A Sala de Vidro (The Glass Room), by Simon Mawer

A very good novel, The Glass Room tells the story of a house, inspired by the Tugenhat House by Mies van der Rohe, in Brno. The modernist house is the main character, the stage where the narrative unfolds, and it's beautifully described. The contrast between its light and transparency and the secrets and deceits of its inhabitants through the years is very well depicted, as its pervasive influence on their lives - the "living in a work of art". It's also a history of the period from the late 20s until the 60s in Czechoslovakia. The main characters are convincing and nuanced in their contradictions. And it is a pleasure to read, a novel that grabs you and takes you into its world, which is one of the main qualities of a novel.

L'Histoire des Rois Francs, by Grégoire de Tours

I bought this book at the Musée Cluny; always enjoy reading history, and usually find very interesting the way it was written centuries ago. And I find this era fascinating - the times when Roman civilization was still a recent memory and influence and a new and barbaric Europe was being shaped. The History by Gregory, bishop of Tours, reads like an adventures book, full of wars, murders, intrigues and tortures, with terrible villains like Chilpéric and Frédégonde and extremely vivid scenes. It reminds us how violent those times were.

Le Mausolée des Amants, by Hervé Guibert

By Hervé Guibert, I had read À l'ami qui ne m'a pas sauvé la vie, that I liked very much, and Moi et mon valet, also good. Le Mausolée des Amants - Journal 1976-1991 is a very good book. Emotionally very intense, if sometimes it sounds pretentious or too narcissistic (but are not journals always somewhat narcissistic?), the overall feeling that remains is one of tenderness - for his fragility, his shortcomings, his lust for life, his candor, his love story with Thierry.

He talked about his experience as an AIDS patient at length in À l'ami qui ne m'a pas sauvé la vie and in other books I haven't read. I particularly liked in this journal the way he talks about the genesis of his several books, which is something that always interests me (and gave me a desire to read them), and how he alludes to his relationships with his family, friends and lovers, the complexity, multiplicity and contradictory, often confused feelings make it ring very true.

And French is such a beautiful language.

Norway, beautiful again

I recently came back from my third time in Norway; it's definitely a country to go back to again and again. Three years ago, I went to the Lofoten islands, last year to Oslo, Bergen and the Hardangerfjord region; this time I spent a couple of days near Bergen and a few days above the Arctic Circle.

Arrived in Oslo in a cool and rainy day, which was a relief after Lisbon's heat - the weather is one of the reasons I love Scandinavia in the summer, and the light. Already familiar with most of the "sights" of the city from my last year's visit, I spent a great afternoon of chatting and drinking with a Norwegian friend I had met through facebook; it was really a splendid beginning.

The next morning we took the train to Bergen; it's a beautifully scenic trip. Bergen was unusually sunny - meaning it just drizzled a few times and there were actually periods of sunshine - perfect to stroll along the Bryggen and the harbour. Unfortunately, the Floybannen was not working, so I couldn't enjoy the view from the top of the hill on such a clear day, so we finished the day with some reindeer meatballs at a nice bar, the Pingvinen.

We rented a car and drove for two days around the country, spending a night at the small village of Eidfjord (I had also stayed there last year). The region is extremely scenic: fjords, waterfalls, wooden houses villages (my son said they looked like "pinypon villages"; the weather was good and we were in a good mood. I don't like to drive, especially in highways and speedways, so Norway is perfect for me, I just didn't like some long tunnels and a few steep roads - I remembered once, in Tours, in 2000, a Belgian doctor talking about all the highways that had recently been built in Portugal: "maintenant, c'est un plaisir rouler au Portugal!", and thought: "c'est un plaisir rouler en Norvège!". The highest point of the tour was driving on a narrow road through the Folgefonna glacier, a stunningly beautiful place, amid snowy mountains and iced lakes, the road ended at a closed ski facility, where the posts disappeared in the clouds.

A Norwegian Airlines flight took us to Tromsö, a nice small town strangely known as "the Paris of the North" (didn't see any resemblance...). Another car, and, after a short drive, a long wait in the sun and a ferry trip, we reached the island of Senja, another stunningly beautiful place (I can't help repeating myself, "beautiful" is just the best word to talk about these places).

The weather was wonderful, sunny and warm, it was midnight sun time, so there was always light, and the scenery so uplifting I felt really happy. I treasure moments like when I felt the seaweed smell when We stopped by a small rocky deserted beach, or when I was walking on the pier in Mefjordvaer at midnight, watching the bay amid the mountains. That's why I never regret the money spent traveling.

We slept at a nice inn in Mefjordvaer, the Mefjord Brygge, where I ate a surprisingly tasty and spicy cod dish, and then crossed Senja and caught another ferry to the Vesteralen islands, to Harstad. Being a rainy day, I didn't go to the Lofoten, and just drove around Hinnoya and Ofoten, slept at Bjerkvik, and caught the plane back to Oslo at the Evenes airport.

Oslo was rainy again, so we visited the National Museum - apart from the great Viking and Polar collection, also small but very good collections from other places - and headed for Vigelands Park to see the bizarre but lively and interesting Vigeland statues, before the time came to catch the plane back to Lisbon.

So, it was a very pleasant vacation, and also a good opportunity for bonding with my son, who turned out a better travel companion than I expected - of course there were a few moments of exasperation at teen's "logic" and he always put a fashionable boring look to the photos, but all in all it was a very positive experience.

Down and Out in Paris and London, by George Orwell

A good book by Orwell, his first published work. Humorous and touching, often funny, he manages to depict the life of the paupers in Paris and the beggars in London in the late 20s vividly and uncondescendingly. It still is very up to date, one feels most of his observations are timeless and could have been written today - the numbing effects of poverty, the social issues. The Paris chapters are the best, but the whole book is interesting and a very good read.

And it's interesting to remember that this happened at the same time as what's told in A Moveable Feast, by Hemingway - such different experiences in Paris!

Au Plaisir de Dieu, by Jean d'Ormesson

I watched a television series when I was a kid, in the 70s, Au Plaisir de Dieu, and I remember liking it, so recently I bought the book. It's a good book, about the end of an era, depicting the story of the decadence of an old aristocratic French family, a relic of the Ancien Régime, in the 20th century. It's very well written, in the classic French tradition of Martin du Gard, Proust, Marguerite Yourcenar or, later, Le Clézio and Tournier. I think it would be more powerful if it ended at the sale of the château, the last chapters are somewhat stretched, but the narrative is always nostalgically beautiful, with some great characters and very accomplished scenes.

Weekend in Barcelona

What a great time I had in Barcelona last weekend. Such a beautiful and cosmopolitan city; and having been there before, I just enjoyed the walking, the food, the sightseeing. And most of all, the company - I met a facebook friend from Australia, someone I had been chatting with for some time and had the chance of finally meeting live. I will always be thankful to facebook for the new friends I made there around the world. This time, it was as if we knew each other for years, such a pleasant feeling of familiarity. And the weather was wonderful. It's so good to know there are nice people out there, and to make new friends! Somehow, that makes me feel reconciled with life.

The Stranger's Child, by Alan Hollinghurst

I like Hollinghurst's books very much, ever since I read The Line of Beauty. He writes beautifully, and The Stranger's Child is just as elegantly written as one would expect, but it somehow falls short compared to his other books, like The Line of Beauty, The Swimming Pool Library or The Folding Star. This one is too long; it's always an enjoyable read, but sometimes one feels the author has become a little too self-indulgent, self-satisfied with his own story. There are great scenes, though, and the themes of the evolution of gay life in England along the 20th century and of the literary biography / memory are very well depicted. All in all, it's a very good book and a most enjoyable read, but Hollinghurst has far better work.

The Play of the Eyes, by Elias Canetti

The third part of Elias Canetti's memoirs is as interesting as the first two. He's in a way extremely self-centered and self-assured, but his pursue of self-awareness, his staunch devotion to language and words, and above all his keen sense of observation, that translates into fabulous portraits and a vivid depiction of a time and place - the Vienna of literatti in the 30s - is most captivating. I read it with a feeling of discovery, because I know very little of German literature, apart from Thomas Mann; Hermann Broch, Robert Musil and Büchner were just names, as were Grozs, Alma Mahler or Wotruba. It's exciting to learn about a whole body of literature just waiting to be read! That's one of the things I always loved about books and reading: the opening of new horizons, new cultures, new people. One goes from one book to another, and it never ever ends, even if one was to live a thousand years.

I love Paris

I spent a couple of days in Paris on account of a medical congress - which I confess I wouldn't have attended if it wasn't in Paris; I just grabbed the opportunity to go there again. Paris is one of those places you can go again and again and there's always plenty to see, it's such a beautiful city just walking through it feels exhilarating. Having been there a few times, I feel free from the "obligation" of going to the "obligatory" places, and I can enjoy just walking its streets, en flaneur, reading at cafés terraces, follow my fancy.

So I enjoyed the view over the Eiffel Tower from my room, walked several kilometers, visited the superb exhibitions of Matisse at the Pompidou, about the times of Debussy at the Oragerie and Degas and the nude at the Musée d'Orsay (where I looked again at some of my favorite paintings by Cézanne - the Card Players - and Monet), discovered the collection of the Musée de l'Orangerie and the fabulous Musée Cluny, enjoyed cappucinos and beers at several café terraces, listened to the music of French speaking...

As usual, I had to run away from the Gibert Joseph bookstore keeping my eyes away from its shelves after buying a dozen of books - mostly livres de poche, the cheapest and lightest, my suitcase is small...

The weather was wonderful, sunny and even hotter than here in Lisbon. People were sunbathing by the Seine and in the Place des Vosges, my favorite place in Paris a par with Saint Germain des Prés. And the Île Saint Louis.

Traveling is really my greatest pleasure, and it feels wonderful not just to discover new places but to go back to the ones I love, and Paris certainly belongs in that category. I hope I go there again, and again.

Debussy, la musique et les arts, at the Orangerie

Another superb exhibition I saw in Paris! The exhibition about the times of Claude Debussy is an extraordinary gathering of art works from a period I'm particularly fond of, with paintings, photographs, sculptures and designs related to and contemporaneous of the composer. I love his music, though far from being a connoisseur. And the works are all great and splendidly exhibited, from the impressionists and Hokusai to the Pabst figurines, Nijinsky's photos and Kandinsky.

And I finally visited the Musée de l'Orangerie, with its superb collection - the beautiful Monet Nymphées rooms, but also an impressive ensemble of works by Cézanne, Derain, Picasso.

Matisse at the Pompidou

I absolutely loved the Matisse exhibition at the Pompidou Center. I came to admire Matisse more and more ever since I saw some of his paintings at the Musée Picasso the first time I went to Paris. He's undoubtedly one of the fathers of modern art, in some ways greater than Picasso. I love the art of the early 20th century, when our way to look at beauty changed so radically. And this exhibition is superb, not only the works are many and excellent, but they're extremely well arranged, the way the paintings are shown in pairs or series of the same motives is very interesting and insightful, we "look" at the themes with the eyes of the artist. And the chronological order makes us aware of his evolution, which was the evolution of modern art, from post-impressionism to an ever more simplified and schematic take on the subjects, until near-abstractionism. Watching the work of these geniuses of modernism, like Matisse himself, Klee, Kandinsky, Malevich, Picasso, is always fascinating, they really changed the way we perceive the world, they tried it all. And it makes us painfully aware of how poor and unoriginal most of painting is since the 50s.

The Crisis of Islam - Holy War and Unholy Terror, by Bernard Lewis

Like What Went Wrong?, by the same author, this is an interesting and informative book about the causes of islamic fundamentalism and terrorism. Elegantly written, it depicts in a clear and intelligible way the tenets of Islamism and how they have been used - and distorted - by the fundamentalists to comply with their agenda. Like other religions, Islamism can be and is used and interpreted according to the wishes of the interpreter. So, you could argue that Islamism is no worse than Christianity, with its long list of religious wars and atrocities. And in that way it isn't, actually I usually say that Islamism, being seven centuries "younger" than Christianity, is now where we were in the Middle Ages. The big difference, and by no way negligible, is that we're not living in the Middle Ages, but right now, in the 21st century, and right now Christianity, apart from the right wing evangelicals in the United States and the pernicious influence of Catholicism in Africa - and those are certainly big problems - is not much of a threat, and the former christian countries are christian mostly in name only. In my opinion, only real education and probably economic improvement will free the Muslim peoples from their present stagnation and backwardness, and religion will go then the same way it did in the West. But I'm sure it's not easy, and maybe it will take a long time. I don't know how the West should deal with this problem, there are no easy recipes, but I believe we must defend our way of life, with no misguided feelings of guilt or condescension, keeping in mind that these peoples are as human as we are, so with basically the same goals and yearnings in life. And they are indisputably much farther from those objectives than we are.

Friends

Why am I writing about friendship? I'm not the best of friends, I have a bad temper and am too demanding, and even if I had /have some very fulfilling and intense friendships, I seem to not be able to keep them for long. Maybe that's because of my relying on the circumstances of life, I always thought we shouldn't force things too much. But maybe that's just another way of being emotionally lazy? Whatever.

Five years ago, I wrote this. I totally forgot the movie, but I didn't forget the friends I talked about. Where are they now? Or should I say, where are our friendships now?

I haven't seen my old friend Athena for a few years. I don't blame her, she got scared at a time when I was seriously disturbed, when things at home were a mess, and I was a real mess. She was building her family life at the time, and I think my tempestuous domestic situation made her anxious, and it was probably too much for her to deal with. I hope she's alright, and I know one day we'll meet again and we'll resume our friendship as if no time has passed, because ours is the kind of friendship it can resume anytime, we can be apart for years but we'll be as close as always the moment we meet again.

The second friend I talked about is as close as always; we haven't seen much of each other lately, but I know he's there and that I can count on him anytime. Again, it's a very close friendship, even if we don't see each other much lately.

As for the third friend I mentioned, we're as close as ever. She is my closest friend now, my chosen sister, the one who puts up with me every day. I don't know how I'd do without her. We're working together for 20 years now, we've gone through a lot together - work, exams, marriages, children, loss of loved ones... My temper is famously difficult, we've had a few rows, but never was our friendship and closeness menaced. We share so many private jokes - including several pet names, like calling her my hyena #1 and me the little moor, or being both called the old men from the Muppet show. If I had to name a single best friend, it would surely be her. Sometimes I really don't know how she puts up with me.

I'm losing the fourth friend. It's no use to blame him, or me, for it. It's just the way it is. Maybe I'm too high-maintenance, or he is. Anyway, I feel sad about our drifting apart, but I don't think I could do differently. We've had very good times together anyway. And I'm not closing any doors.

No new friends though. Maybe the common wisdom that says one does not make great friends after 40 is partly true. There are a few people I met through facebook, that I like very much and feel close to, but it's not the same as a live relationship. Even so, they have been - and are - a great company. I like to think of facebook as a kind of virtual cafe where we meet friends from different parts of the world, discuss small and big issues, share experiences; it actually reminds me of my college days, when I used to spend a lot of time in cafes and had several interesting and funny friendships there, chatting on the pauses of the study. I'm very glad I know these people, and will always be thankful to the technology that makes it possible.

I have several other friends, some from college, or work, or family - and with some of these I connected again through facebook after years of rarely seeing them. And then there are my children; I've made a lot of mistakes with them, but we get along pretty well and as they get older I like to think of them as my friends too.

Jerusalem - The Biography, by Simon Sebag Montefiore

This book is an excellent read for anyone who, like me, likes History. Very well written, amazingly even-balanced considering the subject sometimes touchy and the author being related to one of the prominent English-Jewish families who mattered in the city's history, exhaustively researched, it reads almost like an adventure book. One is drawn into the complexities of a city so revered for millenia by so many peoples, empires and religions, and it helps to understand its present dilemmas. It's a fascinating story indeed, full of sound and fury as the Bard would say, and with many humorous and unexpected details.

The book is organized chronologically - after opening with the description of the siege and conquest by Titus, it goes back to the origins of the Canaanite city and then proceeds along the centuries until the war of 1967, with a short epilogue about the last 40 years. One of the interesting insights is the notion of how many important population shifts there were, and it shows the roots of the present Arab and Jewish presence in and attachment to the city. One can sense the passing of time and the changes it brings, and how history is ever changing.

The author tries to be impartial about the present conflicts, and I think he reasonably succeeds. He tells his story passionately, though, and ends in a somehow gloomy mode of sursis, balanced between the sense of History's continuity and timelessness (expressed by the description, in the last chapter, of the routines of the several religious shrines in the Old City) and the impending doom hovering over the city caused by the present situation.

Jerusalem today lives in a state of schizophrenic anxiety. Jews and Arabs dare not venture into each other's neighbourhoods; secular Jews avoid ultra-Orthodox who stone them for not resting on the Sabbath or for wearing disrespectful clothing; messianic Jews test police resolve and tease Muslim anxiety by attempting to pray at the Temple Mount; and the Christian sects keep brawling. The faces of Jerusalemites are tense, their voices are angry and one feels that everyone, even those of all three faiths who are convinced that they are fulfilling a divine plan, is unsure of what tomorrow will bring.

And yet, things can be, and were different, as one can read in a previous chapter about the 19th century:

... but in between, in a half-submerged folk culture, there was much blending, despite the stringent rules of each religion. At the end of the Ramadan fast, all the religions celebrated celebrated with a feast and a fair around the walls, with merry-go-rounds and horseraces, while vendors exhibited obscene peepshows and Arab sweets, Maidens Hair and Turkish Delight. During the Jewish festival of Purim, Muslim and Christian Arabs dressed up in the traditional Jewish costumes, and all three religions attended the Jewish Picnic held at the tomb of Simon the Just north of the Damascus Gate. Jews presented their Arab neighbours with matzah and invited them to the Passover Seder dinner, while the Arabs returned the favour by giving the Jews newly baked bread when the festival ended.Jewish mohels often circumcised Muslim children. Jews held parties to welcome their Muslim neighbours back from the haj. The closest relations were between Arabs and Sephardic Jews. Indeed the Arabs called the Sephardis "Yahud, awlad Arab - Jews, sons of Arabs", their own Jews and some Muslim women even learned Ladino. During droughts, the ulema asked the Sephardic rabbis to pray for rain. The Sephardic, Arab-speaking Valeros, the city's leading bankers, were business partners with many of the Families. Ironically, the Arab Orthodox Christians were the most hostile to Jews, whom they insulted in traditional Easter songs and lynched as they approached the Church.

Pessimism

This month I have been to some end-of-specialty exams, where young specialists get their degree recognized by our Medical Board after a 5 years internship. The final question to a girl who had performed magnificently was: "so what do you think will be the challenges in the Nephrology field in the next 2 decades?". Her answer was about finding cheaper ways to treat patients, containing dialysis costs, the ethical questions of withholding treatment... A member of the jury then vented what we, older nephrologists, were thinking: "this is the sad result of the state of psychiatric depression that comes from the economic depression... How differently we all would have answered that question 20 years ago!".

Actually, everything she said was quite right and legitimate. But she wasn't talking about challenges for the next 2 decades, she was talking about our present concerns, the challenges we're facing right now. Any one of us, older guys, would have talked about stem cells, xenotransplantation, portable artificial kidneys, whatever. And it made us really sad that the present generation is so burdened with the financial crisis and its troubles that they cannot envisage a different future. That's one of the main problems with economic depression, the effect it has on people, it shortens their views, their horizons. People worry about the present, the morrow, stop thinking big.

What a difference from 38 years ago, when Lisbon - and all Portugal - was burning with hope, the 48 year-old decrepit dictatorship toppled by a coup by young army officers! For all the naiveté, for the the blunders in the next few years, it was a time of overflowing optimism. I was just a child then but I'm happy to have lived through those times, when people believed things would be better and were actually doing something for that. Will we ever be that optimistic again?

Les Yeux Ouverts - Entretiens avec Mathieu Galey, by Marguerite Yourcenar

(So, my first post after the one in which I explain why I’m posting in English is in Portuguese… Not very coherent, but there’s a simple enough reason – I think about Marguerite Yourcenar in Portuguese or in French, and I read this book in Portuguese… But I will try to translate, it will be an useful exercise, even if not very successful… Critics welcome!)

I always admired immensely Marguerite Yourcenar’s work, ever since I read, when I was 18 or 19, Memoirs of Hadrian (that I reread several times since – and I still haven’t read it in French, an old project I haven’t fulfilled for a number of reasons, but the Portuguese translation seems excellent. Through the years, I read almost all her books, the novels (my favorites, after Hadrian, are L’Oeuvre au Noir and Alexis), her many superb essays, her letters, and even her biography by Josyanne Savigneau. I just had the opportunity to read Les Yeux Ouverts now, recently republished after the former edition being sold out for many years.

It’s a long interview, in which Marguerite Yourcenar discusses about everything: her life (she had just published two books of the trilogy about her family’s history, Le Labyrinthe du Monde), her books, her way of working, her opinions and life philosophy. And this reading confirmed the idea I had about her. A woman of huge intelligence and sensibility, extremely strong and clearminded, observant and keen in her vision of the world and human condition, but of a great intellectual arrogance, even if under an apparent modesty, that makes me wonder she must have been a not very nice people in every day life. I had this feeling from Savigneau’s biography, and especially from her correspondence in Lettres à ses Amis et Quelques Autres. Her many petty lawsuits against her publishers, the maniac insistence in controlling her public image, the paternalistic tone in which she addressed her admirers, a former pupil’s statement that “it was impossible to picture her using something like a hair drier”, her stance above politics and the repeated assumption that she didn’t care about class and cultural background, that always sounds to me like the statement of someone that can feel above those issues precisely because she comes from a privileged and educated class that allows her to ignore those issues.

But what’s really important about a writer is his work, and Yourcenar’s is magnificent. She’s right when she repeatedly states that trying to know details about a writer’s life misses the point, that’s his work that’s essential, because after all his core message is there. And I really like what she says about her books’ genesis, the way she thought them and wrote them; it’s always extremely interesting to know the way a writer works. And her writing was extremely good, every time I read Mémoires d’Hadrien, for instance, it fascinates me the way each word, each sentence, seems so exactly right, the way it should be, just perfect. And, as much as she might have been unsympathetic or proudly aristocratic, her understanding of man and the world, her connection to a kind of universality and timelessness of life is admirable and inspiring.

De Olhos Abertos - Conversas com Mathieu Galey, de Marguerite Yourcenar

Sempre admirei imensamente a obra de Marguerite Yourcenar, desde que li, aos 18 ou 19 anos, o excepcional Memórias de Adriano, que desde então reli várias vezes - e ainda me falta lê-lo em francês, um velho projecto que por um motivo ou outro ainda não realizei, mas a tradução para português é de enorme qualidade. Ao longo dos anos, fui lendo quase tudo o que escreveu, desde os romances (os meus favoritos, depois do Adriano, são A Obra ao Negro e Alexis), os muitos excelentes ensaios, as cartas, e mesmo a sua biografia por Josyanne Savigneau. Só agora tive oportunidade de ler De Olhos Abertos, recentemente reeditado após a edição anterior ter esgotado há muitos anos.

Trata-se de uma longa entrevista, em que Marguerite Yourcenar fala de tudo um pouco: da sua vida (tinha então publicado já dois livros da trilogia sobre a sua família, O Labirinto do Mundo), da sua obra, da sua forma de trabalhar, das suas opiniões e filosofia de vida. E esta leitura de certa forma confirmou a ideia que eu tinha dela. Uma mulher de enorme inteligência e sensibilidade, extremamente forte e lúcida, observadora e perspicaz na sua visão do mundo e da condição humana, mas de uma grande arrogância intelectual, se bem que apresentada sob uma pretensa modéstia, que me faz pensar que não devia ser uma pessoa muito agradável no tarcto e convivência diários. Ficara com essa impressão ao ler a biografia de Savigneau, e sobretudo ao ler uma recolha das suas cartas - Lettres à Ses Amis et Quelques Autres. Os seus numerosos e mesquinhos processos contra os seus sucessivos editores, a sua insistência maníaca em controlar a sua imagem, o tom paternalista com que dava conselhos aos seus admiradores, a declaração de uma antiga aluna de que "era impossível para nós imaginá-la a fazer coisas como usar um secador de cabelo", a sua postura acima da política e a posição repetidamente assumida de que para ela a classe e a cultura não contavam, que me soa sempre como a declaração de quem se pode colocar acima dessas questões precisamente porque uma classe e educação privilegiada lho permitem.

Mas o que interessa num escritor é sobretudo a sua obra, e a de Yourcenar é magnífica. Ela tem razão quando repetidamente afirma que procurar conhecer detalhes da vida de um escritor falha o essencial, que é a leitura da sua obra, porque ao fim e ao cabo, o principal, aquilo que ele nos transmite, está lá. E gosto muito do que ela diz sobre a forma como os seus livros foram pensados e escritos; é sempre muito interessante conhecer o método de trabalho de um escritor. E ela escrevia extremamente bem, quando leio Memórias de Adriano, por exemplo, fico sempre fascinado como cada palavra, cada frase, parece ser exactamente aquilo que devia ser, perfeita. E, por muito pouco simpática ou altivamente aristocrática que tenha sido, a sua compreensão do homem e do mundo, a sua ligação a uma universalidade e intemporalidade da vida é admirável e inspiradora.

(Why I'm writing in English)

I've been blogging, on and off, for about 7 years now. Don't know why I do it, I never took myself and these postings too seriously, but somehow sometimes I just feel the urge to write and post, like the "itching" Virginia Woolf describes in Orlando, or, as Marguerite Yourcenar says about writing, "there is, above all, a need to express oneself, that is very mysterious". Anyway, I just do it when I feel like it. And naturally I used to write in Portuguese, my mother-tongue and the one I feel most comfortable with. So why have I lately started to post in English?

The answer has to do with facebook. I never cared about having an audience, I just used to send my posts to the outer space, so to speak, and didn't think about who would read them, if anyone did. It was a somewhat liberating experience, just expressing my feelings anonymously to the outside world... But as time went by, several of my friends found out about it, and when I created a facebook account, I published the link to the blog, and later I posted a few of my blog links there. And since a good part of my facebook contacts are not Portuguese, I thought it would be better to post in English. Besides, it's a good exercise in English learning. I agree with Frederico Lourenço, when he says learning other languages widens our capacity of thinking, because there are untranslatable words for several ideas and feelings (he says so in an essay about why it's useful to learn Greek; I know no Greek - apart from a few words - but it applies to any language).

So, it's not (just) pretentiousness, my writing in English. Hope to learn something, anyway. And to make myself understood to a few people that, even if I never met them in person, came to mean a lot to me.

Hitch-22, by Christopher Hitchens

It was with some ambivalence that I ordered Hitch-22 from Amazon. I usually enjoy reading memoirs and biographies, as Marguerite Yourcenar used to say, History is made of person's histories, and an intelligent person remembering his life and times, or the story of an interesting person's course through life, can be very informative and enlightening about their time's history, and life in general. My ambivalence was due to, although generally agreeing with Hitchens's ideas (at least as far as I knew them) and liking his essays and denouncing of religious hypocrisy, I didn't much like the image I had from him from the media, and was somehow annoyed by the atheists hagiographic view of him, especially after his recent death (even if I admired immensely his brave attitude concerning his imminent demise). But my curiosity won, and I ordered it anyway - after all he came with the endorsement of some of my favorite contemporary writers, like Ian McEwan and Salman Rushdie.

And I'm glad I did it, it's a very interesting read. It's true some parts are quite boring, like his school days, and he indulges too much in a kind of over elaborate writing that evokes the great Bloomsbury tradition that he's just not up to - how infinitely superior is the elegance of Lytton Strachey, that he seems to try to emulate - and then he looks as just too vain.

But in the end, I found myself admiring and respecting him more than I did. His evocation of the '70s writers set let me down a bit, but I loved the way he speaks about the Rushdie question, and the chapter about the Jewish issue is a masterpiece. I like the way he parted with the old Left - the loony Left, as a friend of mine calls it - and I think he would probably be equally critic of his involvement with the neocons in a few years time (as I read in a very good article of Salman Rushdie's after his death). And I was moved by this statement about himself:

Plainly, this unwillingness to give ground even on unimportant disagreements is the symptom of some deepseated insecurity, as was my one-time fondness for making teasing remarks (which I amended when I read Anthony Powell's matter-of-fact observation that teasing is an unfailing sign of misery within) and as is my very pronounced impatience. The struggle, therefore, is to try and cultivate the virtuous side of these shortcomings: to be a genial host while only slightly whiffled, for example, or to be witty at the expense of one's own weaknesses instead of those of other people.

How I relate to that! That single paragraph could be enough to make me forgive his vanity and flamboyant demeanor. And I couldn't agree more with the statement with which he ends the book:

It's quite a task to combat the absolutists and the relativists at the same time: to maintain that there is no totalitarian solution while still insisting that, yes, we on our side also have unalterable convictions and are willing to fight for them.

Yes, we must certainly do have to unashamedly assert our values and beliefs. And I think that Christopher Hitchens, in spite of his vanity and self-assured ways, did just that and I admire him for it, and think the world is poorer after his death. And I intensely admire the brave way he dealt with his terminal illness, so well expressed in the preface.