A Conference in Germany

Cathedral Charlemagne, Aix-la-Chapelle, Germany

I was invited to participate in a conference in Germany, dedicated to Portuguese language and literature. It was organized by German University professors of Roman philology and all round one of those sheer delightful and unforgettable moments of life. Ever so thankful for that.

Amongst the interesting and cultivated people I met, there was this Dutch lady, also a professor of Roman Philology in The Netherlands. No sooner had we been introduced than she declared, with the most exulting smile and a heavy charming accent, her admiration for a Portuguese speaking author who also happens to be a compatriot of my mine.

The expression of utter revulsion that took over my face and reflected in her own dismayed expression, did not leave me the opportunity to acquiesce nicely, as one is expected to do in such societies, and move one.

Nope. No sire.  I had to draw a deep breath and quickly try to come up with a plausible explanation for that expression that raised to my face without my consent.  Yeah, that and the fact I did not want to appear either rude or ungrateful to my hosts. Too late. It serves me well to let my expression take over.

But in truth, if ever there were a writer I could not stand, that is the one. Unreadable, can’t bear him. I tried, believe me, I did. Could never go beyond page ten and by then the feeling of nausea was so powerful, I did the unthinkable. Yes, the unthinkable. I THREW THE BOOK AWAY.  Yes, I know, you are wondering what happen to the previous ones. Well they were not m ine and I simply gave them back to their proud owners. But this one, the last one – God willing- was mine, a present. I could not give it back and, in honour, offer it as a gift to anyone else. After not so long a debate with myself, my decision was made and it was irretrievable. I binned it. Yes binned it with no regrets. Yes that was its only rightful place. Thank God my expression was unable to tell all this. It said a lot but not this.

However, she is still there, the Dutch professor, eagerly awaiting my explanation. And here it came out like this:

Well… (still looking for the softest, polite and nice way to put it, while trying hard to conceal any expression which would belie my attempts to any euphemisms).

Well… he is crude and vulgar, objectifies women and, in a nutshell, adds no value to anything. Yes it sounds awfully like cold soulless economics but it is so much more than that… For me literature, or simply a good book, is about subtlety, wit, finesse of thought and precision of writing and wielding of the language in the narrative. It is about conveying the message in such a way that the reader is able to appreciate, almost taste and drink each word, each sentence and come out of it feeling that something which had to be added to his/her soul, had just been so. It is about ethics as much as aesthetics. Never one without the other, like birds of a feather.

It is about…Jane Austen depicting British society of the 18th century with biting irony, without concession, with its faults and virtues, but never departing of the aesthetics in both the form and contents…

About the Brontë sisters, in the 19th century, with the unforgettable and powerful Byronic heroes in Jane Eyre and Wurthering Heights.

About Virginia Woolf’s whose poignant writing which reads more like poetry, examines the difficulties that female writers and intellectuals faced because  of the disproportionate legal and economic power held by men, as well as the future of women in education and society.

It is, on a totally different register, about Marguerite Yourcenar, for me one of the best authors ever. A world of erudition, precision creativeness and aesthetics.

About Vikhram Seth, a powerful Indian novelist and poet who, after a 1500 page book, leaves you wishing you had not finished the book and pray that he lives long enough to write other books half as good.

About Eça de Queiros, about Mia Couto, about Baltazar Lopes da Silva, about, Guy de Maupassant, about Proust, Albert Camus, Tolstoy, Saltikov-Shchedrin and, God, so many more I have read and others I hope to read one day… but mostly because life is not an easy ride for most, poetry and prose should be balm to our hearts, food for our souls and music to our ears. It would be, I told her, like trading Vivaldi’s Four Seasons of by the deafening sounds of a cannon.

Yeah, no improvement to my expression, I know, but it is what it is. And guess what? She likes him for the same reasons I dislike him. Fair enough. But I wonder if she would feel the same if he wrote about Dutch women. We’ll never know, will we?