The Good Nurse, by Charles Graeber

A very good book, in the tradition of the "journalistic novel", like In Cold Blood (without the writing virtuosity of Capote, though). It reads like a thriller, particularly the investigation part - it's as good as the TV series The Wire - and it feels like a horror story. Because it's really creepy. Worse than the murderous nurse's crimes, it's the hospitals' administrations attitude, worried about their reputation and not patients' safety. Actually what it most strikes one is that this guy wasn't particularly intelligent or careful - after all, it's very easy to kill patients in serious conditions in the ICU without arising suspicions. This nurse was sloppy and incompetent, he had a personal history of mental disturbances known to all, he was fired from multiple hospitals, but still he found it easy to be hired and put in the care of vulnerable patients. And not one of them was criminally prosecuted, even after having tried to stall the investigation in every way they could. Then, in the end, there's the surrealistic story of the kidney donation... All in all, chilling.

A trip to Israel and Jordan

I went to Israel again, for the third time - there is a lot to see in this small Mediterranean country, with all its History and cultural diversity. This time I headed South, with a side trip to Jordan.

On arrival, I spent a day in Tel Aviv; having been there twice before, I just walked along the beach and the bustling streets in the centre, had dinner by the sea and rented a car to go south.

It was not easy to get out of Tel Aviv - lousy directions - but we made it and drove to Ashkelon, where we met a great Israeli friend, and had lunch in her garden, a most pleasant time of conversation over excellent Israeli food. Then we drove along a beautiful road across the Negev desert until Eilat - impressive landscape of rugged dry cliffs. Lots of warning signs about camels, but we saw none (we would later see several by the road in Jordan, in the same kind of desert landscape).

Eilat is not very interesting, just a resort like in the Algarve, very kitsh, with all the hotels and the roundabouts, but with a view over Jordan to the East and Egypt to the West, and a nice underwater observatory.

From Eilat, we went to Jordan, to visit Petra. The border crossing was uneventful - a no-men's-land between Israel and Jordan, lots of stamps in our passports, and then Aqaba, a small Arab town, with a lot of hotels and new buildings made possible by the touristic boom. Our Jordanian guide told us how the tourism had gone down because of the IS problems in the Middle East; they don't have any problems in Jordan - for the moment - but people are scared of going there anyway.

Southern Jordan is just a desert, there are some camels and Bedouins with goats along the road. We slept at Wadi Musa, and in the morning went to Petra.

Petra is an uber-famous place, and so I was expecting to be a little disappointed, but I wasn't. It actually deserves all its fame, it's stunning. First of all, the location - surrounded by mountains, only accessible through a narrow gorge, the Siq. From the site entry to the canyon, there are several carved rocks, tombs, houses and palaces, just a foretaste of what's to come. The Siq itself is one of the most impressive sights - the winding canyon, with a few carved tombs and palaces, the colours of the rock, the ancient waterpipe still visible today. And at the end, the sudden sight of the Tresoury, the most famous façade in Petra, it's absolutely beautiful.

After the Treasory, with all the tourist bustle, the camels and souvenir sellers, the ancient city opens before us - the gorgeous façades, the theater, the Roman ruins. We took a donkey ride to the Monastery, the second most famous site. It was a first for me, but I managed to stay seated until the end of the steep climb, even if I found the ride not that comfortable and the donkey a little hectic. But the Monastery was worth the ride, and we rested in a café in a cave lined with Bedouin rugs and a little skinny lamb greeted us there. We walked the way down, enjoying the beautiful views.

If it was cool in the morning when we arrived at Petra, it was quite hot when we left it, so we took the horse ride from the Siq until the entrance - another first for me, but I realized a horse is a much more comfortable ride than a donkey!

After a hearty Jordanian lunch, we headed South and took a jeep tour of Wadi Rum, which was also quite impressive. The desert landscape is beautiful in a unique way (and how very different this desert was, for example, from the red desert of Central Australia!), with the sand dunes, the basalt and limestone cliffs. We saw the ancient Bedouin inscriptions in the cliffs and camels movng slowly in the sun as they have done for centuries. Our guide, Sallah, was a very nice and sunny dispositioned young man, he took us for tea in the Lawrence canyon and, after talking about camel races, he took us to a camel race track where they were training young camels.

We went back to Eilat; I really enjoyed this side trip in Jordan, a country that seemed quiet and with nice people yearning for prosperity, as in any other place, I think. I'm sure there is much more to see, maybe I'll go back some day.

The road from Eilat to the Dead Sea, along the Jordanian border, is totally uninteresting - desert, without the rock formations we saw crossing the Negev on our way South. So the Dead Sea appears as quite a beautiful sight - a bright and shining green lake in the middle of the brown barrenness. We stopped at Ein Bokek - a hideous waterside resort, full of Russians - to have the bathing experience. It's true the water feels different, and the impulsion is much bigger than usual, but one cannot still walk over the water! I guess it's worth to try it once.

We slept at the Masada Hostel, and headed for the fortress in the morning. Masada is really stunning - the location is incredibly beautiful, a true eagle's nest over the bright Dead Sea. We took the cable car, figuring the ascent on foot by the Snake Path would be too burdensome. The views are amazing, as are the ruins. One can just imagine how impressive Herod's palace must have been when it was still standing - three terraces over the abyss. The Roman attack ramp is equally impressive, and it gives an idea of the Roman's military prowess. There were people celebrating in the remnants of the oldest surviving synagogue, and a happy bar mitzvah party, whose musicians went down with us in the cable car.

We drove then North to Jerusalem. It was my third time there, and I never get tired of that beautiful and fascinating city. There is more sightseeing than one can do in a lifetime, and all the History and the cultural and ethnic diversity are just delightful.

As a not religious - actually anti-religious - there are some things that annoy me in Jerusalem: the lots of ultra-orthodox Jews one sees everywhere, the way angry young Arabs and soldiers shoo us away when we come near the accesses to the Temple Mount, the people on their knees rubbing candles and images on the stone at the Holy Sepulchre, the crowds of Russian pilgrims in holy tours. But then, as someone who has been always fascinated by History, I remember all the complex - and so important for our own European history - it have been all the changes this city has endured, all the peoples and cultures and religions so affected by its life, and I regard those aspects as the expression of the intricate cultural melting pot it has become. Also, I feel I'm looking at a pivotal place in a young country in one of the most troubled regions in the world, where one can sense history happening, and not being sure of how the outcome will look like in a few years, which is extremely interesting. So, if you add the incredible beauty of the city, you can see how one can never get tired of it.

This time, I visited the Citadel, the fortress in the Old City, the Israel Museum - a very good archeological museum, especially the pre-Roman part - and wondered through the Old City, buying tiles in the Armenian shops and enjoying the sights. It was the centennial of the Armenian genocide, so there was a ceremony at the Holy Sepulchre and we watched the Orthodox priests go by, in their solemn black robes and hats and gold pectoral crosses.

And we had dinner again with another dear Israeli friend in the beautiful YMCA building, and once again I was pleased to hear a real - and intelligent - Israeli voice talking about the problems they face there, with all the nuances and human details that never reach us throught the media, always shallowly promoting a black and white picture of the situation.

So, I'm glad I went to Israel again, and Jordan, and I hope I will be back.

Le Côté de Guermantes, de Marcel Proust

What a pleasure to read Proust. Le Côté de Guermantes is huge, in form and content. The long scenes of the soirée chez Madame de Villeparisis and the dinner at the Guermantes' are masterpieces, and the description of the Grandmother's illness and death realistic and touching. I never get tired of reading Proust, and I'm looking forward for Sodome et Gomorrhe to arrive so I can go on.

Les Rois Maudits - Le Roi de Fer, La Reine Étranglée, Les Poisons de la Couronne - de Maurice Druon

I always liked historical novels, it's such a pleasant way to learn about the past, especially when they're serious and well researched and are also enjoyable to read. The novels in this cycle of Les Rois Maudits are all this, so they were a most fortunate find. And one can see, reading these accounts of real events, that series like A Game of Thrones are not that far fetched... Already ordered the other 4 books of the series!

You Can't Read This Book, by Nick Cohen

I like to read Nick Cohen's newspaper column, and I likde very much his book What's Left?. I think his is a sensible voice in a not usually sensible press in not that much sensible times. I totally agree with his views about the loony left and the present day censure, which he exposes so well in the cases of religion, the workplace and the state. A very good read.

Le Ravissement de Lol V. Stein, de Marguerite Duras

I hadn't read anything by Marguerite Duras in many years; lately I read an article about her, I think it was in the Times Literary Supplement, and I felt like reading her again, so I ordered this book from Amazon. I liked several of her books, especially Le Vice-Consul, and also Un Barrage contre le Pacifique and Le Marin de Gibraltar. Le Ravissement de Lol V. Stein is a beautiful book, beautifully written, dreamy, an evocation of nostalgia and longing. Marguerite Duras is always at her best when she writes about feelings and emotions, and her writing is austere and just beautiful.

Strange Days Indeed, by Francis Wheen

A very good book about the '70s, that "golden age of paranoia". An easy read, very funny, and sometimes scary when you stop to consider how all this really happened and how very much of the paranoid spirit has endured and still influences politics today. I remember a lot of this - I was a child then, but never forgot the mood of impending catastrophes (there would be no natural resources in a few years! the bomb would blow up!), the catastrophe movies, the alien and paranormal furore. Remembering it left me vaccinated against alarmist predictions, since none of those became true, which was in itself a good thing, I guess.

Generations of Love, de Matteo B. Bianchi

A nice coming of age book, funny and sometimes moving, very evocative of the '80s. I heard about it through a friend, and read it in a Spanish translation, not being able to read Italian and not finding any other translation.

Waiting for an Angel, by Helon Habila

A good book about what the life under a dictatorship is like, in this case in Nigeria. Harsh and nevertheless hopeful, trusting in the basic humanity of people, it's a good reminder of the fragility of the rights we take for granted in Western democracies. And it made me, as usual, mad at the people who neglect to vote and say that everything is the same everywhere - they should spend some time in these countries to see how it isn't.

Monsieur Ibrahim et les Fleurs du Coran, de Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt

A little jewel of a book I found thanks to the suggestion of a friend. Short and simple like a Sufi or Zen tale, expressing the view that it's our humanity that counts, more than race or religion. And it's a good thing to remind people, in this time of Islamic fundamentalism, that not all Muslim tradition is of intolerance.

Deux Jours, Une Nuit, de Jean-Pierre et Luc Dardenne

A very good movie, austere and humane, the proof that you can make an excellent film with a good script, good direction and a few actors. The portrait of a very real Europe, a good example of the present trend in working conditions and the state we're in concerning solidarity and work security; also, in a way a picture of an ethnic mix that is optimistic for a change. Marion Cotillard is superb as always, one of the great actresses of today.

Half of a Yellow Sun, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

I was a small child then, but I still remember seeing the pictures of the Biafran famished people; Biafra was the synonym of hunger, starvation. I knew very little about this forgotten war until I read this book, and there is not really much to know - a secession war, that became a horrible war like so many others, just remarkable for the degree of starvation and the pictures we all saw.

Half of a Yellow Sun is a novel about that war, and it could be about so many other wars. It's a very good book, sometimes terrible because it's so evocative. It shows the effects of the war on normal people, it could be us, caught in the dehumanizing horror of it all. It's impressive and humbling.

And I got to know the beautiful Igbo-Ukwu bronzes thanks to it.

A Writer's World, by Jan Morris

A few years ago, talking to a friend, I mentioned how I enjoyed reading travel books, and he asked me if I knew Jan Morris. I didn't, and he told me she was a great travel writer, the best, and strongly advised me to read her books. I forgot about it for a long time, until a couple of months ago, when I was browsing through Amazon, and I ordered this collection of essays to sample her writing. Well, I liked it, it's good and a very enjoyable reading, but it doesn't make me dream of travelling to the places she writes about, unlike Patrick Leigh Fermor or Bruce Chatwin, for instance. But I found it very interesting nevertheless, especially because, more than a travel book, it's a testimony of the world through the second half of the 20th century: in an impressionist way, Jan Morris shows us how the world was and changed. She's an intelligent and attentive observer, and knows how to vividly depict places and events. The writing is good, even if sometimes bothersome by the use of the same expressions in several of the texts, but then, they were written at different times. I don't think I'll be looking for more Morris books, but it was a nice read.

David Hockney, the biography - A Rake's Progress, by Christopher Simon Sykes

I first knew about David Hockney when I saw a reproduction of his probably most famous painting, A Bigger Splash, later I saw Mr. and Mrs. Clarke and Percy, and then a series of paintings of the same trees in different weathers. I like his style, very sharp and colourful, a kind of sunny version of Hopper, he's one of the contemporary artists whose work I enjoy. I knew nothing about his life, but am usually curious about the lives of artists I like, and enjoy reading biographies, they're so informative not only about their subjects but also about their times.

So it was interesting reading about his life and the art scene in London in the Swinging Sixties. He seems like a nice man, devoted to his work and able to escape from the traps of contemporary painting, that so often is just pretentious and unoriginal. It's curious how the author depicts his work and ideas as ground breaking and original; I don't agree, think most of what he does has lots of similar precedents throughout the history of European art - just consider Flemish Renaissance portraits, for instance -, but he's certainly a very talented painter and has known how to masterfully depict his contemporaries and California.

Mani - Travels in the Southern Peloponnese, by Patrick Leigh Fermor

A very good travel book; Patrick Leigh Fermor clearly loved Greece and he can convey his fascination with the country in the most enjoyable way. Reading his descriptions and his dilletantish digressions about its culture and history, one really wants to go there, and how more successful can a travel book get? It's very well written, even if not as good as A Time of Gifts and Between the Woods and the Water, which are his best books. It's very interesting to read about Greece under the Byzantine and the Ottoman Empires, and know about the continuity of its history from the Classical times until the 20th century.

Sweet Tooth, by Ian McEwan

As always, Ian McEwan writes supremely well, the book is enjoyable and easily readable, but I was again somewhat disappointed. I still think his last truly great book was Atonement. His books used to surprise and make us shudder inside, we felt like we found something hidden and scarily true about our human nature; these last books are just nice.

À l'ombre des jeunes filles en fleur, by Marcel Proust

How wonderful to reread Proust, and how beautiful it is in French. After the wonderful start with Du côté de chez Swann, it's in the second book that the work really takes off - we meet Saint-Loup, Madame de Villeparisis, Bergotte, Elstir and, last but not least, Albertine. I never get tired o reading it, and when I pick it up to read a few pages, I never put it down before reading some 20 or 30. The pages about his renunciation to Gilberte are still the best I've read about the end of a love (or a friendship, or a relationship); the ones about his relations with Saint-Loup and Bloch the best meditation about friendship; and the development of his love for Albertine, from the initial vague and mostly imagined figure among the bouquet of the young girls n bloom, is simply perfect. As is the description of Balbec and its summer society.

I already have Le côté de Guermantes waiting, but will take a pause - great pleasures must be savored slowly.

Vile Bodies, by Evelyn Waugh

I had seen this book mentioned several times over the years, the last time was in Patrick Leigh Fermor's biography. I didn't read much by Waugh - actually I can only remember The Loved One, a funny satire I read long ago - so I decided to give it a try. I was pleasantly surprised. It's a bitter funny book, witty and cruel, but also very moving, about a generation who didn't know what to believe or what values to uphold - sound familiar? Yes, actually I think it could be written today, about the present younger generation - they, too, believe they are a sort of Bright Young People but are mostly clueless.

The Portrait of a Lady, by Henry James

I have read a few books by Henry James, but he never impressed me much - he writes extremely elegantly, but in a somewhat too "wordy" way for my taste, and I besides I tend to forget his books soon after finishing them, even when I liked them - I'm thinking, for instance, of The Ambassadors. I somehow always considered his writing too over elaborate for the content - how much more I appreciate the no less elegant and also elaborate writing of Virginia Woolf or Lytton Strachey!

I bought The Portrait of a Lady on a sale more than a year ago, and its sheer size - and the misgivings about James - always made me put off its reading. Then, about a week ago, having finished my books supply and waiting for the last order from amazon, I decided to take it up, and it was actually a very nice surprise. The writing is as over elaborate as ever, but this time the characters were fetching, the social relations and psychology very insightful and the plot clever and interesting, including the ending. I knew more or less how it was, having seen the movie adaptation by Jane Campion years ago, but the book is much more complete and satisfying. It's actually a very good book, and I read it very quickly.

A moment in life

Recently, a post on the facebook page of A Máquina da Arte - a site created by young Portuguese artists I recommend - reminded of a brief encounter I once had with Mário Botas. I was 16, and out Portuguese teacher took our class to the National Library to see an exhibition of drawings inspired by Fernando Pessoa and Mário de Sá-Carneiro, and the painter, Mário Botas, was there to show us around.

I was captivated and charmed by the drawings - small compositions, soft and delicate colors, of a kind of dreamy, fantastic and childlike nature. They were strange and enticing. The artist, a tall young man (I have a terrible memory for faces) went around with us, occasionally making vague remarks about a drawing, like "I was thinking of Mário de Sá-Carneiro at the time..." or "I kept listening this line in my head..." (this was about the first line of a poem by Pessoa, Antinous: The rain outside was cold in Hadrian's soul, written in a drawing - it was the first time I read it, and it has also haunted me ever since).

At some point, in front of a particular surreal drawing, somebody asked him: "Yes, but was does it mean?" "What do you mean by that?" "Yes, this figure, what is it? And who is this guy, and why is he flying?". He looked at us with an attentive and slightly puzzled expression through his thick round glasses, and answered very seriously, not at all condescendingly (we were after all a bunch of teenagers, and only a few were paying attention): "What does it mean?... Well... I wouldn't know... I know what I felt when I painted them, but I didn't plan them. I painted what I felt was right... Then sometimes a friend sees something, another something else. I myself see different things at different times when I look at them, you might call them meanings, but don't know if it's that... You know, after I finish it, I really don't feel it belongs to me; someone may see something, or other... I really couldn't say it means this or that."

I remember listening and being fascinated by his words, it felt like something was finally making sense. I knew nothing about Surrealism at the time, didn't know Klee, Kandinsky or Pollock, but the question of the meaning of works of art was a frequent subject of conversation with a group of older friends I used to hang out with at the time, around cuba libres in bars; I was the kid and looked up to them, and the subject came up usually about the meaning of poems or more or less abstruse rock lyrics, not painting. They used to say: if the author says it means this, then it's what it definitely means, you don't have to look further; but that statement somehow never satisfied me (how I wish I would have known then what Neil Young said about the purported meaning of the lyrics of After the Gold Rush: "I think I wrote each line under a different drug, how am I supposed to give it a meaning?"). And now, here I was listening to the real thing, a real artist telling what I suspected but never had been able to put in words. Somehow, I remember this casual encounter as a defining moment in my relation to art; maybe it's silly to attach importance (meaning?) to these small things, but I somehow believe our views in life, our life actually, is actually shaped by these kinds of moments, that often seem quite insignificant at the time.

Our teacher commented a few days later that Mário Botas was very ill, and in effect he died a few months later from leukemia, barely 30 years old. I think it was a great loss, he was an excellent artist and seemed genuinely a very nice guy. I remember I read Almeida Faria's books because the covers were designed by him. And I still feel grateful for having helped to shape me in some, even if modest, way.

(Note - This teacher - I was in 11th grade - was by far the best Portuguese teacher I had; I owe him the discovery of the beauty of the Troubadours' poetry, that I still love, and of Pessoa and Sá-Carneiro. He was a passionate and talented teacher, he even made Almeida Garrett look interesting!)

(Second note - I couldn't copy the drawing with the Pessoa line, but it's on the Mário Botas foundation website - very worth a visit.)

An admirable woman

One of the thing I most enjoy about my job is some of the people I get to know. For instance, there's this woman, about my age, whose doctor I have been for a few months. She has been a renal patient since childhood, was on peritoneal dialysis by 10, went through two renal transplants and is on hemodialysis for a year. She looks much older than her chronological age, she's not beautiful, and a cushingoid body bears witness to years of corticosteroid therapy. But every time I talk to her I just feel... awed. I can't imagine how hard her life must have been, being so ill from such an early age. But then she manages to be the opposite of a negative person. She grew up with her illness, but never let it defeat her. She studied, graduated as a language teacher, she has always ben working and her conversation is bright and intelligent. She doesn't complain about the health system, just the opposite: "People are always complaining about it, saying it's better abroad. I've lived in Switzerland and France and can attest that it's no better there at all". She's not bitter about her life. Her skin is prematurely wrinkled, but her smile comes easily and her face is deeply tanned by the beach sun, and when she speaks and smiles it's like the good weather fills the room. One can see she enjoys life. She discusses politics, the financial crisis, literature, languages, Latin etimology, the education system. She's so different from the average Portuguese patient - or the average Portuguese person actually - and always leave our appointments with a smile and a bittersweet sense of envy. Some people are endowed with this capacity for happiness, this talent for life. I can only admire them, and feel grateful and privileged to get to know them.

Augustus - a novel, by John Williams

I had never heard about this book - or the author - until I recently read about it on the New York Review of Books, and it made me curious to read it. I always liked historical fiction, and always found the period treated particularly interesting.

And I was very pleasantly surprised with the book. The epistolary form is a clever way to present the events in a way to make them look as they could be happening anytime, including now, which it stresses the timelessness of the issues, as the author intended. I think by far the best part of the book, and the most accomplished, is the first one, describing the rise of Octavius to power. The last, the long letter to a friend in which Augustus sums up his life and tries to make sense of what it meant, has some very interesting and insightful parts, but, in my opinion, tries a little too much to give meaning to what doesn't have to have an inherent meaning in the way it means a purpose. Anyway, all in all a good book.