Monday, April 30, 2007

Paul Auster on storytelling


Discurso del escritor norteamericano Paul Auster al recibir el PREMIO PRÍNCIPE DE ASTURIAS DE LAS LETRAS 2006
(texto bilingüe):


I don't know why I do what I do. If I did know, I probably wouldn't feel the need to do it. All I can say, and I say it with utmost certainty, is that I have felt this need since my earliest adolescence. I'm talking about writing, in particular writing as a vehicle to tell stories, imaginary stories that have never taken place in what we call the real world. Surely it is an odd way to spend your life -sitting alone in a room with a pen in your hand, hour after hour, day after day, year after year, struggling to put words on pieces of paper in order to give birth to what does not exist -except in your own head. Why on earth would anyone want to do such a thing? The only answer I have ever been able to come with is: because you have to, because you have no choice.

This need to make, to create, to invent is no doubt a fundamental human impulse. But to what end? What purpose does art, in particular the art of fiction, serve in what we call the real world? None that I can think of -at least not in any practical sense. A book has never put food in the stomach of a hungry child. A book has never stopped a bullet from entering a murder victim's body. A book has never prevented a bomb from falling on innocent civilians in the midst of war. Some like to think that a keen appreciation of art can actually make us better people -more just, more moral, more sensitive, more understanding. Perhaps that is true -in certain rare, isolated cases. But let us nor forget that Hitler started out in life as an artist. Tyrants and dictators read novels. Killers in prison read novels. And who is to say they don't derive the same enjoyment from books as everyone else?

In other words, art is useless -at least when compared, say, to the work of a plumber, or a doctor, or a railroad engineer. But is uselessness a bad thing? Does a lack of practical purpose mean that books and paintings and string quartets are simply a waste of our time? Many people think so. But I would argue that it is the very uselessness of art that gives it its value -and that the making of art is what distinguishes us from all other creatures who inhabit this planet, that it is, essentially, what defines us as human beings. To do something for the pure pleasure and beauty of doing it. Think of the effort involved, the long hours of practice and discipline required to become an accomplished pianist or dancer. All the suffering and hard work, all the sacrifices in order to achieve something that is utterly and magnificently... useless.

Fiction, however, exists in a somewhat different realm from the other arts. Its medium is language, and language is something we share with others, that is common to us all. From the moment we learn to talk, we begin to develop a hunger for stories. Those of us who can remember our childhoods will recall how ardently we relished the moment of the Bedtime Story - when our mother or father would sit down beside us in the semi-dark and read from a book of fairy tales. Those of us who are parents will have no trouble conjuring up the rapt attention in the eyes of our children when we read to them. Why this intense desire to listen? Fairy tales are often cruel and violent, featuring beheadings, cannibalism, grotesque transformations, and evil enchantments. One would think this material would be too frightening for a young child - but what these stories allow the child to experience is precisely an encounter with his own fears and inner torments - in a perfectly safe and protected environment. Such is the magic of stories: the might drag us down to the depths of hell, but in the end they are harmless.

We grow older, but we do not change. We become more sophisticated, but at bottom we continue to resemble our young selves, eager to listen to the next story, and the next, and the next. For years, in every country of the Western world, article after article has been published bemoaning the fact that fewer and fewer people are reading books, that we have entered what some have called the "post-literate age". That may well be true, but at the same time this has not diminished the universal craving for stories. Novels are not the only source, after all. Films and television and even comic books are churning out vast quantities of fictional narratives, and the public continues to swallow them up with great passion. That is because human beings need stories. They need them almost as desperately as they need food, and however the stories might be presented -whether on a printed page or on a television screen -it would be impossible to imagine life without them.

Still, when it comes to the state of the novel, to the future of the novel, I feel rather optimistic. Numbers don't count where books are concerned -for there is only one reader, each and every time only one reader. That explains the particular power of the novel, and why in my opinion, it will never die as a form. Every novel is an equal collaboration between the writer and the reader, and it is the only place in the world where two strangers can meet on terms of absolute intimacy. I have spent my life in conversations with people I have never seen, with people I will never know, and I hope to continue until the day I stop breathing. It's the only job I've ever wanted. (20/10/2006)

No sé por qué me dedico a esto. Si lo supiera, probablemente no tendría necesidad de hacerlo. Lo único que puedo decir, y de eso estoy completamente seguro, es que he sentido tal necesidad desde los primeros tiempos de mi adolescencia. Me refiero a escribir, y en especial a la escritura como medio para narrar historias, relatos imaginarios que nunca han sucedido en eso que denominamos mundo real. Sin duda es una extraña manera de pasarse la vida: encerrado en una habitación con la pluma en la mano, hora tras hora, día tras día, año tras año, esforzándose por llenar unas cuartillas de palabras con objeto de dar vida a lo que no existe…, salvo en la propia imaginación. ¿Y por qué se empeñaría alguien en hacer una cosa así? La única respuesta que se me ha ocurrido alguna vez es la siguiente: porque no tiene más remedio, porque no puede hacer otra cosa.

Esa necesidad de hacer, de crear, de inventar es sin duda un impulso humano fundamental. Pero ¿con qué objeto? ¿Qué sentido tiene el arte, y en particular el arte de narrar, en lo que llamamos mundo real? Ninguno que se me ocurra; al menos desde el punto de vista práctico. Un libro nunca ha alimentado el estómago de un niño hambriento. Un libro nunca ha impedido que la bala penetre en el cuerpo de la víctima. Un libro nunca ha evitado que una bomba caiga sobre civiles inocentes en el fragor de una guerra. Hay quien cree que una apreciación entusiasta del arte puede hacernos realmente mejores: más justos, más decentes, más sensibles, más comprensivos. Y quizá sea cier
to; en algunos casos, raros y aislados. Pero no olvidemos que Hitler empezó siendo artista. Los tiranos y dictadores leen novelas. Los asesinos leen literatura en la cárcel. ¿Y quién puede decir que no disfrutan de los libros tanto como el que más?

En otras palabras, el arte es inútil, al menos comparado con, digamos, el trabajo de un fontanero, un médico o un maquinista. Pero ¿qué tiene de malo la inutilidad? ¿Acaso la falta de sentido práctico supone que los libros, los cuadros y los cuartetos de cuerda son una pura y simple pérdida de tiempo? Muchos lo creen. Pero yo sostengo que el valor del arte reside en su misma inutilidad; que la creación de una obra
de arte es lo que nos distingue de las demás criaturas que pueblan este planeta, y lo que nos define, en lo esencial, como seres humanos. Hacer algo por puro placer, por la gracia de hacerlo. Piénsese en el esfuerzo que supone, en las largas horas de práctica y disciplina que se necesitan para ser un consumado pianista o bailarín. Todo ese trabajo y sufrimiento, los sacrificios realizados para lograr algo que es total y absolutamente… inútil.

La narrativa, sin embargo, se halla en una esfera un tanto diferente de las demás artes. Su medio es el lenguaje, y el lenguaje es algo que compartimos con los demás, común a todos nosotros. En cuanto aprendemos a hablar, empez
amos a sentir avidez por los relatos. Los que seamos capaces de rememorar nuestra infancia recordaremos el ansia con que saboreábamos el cuento que nos contaban en la cama, el momento en que nuestro padre, o nuestra madre, se sentaba en la penumbra junto a nosotros con un libro y nos leía un cuento de hadas. Los que somos padres no tendremos dificultad en evocar la embelesada atención en los ojos de nuestros hijos cuando les leíamos un cuento. ¿A qué se debe ese ferviente deseo de escuchar? Los cuentos de hadas suelen ser crueles y violentos, describen decapitaciones, canibalismo, transformaciones grotescas y encantamientos maléficos. Cualquiera pensaría que esos elementos llenarían de espanto a un crío; pero lo que el niño experimenta a través de esos cuentos es precisamente un encuentro fortuito con sus propios miedos y angustias interiores, en un entorno en el que está perfectamente a salvo y protegido. Tal es la magia de los relatos: pueden transportarnos a las profundidades del infierno, pero en realidad son inofensivos.

Nos hacemos mayores, pero no cambiamos. Nos volvemos más refinados, pero en el fondo seguimos siendo como cuando éramos pequeños, criaturas que esperan ansiosamente que les cuenten otra historia, y la siguiente, y otra más. Durante años, en todos los países del mundo occidental, se han publicado numerosos artículos
que lamentan el hecho de que se leen cada vez menos libros, de que hemos entrado en lo que algunos llaman la “era posliteraria”. Puede que sea cierto, pero de todos modos no ha disminuido por eso la universal avidez por el relato. Al fin y al cabo, la novela no es el único venero de historias. El cine, la televisión y hasta los tebeos producen obras de ficción en cantidades industriales, y el público continúa tragándoselas con gran pasión. Ello se debe a la necesidad de historias que tiene el ser humano. Las necesita casi tanto como el comer, y sea cual sea la forma en que se presenten –en la página impresa o en la pantalla de televisión–, resultaría imposible imaginar la vida sin ellas.


De todos modos, en lo que respecta al estado de la novela, al futuro de la novela, me siento bastante optimista. Hablar de cantidad no sirve de nada cuando nos referimos a los libros; porque no hay más que un lector, sólo un lector en todas y cada una de las veces. Lo que explica el particular influjo de la novela, y por qué, en mi opinión, nunca desaparecerá como forma literaria. La novela es una colaboración a pa
rtes iguales entre el escritor y el lector, y constituye el único lugar del mundo donde dos extraños pueden encontrarse en condiciones de absoluta intimidad. Me he pasado la vida entablando conversación con gente que nunca he visto, con personas que jamás conoceré, y así espero seguir hasta el día en que exhale mi último aliento. Nunca he querido trabajar en otra cosa.


Paul Auster was born in New Jersey in 1947. After attending Columbia University, he lived in France for four years. Since 1947, he has published poems, essays, novels, screenplays and translations. He is the author of The New York Trilogy, Leviathan, Oracle Night, The Book of Illusions, and The Brooklyn Follies. Man in the Dark is his latest novel. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Friday, April 20, 2007

Bombing For Peace?


The US administration tries to call anyone who criticizes their policy in Iraq 'anti-troop,' but the interviews from the VideoVets Project show that 'supporting the troops' does NOT mean supporting an endless war. The voices of these veterans and military families are missing from the debate in Washington. Together we can make sure they become a vital part of the national dialogue around ending the war. Watch these videos and voice your opinion. Then, Academy Award winning director Oliver Stone will turn the most-voted one into a TV-ad, thus spreading this message even further.

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

National Stereotypes

DISCUSSING NATIONAL STEREOTYPES

A. Preparation.
1. People often say such things as “Italians are good lovers” or “Englishmen are cold-blooded”. What other generalizations of this nature can you think of?
2. Do these generalizations serve any useful purpose? If so, what?
3. What do foreigners say about your own national character?

B. Read the text. Learn the words in bold.

We are repeatedly warned of generalizations yet, paradoxically, it seems that the human mind cannot resist categorizing people and things. We love to pigeon-hole, to make order out of a universe that frequently seems to us confusing and even chaotic. Nowhere is this tendency more evident than in our willingness to generalize over nationalities. We create national stereotypes and cling tenaciously to our prejudices. To illustrate this point, we shall take a look at the findings of a survey carried out by the market research firm, Parkland Research Europe.
This organization carried out a detailed study of European attitude by questioning 185 business executives, lawyers, engineers, teachers and other professional people from seven European countries. These countries were: Germany; France; Britain; Switzerland; Italy; the Netherlands; Belgium. The resulting publication, Guide to National Practices in Western Europe, gave some idea of what some Europeans think of each other. It revealed many widely-held stereotypes, but also came up with a few surprises. In the chart below, some of the data from this survey is summarized.

C. Research Findings. Can you guess who they are?

Liked themselves best of all. Most Europeans agreed that the __________ had the highest proportion of good qualities. They considered themselves very tolerant, but nobody else did. They saw themselves as fashionable. Others found them square.

Not really admired by anyone except the Italians. Other Europeans found them conservative, withdrawn, chauvinistic, brilliant, superficial, hedonistic. Also, they are not supposed to be very friendly. The __________ agreed on the last point!

Mixed reactions. Some found them calm, reserved, open-minded, trustworthy; others deemed them hidebound, insular and superior. Everyone was unanimous that the __________ had an excellent sense of humour. They most admired the Dutch.

Showed considerable lucidity and powers of self-analysis. Saw themselves as serious, trustworthy, but too money-minded and suspicious. Most Europeans agreed. The __________ liked the Germans best.

Generally considered by everyone to be lazy and untrustworthy, and the __________ agreed! Most also found them to be vivacious, charming, hospitable and noisy. They admired the French and the Dutch. Hardly anyone loved them except the French.

Most admired people in Europe (except by their neighbours, the Belgians). Everyone agreed that the __________ are supposed to be hard-working, thrifty, good-natured, tolerant and business-minded. The __________, however, was not considered a good place to live in.

Least admired in the group. The __________ see themselves as easy-going and diligent workers. Other Europeans consider them undisciplined and narrow-minded (and lousy drivers!).