
Ik werk de hele dag, word ’s avonds halfdronken,
ontwaak om vier uur in het donker. Ik staar.
Om de gordijnen wordt het licht ten slotte.
Tot dan zie ik wat ik als echt ervaar:
de rusteloze dood, opnieuw een etmaal nader,
die maakt dat ik slechts denken kan aan waar
en hoe, wanneer ik zelf zal sterven.
Vruchteloze vragen – toch speelt de vrees
om dood te gaan en dood te wezen
opnieuw, vervult me met ontzetting.
Heel je verstand staat stil. Niet uit wroeging
om dingen niet gedaan, om liefde niet gegeven,
tijd niet benut, ook niet uit spijt omdat
één leven er zo lang over kan doen om uit
een fout begin verlost te raken, of zelfs dat niet,
maar om totale leegte voor altijd,
de zekere vernietiging voor eeuwig waarnaar
wij toegaan. Niet meer hier zijn.
Nergens meer zijn.
Niets is erger, niets méér waar.
Vertaald door Jan Eijkelboom
Standbeeld in Kingston upon Hull, waar Larkin meer dan 30 jaar woonde.
Zie voor meer schrijvers van de 8e augustus ook mijn blog van 8 augustus 2020 en eveneens mijn blog van 8 augustus 2019 en ook mijn blog van 8 augustus 2017 en ook mijn blog van 8 augustus 2015 deel 2.
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