از خاکستر به خاکستر

by Harold Pinter, هوشنگ حسامی (Translator)

First presented by the Royal Court Theatre in London in September of 1996, Ashes to Ashes is a triumph of power and concision. In the living room of a pleasant house in a university town outside of London, Devlin, threatened by his wife Rebecca's recollections of an abusive ex-lover, questions her relentlessly in his need for a single truth. In her seamless blending of what she knows of violence with the wider violence of the world, Rebecca reveals an eerie communion with the dead victims of unnamed political barbarities.

Genres: Plays, Theatre, Drama, Classics, Literature, English Literature, Read For School

57 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Harold Pinter was a British playwright, screenwriter, director and actor. A Nobel Prize winner, Pinter was one of the most influential modern British dramatists with a writing career that spanned more than 50 years. His best-known plays include The Birthday Party (1957), The Homecoming (1964) and Betrayal (1978), each of which he adapted for the screen. His screenplay adaptations of others' works include The Servant (1963), The Go-Between (1971), The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981), The Trial (1993) and Sleuth (2007). He also directed or acted in radio, stage, television and film productions of his own and others' works.

Reviews

[صان · Rating 3 out of 5]

هرچی میگذره کمتر میفهمم از هرچی که میخونم :))
زبان پشت‌کوهی‌شو دوست داشتم

خاکستر به خاکستر هم قشنگ بود با اینکه نفهمیدم
و بقیه نمایشها هم سیاسی بودم و وضعیت خفقان رو نشون میدادن. اینکه پینتر با این حجم از نفرت بتونه کنترل کنه قلمش رو - این حجمی که تو نمایش فهمیده میشد- و نمایش بنویسه و فقط عصبانی‌گری نکنه، نشون میده هنرمنده!

[Pouria · Rating 1 out of 5]

خاکستر به خاکستر (شش نمایشنامه) / هارولد پینتر / ترجمه ی بهرام قاسمی نژاد / نشر قطره / چاپ ششم / 120 صفحه / تاریخ اتمام کتاب: سه شنبه 11 دی ماه 1397 / امتیازم به کتاب از پنج نمره: صفر
فاقد هرگونه محتوا، زیبایی ادبی، شخصیت پردازی جالب، حرف جدید و هرگونه فایده ی دیگه ای که برای یک کتاب بشه در نظر گرفت از نظر من. اتلاف وقت، کاغذ و جوهر. دومین کتابیه که از پینتر می خونم و جفتشون جزو بدترین کتابایی بودن که خوندم. هنوز دلیل شهرتش رو درک نمی کنم واقعا.

[Ishita · Rating 5 out of 5]

Two Characters, Two Chairs, Two Lamps. Rebecca and Devlin. "Ashes to Ashes." The duality, the two-ness overwhelms the play, not only in terms of characters but also existence. "Ashes to Ashes" is Pinter's long desired take on holocaust. Rebecca ( a Jewish name) in her British household has an apparent innocent conversation with her partner Devlin, far removed from the memories of the holocaust. In her mid-forties in 1996, she was, quite plainly, not born during the second world war.And yet she has heard accounts of the holocaust, so much so that they have been carefully incised in her memory. She finds a disturbing solace in them, clings to them vehemently, they are her own. She has witnessed them alone, felt them alone and they are utterly hers. Just as she is dismayed by the fading sound of the police siren,thinking they would be heard by somebody else then, same with the memories. And it is because of the presence of this inner world that Rebecca and Devlin exist in two different worlds, though staying in the same room. The "ashes" of the Jews buried is evoked by her memories as she talks about the snatching of the babies. And in this post-war world, she sees the Jews walking toward the sea, but there is no Moses to lead them in the Red Sea. They drown. Rebecca recollects the horrid sight of a woman clinging to her own child, hearing the baby's breath, and quite seamlessly "she" is replaces by "I". She too has lost her baby. She too has been a victim but how? She doesn't wait to answer, but in a delirious pace gives a composite picture of the holocaust, accompanied only by her echoes, stranded alone while Devlin has faded away. She has been consumed completely by her inner world, the way it had always been. And yet the words spoken by her, rings in the ears of the audience, "Nothing has even happened to me. Nothing has ever happened to any friends."
"Ashes to Ashes/ Dust to Dust"

[kiho · Rating 4 out of 5]

Circular communication leading nowhere.
Holes in understanding leaving you frustrated.
Glimpses of traumatic events through the distorted mirror of memory.

[Artemisia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rebecca: Beh...per esempio...lui si piegava su di me mostrandomi il pugno. E poi con l'altra mano mi afferrava la nuca e mi spiengeva il viso verso il suo. Il pugno...mi sfiorava la bocca. E mi diceva, <<Baciami il pugno>>.
Devlin: E tu lo facevi?
Rebecca: Certo. Gli baciavo il pugno. Le nocche. Poi apriva la mano e mi porgeva il palmo...da baciare...che io baciavo. (Pausa). Poi cominciavo a parlare.
Devlin: Cosa dicevi? Dicevi cosa? Cosa dicevi?
Pausa.
Rebecca: Dicevo: << Mettimi la mano attorno alla gola>>. Glielo sussurravo nella mano, mentre gliela baciavo, ma lui sentiva, la sentiva attraverso la mano, sentiva la mia voce nella mano, la sentiva lì.

[Claire Binkley · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't really understand all the symbolism so I had to look it up - then that made me extremely uncomfortable. No wonder I didn't read this in school!

My definition of a good read is something that makes you uncomfortable upon thought, though, so for that reason, I am okay with this play. It just made me feel very uncomfortable due to exactly what its implications meant. (And anyway, on the face of it, who likes stories of abuse?)

[Pooya Kiani · Rating 3 out of 5]

خاکستر به خاکستر و پِیک آخر به دل می‌نشست، ایستگاه ویکتوریا هم بد نبود، باقی ش خوب نبود.
در مجموع اگر عشق پینتر نیستید، نخونیدش. حال آدمو جا نمی‌آره.

[Mir · Rating 4 out of 5]

No olvidemos que es nuestro deber dar voz a todos aquellos que perdieron un ser querido durante la guerra.

[Katja worlds_between_the_sheets · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jouduin googlailemaan hieman Ashes to Ashes -analyysejä, jotta se minulle aukeni, mutta ihon alle kyllä silti meni. Lähtisin katsomaan!

[Letizia Morello]

bho

[Morphée · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pas sûr d'avoir compris quoique ce soit et j'ai adoré ce non sense

[Nick Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

A short play by Harold Pinter. In the edition I read it was 85 pages, but each second page was blank and the dialogue was set out with leisurely gaps between speakers. There are two characters, a man and a woman. They are married or were married…or maybe not. They reminisce about past events…or maybe they are imaginations. It is a play of uncertainty. It feels like a return to the territory of Old Times and maybe there is nothing new here, rather a return to the old Pinter world and old Pinter themes. If you are not sympathetic to Pinter I imagine it can feel like a self-parody, speeches that made up of Pinter mannerisms and Pinter tics. If you are sympathetic to Pinter, there is the unique and rich language, the master of ambiguity and uncertainty, a world that is constantly strange and problematic.

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lo leí para una clase de dramaturgia. En la primera lectura me pareció medio "x". Luego lo leímos ya como repartidas las voces y otra más haciendo las acotaciones y al final me pareció muy muy buena. Me gustaría mucho verla representada. Creo se pierde bastante como lectura, aún así es buen referente.

[Maurizio Manco · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Non credo che possiamo ricominciare di nuovo. Abbiamo cominciato... molto tempo fa. Cominciato. Non possiamo ricominciare di nuovo. Possiamo finire di nuovo. [...] Si può finire una volta e poi finire di nuovo." (pp. 39, 41)

[Tom O'Brien · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brutal and stunning short play. A dialogue that moves from the personal to the political and back overtly and powerfully.

[Martin Bergflodt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Id like to give a short, more general take on the psychology in this, rather than the clear-cut themes of war-brutality etc.

It is my observation that this, in similiarity with the rest of Pinters work, captures so well the human condition and the disposition of which the grim reality of not knowing often leaves us -here in the context of a mysterius ex-lover. You cant help but sympathize with Devlins words of discomfort and unknowing, and Rebecca just keeps him there, in a cloud of smoke, ever so looking.

Its short, perverse, dark, and any other adjective you would like to prescribe it. I love it!

[Lucía · Rating 5 out of 5]

Me ha encantado. Se lee en un suspiro.

[Andrea Lupi · Rating 5 out of 5]

My very first Pinter's play but it's not going to be the last! Fascinating read not just for its darkening, eerie mode but also for the openness of the text to interpretations and various readings

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Raccapricciante e pragmatico, mi suscita ancora dubbi. Infatti rileggo l'opera ogni volta che scopro un dettaglio che non ho colto durante la prima lettura.

[Tara · Rating 2 out of 5]

من شمارو نمیدونم ولی فضای نمایشنامه‌ها برای من اذیت‌کننده و ناراحت‌کننده بودن و ترجیح دادم کتاب رو نصفه رها کنم.

[Mathilde · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Je connais aucun bébé"

[izzy · Rating 4 out of 5]

read for class, it gave me major yellow wallpaper vibes but i really enjoyed it!

[arielsklne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Me ha gustado la forma de narrar la violencia tan física y psicológica que se puede ejercer en pareja. La obra en teatro debe de dejar una gran impresión.

[Sara Ghotb · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ashes to Ashes was my first Harold Pinter play, but it would not be my last. In this short play, only two characters; Rebecca and Devlin appear, and there is no indication of their relationship. It seems that the male character has both romantic and non-romantic ties to the female character. At the same time, he appears to be her therapist and her lover!
Pinter's style was similar to Beckett's; a simple simplicity and a kind of absurdity combined. With Ashes to Ashes, we see a character suffering from an unnoticed sense of loss. The reader is conveyed a great deal of confusion and sadness by listening to Rebecca. I'm looking forward to reading more of his plays.

[Greg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pinter seems to enjoy misleading his audience as his Beckett-like dramas unfold in darkness, and Ashes to Ashes is a perfect representation of this point. This one act play is fantastic, and I suspect that many people walk away confused, disappointed, or somehow feeling that they've missed the point. I would also suspect that those who walk away with confidence in their understanding are in disagreement over the meaning of the play with those who also feel the same way. With this in mind, I think it is safe to say that Pinter, in this very short, one-act drama is representing in a private relationship something of the horror of the twentieth century. The dialogue takes place between a man and a woman, with the woman clearly having endured some sort of psychological trauma, and the man questioning her about her past. He is intelligent, probing, and cold. With terrifying precision, the audience questions his purpose, helpless to stop him. It is unclear if they are husband/wife, as one could interpret his questions also as if he is a therapist, but his emotional response, while calculated, would indicate that he is in a relationship with her. As she recounts her horrors, she literally becomes an echo of the horrors of the twentieth century, with her memories getting tied up with those suffering Nazi-like persecution. In this way, the man becomes the echo of the cruel repressor, who goads his victim into her demise.

Certainly this play is not uplifting, but its powerful strangeness is intriguing, and borders on brilliant. This play can be consumed quickly, and if one is prepared for its message, certainly more than worth the time.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Violence is the theme of the play where masculine qualities have metastasised into something horrifying that are first manifested between the female protagonist Rebecca and her former lover and later more symbolically between the "he" and the "she". Devlin, Rebecca's present partner, is being portrayed as the fact finder, who is full of curiosity and sense of reason. He kept trying to steer Rebecca back to her original story about the abuse that she had suffered at the hands of her former lover who worked as a "guide" for a "travel agency". Rebecca however was drowned in her own flashbacks and seemed to be shifting in and out of reality.

It was soon revealed that the abuse was only part of a bigger story of widespread violence and the flashbacks of Rebecca are in fact expressions of a contradiction: "Men" dreamt of a world with order ("There isn't one minute of the day when they're (the police) not charging around one corner or another in the world.") but in pursuing of that dream the world was actually being "sterilised" and hence destroyed. ("He used to go to the local railway station and walk down the platform and tear all the babies from the arms of their screaming mothers.)

A world of perfect order birthed to by the purely masculine ideal is necessarily a world of stasis ("A man who doesn't give a shit."/"A man with a rigid sense of duty."/"There's no contradiction between those last two statements.") where words are deprived of their emotions and mothers their babies. It's a world where murders love and the murdered adored.

"...what baby?/I don't know of any baby."

[Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Harold Pinter's 1996 play ASHES TO ASHES is a dialogue between Rebecca and Devlin, a married couple. Devlin is curious about Rebecca's former lover, here called a factory owner, here called a travel agent, who dominated her completely:

"REBECCA: Well, he would stand over me and clench his fist. And then he'd put his other hand on my neck and grip it and bring my head towards him. His fist ... grazed my mouth. And he'd say 'Kiss my fist.' " Devlin's proddings reveal that Rebecca's lover was no ordinary travel agent. "REBECCA: He did work from a travel agency. He was a guide. He used to go to the local railway station and walk down the platform and tear all the babies from the arms of their screaming mothers." Through these revelations, interspersed with the most banal of everyday conversation, Rebecca and Devlin remember, retell, and eventually re-enact the horrible shared history of the 20th century, with its Holocaust, wars, and massacres.

The brutality it recounts can make the reader or spectator very uncomfortable, and ASHES TO ASHES succeeds in reminding us of the horrors of the 20th century, horrors that any human being can fall into creating. However, I do not think it is quite as successful as other plays Pinter wrote in this same era, such as "Mountain Language" or "Party Time." Incidentally, I must express my disappointment that American edition altered Pinter's original text, giving "soccer" instead of "football".

[Zahra Olaitan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not sure about this one.
It's seems like a nice play, with hidden depth and meaning but it has left me very confused. It is my first book by the author, perhaps if I read more of his works.

It a play with two characters Devlin who is questioning Rebecca and she i find more intriguing, talkng but evading answers, narrating bit of bits of her experience or what she thinks are her experiences or maybe they were dreams? But what is most certainly a trauma. At the end she says she is fine, she has never been hurt nor her friends. This is a woman who is either in denial or has conquered her fears.

Which is very human still, aren't we all with mixed feeling, unsure and insecure sometimes.. The beauty of the play is you are left with deep thoughts, more questions than answers and over analysis.

[جابر طاحون · Rating 5 out of 5]

" أنا مضطر لطرح الأسئلة .فأنا أجهل أمورًا كثيرة . وأنا لا أعلم أي شيء . لا شيء . أنا في ظالم تام. و أريد النور .

الرماد سيرة القهر و الاذلال .

ديفلين : اسمعي الآن فلنبدأ من جديد ...
ربيكا: لا أظن أننا نستطيع أن نبدأ من جديد. فلقد بدأنا من وقت طويل . بدأنا . لا نستطيع أن نبدأ من جديد . بل نستطيع أن ننتهي من جديد .
ديفلين : لكننا لم ننته قط .
ريبكا : بل انتهينا . المرة بعد المرة بعد المرة بعد المرة . و نستطيع أن ننتهي من جديد المرة بعد المرة .

يراكم بنتر الدلالات الواحدة تلو الأخري حتي النهاية . ريبكا التي تري الرجل يحاول خنقها ، يتخذ آنًا صورة عشيقًاو كيف أن الحرب سلبتها طفلها، و كيف أذهلها فقدانه في هوة من التهرؤ النفسي

ريبكا : كانوا يأخذون الأطفال الرضع و يمضون

أي رضيع

ليس لدي رضيع
لا أعرف أي رضيع

[Beatrice Ronga · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un'atmosfera soffocante, nella quale sembra di annegare lentamente tra le domande incalzanti, disperate, virili e innocue di Devlin, rivolte a una Rebecca succube eppure padrona del gioco. Domina al punto tale da tentare di mutare la memoria del tempo, il suo incedere e accadere. Ceneri alle Ceneri è il testo della dimenticanza consapevole e colpevole della donna, dell'innocenza ricercata ossessivamente, ma in maniera ormai tardiva; è l'opera della gelosia autoritaria e vittimista di Devlin. È il copione della inconsistenza più reale; della nebbia lì dove la storia illumina; del dubbio esattamente dove la storia afferma.
Nulla di certo, tutto di intuito; una risposta alle domande tanto evidente quanto non pronunciabile, perché mai detta davvero.