Na Terra e no Inferno

by Thomas Bernhard, José A. Palma Caetano (Tradução)

"(...)
Embora imatura nalguns dos seus aspectos, a colectânea Na Terra e no Inferno é uma obra vigorosa, complexa e extremamente impressiva. Nela se reconhece já o domínio da linguagem que vem a caracterizar a obra da maturidade do autor e se revelam os principais temas que marcam essa obra: a morte, o sofrimento, o desespero, a podridão, a natureza humana, o problema religioso, as figuras do pai e da mãe, a cidade e o campo, etc. Mesmo situada na sombra das suas grandes obras narrativas e dramáticas, a poesia de Thomas Bernhard faz parte da criação literária de um dos grandes escritores do nosso tempo e só por esse motivo, se outros não houvesse, valia a pena ser conhecida. (...)"

José A. Palma Caetano

Genres: Poetry, German Literature

251 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1957

About the author

Thomas Bernhard was an Austrian writer who ranks among the most distinguished German-speaking writers of the second half of the 20th century.

Although internationally he’s most acclaimed because of his novels, he was also a prolific playwright. His characters are often at work on a lifetime and never-ending major project while they deal with themes such as suicide, madness and obsession, and, as Bernhard did, a love-hate relationship with Austria. His prose is tumultuous but sober at the same time, philosophic by turns, with a musical cadence and plenty of black humor.

He started publishing in the year 1963 with the novel Frost. His last published work, appearing in the year 1986, was Extinction. Some of his best-known works include The Loser (about a student’s fictionalized relationship with the pianist Glenn Gould), Wittgenstein’s Nephew, and Woodcutters.

Reviews

[Luís · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thomas Bernhard's literary art is based on a high aesthetic sense, revealed in his works' organization, and is already evident in the collection's structure on Earth and Hell. This work is divided into five parts, unfolding in a circle and returning to the starting point at the end. The first part, 'Hinter den Baumen ist Eine Andere Welt,' is from the field and the spoken village. From the earth, the poet calls "his beloved land," a rot's land - behind the trees is a world of falsehood, destruction, and torment.
The poet, especially Vienna and Paris, walked by the cities 'Die Ausgebrannten Stadte,' which does not allow him to repel. In the third part, "Die Nacht, Die Durch Mein Herz Stosst," the poet enters his intimate seeks to understand his sadness and pain (which is significant in the poem« Biographie des Schmerzes»). He takes the night as a symbol of his torment, manifests his sense of guilt, and wants to flee and purify himself. Still, he can not ("Aschermittwoch") and ends with a set of nine psalms, in which the demand of God, with all The intensity of dominant concern, if you intend to become sincere, but even reaches a pathetic tone. You should note that these psalms are at the center of the work and thus acquire extraordinary relief.
The fourth part, "Tod und Thymian," is mainly dedicated to the dead, to the land where their origins and their route in this world feel (particularly noticing the poems "Mude" and "Mit sechsundzwanzig Jahren', which have a marked character of sincerity).
The fifth and last part, with the significant title 'Ruckkehr in Eine Liebe,' closes the circle or cycle with "the return to their rural crib." Still, after all, it no longer seems to accept it. The dominant figures are the father (the father he did not know), his mother, and the brothers in his imagination. Death, graves, and the dead constitute a constant presence.

Introduction by José A. Palma Caetano

[Fábio Martins · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ponto prévio: sou um péssimo leitor de poesia. Ignorante,pouco habituado e , à partida,pouco estimulado para o género. Mas tenho em Thomas Bernardh uma referência cintilante. A intersecção com o início da sua produção literária tinha os dias contados.
Como não leitor de poesia,não sinto a mínima capacidade para uma apreciação que vá para além do simples.
E gostei. Gostei muito. Num livro em que a distância ao género me colocava numa posição de maior antagonismo que o amor ao autor, fui seduzido. Pela ânsia e a procura dos fantasmas ( tanto pai, tanto...vater), das raízes ( aldeia natal) e do significado ( a finitude e a memória).

" Tenho de voltar a essa aldeia,
Antes de estar morto
E corroído pelo vento que leva o meu signo."

[Paula Abreu Silva · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Num tapete de água
vou bordando os meus dias,
os meus deuses e as minhas doenças.

Num tapete de verdura
vou bordando os meus sofrimentos vermelhos,
as minhas manhãs azuis,
as minhas aldeias amarelas e os meus pães de mel amarelos também.

Num tapete de terra
vou bordando a minha efemeridade.
Nele vou bordando a minha noite
e a minha fome,
a minha tristeza
e o navio de guerra dos meus desesperos,
que vai deslizando p'ra mil outras águas,
para as águas do desassossego,
para as águas da imortalidade."

Página 125

[José Simões · Rating 5 out of 5]

«Sei que os mortos
são as árvores e os ventos,
o musgo e a noite,
que pousa a sua sombra
sobre a minha campa.»

Seria fácil dizer que estes versos resumem o livro quanto ao modo e aos temas. De facto, muitos dos poemas tecem essa dura ligação entre Terra e Inferno, no sentido amplo de cada um dos termos. Para Bernhard a Terra é não só a ligação ao campo e aos camponeses, aqui frequentemente bêbados e arruinados, mas também o próprio Inferno. E, por seu lado, o Inferno pode também ser tudo o resto, começando pela existência em si mesma, passando pela relação com os outros e chegando à presença-ausência dos outros, condicionante da salubridade emocional de cada um. Em muitos casos do próprio autor, já que alguns dos seus dados autobiográficos são aqui expostos, de forma mais ou menos exagerada. Porém, o sentido (mas não o significado) do livro estende-se muito para além daqueles dois vocábulos e do espectro autobiográfico, da dureza e do negrume. E, por isso, fácil é que ele não é. E, também por isso, é que é tão bom mesmo não sendo qualitativamente uniforme.

[d]

Dec 31, In the mood for Bernhard:

Down comes the rain on the black woods,
and doors close upon my hours,
quite as if I had not climbed from the night,
from the depths of this gray day’s work,
angry, together with the last friends of my
feeble, malicious soul,
which already bore my father’s sick fate.

Down comes the rain on the black woods,
hear the cry, made to your sun, the tired one,
which lets itself be driven, strangely plaintive,
through wet tree trunks by a bitter evening wind.
From hungry, troubled eyes there ascend
at night the marvels of these early days
and limbs stretch out beneath the roofs
in the clutches of your languid poetry.

Down comes the rain on the black woods
and I seek the dream that only yesterday
I praised and which pressed my wet eyes
down onto the bed in the cold room,
where clockwork destroyed my world,
and with it the last sweet breath of peace,
breathed for my beloved country earth.

[S̶e̶a̶n̶ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Caught

The crow cries.
He has caught me.
In his cry I must forever
travel the country
The crow cries.
He has caught me.
Yesterday he sat in the field and froze
and my heart with him.
My heart grows ever blacker,
covered over
by black wings.


Tired

I am tired…
With the trees I conversed.
With the sheep I suffered drought.
With the birds I sang in the woods.
I loved the girls in the village.
I looked up toward the sun.
I saw the sea.
I worked with the potter.
I breathed the dust on the country road.
I saw the blooms of melancholy on my father’s field.
I saw death in the eyes of my friend.
I proffered my hand to the souls of the drowned.
I am tired…


Spring of Black Blooms

Spring of black blooms, you’re driven
by the fever of the dead,
spring of black blooms, you’re driven
by an endless north wind,
my April is a grave,
a dark dream-night of black blooms,
you’re driven by strange sisters, into
the country,
when the crows cry
and the hills drink dread.

Spring of black blooms, you’re driven
by the fever of the dead,
spring of black blooms, you’re driven
by an endless north wind,
I shall sleep, and even tomorrow
snow and solitude will cover me,
behind
your shoes…
you’re driven by strange sisters, into
the country
when the crows cry
and the hills drink dread.

[Eadweard · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bit of Baudelaire, a pinch of Rimbaud, a spoonful of Trakl, mix together and enjoy.




November Sacrifice

I am unworthy of these fields and furrows,
unworthy of this sky that writes its wild signs in my memory for a new millennium, unworthy of these woods, whose shiver breaks into my maturing mind with the storms of towns.

I am unworthy of these mothers on the hillside and unworthy of the farmers who rummage through their day with cows and pear trees, booze and scythes.

I am unworthy of these mountains and church spires, unworthy of a single starry night and unworthy of any beggar’s footpath that ends in sadness.

I am unworthy of this grass that cools my limbs, of the tree trunks whose hideous affliction the north deepens with its rain and the shadows of boys who offer up November sacrifices to the young wine beneath the black hills that bear my transience.

I am unworthy of these processions that May brings forth between blossoming apple trees, of the milk and the honey, of the glory and the decay, of which I am assured.

I am unworthy among priests, butchers and sellers, unworthy of the wise words of these gardens, unworthy of Sunday, which spits its sweet fumes into the blue.

Unworthy am I of abandoned red-speckled girls in this landscape thousands of years old, whose bread tastes of hunger and the dead, vanity and the grief of the mothers who could not escape their torment, the torment of the forgotten, who are scorched by the sun in the fields.

Unworthy am I of the blackbird, unworthy of the creaking of the millwheel, unworthy I play my game on the banks of the river, which refuses to have anything to do with the villages.

I am unworthy of these souls in the clouds and the bushes that speak to one another of the flourishing earth, of the music of the dying heavens, of the great abandonments, scurrying over the hills, anxiously hurrying ahead of the world’s stormy winters.
---



Caught

The crow cries.
He has caught me.

In his cry I must forever
travel the country.

The crow cries.
He has caught me.

Yesterday he sat in the field
and froze and my heart with him.

My heart grows ever blacker,
covered over by black wings.
---



You all say nothing, because you are too sick to say how great the torment is which my soul had to furrow, from evening to morning, through midnights that sense not even a blade of grass because their music is too vain for butter vats and the chests of the dead who rise from their dungeons to the croaking of frogs between times of conception
---



Down There Lies the Town

Down there lies the town,
no need for you to return,
its corpse is with blossoms overlaid.

Morning says the river.
The mountains are still blurred,
yet the spring has come too late.

Down there lies the town.
The names you can’t retain.
From the woods, black wine pours.

And the night grows quieter.
Since the sick birds came,
you enter only to mourn.
---



Into a Carpet Made of Water

Into a carpet made of water
I embroider my days,
my gods and my ailments.

Into a carpet made of greenery
I embroider my red pain,
my blue mornings,
my yellow villages and slices of bread-and-honey.

Into a carpet made of earth
I embroider my transience.
I embroider my night into it and my hunger,
my sorrow and the warship of my despair,
which glides across on a thousand waters,
to the waters of restlessness,
to the waters of immortality.
---



Spring of Black Blooms

Spring of black blooms, you’re driven
by the fever of the dead,
spring of black blooms, you’re driven
by an endless north wind,
my April is a grave,
a dark dream-night of black blooms,
you’re driven by strange sisters, into the country,
when the crows cry
and the hills drink dread.

Spring of black blooms, you’re driven
by the fever of the dead,
spring of black blooms, you’re driven
by an endless north wind,
I shall sleep, and even tomorrow
snow and solitude will cover me, behind
your shoes . . .
you’re driven by strange sisters, into the country,
when the crows cry
and the hills drink dread.

[Teresa · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Num tapete de água
vou bordando os meus dias,
os meus deuses e as minhas doenças.

Num tapete de verdura
vou bordando os meus sofrimentos vermelhos,
as minhas manhãs azuis,
as minhas aldeias amarelas e os meus pães de mel amarelos também.

Num tapete de terra
vou bordando a minha efemeridade.
Nele vou bordando a minha noite
e a minha fome,
a minha tristeza
e o navio de guerra dos meus desesperos,
que vai deslizando p'ra mil outras águas,
para as águas do desassossego,
para as águas da imortalidade."

[Maurizio Manco · Rating 3 out of 5]

"La terra parla una lingua che nessuno comprende / poiché è inesauribile - le ho strappato stelle e pus / nelle disperazioni / e ho bevuto vino dalla sua brocca / che è cotta dai miei dolori." (Biografia del dolore, p. 107)

[Alessandro · Rating 3 out of 5]

" Casa dei genitori


Loro non ci sono più
altre espressioni mi guidano in basso
alla carne e al vino,
mi spingono altri detti
nelle loro stanze abbandonate,
il vento soffia solo fino al portone sfregiato,
il lardo e il silenzio
sono avanzati
e tutti i versi che loro recitavano in una lunga notte
imputridiscono nell'altra terra
dietro queste montagne,
dove la strana magia dell'alba
spinge i contadini alla sbornia.
Loro non ci sono più
raggelo come il cane del panettiere
che sfrega la sua coda sul muro,
raggelo e a dormire
non riesco più.
I miei canti sono prosciugati
come il letto del fiume nell'estate grigia,
che sospinge i suoi lamenti
giù al mare.
Loro non ci sono più,
io vorrei dormire
e sognare di loro, loro che mi
diedero carne e memoria,
il tempo nero della vita,
la fame di cervelli tristi
e profumo stanco delle foreste
e gloria marcia del mondo.
Io ora voglio dormire
e vedere la loro lapide."

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is really mostly of interest if you're already into Bernhard. This is very early work, and it's fine. It's a very particular moment, a very particular step that lots of German-language writers would work through at this point. But it's really his later development, his bitter hilarity, his hilarious bitterness, and the musical darkness of his looping prose that are what you need to experience. Correction Old Masters: A Comedy Woodcutters. Do yourself a favor.

[Rob · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un'immersione totale nelle origini di Bernhard che, nonostante la sua prosa famosa e riconoscibile, nasce come poeta e sui primi versi costruisce la futura architettura della sua scrittura. Qui troviamo infatti già i temi cardine dei suoi futuri scritti, decorati da sfumature diverse di spiritualità e contornati da una natura non buona, non salvifica, ma sempre presente.
Mi è piaciuto veramente tanto, in Bernhard riesco sempre a trovare qualche mio piccolo frammento e, da lettrice avida di poesia, leggere le sue liriche è stata un'esperienza ancora più intensa.

[Ippolit · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good to read as one long continuous poem, about death, decrepit farm towns, family and sola fide. I tried my hand at retranslating some of these poems––highly recommended to anyone trying to learn German. You learn the nuances and double meanings of much of the Bernhardian language.

[Amelia · Rating 1 out of 5]

One-note. Birds, hills, fields; night coming, forests darkening. Bernhard traces the reverberations of eternity through the pastoral in this bleak exercise à la Trakl.

Only a few lines made me feel anything, and this may have just been Rimbaud’s influence cropping up

By no means are they awful poems, but there is nothing here for this Bernhard fan

[Paul H. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Surprisingly earnest, romantic (i.e., German Romantic), mythical, etc.; difficult to see how Bernhard found a path from here to his novels.

[João Moura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Coletânea graciosa e bastante conseguida de poemas profundos da alma dilacerada de Thomas Bernhard.

[A]

This book of poetry totally confounded me.

[Christianmaggitti · Rating 3 out of 5]

rurale