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Algo elemental
Con este libro, Eliot Weinberger ha llevado el ensayo a territorios inexplorados, en las fronteras entre la poesía y la narrativa; su única exigencia es que la información aportada sea verificable. Weinberger ha creado un ensayo serial de carácter único cuyas piezas individuales convergen en una increíble variedad de temas: el viento, los rinocerontes, los santos católicos, los aztecas, la antigua cultura china, los mandeos iraníes, el desierto peruano, los tigres, Empédocles, Valmiki, la vida de Mahoma, el vórtice o las estrellas…
De nacionalidad «neoyorquina», Eliot Weinberger, nacido en 1949, es uno de los ensayistas y traductores más reputados en su país. Editor de la selección de poesía estadounidense más importante de las últimas décadas, ha traducido la poesía de Borges, Octavio Paz, Huidobro, Villaurrutia o Bei Dao. Es autor de tres ensayos: Invenciones de papel (Vuelta, 1990), Outside stories (1992) y Rastros kármicos (Emecé, 2002). Sus artículos políticos reunidos en el volumen What Happened Here: Bush Cronicles han sido traducidos al español en dos ediciones: 12 de septiembre. Cartas de Nueva York (Era, 2003) y «Lo que oí sobre Irak (Lom, 2006). Fue finalista del Premio de la Crítica de Estados Unidos.
De nacionalidad «neoyorquina», Eliot Weinberger, nacido en 1949, es uno de los ensayistas y traductores más reputados en su país. Editor de la selección de poesía estadounidense más importante de las últimas décadas, ha traducido la poesía de Borges, Octavio Paz, Huidobro, Villaurrutia o Bei Dao. Es autor de tres ensayos: Invenciones de papel (Vuelta, 1990), Outside stories (1992) y Rastros kármicos (Emecé, 2002). Sus artículos políticos reunidos en el volumen What Happened Here: Bush Cronicles han sido traducidos al español en dos ediciones: 12 de septiembre. Cartas de Nueva York (Era, 2003) y «Lo que oí sobre Irak (Lom, 2006). Fue finalista del Premio de la Crítica de Estados Unidos.
220 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2007
152 people are currently reading
3357 people want to read
About the author
Eliot Weinberger
100 books162 followersEliot Weinberger is a contemporary American writer, essayist, editor, and translator. His work regularly appears in translation and has been published in some thirty languages.
Weinberger first gained recognition for his translations of the Nobel Prize winning writer and poet Octavio Paz. His many translations of the work of Paz include the Collected Poems 1957-1987, In Light of India, and Sunstone. Among Weinberger's other translations are Vicente Huidobro's Altazor, Xavier Villaurrutia's Nostalgia for Death, and Jorge Luis Borges' Seven Nights. His edition of Borges’ Selected Non-Fictions received the National Book Critics Circle Award for criticism.
Weinberger first gained recognition for his translations of the Nobel Prize winning writer and poet Octavio Paz. His many translations of the work of Paz include the Collected Poems 1957-1987, In Light of India, and Sunstone. Among Weinberger's other translations are Vicente Huidobro's Altazor, Xavier Villaurrutia's Nostalgia for Death, and Jorge Luis Borges' Seven Nights. His edition of Borges’ Selected Non-Fictions received the National Book Critics Circle Award for criticism.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 172 reviews
September 19, 2012
As I sat by my window finishing the last essays in An Elemental Thing tonight, a severe storm was raging outside. Dark gray clouds descending, heavy rain pouring down, wild winds driving the water against my windows. During the worst of the storm, it felt like glass and bricks were only a very thin barrier between me and the furies of nature.
The storm transported me into the world of the many Eastern and Western civilizations that Eliot Weinberger explores with elegance, sensitivity, and lyricism in this collection of creative non-fiction essays. Wenberger's title immediately conveys the themes at the heart of this beautifully written collection. Elements in the sense of the main components of nature, earth, air, fire, and water, all serve as the focal point of many of these essays. Throughout the collection, Weinberger explores the meaning that humans have attached to these elemental forces through a dizzying array of myths, folktales, historical chronicles, and other writings.
Wu-t'ai Shan Mountain in China
Many essays are very short, from one page to four pages, and focus on a specific element (such as wind or ice), season, historical figure (including Muhammad), or animal (wrens, tigers, rhinos). Weinberger uses a collaging technique throughout the 35 essays. Key elements and figures appear and reappear throughout the collection, so the careful reader can, for example, compare different cultures' understanding of the wren within the context of their cosmologies. However, Weinberger's method is more subtle than a straightforward essay in comparative religion. As I read deeper into this collection, I sensed profound resonances across centuries and geographical regions. Weinberger anchors these sections a few longer essays, including "The Vortex", which bring together different cultures' understandings of these features, arranged side by side in subsections within the essays. I emerged from this reading with a profund sense of human beings' desperate, and often beautiful, attempts to craft meaning to help them understand, and sometimes control, these forces.
Weinberger's prose is beautiful - sparse, clean, with a timelessness reminiscent of the folktales and myths that served as his sources. For example, consider this passage from "Muhammad": "Light beamed from his forehead, and at night it looked like moonlight. He used amber, musk and civet as perfumes, and spent more money on perfume than on food; days later, people would know from the lingering fragrance that he had passed by. He cast no shadow while standing in the sun. No matter how tall a man was, when he stood beside Muhammad he appeared an arrow's length shorter. No bird ever flew over his head. He could see behind without turning around. He could hear everything while he was sleeping. Water flowed from between his fingers and nine pebbles in his hand sang praises" (158).
Some essays reminded me of Borges in their evocation of a distant world, which is especially fitting as Weinberger has translated him. For example, he writes in this passage from "Spring": "Day and night are equal in length, Weights and measures, balances and instruments are calibrated and standardized. Streams, ponds, and swamps may not be drained; forests may not be burnt. Insignias, skins, and silks substitute for animals in the sacrifices. Gates and doors and temple furnishings are repaired. Three days before the storms begin, messengers are sent out with wooden clappers to inform the people that no one may couple when the thunder roars, for their children will be imperfect, and suffer calamities and evil" (29).
Perhaps my favorite piece is "The Stars," which reads as a prose poem, made up completely of short statements depicting different beliefs about the stars across many different cultures and time periods. Weinberger does not identify the sources of these beliefs. Instead, he strings them together, creating a tapestry of human belief, an attempt to understand the most prominent and basic features in their lives: "The stars: what are they? They are chunks of ice reflecting the sun; they are lights afloat on the waters beyond the transparent dome; they are nails nailed to the sky; they are holes in the great curtain between us and the sea of light...." (171).
This is the other meaning of "elemental" that resonated with me - Weinberger's drawing our attention to the most basic features that form the bedrock of our existence on this planet. Meanings change, idols fall, religions are born and die, scientists, anthropologists, philosophers, mystics and poets posit theories that will be forgotten tomorrow, but the stars, the wind, the mountains, the deserts, all remain, constant and distant and mysterious.
Milky Way Galaxy
The storm transported me into the world of the many Eastern and Western civilizations that Eliot Weinberger explores with elegance, sensitivity, and lyricism in this collection of creative non-fiction essays. Wenberger's title immediately conveys the themes at the heart of this beautifully written collection. Elements in the sense of the main components of nature, earth, air, fire, and water, all serve as the focal point of many of these essays. Throughout the collection, Weinberger explores the meaning that humans have attached to these elemental forces through a dizzying array of myths, folktales, historical chronicles, and other writings.
Wu-t'ai Shan Mountain in China
Many essays are very short, from one page to four pages, and focus on a specific element (such as wind or ice), season, historical figure (including Muhammad), or animal (wrens, tigers, rhinos). Weinberger uses a collaging technique throughout the 35 essays. Key elements and figures appear and reappear throughout the collection, so the careful reader can, for example, compare different cultures' understanding of the wren within the context of their cosmologies. However, Weinberger's method is more subtle than a straightforward essay in comparative religion. As I read deeper into this collection, I sensed profound resonances across centuries and geographical regions. Weinberger anchors these sections a few longer essays, including "The Vortex", which bring together different cultures' understandings of these features, arranged side by side in subsections within the essays. I emerged from this reading with a profund sense of human beings' desperate, and often beautiful, attempts to craft meaning to help them understand, and sometimes control, these forces.
Weinberger's prose is beautiful - sparse, clean, with a timelessness reminiscent of the folktales and myths that served as his sources. For example, consider this passage from "Muhammad": "Light beamed from his forehead, and at night it looked like moonlight. He used amber, musk and civet as perfumes, and spent more money on perfume than on food; days later, people would know from the lingering fragrance that he had passed by. He cast no shadow while standing in the sun. No matter how tall a man was, when he stood beside Muhammad he appeared an arrow's length shorter. No bird ever flew over his head. He could see behind without turning around. He could hear everything while he was sleeping. Water flowed from between his fingers and nine pebbles in his hand sang praises" (158).
Some essays reminded me of Borges in their evocation of a distant world, which is especially fitting as Weinberger has translated him. For example, he writes in this passage from "Spring": "Day and night are equal in length, Weights and measures, balances and instruments are calibrated and standardized. Streams, ponds, and swamps may not be drained; forests may not be burnt. Insignias, skins, and silks substitute for animals in the sacrifices. Gates and doors and temple furnishings are repaired. Three days before the storms begin, messengers are sent out with wooden clappers to inform the people that no one may couple when the thunder roars, for their children will be imperfect, and suffer calamities and evil" (29).
Perhaps my favorite piece is "The Stars," which reads as a prose poem, made up completely of short statements depicting different beliefs about the stars across many different cultures and time periods. Weinberger does not identify the sources of these beliefs. Instead, he strings them together, creating a tapestry of human belief, an attempt to understand the most prominent and basic features in their lives: "The stars: what are they? They are chunks of ice reflecting the sun; they are lights afloat on the waters beyond the transparent dome; they are nails nailed to the sky; they are holes in the great curtain between us and the sea of light...." (171).
This is the other meaning of "elemental" that resonated with me - Weinberger's drawing our attention to the most basic features that form the bedrock of our existence on this planet. Meanings change, idols fall, religions are born and die, scientists, anthropologists, philosophers, mystics and poets posit theories that will be forgotten tomorrow, but the stars, the wind, the mountains, the deserts, all remain, constant and distant and mysterious.
Milky Way Galaxy
June 29, 2023
The kind of book that feels much bigger than it is - it's impossible to understand exactly how Weinberger does it, what is invented and what isn't, how he can know so much.
April 8, 2021
Piękne eseje – takie baśniowo erudycyjne. Podziwiam ogromnie wiedzę autora – by móc pisać takie krótkie teksty, które przy użyciu niewielu słów wiele mówią, potrzebna - jest moim zdaniem - ogromna wrażliwość i wiedza. Poza oczywiście przeszerokim spektrum tematów (gwiazdy, nosorożce, upadłe cywilizacje i wiry) każdy esej jest dla mnie odrębny literacko. Może to dziwne, ale czytanie tych krótkich tekstów zaspokajało moje potrzeby duchowe. Wszystkie trochę mówią o stworzeniu, są niczym mity, a jednak bazujące to na faktach, to na nauce, a to na religii czy wierzeniach ludzkich. To bardzo ludzkie teksty, dla mnie jest w nich niezwykłe człowieczeństwo, jakaś taka wrażliwość, może ta Tokarczukowa czułość.
March 16, 2020
It's scary today; my hands are dry from washing them, work things are canceled left and right, friends can't come because they have to self-quarantine, and, the disgrace, we're running out of toilet paper.
In times such as these it's easy to get too focused on the here and now, you get some kind of tunnel vision where you only focus on the one thing. That's not good.
An Elemental Thing is the ideal antidote. A series of short essays across the world, across history, across cultures, to remind you of all the wonderful things that used to be that you have never even caught a glimpse of before, to show you that there will be so many more wonderful things to come, and this time you're lucky to be around to see them!
There's a love of knowledge, of erudition, and of China, but there's also a love of all things quirky:
(that's one paragraph from 'Changs', a history of various Changs. Each Chang gets one paragraph, as seen above)
Some essays feel more anthropological, serving to remind you what wonderful differences we as a species have:
Weinberger's prose is sparse and in the background to what he wants to tell you. Look at all this wonder! Look at all this excitement!
It never feels like non-fiction though, there's an element of Zen-like poetry in every essay, mixed with a hypnotic rhythm in those endless lists of curious things - I need to read more Weinberger now, for therapy.
In times such as these it's easy to get too focused on the here and now, you get some kind of tunnel vision where you only focus on the one thing. That's not good.
An Elemental Thing is the ideal antidote. A series of short essays across the world, across history, across cultures, to remind you of all the wonderful things that used to be that you have never even caught a glimpse of before, to show you that there will be so many more wonderful things to come, and this time you're lucky to be around to see them!
There's a love of knowledge, of erudition, and of China, but there's also a love of all things quirky:
Chang Jung, a poet in the 5th century, was given a fan made of white egret feathers by a Taoist priest, who told him that strange things should be given to strange people. The Emperor said that the kingdom couldn't stand to be without one man like Chang Jung and couldn't stand to be with two.
(that's one paragraph from 'Changs', a history of various Changs. Each Chang gets one paragraph, as seen above)
Some essays feel more anthropological, serving to remind you what wonderful differences we as a species have:
A Kaluli lives in two worlds: the visible world of people and the world of their reflections, where people live as wild pigs or cassowaries on the slopes of Mt. Bosavi. When a person dies, the reflection also disappears, and turns into a bird in the visible world. Birds see each other as people, and their calls are people talking to one another. The passage of life is from infant to bird.
Weinberger's prose is sparse and in the background to what he wants to tell you. Look at all this wonder! Look at all this excitement!
It never feels like non-fiction though, there's an element of Zen-like poetry in every essay, mixed with a hypnotic rhythm in those endless lists of curious things - I need to read more Weinberger now, for therapy.
July 5, 2025
https://kansasbooks.blogspot.com/2025...
“Cuenta la historia de un hombre llamado Abu-al-Anbas que vivió durante el reinado de Mutawakkil, quien abolió la libertad de pensamiento y las discusiones filosóficas, reestableció la ortodoxia, impuso con rigor los valores religiosos tradicionales, dio poco a los pobres, construyó dos palacios de cien millones de dirhams y se entregó a los juegos, banquetes y a cada una de sus cuatro mil concubinas."
Acercarme a esta obra de Eliot Weinberger ha ejercido una extraña fascinación en mí sobre todo, porque aunque sean ensayos en toda la extensión de la palabra, algunos detalles me han llamado especialmente la atención a la hora de abordar lo que normalmente se considera qué es un ensayo Independientemente de que cada capítulo esté dedicado a un tema completamente diferente y que a priori no parezca que tengan conexión, capítulos totalmente independientes unos de otros, sin embargo, sí que parece haber alguna pequeña conexión a medida que avanzas, alguna idea que se repite, o algún personaje, aisladamente. "Una caracola es un vórtice que se puede sostener en la mano. En náhuatl, una misma palabra significa dar la vuelta y dar vida. Creían que algunos poemas habían nacido de un árbol florido en el paraíso, y que llegaron hasta la tierra girando." El caso es desde su comienzo, Weinberger no deja de estimular continuamente la curiosidad del lector porque en ningún momento Weinberger participa con nada personal, no da absolutamente ninguna información subjetiva, ni hay nada que nos haga relacionar estos ensayos con reflexiones ni experiencias personales, tampoco ningún detalle en torno a la autoficción y ni siquiera creo que haya una linea argumental subterránea, ni nada en que se atisbe a Weinberger como una figura continuamente presente como creador de estos ensayos. De esta forma consigue una fórmula narrativa que a mi me parece muy interesante: enfrenta directamente al lector con un texto sin que haya ninguna distracción en el sentido de que no parece haber un intermediario, en este caso el autor.
“Una vez voló hasta la copa de un árbol y sus ramas no se doblaron. Pero la Iglesia no sabía qué hacer con él. La Inquisición le investigó; su presencia era claramente perjudicial. Fue enviado a monasterios lejanos; los traslados se llevaban a cabo de noche y por caminos poco transitados, y se le reservaba la celda más apartada, pero aún así la multitud de peregrinos lo encontraba.
Entre ellos había un espejo brillante al que Giuseppe se asomaba y en el que, de un vistazo, podía ver la forma de todas las cosas del mundo, así como los misterios ocultos del universo que Dios había tenido a bien mostrarle."
El lector se encontrará con diferentes ensayos en los que se abordarán temas desde el viento hasta los rinocerontes y los lagartos, pasando por los aztecas hasta los romanos y los mandeos, Empódecles y el «niño pastor de bueyes», las estrellas, los santos católicos, el pueblo mandeo y el kakuli, Mahoma, y muchos más, algunos temas de los que el lector nunca habrá oído ni siquiera hablar, y sin embargo la narración de Weinberger ejerce una fascinación por cómo consigue crear un espacio totalmente libre para que el lector no se sienta atado ni por la más mínima conjetura personal del autor. Se podría decir que a tenor de este estilo narrativo, Weinberger desnuda su texto de cualquier egocentrismo autoral, aunque claro, llegar a afinar de esta forma esta fórmula no debe ser fácil porque surgen unas historias, muchas de ellos poéticas, de una belleza muy envolvente.
"Vio Blake alguna vez un tigre de verdad? La Casa de Fieras de la Torre de Londres fue abierta al público a mediados del siglo XVIII (precio de la entrada: tres cuartos de penique o un gato o un perro muerto) y con frecuencia exhibía tigres. Y cuando Blake vivía en Fountain Court, bien pudo haberse pasado por la Exposición de Animales Salvajes de Pidcock, donde a menudo se exhibían tigres."
La erudición de Eliot Weinberger está al nivel de la de un Roberto Calasso y salvando las distancias entre uno y otro en cuanto a estilo y temática, ambos acaban resultando autores no solo con los que aprendemos a conocer más el mundo, sino que nos ayudaran a conocer el mundo del que provenimos, que es la única forma de conocernos mejor. “Todos los mundos son devorados, uno tras otro, por las llamas vivificadoras, para renacer de ellas y ser otra vez consumidos, cual monótono fluir de un reloj de arena que eternamente se vacía y voltea a si mismo. Lo nuevo siempre es antiguo, y lo antiguo siempre es nuevo." En el caso de Weinberger queda muy patente que no se está inventando nada, que todo es pura erudición de su parte y que todo estaba ya en otros textos (es también la impresión que tuve cuando me encontré con David Markson y su Cuarteto), no hilvana historias para imaginarlas y desarrollarlas, sino que expone y enumera unos hechos, una historias que ya existían en otros textos históricos, filosóficos o literarios e incluso llega un momento en que a través de esta narrativa llegaremos a preguntarnos en qué punto se bifurca la realidad y da paso a un momento de ficción, es tan sutil que es prácticamente imposible detectarlo. Quizás parte de esta impresión venga del hecho de que usa mucho la enumeración y la yuxtapone con datos que nos había facilitado anteriormente; por ejemplo, en el cap��tulo dedicado a los rinocerontes, maravilloso por cierto, se dedica a enumerar la breve historia de los rinocerontes que fueron traídos a Europa por las cortes de diferentes países o por ciudadanos particulares, uno a uno desde el primero que llegó en 1515, añadiendo datos sobre las fuentes literarias en las que aparecían estos rinocerontes para terminar conectándolo con la soledad del rinoceronte y estableciendo de esta forma una metáfora de la condición humana. Aunque leyéndole me viniera a la mente Roberto Calasso, yo diría que los ensayos de Eliot Weinberger están más cerca de David Markson por esta enumeración continua.
“Sin ejercer ninguna violencia sobre los seres vivos, ni a uno solo de ellos, deambula a solas como un rinoceronte.
Los afectos provienen de la compañía de la gente, la aflicción proviene de los afectos, deambula a solas como un rinoceronte.
Como en casa en cualquier sitio, deambula a solas como un rinoceronte.”
La lista de fuentes que aparece al final de Algo Elemental certifica de alguna manera esto que estoy diciendo, que Weinberger no se está inventando nada, sino que rescata lo que ya estaba ahí y lo transmite con este estilo tan particular suyo que a mi me ha encantado, porque resulta casi imposible que el lector no se maraville por todos estos sucesos que va relatando y enumerando y que no dejan de sorprendernos porque acabamos dándonos cuenta de que forman parte del mundo en el que vivimos: seres y lugares que parecen pura fantasía y que sin embargo, han formado parte de la historia y de la literatura y seguirán formando parte de este mundo que habitamos. Cada ensayo tiene un tono poético, y yo llamaría a esto que hace Weinberger, ensayos poéticos, e incluso en esta enumeración de la que hablaba antes en la que se omite información, porque va a la esencia, es precisamente en esto que no dice o que omite, dónde está quizás el misterio que envolverá al lector. Cuando Weinberger usa la técnica de la enumeración acaba llevando los datos a lo mínimo, pero al mismo tiempo está sugiriendo mucho más de lo que las palabras podrían decir. Eliot Weinberger, otro descubrimiento de este año.
"Siempre y en cualquier lugar de la arena terrestre, el mismo drama, la misma escena, sobre el mismo escueto escenario: una humanidad ruidosa infatuada por su propia grandeza, creyéndose el universo mismo y viviendo en su prisión como si se tratara de un reino inmenso, solo para zozobrar muy pronto junto a su planeta, que ha sobrellevado con el más profundo desdén el peso de la arrogancia humana."
♫♫♫ Fortanach - Sebastian Plano ♫♫♫
“Cuenta la historia de un hombre llamado Abu-al-Anbas que vivió durante el reinado de Mutawakkil, quien abolió la libertad de pensamiento y las discusiones filosóficas, reestableció la ortodoxia, impuso con rigor los valores religiosos tradicionales, dio poco a los pobres, construyó dos palacios de cien millones de dirhams y se entregó a los juegos, banquetes y a cada una de sus cuatro mil concubinas."
Acercarme a esta obra de Eliot Weinberger ha ejercido una extraña fascinación en mí sobre todo, porque aunque sean ensayos en toda la extensión de la palabra, algunos detalles me han llamado especialmente la atención a la hora de abordar lo que normalmente se considera qué es un ensayo Independientemente de que cada capítulo esté dedicado a un tema completamente diferente y que a priori no parezca que tengan conexión, capítulos totalmente independientes unos de otros, sin embargo, sí que parece haber alguna pequeña conexión a medida que avanzas, alguna idea que se repite, o algún personaje, aisladamente. "Una caracola es un vórtice que se puede sostener en la mano. En náhuatl, una misma palabra significa dar la vuelta y dar vida. Creían que algunos poemas habían nacido de un árbol florido en el paraíso, y que llegaron hasta la tierra girando." El caso es desde su comienzo, Weinberger no deja de estimular continuamente la curiosidad del lector porque en ningún momento Weinberger participa con nada personal, no da absolutamente ninguna información subjetiva, ni hay nada que nos haga relacionar estos ensayos con reflexiones ni experiencias personales, tampoco ningún detalle en torno a la autoficción y ni siquiera creo que haya una linea argumental subterránea, ni nada en que se atisbe a Weinberger como una figura continuamente presente como creador de estos ensayos. De esta forma consigue una fórmula narrativa que a mi me parece muy interesante: enfrenta directamente al lector con un texto sin que haya ninguna distracción en el sentido de que no parece haber un intermediario, en este caso el autor.
“Una vez voló hasta la copa de un árbol y sus ramas no se doblaron. Pero la Iglesia no sabía qué hacer con él. La Inquisición le investigó; su presencia era claramente perjudicial. Fue enviado a monasterios lejanos; los traslados se llevaban a cabo de noche y por caminos poco transitados, y se le reservaba la celda más apartada, pero aún así la multitud de peregrinos lo encontraba.
Entre ellos había un espejo brillante al que Giuseppe se asomaba y en el que, de un vistazo, podía ver la forma de todas las cosas del mundo, así como los misterios ocultos del universo que Dios había tenido a bien mostrarle."
El lector se encontrará con diferentes ensayos en los que se abordarán temas desde el viento hasta los rinocerontes y los lagartos, pasando por los aztecas hasta los romanos y los mandeos, Empódecles y el «niño pastor de bueyes», las estrellas, los santos católicos, el pueblo mandeo y el kakuli, Mahoma, y muchos más, algunos temas de los que el lector nunca habrá oído ni siquiera hablar, y sin embargo la narración de Weinberger ejerce una fascinación por cómo consigue crear un espacio totalmente libre para que el lector no se sienta atado ni por la más mínima conjetura personal del autor. Se podría decir que a tenor de este estilo narrativo, Weinberger desnuda su texto de cualquier egocentrismo autoral, aunque claro, llegar a afinar de esta forma esta fórmula no debe ser fácil porque surgen unas historias, muchas de ellos poéticas, de una belleza muy envolvente.
"Vio Blake alguna vez un tigre de verdad? La Casa de Fieras de la Torre de Londres fue abierta al público a mediados del siglo XVIII (precio de la entrada: tres cuartos de penique o un gato o un perro muerto) y con frecuencia exhibía tigres. Y cuando Blake vivía en Fountain Court, bien pudo haberse pasado por la Exposición de Animales Salvajes de Pidcock, donde a menudo se exhibían tigres."
La erudición de Eliot Weinberger está al nivel de la de un Roberto Calasso y salvando las distancias entre uno y otro en cuanto a estilo y temática, ambos acaban resultando autores no solo con los que aprendemos a conocer más el mundo, sino que nos ayudaran a conocer el mundo del que provenimos, que es la única forma de conocernos mejor. “Todos los mundos son devorados, uno tras otro, por las llamas vivificadoras, para renacer de ellas y ser otra vez consumidos, cual monótono fluir de un reloj de arena que eternamente se vacía y voltea a si mismo. Lo nuevo siempre es antiguo, y lo antiguo siempre es nuevo." En el caso de Weinberger queda muy patente que no se está inventando nada, que todo es pura erudición de su parte y que todo estaba ya en otros textos (es también la impresión que tuve cuando me encontré con David Markson y su Cuarteto), no hilvana historias para imaginarlas y desarrollarlas, sino que expone y enumera unos hechos, una historias que ya existían en otros textos históricos, filosóficos o literarios e incluso llega un momento en que a través de esta narrativa llegaremos a preguntarnos en qué punto se bifurca la realidad y da paso a un momento de ficción, es tan sutil que es prácticamente imposible detectarlo. Quizás parte de esta impresión venga del hecho de que usa mucho la enumeración y la yuxtapone con datos que nos había facilitado anteriormente; por ejemplo, en el cap��tulo dedicado a los rinocerontes, maravilloso por cierto, se dedica a enumerar la breve historia de los rinocerontes que fueron traídos a Europa por las cortes de diferentes países o por ciudadanos particulares, uno a uno desde el primero que llegó en 1515, añadiendo datos sobre las fuentes literarias en las que aparecían estos rinocerontes para terminar conectándolo con la soledad del rinoceronte y estableciendo de esta forma una metáfora de la condición humana. Aunque leyéndole me viniera a la mente Roberto Calasso, yo diría que los ensayos de Eliot Weinberger están más cerca de David Markson por esta enumeración continua.
“Sin ejercer ninguna violencia sobre los seres vivos, ni a uno solo de ellos, deambula a solas como un rinoceronte.
Los afectos provienen de la compañía de la gente, la aflicción proviene de los afectos, deambula a solas como un rinoceronte.
Como en casa en cualquier sitio, deambula a solas como un rinoceronte.”
La lista de fuentes que aparece al final de Algo Elemental certifica de alguna manera esto que estoy diciendo, que Weinberger no se está inventando nada, sino que rescata lo que ya estaba ahí y lo transmite con este estilo tan particular suyo que a mi me ha encantado, porque resulta casi imposible que el lector no se maraville por todos estos sucesos que va relatando y enumerando y que no dejan de sorprendernos porque acabamos dándonos cuenta de que forman parte del mundo en el que vivimos: seres y lugares que parecen pura fantasía y que sin embargo, han formado parte de la historia y de la literatura y seguirán formando parte de este mundo que habitamos. Cada ensayo tiene un tono poético, y yo llamaría a esto que hace Weinberger, ensayos poéticos, e incluso en esta enumeración de la que hablaba antes en la que se omite información, porque va a la esencia, es precisamente en esto que no dice o que omite, dónde está quizás el misterio que envolverá al lector. Cuando Weinberger usa la técnica de la enumeración acaba llevando los datos a lo mínimo, pero al mismo tiempo está sugiriendo mucho más de lo que las palabras podrían decir. Eliot Weinberger, otro descubrimiento de este año.
"Siempre y en cualquier lugar de la arena terrestre, el mismo drama, la misma escena, sobre el mismo escueto escenario: una humanidad ruidosa infatuada por su propia grandeza, creyéndose el universo mismo y viviendo en su prisión como si se tratara de un reino inmenso, solo para zozobrar muy pronto junto a su planeta, que ha sobrellevado con el más profundo desdén el peso de la arrogancia humana."
♫♫♫ Fortanach - Sebastian Plano ♫♫♫
August 17, 2021
Pomimo tego, że nie wszystkie eseje trzymały ten sam (niezwykle wysoki) poziom, całość pięknie się ze sobą łączy i domyka. Bardzo dużo tu wrażliwości na sprawy związane z naturą, które opisane są w poetycki wręcz sposób- opisy pór roku wyznaczają pewien rytm zbioru. Jestem pod wrażeniem ogólnej wiedzy oraz umiejętności pisarskich autora, chociaż czuję pewien niedosyt i chciałbym przeczytać trochę więcej.
December 15, 2011
I almost passed over An Elemental Thing, despite the lovely cover. The canned praise on the back of it scared me. To believe it, Weinberger’s work is totally without precedent, the accomplishment of things yet unattempted in prose and rhyme, the sole flaw in the rule about there being nothing new under the sun.
Weinberger’s book isn’t really so unprecedented. You could point to whole armies of anthropologists and historians, among others, and maybe to Borges too. God spare us such monsters of spontaneous generation anyway. If it had been truly unprecendented I’m sure I would have hated it. (And here’s a lesson for overpraising reviewers: islands are places we like to imagine ourselves bringing a few favorite books, but a book itself makes a poor island.)
An Elemental Thing is a well-curated little museum, worth the price of admission, and Weinberger is a gifted collector. Page after page he holds up curious objects for our consideration without getting himself too much in the way: the recurring Aztec apocalypse, the tiger as symbol and victim, the mysticism of the Taoists, the levitating saints of Italy, the Mandaeans of Iraq, the heathenish folklore of the wren, the ritual life of a Chinese emperor, the Empedoclean follies.
There’s such a thing as too much exoticism, however, and Weinberger pushes a bit beyond my limit. I wonder where this immemorial western obsession with the misty East comes from. Weinberger does occasionally sample from nearer to home but he spends more than half the book stepping over the fewmets of other latter-day Orientalists: Pound perhaps, and the dime-a-dozen Zen-pushers of the twentieth century.
Weinberger’s book isn’t really so unprecedented. You could point to whole armies of anthropologists and historians, among others, and maybe to Borges too. God spare us such monsters of spontaneous generation anyway. If it had been truly unprecendented I’m sure I would have hated it. (And here’s a lesson for overpraising reviewers: islands are places we like to imagine ourselves bringing a few favorite books, but a book itself makes a poor island.)
An Elemental Thing is a well-curated little museum, worth the price of admission, and Weinberger is a gifted collector. Page after page he holds up curious objects for our consideration without getting himself too much in the way: the recurring Aztec apocalypse, the tiger as symbol and victim, the mysticism of the Taoists, the levitating saints of Italy, the Mandaeans of Iraq, the heathenish folklore of the wren, the ritual life of a Chinese emperor, the Empedoclean follies.
There’s such a thing as too much exoticism, however, and Weinberger pushes a bit beyond my limit. I wonder where this immemorial western obsession with the misty East comes from. Weinberger does occasionally sample from nearer to home but he spends more than half the book stepping over the fewmets of other latter-day Orientalists: Pound perhaps, and the dime-a-dozen Zen-pushers of the twentieth century.
June 18, 2014
The best book by our best living literary essayist, An Elemental Thing by Eliot Weinberger got scant attention when it was published in 2007. As is sometimes the case with significant American writers, Weinberger’s reputation may be greater abroad than at home. Certainly his work has been translated into umpteen languages (including Arabic, Chinese, Hindi, Japanese, and Maori). I recently reread An Elemental Thing and was knocked out again and surprised by what I missed the first time.
The book’s sequence of short essays covers an astonishing range of subjects, from wind to rhinoceros to lizards, from Aztecs to Romans to Mandaeans. Empodecles and “the ox-herding boy” are presiding spirits of sorts, drifting in and out of multiple essays. Parallel essays elaborating the seasonal activities of a T’ang Dynasty Chinese court give structure to the book as a whole.
What makes the essays so remarkable, besides their astounding learnedness (James Laughlin, the editor of New Directions, once said that Weinberger was the most erudite person he’d met since Ezra Pound), is their formal innovation. Each essay is utterly distinct. Everything Weinberger has learned from a lifetime’s obsession with poetry he brings to bear on the essay. Laughlin’s comparison comes to mind in part because Weinberger has cracked open the essay form in as dramatic a way as Ezra Pound cracked open the poem in the early 20th century.
Precipitous juxtapositions, heuristic leaps, lists, anaphoric incantation, cultural rhymes, onomatopoeia, parallel structures, strong syntactical shifts, refusals of closure, kennings, textual patterning on the page, and merciless understatement characterize the essays. Also, Weinberger empathetically heaps our plate with the facts of life as they are perceived by non-Western cultures, and he does so without relying on those patronizing qualifications—“they believe,” etc.—so often used to distinguish non-scientific modes of experience and explanation. Thus, in “Muhammad,” we read: “He never soiled his clothes; whatever passed naturally from him was instantly received and concealed by the earth. He never smelled disagreeably, but gave off a fragrance of camphor and musk. At three months, he sat up; at nine months, he walked; at ten months, he went out with his foster-brothers to pasture the sheep….”
Often elements from one essay are swirled into the configuration of another. For instance, the reader is likely to associate an essay titled “Wind and Bone” with an earlier essay, “The Wind.” In “Wind and Bone,” an advisor tells a Chinese emperor that the wind he feels “is a wind for your majesty alone.” Any reader familiar with Pound’s Cantos will recall Pound’s “No wind is the king’s wind” and link this allusion to Pound references in other essays. Meanwhile, Weinberger goes on to mention Chang Hua, whose name connects him to an earlier essay, “Chang,” concerning (well, you have to read it) a bunch of men named Chang. The last line of “Wind and Bone”—“The metaphor for the ideal poem is a bird”—relates it to an essay called “Wrens.” This cycling of themes and references typifies the movement not only of the essays, but of the writing as a whole. Perhaps the book’s overriding compositional metaphor is the vortex; two of the most compelling essays, “Tree of Flowers” and “Vortex,” develop that image into a cosmogony.
It’s curious to note how ecstasy and carnage often mingle in the final sentences of these essays, despite (or not) that a number of them are concerned with creation. Weinberger tracks cycles of human violence and dreaming as, like huge vortical whirlwinds, they stalk each other across the widening desert tracts of human history.
Finally, though, it’s Weinberger’s attentiveness to particularity, to the particularity of our species, its dreams and literatures and landscapes, that makes the essays so rich. The brilliant net of details that Weinberger casts and recasts in his various inventive approaches to form is precisely what constitutes a superlative poetic imagination. And it’s what holds the essays—and us—trembling and raging and hallucinating together.
I’ll end with a beginning. These are the opening lines of the essay “The Stars”:
The stars: what are they? They are chunks of ice reflecting the sun; they are lights afloat on the waters beyond the transparent dome; they are nails nailed to the sky; they are holes in the great curtain between us and the sea of light; they are holes in the hard shell that protects us from the inferno beyond; they are the daughters of the sun; they are the messengers of the gods; they are shaped like wheels and are condensations of air with flames roaring through the spaces between the spokes; they sit in little chairs;
The book’s sequence of short essays covers an astonishing range of subjects, from wind to rhinoceros to lizards, from Aztecs to Romans to Mandaeans. Empodecles and “the ox-herding boy” are presiding spirits of sorts, drifting in and out of multiple essays. Parallel essays elaborating the seasonal activities of a T’ang Dynasty Chinese court give structure to the book as a whole.
What makes the essays so remarkable, besides their astounding learnedness (James Laughlin, the editor of New Directions, once said that Weinberger was the most erudite person he’d met since Ezra Pound), is their formal innovation. Each essay is utterly distinct. Everything Weinberger has learned from a lifetime’s obsession with poetry he brings to bear on the essay. Laughlin’s comparison comes to mind in part because Weinberger has cracked open the essay form in as dramatic a way as Ezra Pound cracked open the poem in the early 20th century.
Precipitous juxtapositions, heuristic leaps, lists, anaphoric incantation, cultural rhymes, onomatopoeia, parallel structures, strong syntactical shifts, refusals of closure, kennings, textual patterning on the page, and merciless understatement characterize the essays. Also, Weinberger empathetically heaps our plate with the facts of life as they are perceived by non-Western cultures, and he does so without relying on those patronizing qualifications—“they believe,” etc.—so often used to distinguish non-scientific modes of experience and explanation. Thus, in “Muhammad,” we read: “He never soiled his clothes; whatever passed naturally from him was instantly received and concealed by the earth. He never smelled disagreeably, but gave off a fragrance of camphor and musk. At three months, he sat up; at nine months, he walked; at ten months, he went out with his foster-brothers to pasture the sheep….”
Often elements from one essay are swirled into the configuration of another. For instance, the reader is likely to associate an essay titled “Wind and Bone” with an earlier essay, “The Wind.” In “Wind and Bone,” an advisor tells a Chinese emperor that the wind he feels “is a wind for your majesty alone.” Any reader familiar with Pound’s Cantos will recall Pound’s “No wind is the king’s wind” and link this allusion to Pound references in other essays. Meanwhile, Weinberger goes on to mention Chang Hua, whose name connects him to an earlier essay, “Chang,” concerning (well, you have to read it) a bunch of men named Chang. The last line of “Wind and Bone”—“The metaphor for the ideal poem is a bird”—relates it to an essay called “Wrens.” This cycling of themes and references typifies the movement not only of the essays, but of the writing as a whole. Perhaps the book’s overriding compositional metaphor is the vortex; two of the most compelling essays, “Tree of Flowers” and “Vortex,” develop that image into a cosmogony.
It’s curious to note how ecstasy and carnage often mingle in the final sentences of these essays, despite (or not) that a number of them are concerned with creation. Weinberger tracks cycles of human violence and dreaming as, like huge vortical whirlwinds, they stalk each other across the widening desert tracts of human history.
Finally, though, it’s Weinberger’s attentiveness to particularity, to the particularity of our species, its dreams and literatures and landscapes, that makes the essays so rich. The brilliant net of details that Weinberger casts and recasts in his various inventive approaches to form is precisely what constitutes a superlative poetic imagination. And it’s what holds the essays—and us—trembling and raging and hallucinating together.
I’ll end with a beginning. These are the opening lines of the essay “The Stars”:
The stars: what are they? They are chunks of ice reflecting the sun; they are lights afloat on the waters beyond the transparent dome; they are nails nailed to the sky; they are holes in the great curtain between us and the sea of light; they are holes in the hard shell that protects us from the inferno beyond; they are the daughters of the sun; they are the messengers of the gods; they are shaped like wheels and are condensations of air with flames roaring through the spaces between the spokes; they sit in little chairs;
January 8, 2021
Kupując ten zbiór nie miałem pojęcia czego się spodziewać i całkowicie się zaskoczyłem. Znajdują się w nim wręcz fenomenalne teksty takie jak Lakandonowie, który zapadł mi w pamięć, a także opisy pór roku, pełne spokoju, wyciszające. Jednakże niektóre z pozostałych, choć ciekawe i opisujące interesujące historie, nie posiadały "tego czegoś". Miałem wrażenie, że coś w nich pominąłem... Mimo to jest to jedna z książek, do których z chęcią wrócę.
4*
4*
December 14, 2020
Chciałoby się, żeby Weinberger snuł opowieści przez kolejnych kilkaset stron, byśmy nigdy nie wyszli ze świata wierzeń, duchów, złych satrapów, wspaniałych mnichów, kolonialnych podbojów i wielkich, zapomnianych cywilizacji.
Eliot Weinberger obok pisania esejów i opowiadań para się również tłumaczeniami z hiszpańskiego. Dla Amerykanów odkrył twórczość Octavio Paza jeszcze zanim ten otrzymał literackiego Nobla. Jest specjalistą od wielkich cywilizacji - fascynują go Aztekowie, Inkowie, dawne królestwa chińskie, ale przede wszystkim ciekawią go ludzkie historie, które wyławia z oceanu historii i opowiada tak, że wraca w czytelniku dziecięca czy młodzieńcza radość podróżowania palcem po mapie, wyobraźnią po tekście, zagłębiania się w nieznane.
Choć eseje Weinbergera ułożone są w logiczny ciąg, to nie jest łatwo odkryć zasady go porządkujące. Wyczuwamy je raczej intuicyjnie, czując jakbyśmy byli bliscy odkrycia tajemnicy, a autor umykał przed czytelnikiem, podsuwając mu kolejne tropy. Przyjrzyjmy się temu.
CAŁOŚĆ W SERWISIE EMPIK.COM - https://www.empik.com/empikultura/ksi...
Eliot Weinberger obok pisania esejów i opowiadań para się również tłumaczeniami z hiszpańskiego. Dla Amerykanów odkrył twórczość Octavio Paza jeszcze zanim ten otrzymał literackiego Nobla. Jest specjalistą od wielkich cywilizacji - fascynują go Aztekowie, Inkowie, dawne królestwa chińskie, ale przede wszystkim ciekawią go ludzkie historie, które wyławia z oceanu historii i opowiada tak, że wraca w czytelniku dziecięca czy młodzieńcza radość podróżowania palcem po mapie, wyobraźnią po tekście, zagłębiania się w nieznane.
Choć eseje Weinbergera ułożone są w logiczny ciąg, to nie jest łatwo odkryć zasady go porządkujące. Wyczuwamy je raczej intuicyjnie, czując jakbyśmy byli bliscy odkrycia tajemnicy, a autor umykał przed czytelnikiem, podsuwając mu kolejne tropy. Przyjrzyjmy się temu.
CAŁOŚĆ W SERWISIE EMPIK.COM - https://www.empik.com/empikultura/ksi...
September 10, 2018
¡Este libro es extraordinario! Está poblado de personajes fascinantes y compuesto por historias muy curiosas. Mis capítulos favoritos fueron los dedicados a las estrellas y al rinoceronte. Weinberger posee un saber inmenso y muy profundo, que logra exponer con delicadeza. ¡Léanlo!
January 28, 2011
3.5 stars. I love creative essays. They usually blend well researched facts with narrative and poetic devices, a la WG Sebald, Anne Carson, and Eula Biss. So I was super excited to find out about Eliot Weinberger, whom I've only read good things about. What's more, this slender book has the most enticing cover design, it made me swoon.
The essays themselves were not exactly what I expected. They are well-researched bite-sized morsels that start with so much potential, but then they end abruptly. It took me a while to catch on to the rhythm of his pieces, and stop expecting any kind of authorial voice to tie everything together. I'm not one who usually wants everything tied up, but these pieces are almost like opening up a suitcase of ephemera. Each one sparkling and fantastic, and perhaps even grouped together in nice combinations. This in itself is often impressive and fun to read, and he ends up saying a lot with his choice of what to include/exclude as well as the order in which he presents them. But, again, this all took getting used to. It was hard to read more than one or two in one sitting because of how distant I felt from the impersonal (though poetic) presentation.
One example: There is an essay called Changs which presents a list of people with the name of "Chang" throughout history, along with a short summary of what they did. In "Stars", he compiles a list of beliefs about the origin of stars through the ages. He includes the scientific ("they interact through four forces: gravity, electromagnetism, the strong and weak nuclear forces") as well as the mythologic ("they are the white ants in the anthill built around the motionless Dhurva, who meditates for eternity deep in the forest") and the poetic ("they are holes in the great curtain between us and the sea of light"). In fact, he does that often: blending poetic myth with scientific or historical fact in a way that makes you think twice about why we DON'T treat them equally. Also, these pieces just jump in with no cumbersome explanations, which is refreshing.
But is there a link between how these essays were written and what the essays were about? As I read more and more of this book, I began to appreciate it more and more precisely because I felt that the answer was yes.
He often writes about historical or mythological figures, usually from different cultures (China, Greenland, the Mandaeans from the middle east, etc.) and often from cultures that are ignored or that you never hear about. His way of diving into talking about other cultures without explanation or reference makes the reader come face to face with otherness without the familiar comfort of a guide. His Spring/Winter/Summer/Fall essays do not tell you what culture he is even writing about:
The essays themselves were not exactly what I expected. They are well-researched bite-sized morsels that start with so much potential, but then they end abruptly. It took me a while to catch on to the rhythm of his pieces, and stop expecting any kind of authorial voice to tie everything together. I'm not one who usually wants everything tied up, but these pieces are almost like opening up a suitcase of ephemera. Each one sparkling and fantastic, and perhaps even grouped together in nice combinations. This in itself is often impressive and fun to read, and he ends up saying a lot with his choice of what to include/exclude as well as the order in which he presents them. But, again, this all took getting used to. It was hard to read more than one or two in one sitting because of how distant I felt from the impersonal (though poetic) presentation.
One example: There is an essay called Changs which presents a list of people with the name of "Chang" throughout history, along with a short summary of what they did. In "Stars", he compiles a list of beliefs about the origin of stars through the ages. He includes the scientific ("they interact through four forces: gravity, electromagnetism, the strong and weak nuclear forces") as well as the mythologic ("they are the white ants in the anthill built around the motionless Dhurva, who meditates for eternity deep in the forest") and the poetic ("they are holes in the great curtain between us and the sea of light"). In fact, he does that often: blending poetic myth with scientific or historical fact in a way that makes you think twice about why we DON'T treat them equally. Also, these pieces just jump in with no cumbersome explanations, which is refreshing.
But is there a link between how these essays were written and what the essays were about? As I read more and more of this book, I began to appreciate it more and more precisely because I felt that the answer was yes.
He often writes about historical or mythological figures, usually from different cultures (China, Greenland, the Mandaeans from the middle east, etc.) and often from cultures that are ignored or that you never hear about. His way of diving into talking about other cultures without explanation or reference makes the reader come face to face with otherness without the familiar comfort of a guide. His Spring/Winter/Summer/Fall essays do not tell you what culture he is even writing about:
In the third month, the Sun is in the Stomach; at dusk the Seven Stars set, and at dawn the Oxherding Boy; its tree is the pear.He writes often about cycles in time, and the repetition of basic elements that combine to form the universe:
"in order to fill its expanse, nature must repeat to infinity each of its original combinations or types" p 130or earlier, talking about Empedocles:
"He believed that the world was made of four roots--earth,water,air,fire--and two forces, love and strife...Everything is sometimes different but perpetually alike, momentary creations that are formed, separate into their immortal elements, and are recombined."This same cyclic repetition is very much expressed in the way he writes... taking detritus of human culture and recombining them into essays that are highly unique. And the repetition he employs in his lists is reminiscent of the repetition he writes about in the endless cycles of life.
June 16, 2011
The middle of this book contains an essay on the vortex, and its many manifestations. The physical basis of a whirlpool, for example, is water (and perhaps rocks). But it also requires an additional energy source to turn a pool of water into a whirlpool - "'The difference between a whirlpool and a pool is the whirl.'" (quoting the appropriately named Allen Upward). In physical terms, the vortex at its essence is a wheel or spiral turning. But Weinberger also notes the use of terms like vortices to describe a rush of ideas, or a process of thought.
I do not think it is an accident that the essay on the vortex is tucked somewhere in the middle of the book. The essays that surround it are the basis for his own vortex of ideas. There are common themes - wind, light, bone, seasons, wild animals, stars, and flowering trees - which are arranged in a sort of spiral relationship within the various essays. One example of this is the placement of the various essays on the seasons - spring, summer, fall, winter - throughout the book. Another is the way in which certain topics are introduced in one essay and then returned to in another. The book's structure reminds of another spiral - the spiral galaxy M101. [for a pic, see http://www.astronet.ru/db/xware/msg/a...].
It took me a little while to get the hang of what was going on in this book, and again, I think this is intentional. You aren't given a road map, you simply walk into an outer arm of the spiral, work your way into the center, and then ease on back out on the other side. It's unlike anything else I've ever read in that sense.
But what is the book ABOUT, you might ask? The way I see it, it's about the intersection of the natural world and man's quest for spiritual enlightment, throughout the ages and across the globe. It was definitely worth the read.
I do not think it is an accident that the essay on the vortex is tucked somewhere in the middle of the book. The essays that surround it are the basis for his own vortex of ideas. There are common themes - wind, light, bone, seasons, wild animals, stars, and flowering trees - which are arranged in a sort of spiral relationship within the various essays. One example of this is the placement of the various essays on the seasons - spring, summer, fall, winter - throughout the book. Another is the way in which certain topics are introduced in one essay and then returned to in another. The book's structure reminds of another spiral - the spiral galaxy M101. [for a pic, see http://www.astronet.ru/db/xware/msg/a...].
It took me a little while to get the hang of what was going on in this book, and again, I think this is intentional. You aren't given a road map, you simply walk into an outer arm of the spiral, work your way into the center, and then ease on back out on the other side. It's unlike anything else I've ever read in that sense.
But what is the book ABOUT, you might ask? The way I see it, it's about the intersection of the natural world and man's quest for spiritual enlightment, throughout the ages and across the globe. It was definitely worth the read.
November 16, 2020
On one of those days the new priest marries a cloud, which stands for his wife in the other world.
*
February 6, 2021
Na każdy czas, na każde uczucie, na każdą duszę
February 24, 2021
Erudycyjna książka, która pięknie łączy naukowość z baśniowością, a przy tym może być czytana przez takie osoby jak ja - zwyczajne, bez żadnego wykształcenia humanistycznego. Czułam, że to bardzo ludzka książka, mimo że np. znajduje się tam wspaniały esej o gwiazdach, spoiwem są ludzie i to jak patrzyli, i nadal patrzą na świat. To również eseje o potrzebie opowieści i potrzebie duchowości, szukaniu wyjaśnień i o próbach opisania, tłumaczenia sobie rzeczywistości. Najbardziej podobał mi się tekst Lód, ale wszystkie miały w sobie coś poruszającego i ulotnego. Niezwykła, chyba pierwszy raz czytałam coś takiego.
March 1, 2021
Сборник с есета, малко хипстърски си падат, но това е въпрос на вкус.
November 29, 2010
A marvelous (an exact adjective in this case) book of essays, a kind of illuminated bibliography. Weinberger ranges across all types of esoterica - scientific, religious, anthropological, ecological - transmuting dry facts into strange, verifiable abstracts worthy of Borges. In fact I frequently recalled Borges' celebrated set of animal classifications from the imaginary Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge:
1. those that belong to the Emperor,
2. embalmed ones,
3. those that are trained,
4. suckling pigs,
5. mermaids,
6. fabulous ones,
7. stray dogs,
8. those included in the present classification,
9. those that tremble as if they were mad,
10. innumerable ones,
11. those drawn with a very fine camelhair brush,
12. others,
13. those that have just broken a flower vase,
14. those that from a long way off look like flies.
Weinberger's essays are composed in the same spirit of implausible variety: an essay on "Changs" (i.e., ancient Chinese men named "Chang"); on the four seasons from the "Emperor's" point of view; on wind, stars, ice and the tree of flowers; on lizards, tigers and the rhinoceros; on St. Teresa, Abu Al-Anbas and Empedocles; and (the best essay) on "The Vortex." Montaigne meets Guy Davenport. Almost perfect.
1. those that belong to the Emperor,
2. embalmed ones,
3. those that are trained,
4. suckling pigs,
5. mermaids,
6. fabulous ones,
7. stray dogs,
8. those included in the present classification,
9. those that tremble as if they were mad,
10. innumerable ones,
11. those drawn with a very fine camelhair brush,
12. others,
13. those that have just broken a flower vase,
14. those that from a long way off look like flies.
Weinberger's essays are composed in the same spirit of implausible variety: an essay on "Changs" (i.e., ancient Chinese men named "Chang"); on the four seasons from the "Emperor's" point of view; on wind, stars, ice and the tree of flowers; on lizards, tigers and the rhinoceros; on St. Teresa, Abu Al-Anbas and Empedocles; and (the best essay) on "The Vortex." Montaigne meets Guy Davenport. Almost perfect.
August 3, 2020
There is a lot I want to say about this book but every sentence I am forming in my mind sounds overweening and not even close enough to what I really feel and think about it.
I recommend to go into it blindly cuz You either get it, something, anything from it or just don't.
I finished it and immediately started to reread it and will probably reread some parts many times in the future.
I just
huh
that one chapter about The Stars just crawled under my skin
also that one about The Vortex...
it's a weird weird book
I recommend to go into it blindly cuz You either get it, something, anything from it or just don't.
I finished it and immediately started to reread it and will probably reread some parts many times in the future.
I just
huh
that one chapter about The Stars just crawled under my skin
also that one about The Vortex...
it's a weird weird book
January 24, 2025
I didn't get it, but I think that's entirely my fault. I look forward to rereading it.
December 22, 2024
Piękna okładka i oszałamiająca przyjemność lektury
May 13, 2025
bede wracac😻
December 30, 2024
Autor zachwyca erudycją i wrażliwością. Świetne.
April 6, 2025
Un libro muy bien estructurado, que explora los nexos de la humanidad en los vientos, las estrellas, las abejas o el color azul (una invención reciente), pero donde también se ahonda en temas tan dispares como los Kalulis de Nueva Guinea que se comunican con el canto o las líneas de Nazca (Perú) que parecen tratadas por extraterrestres.
Lo más interesante es cómo confluyen Oriente y Occidente en estas visiones a lo largo de los siglos, y cómo la mitología explica e intenta justificar lo que nos rodea de maneras tan diferentes (pero a la vez tan íntimamente relacionadas). Otra cosa buena del libro es que se puede leer a saltos, cada capítulo está autocontenido y eso hace que capítulos que a priori puedan ser menos interesantes para uno (porque, como la comida o el arte, cada cultura atrae de formas diferentes a personas distintas) puedan ser saltados.
Bastante recomendable.
Lo más interesante es cómo confluyen Oriente y Occidente en estas visiones a lo largo de los siglos, y cómo la mitología explica e intenta justificar lo que nos rodea de maneras tan diferentes (pero a la vez tan íntimamente relacionadas). Otra cosa buena del libro es que se puede leer a saltos, cada capítulo está autocontenido y eso hace que capítulos que a priori puedan ser menos interesantes para uno (porque, como la comida o el arte, cada cultura atrae de formas diferentes a personas distintas) puedan ser saltados.
Bastante recomendable.
December 13, 2020
He devoted himself to fishing, but never used any bait, for his object was not to catch fish.
He asked what was the supreme meaning of sacred truth. “The expanse of emptiness. Nothing sacred.”
They face each other; the man’s left hand touches the tiger’s face. They might be mistaken for lovers, but the tiger’s teeth are sunk in the man’s neck.
Human love is a futile effort in a period when there is no cosmic love.
20: ANECDOTAL EVIDENCE: The tiger was happy being a tiger, following his tiger nature. The man was happy being a man, following his human nature. Both enjoyed the happiness of being themselves, and neither suspected that they were equally happy as something entirely different.
Allen Upward, 1922: “The physical basis of a whirlpool is water, or water and rocks. But no combination of water and rocks will produce a whirlpool unless there is also present an energy derived from neither. . . . It is on the question of energy that everything turns. The difference between a whirlpool and a pool is the whirl.
The universe repeats itself endlessly and paws the ground in place. In infinity, eternity performs—imperturbably—the same routines.
31: THE STARS: The stars: what are they
33: THE SAHARA: Camels’ feet leave lotus-pad prints in the sand.
and left the palace to wander alone the vastness of the world.
He asked what was the supreme meaning of sacred truth. “The expanse of emptiness. Nothing sacred.”
They face each other; the man’s left hand touches the tiger’s face. They might be mistaken for lovers, but the tiger’s teeth are sunk in the man’s neck.
Human love is a futile effort in a period when there is no cosmic love.
20: ANECDOTAL EVIDENCE: The tiger was happy being a tiger, following his tiger nature. The man was happy being a man, following his human nature. Both enjoyed the happiness of being themselves, and neither suspected that they were equally happy as something entirely different.
Allen Upward, 1922: “The physical basis of a whirlpool is water, or water and rocks. But no combination of water and rocks will produce a whirlpool unless there is also present an energy derived from neither. . . . It is on the question of energy that everything turns. The difference between a whirlpool and a pool is the whirl.
The universe repeats itself endlessly and paws the ground in place. In infinity, eternity performs—imperturbably—the same routines.
31: THE STARS: The stars: what are they
33: THE SAHARA: Camels’ feet leave lotus-pad prints in the sand.
and left the palace to wander alone the vastness of the world.
February 5, 2021
Un maravilloso libro de 36 ensayos, que bascula listando costumbres de dinastías chinas, folklore galés, líneas de Nazca, constelaciones y multitud de anécdotas verídicas justo al punto de la inverosimilitud, provocando una tensión constante entre las fabulosas listas y letanías (como las estrellas o la vida de Mahoma) y la realidad. Provocando asombro y curiosidad que sólo aumenta con la bibliografía señalada.
January 5, 2024
Literatura magiczna.
January 23, 2025
Weinberger is that kid in your fifth grade history class who is always doodling in the corner and seems to never be paying attention, but he gets an A on all the exams (he actually gets 100) but then also writes little notes on the exams challenging the teachers very own questions. He also makes little history jokes under his breath to himself and chuckles at least 2 times a class. He’s a weird f*cker but lowkey chill asf
January 29, 2025
I forgo to log this when i read it but I love me some experimental creative nonfiction with a lovely research aspect. also how does this man literally just know everything about anything i want what he has (ability to speak three languages and write nonfiction in such an engaging way??? i feel as if god has favorites smh)
January 14, 2025
It felt like I was listening to someone who knew their stuff give fun facts about random topics. Except the topics weren’t 100% random and there were cool and thematic linkages the essays.
5 stars.
5 stars.
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