Brieven aan Poseidon

by Cees Nooteboom

In deze brieven van een groot auteur aan de zeegod Poseidon ontstaat een fascinerend weefwerk: een stervende walvis gaat een verband aan met het heelal, en de laatste grote tocht van Odysseus met Brigitte Bardot. Cees Nooteboom vertelt dit alles in zijn eigen magische taal.

Is de onsterfelijke Poseidon eigenlijk wel geïnteresseerd in mensen? Volgt de heerser der zeeën ons doen en laten nog wel? Cees Nooteboom is daar nieuwsgierig naar: hij schrijft brieven aan de god met de drietand, aan wie hij elke herfst, als hij zijn zomereiland verlaat, toestemming vraagt het jaar erop terug te keren. In die brieven vertelt hij wat hem in het dagelijks leven treft, hoe hij denkt over goden en God, en geeft hij een nieuwe kijk op oude mythen. Zo vraagt hij zich bij een toevallige ontmoeting op het strand af of een kleine jongen de spiegel kan zijn waarin je eigen leeftijd verdwijnt. Het zal de planten in de mediterrane tuin van de schrijver een zorg zijn, zij leiden hun eigen leven: hibiscus en cactus zetten zich schrap als de radio de krachtige klanken uit Bayreuth door de lucht laat waaien. Cees Nooteboom beheerst virtuoos de kunst achter de kleine dingen de grote levensvragen te laten opflitsen. Zijn correspondentie met de zeegod is betoverend: ze zet speels en serieus, laconiek en poëtisch het vertelde in een helder en warm licht.

Genres: Nonfiction, Dutch Literature, Essays, Travel, Poetry, Literature

288 pages, Hardcover

First published September 17, 2012

About the author

Cees Nooteboom (born Cornelis Johannes Jacobus Maria Nooteboom, 31 July 1933, in the Hague) is a Dutch author. He has won the Prijs der Nederlandse Letteren, the P.C. Hooft Award, the Pegasus Prize, the Ferdinand Bordewijk Prijs for Rituelen, the Austrian State Prize for European Literature and the Constantijn Huygens Prize, and has frequently been mentioned as a candidate for the Nobel Prize in literature.

His works include Rituelen (Rituals, 1980); Een lied van schijn en wezen (A Song of Truth and Semblance, 1981); Berlijnse notities (Berlin Notes, 1990); Het volgende verhaal (The Following Story, 1991); Allerzielen (All Souls' Day, 1998) and Paradijs verloren (Paradise Lost, 2004). (Het volgende verhaal won him the Aristeion Prize in 1993.) In 2005 he published "De slapende goden | Sueños y otras mentiras", with lithographs by Jürgen Partenheimer.

Reviews

[Argos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hollandalı yazar hem zarif kalemiyle hem de zekasıyla beğendiğim yeni keşfettiğim bir yazar. Roman ve şiir de yazıyor. Bu kitabında Olimpos Tanrıları’ndan deniz tanrısı Poseidon’a yazdığı 23 mektup var (neden 24 değil diye okuyucuyu düşündürtmekse amacı buna ulaşıyor !). Mektup aralarına da “hayvanat bahçesi”, “Challenger’ın patlaması”, “balinaların öldükten sonra ne oldukları” gibi çok ilginç ve farklı konularda elliye yakın deneme serpiştirmiş.

Özetle şunu vurguluyor mektuplarında yazar; “şimdi insanların inandığı tanrı hep vardır, her yerdedir ve sonsuza kadar olacaktır, yani bu tanrı doğmamıştı, sizler, Olimpos tanrıları ise doğdunuz, anneniz hatta onun annesi de doğdu, aynı ailenin parçasınız, sadece siz de sonsuzsunuz.”

Kitabın sonunda anlattığı konularla ilgili resimler, kaynaklar kitabı cazip hale getirmiş. Önerilir.

[Elena Sala · Rating 4 out of 5]

LETTERS TO POSEIDON (first published in 2012) consists of a series of 23 letters addressed to Poseidon, the Greek god of the sea, as well as several short, meditative pieces on subjects such as history, time, space, mortality and death while reflecting on places he visited, objects he found or newspaper articles. Filled with insightful, rhetorical questions which don't really expect any answer, these texts reveal the author's attempt to understand the world.

Cees Nooteboom spends much of his year on the Spanish island of Menorca and he is best known as a travel writer. His writing is deceptively simple, profound and melancholy. In the Preface, Alberto Manguel aptly describes Nooteboom as a "nomadic Dutchman, a clear-sighted optimistic, an inveterate inquisitor, one of the best writers of this disillusioned century." You will find these qualities shining through in his beautiful writing.

[Marco · Rating 2 out of 5]

Het zijn zoals de titel al aangeeft brieven. Aan de god Poseidon. Over eindigheid en verval, in tegenstelling tot het “voor in de eeuwigheid”. Brieven over vreemde berichten, reisverhalen, de actualiteit van de dag. Prachtig gecomponeerd. Alleen: de verhaaltjes bewegen van hot naar her en gaan over van alles en nog wat. Een lijn is niet te ontdekken, althans niet door mij. Nooteboom strooit zijn eruditie rond, maar het is te veel, te divers. Een paar verhaaltjes gespreid over de dag, verder kom ik niet. Plus dat het niet beklijft, ik onthou het niet. Net als de goden, de perfectie, die beklijft ook niet; we zijn ze vergeten. Misschien duidt Nooteboom dat eindigheid en verval wel voor de eeuwigheid is en perfectie niet. En wat zegt dat dan over dit boek? Ik ben in ieder geval halverwege op pagina 107 verdronken.

[Amina Hujdur · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesantan prikaz antičke teme iz novog i savremenog ugla.
Djelo je sastavljeno od kratkih eseja i tekstova u kojima autor iznosi vlastite sudove i zapažanja o razvoju antičkih mitova i piše pisma Posejdonu.
Djelo prate ilustracije i objašnjenja pojedinih tema, tako da sam ovo djelo čitala sa dvije strane.
Da bi se razumjeli pojedini tekstovi treba imati šire predznanje.
Meni je bilo zanimljivo.

[Melissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Arguably the most enigmatic of the Ancient Greek gods, Poseidon is not as revered or respected as his brother Zeus, the god of the sky, lord of the universe, nor is he as feared as his brother Hades, master of the gloomy and dark underworld. Poseidon’s realm is the sea, the ultimate middle child whose domain is the middle of the earth, the watery depths that occupy the space between sky and underworld. Peter McDonald’s new, verse translation of the Homeric Hymns, beautifully and succinctly captures the multidimensional nature of this deity:

Hymn 22

To Poseidon:

Here the first great god that I
mention is Poseidon, mover
of the earth, the unpastured sea;
ocean god, presiding over
broad Aegae and Helicon.
Earth-shifter, the gods assigned
you a twofold part, the one
horse-taming, the other to find
safety for ships; I salute
you Poseidon, carrier
of the world and absolute
god with black and streaming hair:
keep your heart in charity
with those sailing on the sea.

It is this greatly feared, earth-shifter, master of the sea, to whom Cees Nooteboom decides to address a series of letters. The author, writing these notes from his Mediterranean garden on the island of Menorca, imagines the lonely deity still ruling over the sea with his trident and his seahorse-drawn carriage. Nooteboom uses the image, history and myth of this long-neglected deity to meditate on time, space, mortality and death; he is especially captivated by the anthropomorphic nature of god who is prone to anger and vengeance. Nooteboom has many questions for Poseidon, among the most important of which are how he feels about being forgotten and abandoned for all of these centuries since the emergence of the one God and His Son:

I have always wondered how it felt when no one prayed to you any longer, and no one asked anything of you. There must, once upon a time, have been one last supplicant. Who was it? And where? Did you and the other gods talk about it? We look at your statues, but you are not there. Were you jealous of the gods who came after you? Are you laughing now that they too have been abandoned?

The tone of Nooteboom’s letters ranges from deeply philosophical and meditative, to humorous and playful. On the one hand he feels sympathy for a god who is supposed to be immortal, but is no longer worshipped—in a way this abandonment has been like a death for this neglected ancient deity. But on the other hand, Poseidon has a certain amount of freedom now to talk with the other gods and laugh at the irony of his situation:

What is a human being to the gods? Do you despise us for being mortal? Or is the opposite the case? Are you jealous because we are allowed to die? Because your fate is, of course, immortality, even though we have no idea where you are now.

No one talks about you anymore, and perhaps that hurts. It is as if you have simply vanished.

In between the twenty-three letters he pens to Poseidon, the author also includes meditations, observations and thoughts about time and space via objects (his watch, a dying aloe plant), places he visits (a museum, an airport in South Korea, a beach), and newspaper articles (a story about infanticide or a looted Egyptian museum.) Nooteboom’s thoughts about the looted Egyptian museum reflect the seventy-nine-year old’s ever-increasing awareness of his own mortality. As he reads an article about the looting of a the museum, he is captivated by the head of a mummy that has been discarded on the floor, separated from the rest of its body:

Is a person who has been dead for a few thousand years as dead as someone who died last year? Is there a hierarchy in the kingdom of the dead, giving those with more experience of death a different status from the newcomers, those who have not yet been touched by eternity, but who still smell of time, of life? Are there social distinctions between mummies and corpses?

This book gave me a fresh perspective of not only the god Poseidon, whom I have to admit I had never given more than a passing thought, but also of how we look at the concept of divinity and immortality. Nooteboom concludes his letters: “Of course I know that I have been sending letters to nobody. But what if, tomorrow, out on the rocks, I should happen to find a trident.”

[Richard · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Anne Kamsteeg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Goeie vibes, maar toch niet helemaal mijn ding :(

[Novalynda Black · Rating 4 out of 5]

Heerlijk. Toen ik opkeek van het boek en zag dat ik in regenachtig Nederland was, was ik verbaasd.

[Ilenia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Seguendo quello che ritiene essere un segno, comparso a lui mentre sta seduto ad un tavolino di un bar di Monaco, Cees Nooteboom decide di scrivere delle lettere al dio Poseidone.

A lui, a questa figura divina fondante della nostra civiltà, l'autore racconta curiosità, episodi di viaggio e del quotidiano, fatti di cronaca e riflessioni personali sul mondo presente, che si intreccia così al mito e alla riflessione sul mondo naturale per interrogarsi sulla condizione umana e sulla natura del divino.

Avendo come destinatario una divinità marina e quindi profondamente legata al mondo fisico, il tema della Natura è ampiamente discusso nelle lettere, che risultano quindi di particolare interesse, se considerate dal punto di vista dell'ecocritica.
Si tratta, in sostanza di "viaggi nella natura e nel pensiero" che si situano tanto nel freddo nord, patria dell'autore olandese, e in giro per il mondo quanto in diversi punti del Mediterraneo di Poseidone, che compare in modo molto vivido tra le pagine con le sue praterie di posidonia oceanica, con i profumi della macchia mediterranea e con la sua storia millenaria.

L'autore non si aspetta risposte. Gli dèi non parlano più ad un mondo disincantato. Tuttavia, l'uomo moderno pone comunque delle domande, le stesse che la nostra specie si pone da millenni e che sono destinate a scontrarsi con un eterno silenzio.

La lettura è molto breve ma il testo offre molte suggestioni da elaborare con calma e sulle quali è necessario tornare e ritornare.
Non è un lavoro perfetto e non ambisce ad esserlo. In particolare, mi ha lasciata perplessa la scelta di alcuni elementi, soprattutto relativi all'arte, di cui francamente non ho capito la pertinenza. Lo stile, però, per quanto semplice, riesce davvero a dare il meglio in alcuni passaggi, soprattutto in quelli relativi alle descrizioni naturali.
In definitiva, a me il libro è piaciuto e sono sicura che elaborerò ancora meglio il suo valore nel tempo. Di sicuro alcuni di questi pensieri mi accompagneranno per i mesi a venire.

[Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

erudite and intelligently written while also being kind of boring, but not really in a bad way, more in a lulls you to sleep sort of way.

[Bert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wat je schrijft laat je achter op het strand, op een rots bij de zee, en je hoopt dat hij het vindt. Het zullen de dingen zijn die ik lees, die ik zie, die ik denk. Die ik verzin, die ik me herinner, die me verbazen. Berichten van de wereld, zoals die man die met een dode trouwde. Misschien vind je ze, misschien waaien ze weg. Ik heb ze geschreven omdat ik dacht dat je misschien nog iets van de wereld wilde weten. Wat er daarna gebeurt weet ik niet, dat weet ik nooit. Ik kan het hoogstens verzinnen. Om een antwoord was het nooit begonnen. (p.14)

Als je leest, dan reis je. Maar vele mensen die reizen, lezen ook. Thuis, om de reis voor te bereiden. Onderweg, wachtend op trein of boot. Na het wandelen, of voor de slaap. Weer thuisgekomen, om de reis niet te vergeten. Om het reizen niet af te leren, het schrijven uit te stellen.

Een schrijver die uit reizen gaat, stopt niet met schrijven. Hij leest de wereld, en schrijft de dingen neer. De paden die hij volgt, de zeeën die hij kruist. Het dier dat naast hem loopt, de steen die voor hem ligt. Hij schopt er tegenaan, en verzint een verhaal. Zachtjes, of hardop luisterend. Met de blik op verbazing, en de kennis oneindig. En af en toe spreekt hij iemand aan, in een brief die hij onderweg achterlaat. Hij herinnert zich nooit het antwoord dat hij thuis achterliet, maar vergeet zelden de vraag die hem een leven lang reizen doet.

[Richard Newton · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting and unexpected - not the book, but the reviewers who rated this book so much more highly than I did. It reminds me that different people get different things from books, and all I give here is my review and my feelings about the book. You may of course find it better than I.

Nooteboom is erudite, well-read and writes with an easy flowing style - but rather than being deceptively deep, I found this book to be rather mediocre. It seems a random collection of short pieces and trivial observations with an attempt to hold them together with the device of the letters to Poseidon interspersed throughout the book. Unfortunately, Nooteboom (at least in this book) is not a good enough writer to make random, trivial observations into something interesting. Far from being profound, I found this mostly trite and shallow.

There are the odd exceptions, for instance the piece "Chair" I rather liked. Having found it, I read on hoping to find more. It was not a well rewarded endeavour.

[Philippe · Rating 4 out of 5]

In times when in our public spaces one is as likely to be hit by shrapnel than by pigeon shit, it is a blessing to indulge in the musings of an old poeta doctus who is pottering about in his Mediterranean abode. The book is by no means perfect. Forget the letters to the old sea-god. But savour the hints of sublimity in the ephemeral and the timeless. "Rest in peace. In the end, there is always someone who loves you."

[Lukasz Pruski · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The pain of time, our greatest asset. Rust, decay, mould that turns into music, something different from your eternal nectar. The final tally of our days, a gift no-one can take from us."

The sight of an elderly man about to cry on San Diego trolley is not something one would like to see. One tends to feel awkward and move to a seat farther away, just in case. But there is no drama at all, the would-be tears are not born of sadness, and the geezer passenger is just overwhelmed by emotion. The geezer is me, I am reading yet another book by Cees Nooteboom and his prose again reaches my inner core and moves me close to tears. I do not exactly know what makes Mr. Nooteboom's writing resonate with me stronger than any other author's but the sheer beauty of his prose sends shivers through my spine. Maybe what touches me the most is the thematic range of his work that focuses on human ephemeral existence, the convolution of time and space, and the European culture.

Letters to Poseidon (2012) indeed includes a set of 23 letters from the narrator to the god of the sea interspersed with 56 short pieces of prose - one could call them postcards - about things that have caught the author's attention. He explains himself: "My letters will be about things that I read, that I see, that I think. That I make up, that I remember, that surprise me." Many letters are framed as questions: How do the forgotten gods feel? "What do the gods actually think of us?" Yet I think it is the postcards that provide the depth to the collection.

The main motif of Letters is the juxtaposition of the immortal gods who "always are" and live outside of time with the transience of humans who are inescapably immersed in the time's flow, and who eventually will disappear as if they have never existed. Yet these transient, ephemeral beings are able to create magnificent cultures and mythologies that feature these very gods. It is the art that allows humans to achieve near-immortality despite the curse of time as the author shows in Poseidon VI (from which I have taken the epigraph) about Elliott Carter's composition Scrivo in Vento influenced by the 14th-century poem by Petrarch.

A few snapshots of Nooteboom's letters and postcards. The piece called River about Leticia, a city in Columbia, near the borders of Peru and Brazil, on the bank of the Amazon, brings memories of The Following Story where the travel up the Amazon serves as an unforgettable metaphor of human life and death. The piece Hesiod, in which the author stands on the same shore where the Greek poet, a contemporary of Homer from about 700 years BC, wrote his Theogony:

"The landscape across the water is his landscape, [...] the water at this hour is the same violet-dark as it was back then. [...] His poem is almost three thousand years old, but he would recognise everything here, the way the evening slowly shifts to darkness, the motion and the sound of the water as the sea flows into the strait of the bay, the waves as a slow, surging, never-ending recitation of light and dark sentences that now accompany his poem."

This is the Mediterranean Sea, where it all began, the birth place of the Greco-Roman culture, the source of the never-ending stream of near-immortality from Homer and Ovid, through Dante and Petrarch, through Kafka and Beckett, to the present.

Uh-oh... I like the book too much and am unable to finish the review... I have recently read and reviewed Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 Consider Nooteboom's prose where in the piece Books he writes:

"I hear a furious murmur that grows ever more insistent, like a choir singing through clenched teeth, an atonal, malevolent buzzing that reveals no meaning at all, the stifling lament of ink and paper, the sound books make when they know they are being burned or drowned, the keening of words that will never be read again."

I wish Mr. Bradbury could have written this well.

Less-than-a-page-long piece Veils is about the world below the surface of the sea, on the other side of the "shifting silver" membrane that separates the two worlds, about the "domain of silence" where "words still exist, but are stripped of their sound, ghosts consisting solely of language." Another short piece, Blood Moon, touches on the expanding universe, Einstein's theory of relativity, human language, the calls of the curlews and owls, and ends with a pastoral fragment - quoted after the rating - that almost made an old man cry on the San Diego trolley.

It is hard to believe Mr. Nooteboom has not written Letters in English: the collection is wonderfully translated from Dutch by Laura Watkinson. The book ends with substantial Notes and Illustrations that annotate the prose pieces. It is my least favorite aspect of Letters, but in some way it makes the work a little similar to W.G Sebald's The Rings of Saturn .

Four stars.

"[...] the moon has already climbed above the oleasters, the red has long since turned to ochre and the ochre to silver, the voice disappears into the distance, there is rustling all around me, the owl has found its first victim, the shriek of the field mouse echoes the pain of one substance transforming into another, and then a light mist rises, draping a veil over every secret."

[Mawdz :] · Rating 3 out of 5]

i just love the concept

[PhiTech · Rating 4 out of 5]

No sé si sea por el hecho de haberle conocido o qué... pero la prosa y la poesía de este autor me cautivan profundamente. Le imagino llevándole las cartas a la roca del muelle cercano a su casa. Lo imagino sentado escribiéndole con furia al dios que no aparece. Lo veo observando la silla en frente de aquel aeropuerto... y todas, todas sus imágenes me resultan encantadoras.
Aún no sé cómo lo hace, pero hila con suavidad y transporta.

[Freek DS · Rating 5 out of 5]

Geniaal. Meeslepend, zelfs zonder verhaal. Leerrijk, mythologisch, ontroerend, met een paar zinswendingen die je de adem afsnijden. Erg mooi in zijn beschrijvingen, erg verlammend in zijn inzichten, bijzonder aandoenlijk in zijn koppige classicisme. Klasse. Klassieker.

[Joris Belgers · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nou, daar begreep ik weinig van maar de beste man kan wel schrijven.

[Emmie · Rating 3 out of 5]

On one hand, the sheer knowledge and curiosity the author possesses shine through in most of these short descriptions. But on the other hand there’s a certain amount of condescension (the telephone call one was arguably the worst chapter and I don’t know why he even thought putting it in would be a good idea) and sometimes the “poetic view” seems forced. He watches a random man enter a cafe and thinks that hey, maybe the guy just killed someone? Who does that?
On top of that, he sometimes seems to get lost in himself - he seems to be the centre of his world and most of his thoughts somehow seem to come back to himself. It’s like he uses his descriptions to show himself off. A pity, because some of his thoughts are very interesting and his knowledge is inspiring.
Maybe his fiction will sit better with me but this was too self-centred and condescending for me.

[John Benson · Rating 2 out of 5]

In this book by Dutch author Cees Nooteboom are 23 letters he addresses to the sea-god Poseidon interspersed with 53 small postcard like chapters. At the back of the book are some pictures that relate to the chapters, but I didn't find them till I was nearing the end of the book. Nonetheless, they did not help me in understanding the book any better than I did. While he writes well in his letters and descriptions, I found that I couldn't make heads-or-tails what this book was about and what it was trying to share with me.

[Mariano Hortal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Publicado en http://lecturaylocura.com/cartas-a-po...

Es muy dado Cees Nooteboom a tomar como musa inspiradora de sus escritos el elemento más impensable, ya hablé al respecto con su “Autorretrato de otro” donde se daba uno de estos casos.
En esta ocasión una servilleta con el nombre de Poseidón escrito en letras azules en un restaurante al azar en Múnich supone el desencadenante para que el holandés escriba unas cartas al dios con lo que ve, oye y piensa. Sigue una estructura sencilla donde alterna cartas directas a Poseidón que se van alternando con otras que pueden ir (o no) directamente relacionadas con él y que poseen títulos diversos; además, cada una de estas notas, cartas, etc. vienen complementadas con notas e imágenes al final del libro.
En estos libros de viajes nos encontramos con la faceta en la que saca su lado más lírico; el resultado, a pesar de algún texto irregular, es maravilloso. Un triunfo de lo sensorial con algunas cotas que alcanzan lo sublime; aprovechando precisamente su lectura, totalmente satisfactoria, me gustaría citar algunos de estos momentos:
En ‘Bayreuth’: “Ocurre cada verano, con las misma certeza que Wimbledon o el Tour de Francia. De repente penetran en mi jardín mediterráneo sonidos alemanas. Sonidos aún inseguros, que no saben si son bienvenidos. Metales, timbales, voces altas y duras. Como sondeándolo todo. Noto que todo mi jardín se pone alerta, a la defensiva. Las palmeras, el hibisco, los cactus, el papiro, plantas que no sobrevivirían en la bruma fría del norte. Pero la música no tiene compasión, disfruta de su poder. A mis oídos llegan los tonos sostenidos alemanes, los sonidos militantes del coro, esa otra lengua cortante, las cornetas de caza, el crescendo de una gran orquesta, la traición de Tristán que entrega a Isolda a su rey, la furia de ella, el grito de dolor que disfrazado de canción corre junto al lila claro del plumbago y, como una súbita tormenta, cruza veloz la buganvilla que deja en la tierra manchas moradas. Y yo ahí en medio, desterrado, un jardinero nórdico bajo los olivos, apresado en la contradicción de mi vida.”
¿Hay mejor forma de describir la música de Wagner en su templo Bayreuth? Qué catálogo de imágenes que juegan con la vista y el sonido: “La música no tiene compasión, disfruta de su poder”.
‘Libros’ contiene el siguiente párrafo: “Al principio no reconozco otro sonido que el rumor del agua que corre, pero luego percibo por debajo de ese suave rumor un murmullo cada vez más intenso y furioso, como un coro que cantara con los dientes apretados, un zumbido átono y siniestro que no desvela ningún significado, un agobiante lamento de tinta y papel, el sonido que emiten los libros cuando saben que son quemados o ahogados, el dolor por lo que ya nunca más será leído.”
Capacidad innata de encontrar la metáfora más acertada que describa lo que quiere decir, vuelve a jugar con esa fusión de sonido y visión y se suma el olor ahora. Qué imagen más bella la de “agobiante lamento de tinta y papel”.
Una de esas maneras que tiene de ligar textos con el dios la tenemos en el texto ‘Chica’, sencillo, onírico: “Entonces la oigo. Al principio el sonido es muy flojo, aún no sé de dónde viene. Luego un poco más fuerte y entonces consigo localizarla. Una chica sentada con su guitarra sobre un bordillo de piedra, más abajo, junto a una especie de dique, las piernas colgando sobre el agua. Está sola, su voz es aguda y fina. Entona una canción en su lengua que resuena por toda la bahía y, cuando ya me he alejado un buen trecho, la sigo oyendo, una mujer cantándole al mar. Seguro que el dios también la ha oído, no puede ser de otra manera.”
Una simple foto amarillenta en el artículo ‘Bal des Ambassadeurs’, encontrada en el mercadillo bonaerense de San Telmo, le sirve para deleitarnos con el paso y la evocación del tiempo: “Haciendo un esfuerzo de concentración, oigo fragmentos de palabras y frases: Masaryk, Rijnland, Múnich, pero estas desaparecen enseguida o se ocultan detrás de otras palabras más inocentes: foxtrot, mañana, champán, recepción. Las bocas abiertas o entreabiertas, frases políglotas congeladas al mismo tiempo que su significado, y entre pasos de baile y trajes de noche, entre flirteos y espionaje, entre hombres y mujeres, la música y el misterio del tiempo.”
Me gustaría acabar con una pequeña dosis de una de las cartas que dirige directamente al dios, ‘Poseidón XXII’: “En un barco pequeño se percibe mejor la infinitud del mar, es como si una fuerza tirara de la embarcación. Cuando de noche estás solo en la cubierta y miras fijamente el movimiento de las olas, la existencia se torna una infinita pregunta sin respuesta. Algo así será. Más adelante visité tus templos vacíos en el cabo Sunión y en Segesta, Sicilia. Envoltorios clásicos de extraordinaria belleza, poderosas columnas dóricas con el cielo como techumbre, donde la imaginación transforma el susurro de los árboles en voces humanas que tal vez aún hablen de ti o tal vez no. Y aquí, donde me encuentro ahora, tengo el mar y con él te tengo a ti siempre a mi alrededor. ¿He logrado así estar más cerca de ti? Creo que no, porque sigo buscándote. Cuanto más leo sobre ti, más identidades adoptas, normalmente no muy amables.”
Lo fascinante del mar en su aparente infinitud. Nooteboom, poeta siempre, buscando la sublimidad.
Textos de la traducción del neerlandés de Isabel-Clara Lorda Vidal para esta edición de “Cartas de Poseidón” de Siruela

[NicKayCee · Rating 3 out of 5]

Definitely an interesting and fairly quick read. I can see how some found it tedious. I felt like I was reading the journal of a philosophy professor as he goes through his day too day and ponders certain objects. The letters themselves in enjoyed most, as I took found the idea beautiful and romantic of writing to a god that seems to be forgotten. This book isn't for everyone and I found myself nodding off at times but if nothing else its certainly interesting.

[Daniëlle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Opgepikt uit de bibliotheek op basis van de kaft en de titel, maar ik werd al snel blij verrast. Prachtig proza, waarin een interessante gedachtegang wordt uitgewerkt. Niet voor iedereen, maar als je de vraag hoe we de tijd vastleggen door middel van kunst en hoe dit de manier waarop we ons dit verleden herinneren beïnvloedt interessant vindt: meteen lezen.

[Irina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lovely approach and refreshing, honest style. More of an unpolished flow of letters or even blog entries, in modern terms. Could not get rid of the feeling that the book was written by a teenager, even knowing it was not.

[Vera · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book of beautifully written postcard-size musings from an author who observes small details with childlike curiosity. I haven't come across his work before but would happily read his other books now too!

[Tim Liebregt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nooteboom has a simple but strong prose that deals with existential questions, often focused on death and nature. His questions framed as critiques of Poseidon, the gods, and God especially resonated with me.

This has also made me want to try some of his novels.

[Dzesima Mehulic · Rating 5 out of 5]

Može Ii i alga biti memento mori?

[Ангелина · Rating 2 out of 5]

Жали Боже времена...

[Ingrid]

No me atrevo a calificarlo, este libro no para mí

[Juan Medina · Rating 5 out of 5]

"En realidad, ¿qué es más misterioso, ser mortal o inmortal?" CN