Twee vreemdelinge - 'n man en 'n vrou, kruis dieselfde straat op dieselfde oomblik, laat in die nag, in die bitter koue, van weerskante.
In die paar tree oor die straat verbeel die man 'n lewe saam met haar, die mooi vreemdeling met al die misterie en belofte van die wereld - wat hy nooit sal ken nie. So naby en tog so ver.
En dan - 'n wonderwerk. Agter sy rug, op die sypaadjie, word sy deur 'n boemelaar lastig geval - en kry hy die kans om terug te draai, haar te red en te ontmoet.
Nadat hy haar vir 'n blok of twee vergesel, spreek hulle af om die volgende aand weer op dieselfde tyd, selfde plek verby te stap.
En so, vir die volgende paar nagte ontmoet die twee mekaar by dieselfde bankie, in die sneeu onder die sterre, en vertel vir mekaar hul lewensverhale - beide ongelukkig en alleen, beide sukkelende huurders by familielede - haar ouma en sy ma.
En om 'n lang storie kort te maak: 'n week later is dit alles verby. Sonder dat die man dit vermoed, sit die meisie op hierdie bankie vir iemand anders en wag (dis 'n bankie oorkant haar ex se woonstelblok).
Haar liefling verskyn uiteindelik - en die man en vrou is onmiddelik weer vreemdelinge vir mekaar.
Hulle sien mekaar nooit weer nie, maar, soos die verteller in die laaste woorde sê:
"My God, a whole moment of happiness! is that too little for the whole of a man's life?"
[29 June 2005]
Pragtige prent - uitstekende keuse! U blyk 'n baie goeie visuele oog te he (as ek ook na die ander visuele keuses kyk). Die opsomming van die verhaal is ook absoluut hartroerend. In die lig van die feit dat verskeie van u ander opsommings van films, boeke, ensovoorts ook besonders is, wonder ek of u bekend is met "Break, Blow, Burn" van Camille Paglia. Dit is 'n bundel met lesings van 43 gedigte. U sou dalk in die rigting van so iets kon dink en werk (Afrikaans het boeke nodig) - u skryfstyl is gelyktydig lig en donker, vermaaklik maar ook provokatief op 'n dieper, meer genuanseerde wyse. Ek sien uit na u volgende blog.
AntwoordVee uitNa aanleiding van die motief van "die toevallige ontmoeting" in hierdie besonderse blog van u haal ek vir u die volgende aan uit Nadia Choucha se Surrealism & the occult (1992, p.63):
AntwoordVee uit"The Songs of Maldoror is an unstructured prose poem that mingles imagery or eroticism, blasphemy, rationalism, chaos, and bizarre flights of imagination interspersed with precise details borrowed from natural science It suspends traditional categories of expression, knowledge, and morality. Lautréamont’s dictum, “as beautiful as the chance meeting, on a dissecting table, of a sewing machine and an umbrella” was considered the poetic image par excellence by the surrealists. It was valued because it was absolutely original in its combination of a banal object from everyday life with something that carries sinister and morbid overtones. The phrase contains a paradox, in that two of these objects have a constructive and therefor positive function, while the third has a dissecting and destructive, and therefore negative function. Yet they are simply inanimate objects – it is our intervention and imagination that puts “life” into them and gives these qualities. The juxtaposition of the sewing machine, umbrella, and dissecting table results in a logical suspension of meaning. Similarly, Duchamp’s ready-mades assume a different meaning when taken out of the usual context. This technique reinvests the ordinary with a sense of the mysterious by placing it in such an absurd situation. It was this dynamic and elusive paradoxical metaphor that led Breton to describe Lautréamont as the “unattackable” in the Second Manifesto.
The Songs of Maldoror presents an essentially occult view of the world, for good and evil are seen as equally important and mutually linked forces in nature, divorced from the moral content given to them by humans. The name of the book’s here, Maldoror, is a pun on mal d’aurore (evil of the dawn), the combination of darkness and light. The book also mocks science in its attempts to impose a static and rational order upon nature, and attacks the belief that humanity is superior to the natural world, when in fact humans are subject to the same laws as the lowest animals. Religion is seen as an absurd delusion, the result of hypocritical aspiration, and God is portrayed as an unworthy, ineffectual, pathetic drunkard, scorned by the animals he is meant to have created.”
U mag John Attarian se artikel “Dostoevsky vs. the Marquis de Sade” (2004) dus dalk ook interessant vind: https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=8396