Ulises – Un monólogo

Alessio Boni como Ulises

Sangre. Por todas partes. Mis dedos están pegajosos, creo que si quisiese moverlos no me sería fácil soltar la espada: la mano se ha pegado a la empuñadura. Demasiada sangre. No es mía, o por lo menos no toda. Advierto un picor desagradable en el muslo, veamos. Sí, ese riachuelo de sangre es mío. Habrá sido Agelao, era el más valiente de todos. Tengo casi cuarenta y tres años, y he deshecho a tantos*. Ni siquiera veinte guerreros juntos durante toda su vida han masacrado tanta gente como yo. El Hades me espera, para ofrecerme una pesadilla eterna y sin esperanza. Sí, mis manos han deshecho a tantos, pero mi inteligencia aún más. Ya no se oyen gritos, Telémaco ha seguido mis instrucciones. Le he pedido que me deje sólo unos momentos. Después, mi anciana nodriza llamará para anunciarme que el baño está listo. Penélope no puede verme así. Penélope. He estado con otras mujeres, intentando averiguar desesperadamente si sus abrazos eran tan suaves como los suyos. No lo eran. ¿Por qué te fijaste en mi, Penélope? Te he causado dolor, nunca te haré feliz porque nunca estaré contigo, ni siquiera cuando esté a tu lado. Ésta es mi maldición. Nuestra maldición: la tuya esperarte, la mía, añorarte. Te echaré de menos incluso cuando mañana despierte entre tus brazos. Y me esperarás otra vez, cuando vuelva a dejarte. Sé que lo haré, que pasado un tiempo, dentro de un año, o puede que diez, subiré a la colina más alta de nuestra pequeña isla y miraré el mar, y me preguntaré qué me espera al otro lado. Me iré, y no volveré nunca. Y te recordaré como te vi ayer por la noche. Cuando mi diosa me transformó en un viejo pedigüeño y viniste a hablarme. “Cuéntame, qué ha sido de mi marido, extranjero”. Tu marido no debió haber nacido nunca.

[1]  dietro le venìa sì lunga tratta
di gente, ch’i’ non averei creduto
che morte tanta n’avesse disfatta.

(Y detrás [de Caronte] había una fila tan larga de gente, que nunca pensé que la muerte hubiese deshecho a tantos – Dante Alighieri – Infierno)

I wrote this small piece a couple of months ago, originally in English. Nevertheless, as I will never be Joseph Conrad, capable to write masterpieces in a language which was not his own and that he learnt when he was already an adult, I have decided to publish it the blog, in order to remind me never to write fiction in other language than my own, Spanish (in my opinion the text in Spanish is definitely better than the one in English). The picture portrays Italian actor Alessio Boni as Odysseus or Ulisses, protagonist of a tv series co-produced by RAI but that has still not been aired in Italy, although it has been broadcasted by French tv channel “Arte” almost a year ago. It seems that there are too many nudities. Almost five hundred years after, apparently Italy still needs a Braghettone

 

What is love? (as Howard Jones asked in a song in the ’80s)

One thing that always haunts me is when, recalling something that I am sure I have read in one of my books, I am completely unable to remember exactly where. But, sometimes, I begin to pull the thread of an idea and I find the quotation.

Yesterday, thinking about a conversation I had with a friend, I remembered a mythological story about the definition of love and the idea that somewhere there is someone that fits you perfectly. Which reminds me also something that I invented when I was a child (I’ve always thought that the life of people without imagination must be a very boring one): there was an opposite of me somewhere in the world. That is, when I was sad, she was happy, when I got good votes she had bad ones, and so on. This “another me”, being my complete opposite, had quite an unhappy childhood and started to get good votes just around sixteen. Just once I wanted to swap completely my life with hers, in my particular “annus terribilis”, 1986. But anyway, the purpose of this post is not to forget for a while this story, Aristofanes’ definition of love in Plato’s Symposium, which I had in “I Grandi Miti Greci” (The Great Greek Myths) by Luciano di Crescenzo. As you will read, Plato, thousands of years ago, had a more open minded idea of love than many people today. All blame on the clumsy translation is exclusively mine.

“In the beginning of time, humankind was formed by beings of three sexes: male, female and another bizarre kind called the androgenes, which had both sexes at the same time. All these beings were double with respect to us, that is, they had four arms, four legs, four eyes and so on; and every one of them had two genital organs, both masculine in men, feminine in women and the androgenes had one male and one female.

They walked four legged and could move in all directions, as spiders do. They had a terrible character: a superhuman strength, a superhuman superb up to the point to challenge the Gods as if they were equal. Zeus, particularly, was very upset with them, and wanted to punish them but not to kill them, as he didn’t want to lose the sacrifices, but he had to react to their misbehavior. After thinking about it for a while, one day he decided to split them in two, so as every one of them had just two legs and one genital organ; and he menaced them that should they continue on their impiety he would have split them again and make them walk with just one leg. After the “surgery”, even if Apollo healed up their wounds, men became unhappy as every one of them missed their other half, the half-men looked for the half-men, the half-women desired the half-women, and the male half of the androgines sought desperately their female half. Therefore, in order to find back their lost happiness, every one of them longed to reunite with their twin soul. And this longing is called Love.”

Pazza Idea (Crazy Idea) – edited

So I have this kind of crazy, weird idea lately. That, when you are talking to an indefinite audience of millions of people from Tasmania to Alaska there is always something that you say that refers to me. Not to me as a person, but something that refers to something that I like, enjoy, read, hear. It’s weird. Really weird. And makes me feel uncomfortable, inappropriate, unfulfilled.  Because it has happened, after reading or hearing something you have said that accidentally I have surprised myself saying, for instance, “I don’t think that poem was in that book, but it was written for that show on purpose… don’t you…?” and I stopped with my bigmouth still open because I was talking to… no one. Because we will never have that kind of conversation. Those conversations that are like pulling Ariadne’s thread of Art and Life, passing from one book to another, talking of everything, about the melancholic decadence of the country I live in, or the frustrated hopes of the one I come from. Commenting if you think you feel like playing already a character as the tired hero that has returned to Itaca, smeared with the blood of the Greek princes he has just slaughtered. I know for sure that it would be the most fulfilling intellectual experience of my life. But it’s frustrating. Because it will never happen. Then, I wonder: is there something wrong in my life? Following the logic I should say that something is missing, if you unconsciously fill that kind of void with what you said to a vast worldwide audience days ago, months ago, years ago. I’m too old for this kind of feeling.. too old.. older than you (just fifteen months, anyway).

I will give you up one of these days. This can’t be. (I don’t think I will give you up, anyway.)

Let us go then, you and I,

When the evening is spread out against the sky

Like a patient etherised upon a table;

Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,

The muttering retreats

Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels

And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:

Streets that follow like a tedious argument

Of insidious intent

To lead you to an overwhelming question…

Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”

Let us go and make our visit

(T.S.Eliot – The Love Song of Alfred J. Prufrock)

(Note: do not write posts anymore with Tori Amos as background… increases my “spleen”)

To begin with…

To begin with I will, as an Italian interviewer says, “make myself some questions and give myself some answers”.

Why?

This one is easy, you just have to check the tagline: because Tumblr text editor sucks. Tumblr is such a great place, is ideal for many things as for instance, follow at the same time twenty tv series that you will never see, but has an only “but”. It’s not fit for writing. Or at least, not for someone like me who every now and then “writes herself on”. I’ve always felt the need to write, starting about thirty years ago with a diary with Micky Mouse on its cover and ending with a properly blog. I had it in a platform that sinked and disappearead in the ocean of internet about four years ago. I’ve always thought about having another blog but, laziness won and I was busy with other things until I’ve discovered recently in me the need to keep on pouring idiocies from my fingers.

Language?

I’m Spanish, I work in Rome… why to write in English? I’m a little bit of a snob. Mea culpa. I admit it. But, I have good reasons to write in English. First of all, the blog will be linked with Tumblr and in Tumblr I use English. The second reason is that this blog will be read by about 3 people spread in three different countries and two time zones and, if I use Spanish one of them won’t understand everything, if I use Italian two of them would have some difficulties, but all three of them are proficient in English. Much more than myself; they can watch Sherlock without any subtitle. Something that I’m completely incapable of, without the English subs I had not understood what were the faults of all the possible Janine’s one night stands in John’s wedding. Sherlock speaks too fast. And thinks too fast.

Why this title?

This one is easy also: prefernot2 is already used in wordpress. Then I started thinking on books I read… “Miss Lonelyhearts”, after Nathanael West’s short novel… it was used also. I tried an old Roman name, “Livia Drusilla” or something like that: used. Then I started scrolling in my cell phone what I’ve called The Absolute Playlist. Some line of Coleridge’s Kubla Kahn? Used. Then I arrived to the poems read by Richard Armitage, I’ve tried Wormwood Scrubs and… bingo! So, Wormwood Scrubs let be. Just a couple of hours after clicking the “submit” button to WordPress I thought that maybe was not such a brilliant idea to have a blog with the name of a place which is not widely known for a poem (exception made of the Armitage Army members spread all over the world) but for a prison. But, in the end, this blog will be read mostly by myself and my three suffered readers.