Aqui está uma colectânea por onde andei distraída umas boas horas, por causa disto:
Lunching on Olympus, quatro almoços de Steven L. Isenberg com quatro escritores ingleses: W.H. Auden, E.M. Foster, Philip Larkin e William Empson. Uns mais divertidos, outros mais simpáticos, mas todos interessantes. Designadamente o almoço cozinhado por Empson:
“ He went into the kitchen. I asked if I could help. He said I could set the table outside. I began a search for silverware, plates, and glasses. We were to switch to beer, warm of course. He provided no direction, so I had to look in cabinets and drawers. It gave me the chance to rinse and towel everything as unobtrusively as possible. He said we needed soup bowls and spoons and knives for cheese. I found three rolls, butter, and cheese. The rolls had seen a better day, but I hoped they could be buttered into edibility.
Ricks was ordered to stay seated, and then the soup making began. First, Empson produced a large, dirty pot, which I had no chance to rinse. He ran water into it and set it to boil. From strange corners he found an onion, leeks, parsley, and some of the browned celery. He threw in some other things, but by then I couldn’t look. At least it was all floating in hot water.
After a time Empson told me to bring the bowls to him, and he ladled out full portions for each of us, stopping between scoops to make pants adjustments. We sat outside in the lovely air and quiet garden, which did not have much beyond grass and some shrubbery. We were at a wooden table, with Empson at its head. He was obviously proud of his culinary work. There was no choice but to get it all down.
I tasted it and was shocked to find it was good. I didn’t know what it was, but I was so relieved that I would be able to eat it at all that I blurted out my compliments.
“My boy,” Empson said, “it is just like a symphony. You get the right instruments together—here, the ingredients—and the conductor then blends it all together.” We laughed at his delight.
When Writers Speak, explica que os escritores são bons a escrever, não necessariamente a falar. Confirmando um teoria que eu já venho desenvolvendo há anos: “jogadores da bola” devem jogar, toureiros, tourear e cantores, cantar. Chacun a sa place.
Este ensaio, que começa por falar de Nabokov, pode ser lido aqui: NYT
E a Fine Rage, um ensaio sobre Orwell, que me fez descobrir que somos almaa gémeas.
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