In Search of the Present: 1990 Nobel Lecture

by Octavio Paz

The speech delivered by Paz in acceptance of the 1990 Nobel Prize for Literature, in which he discusses gratitude, separateness, and modernity. Published in a handsome bilingual edition. Translated by Anthony Stanton.

Genres: Nonfiction, Nobel Prize

72 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

Octavio Paz Lozano was a Mexican writer, poet, and diplomat, and the winner of the 1982 Neustadt International Prize for Literature and the 1990 Nobel Prize for Literature ("for impassioned writing with wide horizons, characterized by sensuous intelligence and humanistic integrity.")

Reviews

[Evan Schwarz]

Thanks Ava for the recommendation

I think I mostly agree with what he says throughout this lecture. Modernity’s relation to history, how we view history, and the Americas relation to language all ring true to me. It’s depressing to read a poet talk about the destruction and overconsumption of the world 35 years ago. I think in think of history and the present, our ‘modern’ age has a clear view of the end of time, the end of life, more so now than ever. There’s poetic flourishes here and there that irked me, but that just may be my hatred of referring to time as birds and space as a bowing ship, I don’t know. some statement which sound potent but for me rang hollow, like “the present is nowhere and everywhere” is just as true as saying the sky is blue and not blue, functionally true and spiritually meaningless.

Mostly I needed to read something and this was good enough, I’ve found myself too tired and too unfocused to read lately, but I grow increasingly hungry to devour all the books that constitute my floorboard. Maybe I should’ve taken notes while reading, it, at the very least, has got me writing like this.

It was a quick read and a good read and a needed read.

The whole time I thought he was a woman.

[Ava Jax · Rating 5 out of 5]

La búsqueda del presente es muy corta/interdisciplinaria y explora la palabra ‘el presente’ en los tipos de la modernidad se que existe en las culturas y en los capas de lenguas entre de la historia. Paz defiende la modernidad Mexicana, y que la modernidad latinoamericana tiene un propósito muy diferente al de sus homólogas angloamericanas (cómo Inglés en los Estados Unidos y Francés en Canadá).

Muy efectivo en explicaciones de idiomas ‘transplantadas’: cómo explican las historias de ambas tradiciones, y cómo este fenómeno cambia sus metahistóricas, o más bien, los deconstruye mediante la negación y entonces cómo su réplica.

Hay un crítica de ‘postmodernidad’ que Paz explica muy rápido. Quiero explorarla en las otras obras de Paz.

This piece is so clever. It re-enchants the word “modernity” from its Christian origins in the same way ‘modern’ Mexican poetry re-enchants their antiquity, (spiritually, since its material existence is otherwise destroyed) with the present.

Y a vos, Octavio Paz, gracias.

[Dimitris Papadontas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Como lo he leido en su idioma original, lo escribo eso en español para que lo vea Evika y no pueda leerlo.

Tal vez sea un de los textos más básicos y profundos de este año...

Evika, te amo mucho, pero puedes ser muy pesada a veces.

Hftou.

[Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

The virtue of this thin book is that it’s in Paz’ Spanish and in English translation. The translator changed a lot, in ways I bet Gregory Rabassa wouldn’t have done. In the past I’ve enjoyed some of Paz’s essays, but this was too abstract for me.