What are you reading?

[Duke of Buckingham]

The Fall of Arthur
by J R R Tolkien.

A nice reading in verse about Artur's last battle.

wan horsemen wild in windy clouds
grey and monstrous grimly riding
shadow-helmed to war, shapes disastrous.

Yes J R R Tolkien the storm is coming,

[Duke of Buckingham]

I am rereading "Os Insubmissos" (The Unruly) the book of Urbano Tavares Rodrigues that died today, I don't know if there are translations from this author in English language.

He died at the age of 89 years, (Lisbon, 6th of December of 1923 — Lisbon, 9 of August of 2013), He was a Portuguese professor of literature, a literary critic and a fiction writer, winner of many literary prizes. He was born in 1923 in Lisbon, Portugal, but spent most of his childhood near Moura, in Alentejo, the Southern region of Portugal.

Among the numerous awards that dedicated their work include the Literary Life from the Portuguese Writers Association (in 2003), the premium Fernando Namora and Ricardo Malheiros, Academy of Sciences awarded the "Uma Pedrada no Charco" - "A Stoned in Pond".

He was a great Portuguese writer and as many writers of his generation (like Jose Saramago the Nobel Prize of Literature) he was connected to the Communist Party, one inheritance from the time of the Portuguese dictatorship,

[Duke of Buckingham]

"Cabo da Boa Esperança"

"O navio está na praia, naufragado,
Esquecido das ondas, do bulício dos portos;
Algas e conchas cobrem-lhe o costado
- As flores dos navios mortos.

Senhores de austera compostura
Dizem-no, ao vê-lo apodrecer,
A negação do Longe, do Mistério, da Aventura;
Sinal de todo o impossível querer.

Mas não sabem que, à noite, o rapazio,
Junto ao costado poluído vem sonhar
As linha ideais de um outro navio,
Em busca de outra praias, em busca de outro mar."

A M Couto Viana


"Cape of Good Hope"

"The ship is on the beach, shipwrecked,
From the waves and the hustle and bustle of the ports forgotten;
Algae and shells covering his side
- The flowers of dead ships.

Lords of austere composure
They tell, seeing it rot
It is the denying of the Far, the Mystery, the Adventure;
Signal of all wanting the impossible.

But they don't know that at night the jig.
Along the polluted side come to dream
The ideal line of another ship,
In search of other beaches in search of other seas ".

A M Couto Viana

[Duke of Buckingham]

Rereading some parts of The Iliad and The Odyssey from Homer a very good book

Sing, goddess, the anger of Peleus’ son Achilleus
and its devastation, which put pains thousandfold upon the Achaians,
hurled in their multitudes to the house of Hades strong souls
of heroes, but gave their bodies to be the delicate feasting
of dogs, of all birds, and the will of Zeus was accomplished
since that time when first there stood in division of conflict
Atreus’ son the lord of men and brilliant Achilleus. . . .

[Duke of Buckingham]

A melhor homenagem a um poeta
É decorar-lhe os versos

The best tribute to a poet
It is memorizing his verses


Very crazy Duke

[Duke of Buckingham]

Letters from a Stoic (Penguin Classics) by Lucius Annaeus Seneca and Robin Campbell (Jul 30, 1969)

Stoicism, as expressed in the Letters, helped ease pagan Rome's transition to Christianity, for it upholds upright ethical ideals and extols virtuous living.

Al this knowledge, extracted from Epistulae Morales, you can buy for £8.99 with the translation and introduction from Robin Campbell.

Very Good Reading.

http://www.penguinclassics.co.uk/nf/...442106,00.html

[Duke of Buckingham]

I am reading The first Volume of "Mother Earth (magazine)" a grouping oriented anarchist magazine edited in 1907 to 1915 in the United States.

It is not updated and sometimes is quite boring but have some articles of major value including women's emancipation, sexual freedom and birth control. There many articles signed for people of the Social Science, Education and Art, It has some very interesting ideas we are debating now (again). The world is round and we keep spinning.

In August of 1917 Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman were found guilty of violating the Espionage Act, and were deported. The subscription lists of Mother Earth and The Blast (another anarchist magazine), which contain 10,000 names, were seized for the government to act against those citizens under the Espionage Act.

Some stories are quite dramatic about people that the only crime was to have signed a magazine.

Between many others I chose a passage that seemed interesting to me:

"Everywhere and always, since its very inception, Christianity has turned the earth into a vale of tears; always it has made of life a weak, diseased thing, always it has instilled fear in man, turning him into a dual being, whose life energies are spent in the struggle between body and soul. In decrying the body as something evil, the flesh as the tempter to everything that is sinful, man has mutilated his being in the vain attempt to keep his soul pure, while his body rotted away from the injuries and tortures inflicted upon it."

[Duke of Buckingham]

A small passage remembering "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" of Milan Kundera.

Books are like women, we only return if there is a quote or a moment that makes us to return once more.

I have been returning to "L'Insoutenable légèreté de l'être" (the French and first version of the book) since 1984.

“When the heart speaks, the mind finds it indecent to object.”

“Love is the longing for the half of ourselves we have lost.”

“There is no perfection only life”

“Physical love is unthinkable without violence.”


― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

[Duke of Buckingham]

I am reading a Portuguese Poet that I don't think has been ever translated to English. Well it is a real pity most of his verses are very good in spite he couldn't write but some did it for him.

Sem que o discurso eu pedisse,
Ele falou; e eu escutei.
Gostei do que ele não disse;
Do que disse não gostei.

Tu, que tanto prometeste
Enquanto nada podias,
Hoje que podes – esqueceste
Tudo quanto prometias…

Chegasses onde pudesses;
Mas nunca devias rir
Nem fingir que não conheces
Quem te ajudou a subir!

Without my asking the speech.
He spoke, and I listened.
I liked what he didnt say,
I did not like what he said.

You, who promised so much
While you could nothing,
Today you can - and forgotten
Everything your promised ...

Might you arrive where you could;
But you should never laugh
Or pretend not to know
Who helped you to climb!

[Duke of Buckingham]

The human species does not necessarily move in stages from progress to progress ... history and civilization do not advance in tandem. From the stagnation of Medieval Europe to the decline and chaos in recent times on the mainland of Asia and to the catastrophes of two world wars in the twentieth century, the methods of killing people became increasingly sophisticated. Scientific and technological progress certainly does not imply that humankind as a result becomes more civilized.

GAO XINGJIAN, Nobel Lecture, 2000