Ah com enyor el llibre blau indi! Abans m'apuntava què tantost finia; ara dic, ja ho ficaré a la xarxa, i ja ho veus tu, amuntegament.

Aprimant (una miqueta) l’amuntegament ràpidament.



Uns quants de rellegits (els de més per error). En general només me n’adon cap enmig o fins i tot acabant, quan, tractant-se del mateix exemplar a la meua biblioteca, hi veig una marca o un apunt, i de vegades, en cas de llibret sense marca, o si s’escau que en llegeixc un altre exemplar, només quan veig que ja n’havia dit què al llibre blau. D’aquells que mai no havia apuntat que ja havia llegit, qui sap, en dec haver rellegit algun només pensant-me que l’autor era molt fàcil de vaticinar on aniria, pobre xiquet. En general, són llibres fàcils que llegeixc per a distreure’m alguna nit d’un cop i au.


Rellegit, 27-XII-2012.

D’A.A. Fair (és a dir, d’Erle Stanley Gardner), Bedrooms have Windows (1949).


D’aquesta me n’he recordat l’instant on el xeic (en Lam) s’atansa part darrere la casa, havent saltada la tanca, al dormitori de la rossa qui es prepara per al llit, o per a sortir, o per a qui sap... Ah, els plaers neguitosos de l’escopòfil!

Bòfia inepta i molt malignament betzol. “They’ll bring up every unsolved murder they’ve had in the last five years and pin them on me as well.”

Visitant la cambra on hom penja els condemnats. “The square trap of the scaffold, a bit of mechanism which at first glance looked like a part of the floor, but which was precariously balanced so that it only needed the slightest touch of the tripping button to send a heavy trap door plunging down with that ominous bang which is so hideously familiar to those who have ever witnessed an execution, a reverberating, silence-shattering noise that will forever after be indelibly impressed upon the mind of the witness — a noise which is synchronized so that the audience watching the execution doesn’t hear the sickening snap of the bone in the neck of the condemned man as he catapults to the end of the rope and the hangman’s knot behind his ear dislocates the cervical vertebra, pulling the spinal cord loose, letting the neck stretch until it is no bigger than a man’s arm, while the rope bites into the quivering flesh.”

“A look of complete, utter weariness. I don’t think I have ever seen a man who looked so thoroughly tired; not the fatigue of exhaustion, but simply a complete and utter weariness with himself, his surroundings, his life, and his job.”

Bo.


~0~0~


Rellegit, 24-III-2011.

De Fredric Brown, Before she kills (sis narracions escrites entre 1942-1963).


Marcades dues de bones: Mad Dog! I: A Cat walks. Una de dolenta: Handbook for Homicide. Les altres tres: ves.

Com els predicadors i tothom altri qui sap part de dins que es guanya les garrofes enganyant el públic, “we knew that Randall, like most crooks, was supersticious.”

Toc: —Some women just naturally hate sex and men — and some of those very women become things like strip teasers because it gives them pleasure to arouse and frustrate men. If one of them breaks down and has an affair with a man, it’s because the man has money, as Ollie had, and she thinks she can hook him for a husband, as Eve did Ollie. And once she’s got him safely hog-tied, he’s on his own and she can be her sweet, frigid self again. True, she’s given up the privilege of frustrating men in audience-sized groups, but she can torture the hell out of one man, as long as he keeps wanting her, and achieve respectability and even social position while she’s doing it.

—A private detective doesn’t like to be made a patsy, be put in the spot of helping a frame-up. [Si fos veritat! De fet, sovint són de la mateixa estofa, bòfia i xafarders llogats.]

Hà: —Big parrot that we have to keep out of sight in the back room until he’s forgotten a few of the words somebody taught him.

—The sale wasn’t legal, anyway. We can get a writ of replevin for the animal. (Recuperarem la bèstia amb una ordre judicial de repliu o restitució.) [Replevir-se’n: reaprofitar-ho, recuperar (allò perdut, o allò no pagat pel qui ho tenia)].

Ves.


~0~0~


Rellegit, 2-VI-2013

De James M. Cain, Mildred Pierce (1941).


Molt pitjor que no recordava. Fluix, es fa llarg, massa morós, ple de detalls.

Una dona amb una filla serpeta. Talla’n la badiella ans no sigui massa tard; fora, i au; per comptes d’agafar-t’hi, en llefiscosa abraçada que et duu a l’infern continu, carallot.

—The one living thing she had loved had turned on her repeatedly, with tooth and fang.

Dels onze als disset anys la xiqueta li fot la vida impossible, i ella, la fava, sense adonar-se’n fins al darrer full? Cal ésser badoc.

Arrogant, petulant, ja de minyona, la petita quin martiri. “Veda doted on her father, for his grand manner and fine ways, and if he disdained gainful work, she was proud of him for it.” Estima son pare, un inútil, i odia sa mare, una dona molt emprenedora (i bleda).

Hà, comonint la cuca: —Mildred caught her by both arms, threw her over one knee, whipped the kimono up with one motion, the pants down with another, and brought her bare hand down on Veda’s bottom with all the force her fury could give her. Veda screamed and bit her leg. Mildred pulled loose, then beat the rapidly reddening bottom until she was exhausted, and Veda screamed as though demons were inside of her.

—You talk like Veda. She’s always wanting to be hit. (Tret que la serpeta per despit, mentre la marassa per sacrifici.)

Hà, italians i xarnecs: —Wop or spig, I wouldn’t trust either one as fas as a snail can hop, so it doesn’t make much difference, one way or the other.

Per als wops (i els spigs? ni això?) el temps s’allargassa, són pastafangs, mandrosos, enganxifosos, xerraires. (Esperant que hom les atengui. —Mother, this is a wop. So we sit.)

—Quite a few people were there, half-remembered faces from her youth, grotesquely marked by time.

(3 pollastres per dòlar, nodrits amb blat de moro.) —Salad, for some reason [settled by Catalonians, that’s why], is served first in California.

Als 13 anys... —She moved like some proud, pedigreed pigeon. (Hà.)

La serpeta vol tant ésser “algú” que es deixa amenaçar pel mestre de musica (Now if you don’t want a clip on the ear...) i després àdhuc pegar (He took a good healthy wallop at Veda’s ribs).

Un flequer massa atrevit. —Hans, the baker, was supposed to be off at night, but he showed up anyway, and got the party started with a bang by feeling Sigred’s leg. Sigred was a Swedish girl Mildred had hired mainly for her looks, and then found out was one of the best waitresses she had ever seen. Then, just to be impartial, Hans felt Arline’s leg, and Emma’s, and Audrey’s. (Tothom cridant i rient, tret el repartidor de disset anys, el qual... concentrated on ice cream and cake, and eyed Hans’s efforts with stony disapproval, to the great delight of Arline, who kept screaming that he was learning “the facts of life”.)

Mildred amenaça la serpeta de catorze anys: —The hand that holds the money cracks the whip. [O fas bondat o no veus un altre sou.]

[L’amant de la Mildred ha de confessar-se amb la petita?] —Hell, she even asks me how many times. —And you tell her? —Sure. She greatly admires my capacity... and yours. Yours she simply can’t get over. “Who’d think the poor mope had it in her?”

Consell de capitalista: —You incorporate, your personal property is safe.

Ves.


~0~0~


Rellegit per gust, 13-IV-2011.

D’en William Burroughs, Exterminator! (texts de 1966 a 1973).


Un univers manegat per incontrolades corporacions de poder tecnològic.

—(The white settlers) contracted a virus... made them... a hideous threat to life on this planet. This virus this ancient parasite is what Freud calls the unsconscious spawned in the caves of Europe on flesh already diseased from radiation. (....) They belonged to the virus. They had to kill torture conquer enslave degrade as a mad dog has to bite.

—There is always a reason for missing an easy toss.
—Every object you touch is alive with your life and your will.
—Illness and disability is largely a matter of neglect.
—The easier you do it the less you have to do. He who has learned to do nothing with his whole mind and body will have everything done for him.
—Who or what is this opponent that makes you spill drop and fumble slip and fall?
—You know I love this country. Only thing wrong with it is the folks living there. (His face goes black with hate.) Mother-loving stupid-assed bible-belt cuntsuckers.
—Gotta stay ahead of the Commies or everybody’s kids will be learning Chinese. [Hà!]

—Such a thing as to much fun. We’re leaving a trail like a herd of elephants. (—The sheriff’s son and the florist boy took to their heels like panicked elephants splashing through the swamp.) (You trail it back in with you all those words and sounds and images that have nothing to do with you...)
—Time to turn in your cop suit to the little Jew who will check if off in his book. [Mailer?]
—Let them come all the way out in the open with their bad intentions, declare a Secret Service overwhelming majority, and elect a purpled-assed baboon to the Presidency. [Bush, Obama, i, el qui vindrà, un altre...?]

—Sperm and rectal mucus... [Se’n diu santòrum, si a més a més hi barreges lubricant.]
—Nigger-killing lawmen, decent church-going women turn blue and flop around in their shit... A little boy looks at them severely and says... “Take them outside because they stink.” —A little fat man was standing by my desk. “I know you. You’re the little fat man who gives the explanations in science-fiction stories.” (—Time to turn in your cop suit to the little Jew who will check it off in his books...)
—Grey shadows on a distant wall... So what is the film made of? Junk. The more you use the more you need.

Bo. No hi ha literatura més divertida.


~0~0~


Rellegit, 15-III-1010.

D’en Gore Vidal, l’obreta The Best Man (1960).


Els embolics de sotamà que el candidat, si és prou innocent que es pensa que la política pot ésser altre que tracamanya, ha d’endurar.

—In our confused age, morality means, simply, sex found out.
—To most Americans, cheating, character assassination, hypocrisy, self-seeking, are taken quite for granted as the way thing are.
—Bertrand Russell once wrote that the people in a democracy tend to think they have less to fear from a stupid man than from an intelligent one.
—The world’s changed since I was politickin. In those days you had to pour God over everything, like ketchup. [No ha canviat gaire, ai! La reacció supersticiosa sura d’allò més fort.]
—Poor old McCarthy was just wallowing in headlines... “sufficient to the day were the headlines thereof.” [Hà, la púrria periodística còmplices, sinó principals instigadors, de la merdegada.]
—I don’t object to your headline-grabbing and crying “wolf” all the time, that’s standard stuff in politics, but it disturbs me you take yourself so seriously. [No hi ha foll més perillós que el qui es creu la follia.]
—It’s not that I mind you bein a bastard, don’t get me wrong there... It’s you bein such a stupid bastard I object to.
—In the South a candidate for sheriff once got elected by claiming that his opponent’s wife had been a thespian.
—Power is not a toy we give to good children; it is a weapon and the strong man takes it and he uses it and I can assure you he don’t turn it on himself nor let another man come at him... that he don’t fight back.
—To want power is corruption already... You hate yourself for being human.
—The self-made man often makes himself out of pieces of his victims.
—Senator Carlin has every characteristic of a dog, except loyalty.

No pas com el xeic de la pel·lícula, el bo sempre perd.

Bé.


~0~0~


Quan dius Acabat, sovint dius, bleixant d’alleujament, Acabat a la fi! car et prenia anys, deu, vint, trenta... (i n’hi ha tants que per manca d’anys mai doncs no acabaràs). Per què? Perquè són dolents, o massa llargs, o massa difícils.

Ara, quan dius Llegit, davallaven com un tònic: és perquè eren fàcils, curts o bons.


~0~0~


Acabat, doncs, no fa gaire, 30-VII-2014, i no pas pròpiament rellegit, tret que durant trenta-cinc anys literalment he assajat de llegir-lo sencer, i cada vegada el trobava repugnant. I ara que l’he llegit del tot, veig que pa mòemu tinc raó.

De Malcolm Lowry, Under the Volcano (1947).


Tres protagonistes repel·lents. Un “cònsol” sempre jurcant beguda, o begut, creient-se banyut, i dolent-se’n, fastiguejat d’ell mateix, supersticiós, “cristià”, marieta, amb afanys de suïcidi, pensant-se que és la gran cosa, i que només pateix ell, crucificat. Son germà, il·lús, un carallot presumit i sense idees altres que xuclades d’altri. La dona del “cònsol”, una coqueta ximpleta, ridícula, enganxifosa, apegalosa, pidolaire, “never think that by releasing me you will be free”. I els mexicans de trists comparses, abominables, execrables, infernals. “Mèxic, el pitjor indret del món (diu en Lowry mateix) on trobar-te fotut; mena de Moloc qui viu de devorar esperits qui pateixen o es troben malament.”

—Maybe the scorpion, not wanting to be saved, had stung itself to death. [Amb això sembla descriure’s. Tan tràgic, el paio. I com tot tràgic, còmic malgrat elleix.] [Com se’n fotria en Norman Douglas de tot aquest sentimentalisme carrinclonet. En Douglas també va escriure un novel·la que s’escau sota el volcà, cinquanta vegades millor.]

Al capdavall es fa assassinar per uns feixistes paramilitars (amb un castellà psicòpata, molt com cal en el seu franquisme grotesc, de cap d’assassins) qui el confonen per son germà, un “esquerrà” qui sembla també haver mort algú o altre. Ara, un cop pelat, que descansats en romanen tots plegats, inclòs la víctima, inclòs el lector, inclosos, cap suposar, el germà i la dona.

Dels dotze capítols, en cinc el cònsol elucubra, pet. En tres la dona. En tres el germà. En l’altre el comentarista del començament (on hom apunta potser a la culpabilitat i la desesperació del cònsol, capità durant la gran guerra d’un vaixell antisubmarí camuflat, on executen els oficials alemanys presoners ficant-los als forns). Altrament cap diferència de to. Tots quatre molt carregats de falòrnies.

—The rending tumult of American cities, the noise of the unbandaging of great giants in agony. [Remor agònica de gegants als quals hom desencasta les benes de les nafres.]
—[El pobre home sempre pet o mig pet, sentint veus (quina comoditat!), una de les quals és la de l’esperit o dimoniet del banyuts]: A pleasant and impertinent familiar, perhaps horned.
—[El cònsol no comprèn xarnec. Es demana si els cartells han estat escrits per qualque azteca qui no domina la llengua del botxí.]
—He crashed on through the metamorphoses of dying and reborn hallucinations, like a man who does not know he has been shot from behind.
—The black soulless buildings stood wrapped in a cold dream of their own destruction. —Thalavethiparothiam, is it? Or strength obtained by decapitation. [Thalvettiparothiam. A les illes Malabar. On el sistema polític és (o era) despotisme del cap de l’illa, triat durant cinc anys seguits, tret que en acabat dels cinc anys t’escapcen. Bon sistema.]
—Everything about the Samaritan (el vaixell camuflat del cònsol) was a ruse. That galley... it could become a battery before you could say Coclogenus paca Mexico. [Coses que deuen fer riure un home qui, gat, sent veus, no en fan gens al lector sobri. Coelgenus paca és una mena de rata, un agutí. Una altra gracieta: Laruelle survived the last war in spite of Guillaume Apollinaire’s being for a time his commanding officer.]
—[Els xarnecs, com tots els pobles agressius, insulten els “indis” i els colonitzats als quals volen espletar fins a l’anorreament, mentre que llurs insults se’ls van tornant en contra; tot el que diuen d’altri és aplicable a ells mateixos. Exemple: avarícia. El colonitzador sempre tracta d’avariciós el colonitzat, ço que és absurd, car és palès que qui roba i abassega és l’agressor.] Interchangeable ever were the terms of abuse with which the aggressor discredits those about to be ravaged.

—[Una altra correguda de bous: tortura de bèstia per part dels cruels, criminals, ignorants.] The bull bellowed, his horns caught in the railings through which, helpless, he was being poked with sticks in what remained of his testicles, tickled with switches, a machete... dust too and dung were thrown in his red eyes... there seemed no end to this childish cruelty.

Tot plegat, no gaire bo.


~o~0~


Acabat (i no pas rellegit en el sentit propi, encara que per la densitat de la novel·la, com gairebé totes les d’en White, he hagut d’anar enrere sovint, i rellegir-hi doncs capítols sencers), 8-I-2013.

D’en Patrick White, The Vivisector (1970).


Biografia d’un xiquet amb traça esdevingut pintor famós. Les seues feinades existencialistes. Nat molt pobre, adoptat per rics, amb una germanastra esguerrada amb la qual viurà els darrers anys.

—Morals! I think they was invented by those who’re too cold to need ‘em.
—I’m at school now, where they learn you to forget what you know.
—Ethical’s a parson’s word.
—Mothers and fathers really didn’t matter; it was between you and death... or something. —[La mare rica qui l’adopta és molt contra la vivisecció, i en acabat l’infant, crescut, sempre veu “déu” com el més cruel (i artístic?) vivisector mai empescat.] I... support the movement for prevention of cruelty to animals... my particular interest is the prevention of vivisection.
—Rhoda wouldn’t die: her rages made her tough.
—A boy who painted a thing like that must have been born a shingle short; or some kind of criminal.
—There’s nothing so inhuman as a human being.
—Like most accusations, it was only half true.

Esdevingut artista pobret, s’exilia vers llunyàries. Una meuca esdevé el seu mecenes. Estimbada a mort de la mecenes, culpa seua en part; culpabilitat, doncs; emmerdament del retrat d’ella; autoretrat fet amb merda, també estimbat.

—There was an armistice. People had begun to rejoice for the privilege of dying in other ways.
—The practice of mere skill, those weightless wet dreams of art, rejoiced his mind and refreshed his body.
—[La meuca, i això és evocador per a manguis, too, ha!] Some big thug who comes upstairs lookun for a stretch you wait for ‘im to knock the wind out of yer or rip you up... when ‘e starts tellun you about ‘is bloody pigeons... you can’t coo enough to please the pigeon-fancier.

Trobada traumàtica (potser també per a l’autor, marieta en temps cruel on no és moda ser-ho) amb el botiguer lasciu.

—The house I shall work in, and die in; it’s on a corner; has entrances on two different streets; you can easily escape from a fire... or a visitor.
—I’ve been accused of loving myself; how could I? When I’ve always known too much about myself.
—He began recklessly, in spite of the lamp-post in the near distance, to expose himself, then to masturbate at the lantana (on hi espia parella cardant). Yairs, all this talk of creation. He sat hypnotized, watching the seed he was scattering in vain by moonlight on barren ground. [Exposa la seua ànima al botiguer, i el botiguer sense ànima només pot exposar el cos.]

Retroballes amb la vella amigueta de sa “germana”, na Boo, ara esdevinguda dues vegades vídua i força rica; amb les amistats dels rics, coneix una grega milionària, amb qui carda amb l’aquiesciència del magnat cuguç. Llavors estada a Grècia amb la grega fanoca.

—After a couple of years, when it was realized he would pay his bills like anybody respectable, and had neither seduced young girls nor buggered little boys, he was accepted by the neighbours with smiles which, if not exactly warm, were the politest any of them could muster.
—He was walking with unusual briskness through the streets, here and threre slapping an iron lamp-post, for company, or because for the moment he didn’t have the means of expressing himself in any other way. [Exacte.]
—Those who have money are always angry to realize it isn’t of value.

Al transbordador es recarrega anímicament conversant amb un altre “pobre home”.

—He felt almost bound to take his revenge by seducing the smallgoods girl, only she might have been the kind who is hiding a crush on her grandfather.
—He was constipated, too: when a smooth velvety stool might have been the great rectifier; much more depended on the bowels than the intellect was prepared to admit.
—Crazy as a cut snake: that’s what art does for yer.

Torna la geperudeta, és a dir, sa germanastra. Ara viuran plegats, els dos força granats, repapiejant sovint i tot. Al capdavall es carda la jovençana qui esdevindria pianista, la qual noieta, després de tot, tampoc no era verge.

—I was born vivisected (diu la germanastra). I couldn’t bear to be strapped to the table again.
—(Es disculpa ell; l’artista és una mena de déu vivisector). I can’t help it if I turned out to be an artist.
—A cat prefers to die in the gutter it belongs to spiritually.
—(Algú garrell.) Sid had been thrown from a horse, and walked forever after with a bent leg; it gave him a curious wishbone look: frail but resilient.
—No artist can endure devoted misinterpretation indefinitely, any more that he can survive in a vacuum of public contempt... or was he the self-centred monster Rhoda accused him of being?
—Shuard didn’t age like other people... the whole man so smooth and preserved... the banality of his mind: nothing like an empty head for keeping the wrinkles at bay.

Pateix atac de feridura al carrer. Mut, immòbil. Vell, aclamat. Exposició retrospectiva. En fuig.

—Anybody who starts telling you about their deep understanding of your work is a bit suspect.
—The worst bitches are dogs. [Com més lletges més males putes.]

Mor trobant l’indi (color blau) que re-cercava; l’havia “vist” amb el primer atac de feridura.

—Not that he hadn’t often been inspired by a successful stool. (La merda, els estronts, font d’inspiració.)
—While all the whirligigs of memory, aureoles and chandeliers, dandelions and tadpoles, pulsed and revolved.
—[Temps, el supergat del tot dedicat a matar. I, si doncs no el temps, rai, l’exèrcit.] Everything private, perfect, reduced to a kill, if not by time the super-cat, by the khaki klan of killers.
—Nothing easy is ever anything but crap. (If crap is easy. No always, nowadays.)
—When you’re living with a person everything comes out in time because you’ve got to find something to say.
—To loose the warm stool he had been nursing inside him as a comfort.

Individus qui pateixen la malaltia del destí.

—Your own sheer drudgery is always sheer shit.

I aquest és el missatge. Bo.


~0~0~


Llegit, 11-III-2013.

De Henry Kane, Never Give a Millionaire an Even Break (1963) [ei, car un milionari mai no juga net; com les majories (i com més aclaparadores pitjor), sempre surt amb avantatge.]


Peter Chambers, investigador privat.
—I am a peasant out of American soil so far back I feel guilty about Indians.

(Amb una solució banal al misteri de la cambra groga inclosa.)

—Although I was spending far more than I was earning, I knew, for sure, that one tip from my new−found friends — on a horse, on real estate, on the market — would, with ease, recoup the difference. Of course I wouldn’t have enough initial capital to invest for a real big gain, but...

—Adultery is sexual intercourse with a person of the opposite sex. With a person of your own sex it is not, in the law, adultery. It is, in the law, cruel and inhuman treatment.

—[Private] eyes are wacky because they’ve got to be nuts to be in the business in the first place — like all chorus−boys are gay. Of course there are always exceptions.

S’embolica amb una actriu desitjada per dos milionaris. Té totes les de perdre.

Li diu la sueca que l’actriu és... She is, psychologically, destructive. There is a need in her to conquer the male, to destroy by subjugation.

“First off he told me that Earl was sticking it up my ass.”
“How?” I said and sipped.
“He blew the duke to the lovely Ingrid. He told her who he was and why he was and who was paying him for what.”

—I knew him but I could not place him; I knew him from somewhere or I knew someone like him from somewhere which is just as bad; but I did not know where in hell I knew him from or the someone like him and that became as progressively aggravating as a burr up the anus. [Her voice was deep, somewhat breathless, like a whisper amplified, and there was a touch of accent, the soft burr of another tongue.]

“You’ve called me stupid, you’ve called me a fool, you’ve called me a lamb. I’ll pass those three. You also called me a stud, a bull, a stallion. I’ll stand up for those three. So kindly take off the scarlet jacket and let’s see how we make out right here on the white rug.”

“In the years that they have been together she has had other lovers but, subtly, always subtly, he has destroyed them. Do you think that David, a towering snob, would have anything to do with you — except for the fact that Arlene has taken on another lover, you, and he must plan to be rid of you, subtly, subtly, even if you have to die (...) there have been many lovers over the years, but David has remained while those others are gone. Some he discredited, some he destroyed in business ventures, some are in jail, and some—simply have disappeared. There is nothing that he is not capable of (...) David Holly is capable of anything. There is ego and ego, and there is the ego that verges upon madness.”

“You ever go to bed with Earl Stanhope?” I said.
“Yes, but that was before you came along, lover.”
Ah, my nymph of nymphs. Nobody got left out of her.

—I looked glum. I had just earned twenty−five thousand dollars and a month’s honeymoon in Acapulco but I had to look glum because my vis−a−vis was an experienced terrier with a nose for rodents and I could not even let him begin to get a smell.

—She was pointing at the car. The rear left tire was flatter than the bosom of a Dior model.

“I’m afraid the man whose prints you gave me could not have killed your Monique, dear Peter.”
“Why the hell not, dear Alfred?”
“Because that man has been dead for the past ten years.”
I came up out of my seat as though goosed by an asp.
“You’re nuts,” I said.

—For almost ten years they were the talk of London and the envy of other parvenu exhibitionists and when they thudded in debacle there was universal sympathy except from those who had been fleeced, and they were many.

Tres boldrons de milionaris, amb el tercer el més inconspicu i doncs el més virulent.

Bé, fàcil.


~0~0~