The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis

Lidia, Marcenda, che fine avete fatto?
Lidia, donna forte e fragile ad un tempo, dove ti ha lasciato Saramago? E tu, Marcenda, esile creatura, dove sei sparita?
Ben altra sorte avreste meritato, un cantore più attento alle cose e meno alle idee, e invece proprio Saramago doveva scrivere di voi, pescarvi dal limbo che nutre l'ispirazione degli artisti, proprio uno così, che vi catapulta in questa storia, vi fa incontrare quel Ricardo Reis, morto che cammina e che con i morti parla, e poi nel buio vi abbandona, ché il tema è svolto, la rappresentazione è conclusa, e io a domandarmi che cosa ne è stato di voi, del tuo bambino, Lidia, del tuo cuore malato, Marcenda...
La politica è la morte della letteratura.

ملحوظة سريعة :
مبدئيا كده الرواية دى لا انصح بها كبداية لقراءة لسارماغو .
وتقييمي للرواية فعليا في الفقرة الأخيرة.

من هو ريكاردو ريس ؟ كتعريف به من خلال الرواية :
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n  " اسمه، ريكاردو ريس ، عمره ، ثمانون وأربعين سنة، مولود في بورتو عازب ، مهنته، طبيب، آخر عنوان له ، ريو دو جانيرو ، البرازيل " n

ريكاردو ريس الذي عاد بعد ١٦ من تواجده في البرازيل بعد وفاه فرناندوا بيسوا . الذي نشر خبر نعيه في إحدي الجرائد مقدما إياه :
n  "فرناندو أنطونيو فوغيرا بيسوا ، عازب ، في السابعة والأربعين من عمره، مولود في ليشبونة ، حائز على دبلوم في الآداب من جامعة انكلترا، كاتب وشاعر شهير في الوسط الأدبي" n

نعود مرة أخرى لنقدم ريكاردو ريس على أرض الواقع ، من هو :
هو شخصية روائية متخيلة ؟ام شخصية حقيقية؟!
‏هو كلاهما في الواقع . فهو شخص حقيقي متخيل لكن ليس من مخيلة سارماغو.
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n  "إذا قيل لي أنه من العبث التحدث، على هذا النحو، عن احد لم يوجد قط ، ارد بأن ليس لدي أى دليل على ان ليشبونة ، هي أيضا ، قد وجدت، أو على كوني ، أنا الذي أكتب أو أى شئ آخر ، في أي مكان، قد وجدنا "
( فرناندو ببسوا ) n
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لنتحدث عن ريكاردو ريس يجب ان نتحدث اولا عن فرناندوا بيسوا . نعم ، هو بيسوا الذي كتبت نعيه في الرواية منذ قليل .
فرناندوا بيسوا شاعر عُرف عنه شخصياته او كما يسميهم انداده المتعددة . بيسوا الذي قال ( من كتاب : رسائل ونصوص) :
n  

n    " منذ كنت طفلاً ، شعرت بالحاجة إلى توسيع العالم بشخصيات متخيلة - أحلام لي صيغت بعناية، مُتصورة بوضوح فوتوغرافي، وسبرت أغوارها حتي أعماق ارواحها. حين لم أكن قد تعديت الخامسة من عمري بعد، طفلا منعزلا وراضياً تماما بذلك ،استمتعت بالفعل بصحبة شخصيات محددة من أحلامي، بما فيهما شخصان يدعيان القبطان تيبو والفارس دوبا وعديد من آخرين نسيتهم .
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كانت تلك الشخصيات بالنسبة لي حقائق إنسانية تماماً وهو ما كانت لتفسده أى دمية - لأنها غير حقيقية . كانوا بشراً.n  

n

n  n

بيسوا كان في داخله أشخاصاً آخرين لهم حياتهم الخاصة وأحلامهم وأحزانهم ومهنهم وأسرارهم وطريقتهم الخاصة في الحديث والكتابة وشخصيتهم المنفردة وأرائهم والتي قد تتعارض كلياً مع رأى بيسوا نفسه . كانوا يتناقشون معه ويتبادلون الأفكار وللبعض منهم كتبهم المنشورة الخاصة بهم .حتى إنهم كانوا يبدون ارائهم في حياته العاطفية . وكان احدهم مثلا وهو ألبارو دى كامبوس يكره حبيبه بيسوا اوليفيا ويرغب في انفصالهم.لذا كان أنداد بيسوا بالنسبة له شخصيات مستقلة بذاتها فقد كانت مخيلتة كوكباً مستقلاً بحد ذاته .

n  "لم نتفاهم قط جيدا جدا بعضنا مع بعض. كان هذا محتوماً ، فقد كنا أكثر مما ينبغي " n

n  n


هل كان مريضاً ! مجنونا! أيا كانت حالته وتشخيصه النفسي هو عالم خاص بنفسه وله كتابات وتعبيرات وقعت في عشقها منذ اول مرة قرأت له ( لست ذا شأن ) وبالطبع هناك اشياء لم أفهمها له لكنه ممن ينطبق عليهم بالنسبة لى " أحبه وفقط "

لقد اخذني الحديث عن بيسوا وحان وقت العودة لبطل روايتنا ريكاردو ريس وهو أحد انداد ببسوا المشهورين وهو طبيب وشاعر نفي نفسه إلى البرازيل . وفي هذه الرواية نشهد عودته الى البرتغال بعد وفاة بيسوا.

لماذا عاد ؟ وهل سيبقي في البرتغال أم سيعود للبرازيل ؟ وكيف ستكون حياته ؟ وكيف سيدخل فرناندوا ببسوا الى الرواية ؟!

n  " أعتقد أنى عدت لأنك مت ، وبعد موتك كنت أنا الوحيد الذي يستطيع أن يملأ المكان الذي كنت تشغله.
لايمكن لأى حي أن يحل محل ميت .
ليس أي منا حياً حقاً ، ولا ميتاً حقاً" n

بعد ٤ لقاءات روائية جميلة جدا لسارماغو استمتعت بقرائتهم جدا وتقييماتهم بالنسبالى ما بين ٤ و ٥ نجوم جاء الجزء الاول من هذا اللقاء الخامس الذي كنت متشوقة له بشدة لاهتمامي الخاص ببيسوا وانداده كما ذكرت . فكان تجمع سارماغو مع بيسوا تشوق مضاعف . لأصاب بخيبة أمل شديدة في الفصل الاول من الكتاب.
‏الفصل الاول كان ممل لى بشدة وهناك أجزاء كثيرة لم أستوعب ماذا يريد سارماغو وتفاصيل أخرى تخص أخبار البرتغال غير مفيدة بالمرة ( او ربما يستطيع فهمها واستيعابها من يعرفون تاريخ البرتغال جيدا او يرغبون في البحث ورائها لانها كانت كأنك تقرأ عناوين اخبار جرائد بس في تفاصيل صغيرة اوى فعلا ومش مهمة وأخبار محلية وعالمية لكن أسلوب تقديمها وعرضها ليس سهلا أو مشجعاً على المعرفة ) . واستمر شعورى بالضيق حتى وصلت إلى ظهور بيسوا مع نهايات الفصل الاول تقريبا في الصفحة ٨٠ لأعود لحماسي فأنا أحب شذرات كثيرة لبيسوا وتعدد أنداده واجده شخصية مختلفة وله مقاطع قريبة منى . فظننت ان الرواية ستبدأ في التحسن لكن عاد سارماغو مرة أخرى لتفاصيل مملة وغير مفهومة ( تفاصيل ومعلومات عامه تاريخية وثقافية واجتماعية وسياسية ) ‏كنت افقد تركيزى بالكامل معها ثم تتخللها بعض الاجزاء الجيدة ثم بدأت الرواية في التحسن وزادت التفاصيل حول ريكاردو وشخصيات الفندق ولقاءاته النادرة والقصيرة مع بيسوا . لذ بدأت اخيرا في الاندماج مع الرواية مع وصولي الصفحة ١٥٥ تقريبا .وظننت لفترة انها قد تحسنت وان سارماغو سيصالحني وارتفع تقييمي المتوقع ثم عاد الملل مرة اخرى واخذت تتراوح ما بين اجزاء مقبولة واجزاء مملة كما ان الاسلوب ايضا استغرق مني وقتاً حتى توصلت للاعتياد عليه. فتناوبت بين الاندماج مع الرواية احيانا وبين الملل وفقدان التركيز أحيانا اخرى .
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‏n  " سيأتي يوم ينكرونك فيه مئة مرة، ويوم آخر ، ستكون أنت من يتمنى ذلك فيه " n
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n  n

‏ لم تكن هذه الرواية ما أردته وتخيلته وتمنيته ، لم استطع الانغماس في الرواية كما اعتدت مع سارماغو . كانت يعتريني الملل وهذا كان صدمة لي . تخيلت ان سارماغو قادر ان يقدم هذه الفكرة بشكل أفضل بكثير .فلم تلاقي الرواية حماسي ولا توقعاتي.
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‏" حتى انت ياسارماغو "

The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis’ is Saramago’s masterpiece; Lisbon’s is rendered lachrymosely through the lens of Ricardo Reis, the fictional alter-ego of the poet Fernando Pessoa, who has died and whose spirit haunts the street of Lisbon and the pages of the novel, reflecting the existential angst of Ricardo Reis, whose return to Lisbon is punctuated by two romances-with the house-maid Lydia and the ethereal Marcenda, whilst political turmoil is engulfing 1930’s Portugal.

The theme of belonging is central ‘The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis’. Ricardo returns to Lisbon bereft of friends, of dreams and desires, superficially Lisbon resembles the city he left 16 years before to emigrate to Brazil, but Reis cannot shake off the feeling of emptiness which has engulfed him, of the disappointment and despondence he feels upon his return;

“In the distance he could hear the hollow sound of a bell tolling, the sound he had expected to hear upon his arrival, when he touched these rails, his soul gripped by panic, a deep laceration, an internal silence, like great cities collapsing in silence because we are not there, porticoes and white towers toppling...”

The Lisbon or Ricardo’s youth, which his memory re-created during his absence, has been toppled by the cold, hard reality of Lisbon under Salazar’s autocracy-political themes, as always with Saramago, exist on the periphery but form an important core of the story. Ricardo is stalked by the menacing and onion-breathed Victor and refugees from the Spanish Civil War are flooding through Portugal (and the book) yet Ricardo remains apolitical and aloof, content to observe and contemplate but rarely get involved, a silent mediator on the political upheavals which are engulfing Portugal.

In fact the only instances in which Ricardo every takes action are in his romances; firstly with the willowy and unattainably Marcenda, whose austere manners reflect Ricardo and whose lame arm invokes his pity and curiosity-and secondly with the Lydia, the hotel maid, whose affair with Ricardo gradually develops into something meaningful, yet Ricardo is still, like the ghost of his creator, Fernando Pessoa still by and large spiritually and emotionally absent from the relationship. The colours with which Saramago paints Lisbon mirror the lugubrious outlook of Ricardo-dark, decorous and dream-like, there is something unreal about the atmosphere which pervades the novel;

“Ricardo Reis is alone. On the lower branches of the elm trees the cicadas begin to chirr, mute but inventing their own voice. A great black vessel enters the straits., only to disappear into the shimmering reflection of the water. The panorama seems unreal”

‘The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis’ is not only an emotionally powerful story, but is also a wonderful story of meta-fiction, in which the fictional creation of an obscure poet out-lives him, until eventually deciding to renounce his fictional life and join his creator.

“The great difference between poets and madmen is the destiny of the madness that possesses them.”

Deep Inside Lisbon

How is it possible to combine Kafka, Proust, and Borges to create something entirely unique and compelling? Only Saramago knows for sure. With him Portugal is the home of Everyman who copes with the quotidian as well as the bizarre with panache and fortitude. As an incidental benefit, Ricardo Reis also provides a synopsis of Iberian literary history as well as an interesting travelogue of Lisbon. Read this with Google Earth at hand as he takes you round Baixa and Rossio.

I've said it before, I am wholly biased in favor of Saramago's writing and style, and will likely enjoy anything he writes. I loved the prose, the existentialist despair, the story of revolution and the spectre of fascism rising in Europe during the time of Franco and his contemporaries, and the book was eminently quotable. I have to admit that I was at a significant disadvantage not being familiar with Fernando Pessoa or his (many) heteronyms, of which Ricardo Reis was one. I feel like if I had a better grasp of his (apparently largely unpublished/untranslated) writings, as well as the lead up to 1920-40s history of the Iberian peninsula, I would have enjoyed a much deeper understanding of this work. However, I will most certainly attempt to secure a book of Fernando Pessoa's poetry for reading in the future, from what I read about him he sounded like a fascinating man, and I enjoyed his poetry interspersed throughout the novel.

The Choices of Ricardo Reis

A LETTER TO WAH-MING CHANG

Marcenda placed her right hand over her left. Both were cold, yet between the two was the difference between the quick and the dead, between what can still be salvaged and what is forever lost.

Dear Wah-Ming --

This letter, full of still-incomplete thoughts, comes to you because it was you who suggested Saramago's "The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis" to me, and you I've thought of often as I read the book. Perhaps that seems strange, because we've never met and hardly know each other, although I read your excellent essay on Saramago just after his own death at 87 earlier this year; perhaps he feels now like our mutual friend.

The real reason is clear to me, though. If every reading of every book is unique, as I believe, then as I read this remarkable novel I kept wondering about your reading of it, because mine felt so particular, and so dependent on reading it at the age that I am, preoccupied with certain thoughts because of that age. You are, I think, in your thirties, while I am hurtling toward sixty. And while we both, as writers and readers, read this book -- I am quite sure -- breathless through Saramago's astounding sentences, wide-eyed at his minute but razor-sharp observations of place and personality, slack-jawed at his masterful construction of plot and narrative, and awed, in the aftermath, by the multiple layers of meaning that emerge -- I felt Ricardo Reis' cold hand on my shoulder as if I were a third party in the room, along with his visitor, the ghost of poet Fernando Pessoa, and I cannot imagine that you would have felt this; not yet.


----

My one quibble with the plot, actually, is that Saramago has his protagonist, the doctor and poet Ricardo Reis, come back to Portugal from Brazil at the age of 48, and ascribes feelings to him that I find more credible in a person ten years older - the age I am now. Of course, he had no choice: Reis' age had to be 48 because the book follows him for a year after the death of Pessoa, at 47; Pessoa, the inventor of 70-some heteronymns with distinct voices and personalities, of which one of the three main ones -- a melancholy flaneur and believer in fate rather than the possibility of happiness or choice -- was "Ricardo Reis." And so, because this is a magic realist novel, we have the living "Ricardo" returning to his native country after many years of self-imposed exile precisely because his author, Pessoa, has died, and Pessoa himself appearing, out of the graveyard with his pale face and impeccable black suit, to speak with Reis in the streets of Lisbon that Reis wanders, and in the hotel room where Reis conducts his affair with a chambermaid and longs, without real hope or decisive action, for the unreachable Marcenda, with her paralyzed hand.

As I said, there are many ways this novel could be read, but for me, it is a book about the fatigue that comes at late middle age. I'm not talking about being jaded, because unless one has really been spoiled or profligate, one learns that there is always beauty to be seen and something new to be experienced. It's a fatigue that happens when one is old enough to look back and see that much of life is past, that death has become a companion, and that what looms ahead is a choice requiring, on the one hand, great force of will: to continue to engage, to create, to live as fully as possible, or to slow down or even give up, resigning oneself to waiting passively for the inevitable. I see this now in friends facing retirement, whose children are gone and on their own, weary in both body and spirit, convinced their best work and best years are behind them. And though I never anticipated finding it in myself -- because as an artist, writer, and thinker I have no intention of "retiring, " ever -- there are times when I am so exhausted by the world, by a worn body and mind that have seen and felt too much, and by reminders of death, an increasingly frequent visitor, that this choice becomes much more obvious and imperative.

Saramago himself didn't achieve literary recognition until he was sixty, and wrote "Ricardo Reis" when he was 64; these ideas must have been very real to him or he couldn't have embodied them so convincingly in his characters: Reis, the doctor who refuses to heal; Marcenda whose hand "like a lifeless bird that she stroked in her lap" ceased to function after the death of her mother; the sleazy informer Victor, always announced by his leitmotif of onion breath; Lydia the chambermaid and her anarchist brother - the most vibrant characters in the book - who choose very different ways of seizing life with both hands. Saramago asks: what motivates action and what creates paralysis? What constitutes a miracle? What is a valuable life? What is the role of hope and how far are we willing to go to find it?

So there is this possibility: a very personal reading. The story, like many other 20th century novels with a political setting, can also be read as a commentary on detached intellectualism. Or it can be read both as an account and an allegory about the choices faced by nations - by Portugal and Spain, sliding into Facism - or, by extension, perhaps even by nations in our own time. It would seem that this was at least part of the author's intention: in his Nobel lecture, Saramago remembered himself as an "apprentice" of 17, discovering the poems of "Ricardo Reis", and not realizing for a long while that this poet was actually Fernando Pessoa. He memorized many of Reis' "Odes," including the unforgettable and - is it deliberately provocative? - line "Wise is he who is satisfied with the spectacle of the world".


Later, much later, the apprentice, already with grey hairs and a little wiser in his own wisdom, dared to write a novel to show this poet of the Odes something about the spectacle of the world of 1936, where he had placed him to live out his last few days: the occupation of the Rhineland by the Nazi army, Franco's war against the Spanish Republic, the creation by Salazar of the Portuguese Fascist militias. It was his way of telling him: "Here is the spectacle of the world, my poet of serene bitterness and elegant scepticism. Enjoy, behold, since to be sitting is your wisdom..."


So here he was, well over sixty in 1988, turning his clear sad eyes at a world that had learned nothing since 1936. And what does he choose to do? In the very next paragraph of his Nobel lecture he tells us,


The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis ended with the melancholy words: "Here, where the sea has ended and land awaits." So there would be no more discoveries by Portugal, fated to one infinite wait for futures not even imaginable; only the usual fado, the same old saudade and little more... Then the apprentice imagined that there still might be a way of sending the ships back to the water, for instance, by moving the land and setting that out to sea.


And that became his next book, The Stone Raft.

Wah-Ming, I hope you will tell me what the novel meant to you. I'm grateful to you and to Saramago that this book came along - as books sometimes do - at this precise point in my life, when I'm deliberately looking both backward and forward, considering the future and how much I may have a role in shaping it. One needs to see the alternative before, perhaps, believing that stone rafts can float.



*Adamastor is a mythological character invented by the Portuguese poet Luís de Camões. In an epic poem, he appeared in a threatening thundercloud to the explorer Vasco de Gama, who dared to pass the Cape and enter the Indian Ocean, which was Adamastor's realm. A statue of Adamastor stands over Lisbon's harbor, and is frequently mentioned as if he were a real person in the book.

In my opinion, it's a great book, but it is not among the author's best works. Nevertheless, Saramago's genius is evident throughout it. The story follows Ricardo Reis, one of Fernando Pessoa's most famous heteronyms, upon his return to Portugal after living in Brazil for over 16 years.

The book contains numerous references to Portuguese literature and history, which would have made it more enjoyable if I had known more about them. However, I still managed to understand most of it.

Reis struggles to fit in after returning to his homeland. He finds it hard to comprehend the changes that have occurred and is unable to deal with the rise of Fascism in Europe. He is profoundly lonely, and his only friend is a ghost. Although he could have experienced true love, his arrogance prevents him from disregarding the social gap between himself and Lidia, the only woman who cares for him. I don't view Reis as a bad person, but rather, I feel sorry for him.

Saramago's writing is excellent, especially his mastery of dialogue peppered with irony. He manages to make us care for his characters, even those who are less than perfect. I particularly enjoyed Lidia's character, and her unexpected comments on politics and reflections on ethics and life always brought a smile to my face. You don't have to be highly educated to have astute insights or be reasonable.

For those familiar with Fernando Pessoa's works, this book is a must-read. For those who are not, it can be very enjoyable.

Kod Saramaga volim sto od svojih likova nije kreirao heroje, licnosti koje sve znaju i razumeju, vec osobe koje pokusavaju da rastumace sta je zivota, a sta smrt i gde prestaje jedno a pocinje drugo. Rikardo Reisa je nenametljiva licnost, u borbi da razume sebe i svrhu postojanja, ali i da zadovolji obrasce ponasanja, da ne bude sumnjiv, a opet da utoli zedj u svakom smisli. Mislila sam da ce Rikardo Reisa i Fernando Pesoa vise liciti jedno drugom, ali ce se u smrti ( valjda ) izjednaciti.

“…cudno je to kako se covek ne izgubi u toj zbrci znacenja, ili je uistinu izgubljen i prepoznaje se svakog dana u toj izgubljenosti.”

“A i ljudi ne sanjaju da onaj ko zavrsi jednu stvar nije onaj isti koji je tu stvar zapoceo, cak i onda kada obojica imaju isto ime, jer to je jedino sto ostaje nepromenjeno, ime, i nista vise.”

P. S. Saramago je moj omiljeni i nezamenljivi pisac, i uvek kada uzmem da citam njegova dela imam osecaj kao da radim najispravniju stvar na svetu