Watermark: An Essay on Venice

by Joseph Brodsky

'Reading Brodsky's essays is like a conversation with an immensely erudite, hugely entertaining and witty (and often very funny) interlocutor' Wall Street Journal

Watermark is Joseph Brodsky's witty, intelligent, moving and elegant portrait of Venice. Looking at every aspect of the city, from its waterways, streets and architecture to its food, politics and people, Brodsky captures its magnificence and beauty, and recalls his own memories of the place he called home for many winters, as he remembers friends, lovers and enemies he has encountered. Above all, he reflects with great poetic force on how the rising tide of time affects city and inhabitants alike.

Watermark is an unforgettable piece of writing, and a wonderful evocation of a remarkable, unique city.

Joseph Brodsky was the winner of the 1987 Nobel Prize for Literature.

Genres: Poetry, Nonfiction, Travel, Essays, Italy, Russia, Nobel Prize

144 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1989

About the author

Joseph Brodsky (Russian: Иосиф Бродский] was a Russian-American poet and essayist. Born in Leningrad in 1940, Brodsky ran afoul of Soviet authorities and was expelled from the Soviet Union in 1972, settling in America with the help of W. H. Auden and other supporters. He taught thereafter at several universities, including Yale, Columbia, and Mount Holyoke. Brodsky was awarded the 1987 Nobel Prize in Literature "for an all-embracing authorship, imbued with clarity of thought and poetic intensity." A journalist asked him: "You are an American citizen who is receiving the Prize for Russian-language poetry. Who are you, an American or a Russian?" Brodsky replied: "I'm Jewish; a Russian poet, an English essayist – and, of course, an American citizen." He was appointed United States Poet Laureate in 1991.

Reviews

[Kalliope · Rating 4 out of 5]

He is buried there.

Joseph Brodsky is buried in the Isola di San Michele cemetery in Venice.

He is not alone. Other writers, other artists, also chose to rest there. Diaguilev, Pound, and Stravinsky among others keep him company.

Knowing this while reading his very personal ode to Venice acquires an eerie poignancy and adds a premonitory elegiac tint to his prose. I say it is highly personal because this text does not belong to any particular genre. It is a mixture between a lyrical chant, an analytical and descriptive essay that touches on history and current politics, and a series of loose vignettes of what would have been Brodsky’s memoirs, the memoirs of an exile, of someone who knows that a change of place ruptures one’s life.

The most beautiful parts are the lyrical, because, in waves, they come and go like clear water and mark the pulse of the poet. When the waves retreat they leave drier matter-of-fact passages that shake you and wake you up from the lolling dream. Because Brodsky’s mind is sharp and acute and he shows it in many of his observations -- seen from a side glance.

But the water comes back.

And we learn that his fascination and obsession with Venice was born, in a manner that would have enchanted the Surrealists, out of kitsch objects from his Russian childhood as well as out of a run-of-the-mill book. But then they grew into a fully developed recognition of what beauty is. And love. Since for him love is an affair between reflection and its object. As mirrors, reflection and water are the stuff of our eyes, Brodsky then proposes the most engrossing declaration I have read so far of the power and nature of the eye when searching for beauty. The eye is the most autonomous of our organs because its attention is always addressed to the outside. Except in a mirror, the eye never sees itself. And the eye looks for safety and this it finds it in art, in Venetian art.

And thus he finishes:

Water equals time and provides beauty with its double. Part water, we serve beauty in the same fashion. By rubbing water, this city improves time’s looks, beautifies the future. That’s what the role of the city in the universe is. Because the city is static while we are moving. Because we go and beauty stays. Because we are headed for the future, while beauty is the eternal present.

And the city and its water left in Brodsky their mark and as he thought that love is a one way street that is where he has stayed.

And he left his mark on paper, for us. His watermark.



PS. I wish to thank Geoff Wilt for drawing attention on this book to me.

[Steven Godin · Rating 5 out of 5]

'Love is a selfless sentiment, a one-way street. That's why it is possible to love cities, architecture per se, music, dead poets, or, given a particular temperament, a deity. For love is an affair between a reflection and its object. This is in the end what brings one back to this city—the way the tide brings the Adriatic and, by extention, the Atlantic and the Baltic. At any rate, objects don't ask questions: as long as the element exists, their reflection is guaranteed—in the form of a returning traveler or in the form of a dream, for a dream is the fidelity of the shut eye.'

A beautifully evocative short read that really captured Nobel laureate and Gulag survivor Brodsky's passion for the city on water. Of course, with him coming from Leningrad, he wasn't a stranger to watery cities, before his exile to the Unitied States. So, the story goes, that he went to Venice in the 1970s in pursuit of a woman, but when that didn't work he still fell in love anyway: with Venice, and thus beginning a love affair that would see him constantly returning. What I thought might read like a summer tourist sort of guide book, got pushed aside as he didn't like to go there during its peak warmer seasons, so It's mostly cold and dark impressions of Venice during winter time, where he doesn't go into detail on specific sightseeing spots in regards to Architecture, sculptures or painting, but we do get moments like gondola rides on crisp moonlit nights. There is this whole theme going on of winter light, water and reflection; reflection being key, whick makes the book just as much a meditating self-portrait as it does one about this most stunning of Italian cities. It's all very poetic, and no surprise as he was first and foremost a poet. I loved it.

[Fátima Linhares · Rating 3 out of 5]

Porque também a água é coral, mais do que se possa pensar. É a mesma água que nos transportou os cruzados, os mercadores, as relíquias de S. Marcos, os turcos, todo o género de barcos de carga, de tropas ou de recreio; acima de tudo, esta água reflectiu todos quantos viveram, para já não falar dos que apenas estiveram de passagem, nesta cidade, todos quantos alguma vez caminharam ou patinharam nas suas ruas como agora fazemos. Não admira que durante o dia seja um verde lodoso e negra como breu à noite, rivalizando com o firmamento.

Joseph Brodsky era, para mim, um autor desconhecido. A minha curiosidade em ler algo do senhor advém de este ter ganhado o Prémio Nobel da Literatura no ano em que esta humilde leitora deixou de estar numa bolha de água. De acordo com a academia, por um trabalho de grande envergadura, imbuído de clareza de pensamento e intensidade poética.

Devido a uma conjugação de fatores - ter encontrado este exemplar a uma pechincha na feira do livro de Barcelos (custou-me 1,00€, salvo erro) e o projeto #julhonobel da Ana Lopes - chegou a sua vez de ser lido. Já sabia que falava sobre Veneza, mas não imaginava que o Sr. Brodsky admirasse tanto a cidade dos canais, tanto que até lá ficou para a eternidade.

Segundo depreendi, este livro é autobiográfico. O autor, durante dezassete anos, passou os invernos em Veneza. E isso nota-se, já que este Marca de Água é uma ode à cidade, com referências à estatuária, aos edifícios, aos hotéis, às ruas, aos artistas, à música, aos encontros com intelectuais, às pessoas, até às roupas, que não se enquadram em mais lado nenhum. Em resumo, a tudo o que faz de Veneza uma cidade especial para Mr. Brodsky.

Tem passagens bonitas, que apreciei, mas não me contagiou a ponto de querer andar de gôndola com o O sole mio como música de fundo.

De bónus ainda aprendi uma palavra nova. Quando repetem a mesma palavra várias vezes dá-me a curiosidade de ir ver o que significa. Aqui fica.

Tautologia - repetição inútil da mesma ideia em termos diferentes = pleonasmo, redundância.
In dicionário Priberam

[Fionnuala]

Joseph Brodsky's utterly beautiful portrait of Venice which I finished a few weeks ago has merged in my mind with another book I read immediately before, Cees Nooteboom's memoir of the city, The Lion, the City and the Water, and both have further merged with my own memories of visiting Venice recently. This review is my tribute to both those writers and to their very creative words about the city they love so much.

Brodsky's and Nooteboom's books recall the many times their authors (one Russian, one Dutch) visited Venice from the 1960s onwards, sometimes in the company of lovers, sometimes alone. Inevitably, because of lovers later lost, their memories of those visits are tinged with sadness—unlike my own. Mine are greatly influenced by the fun-filled book I read while I was there—Jan Morris's Venice—and I'm grateful to the book gods for arranging my reading in that order. Had I been reading Nooteboom's or Brodsky's beautiful but melancholic thoughts while staring at the waters lapping close to my toes, my experiences of the city might have been different.

However, I'm still very glad to have read their dreamy love letters to Venice—because that's essentially what both books are, as opposed to the entertaining and fact-filled adventure that is Jan Morris' book.

And Brodsky and Nooteboom have given me the desire to revisit Venice in the fogs of winter when, as Nooteboom says in his opening pages, the city becomes "what limbo might well look like, alleys with no exit, sudden bridges, corners, abandoned houses, sounds that belong to nothing, the call of a foghorn, footsteps moving away, faceless passers-by, their heads wrapped in shawls, a city full of spirits, Monteverdi, Proust,Wagner, Mann, Couperus, wandering in the constant proximity of that black, death-coated water, polished like a marble gravestone."

Brodsky's book begins with a description of the fogs of winter too: a traveler arrives at the station on a winter's night and is confronted with "the dark silhouettes of church cupolas and rooftops; a bridge arching over a body of water's black curve, both ends of which were clipped off by infinity. At night, infinity in foreign realms arrives with the last lamppost, and here it was twenty meters away. It was very quiet. A few dimply lit boats now and then prowled about disturbing with their propellors the reflection of a large neon Cinzano trying to settle on the black oilcloth of the water's surface. Long before it succeeded the silence would be restored."

Nooteboom talks about his own arrival by train, and quotes his compatriot, Louis Couperus, whose impressions of the station area sound a lot like Brodsky's : "The high bridges arched across the dim canals and there was a dark scent of moisture, moss and green decay, and the atmosphere of a centuries-old mysterious past, a past of intrigue and crime; dark figures skulked across the bridges, along the waterside, wrapped in cloaks, masked…But they were only shades, merely phantoms of the imagination."

That dark brooding silent Venice recurs in both their portraits of the city—"with the frequency of a bad dream" as Brodsky puts it. They avoid tourists where possible—Brodsky never visits the city in summer—while being always conscious that they too are outsiders. Nooteboom is sometimes addressed by the name on the nameplate of the apartment he is renting, giving him the illusion of being a true Venetian, and he tries to cultivate native habits such as always taking his morning coffee at the same table in the same café, but he knows that no matter how hard he tries to merge with the background—I tried to look like a chair—he is never taken for a native. The historical right to be there, no matter the long history of his visits, inevitably eludes him.

Brodsky talks about the perennial strangeness of the city and relates it partly to the destabilizing aspect of having to traverse it by boat. As he rides the vaporetto from the infinity-shrouded station area on his first winter's night in Venice (reminding me of Calvino's traveler), he says: "There is something primordial about traveling on water, even for short distances. You are informed that you are not supposed to be there not so much by your eyes, ears, nose, palate, or palm as by your feet, which feel odd acting as an organ of sense. Water unsettles the principle of horizontality, especially at night, when its surface resembles pavement."

Speaking of Calvino, books and reading are a big part of Brodsky's and Nooteboom's Venice. Brodsky likens walking through the narrow streets at night to passing among "the bookshelves of some immense, forgotten library. All the 'books' are shut tight, and you guess what they are about only by the names on their spines, under the doorbells."

Both authors reflect on the books they read while in the city. Many famous names associated with Venice are mentioned, as you might expect, but interestingly, both mention the little-known novels of the French writer Henri de Régnier (I saw a plaque with his name on it when I was there), many of which are set in Venice in winter. Reflecting on one of Régnier's novels, Brodsky says, "from its pages came the sense of damp, cold, narrow streets through which one hurries in a state of growing apprehension, turning left, turning right. For somebody with my birthplace, the city emerging from these pages was easily recognizable and felt like Petersburg's extension into a better history, not to mention latitude."

Nooteboom also finds parallels between Venice and the city he hails from, Amsterdam, with its huge network of canals and bridges. And when I pause to think about it, the three cities, Petersburg, Amsterdam, and Venice, are all as if reclaimed from the sea in defiance of possibility. Petersburg was built on marshy grounds on the very edge of the Baltic sea and has its own network of canals and bridges, Amsterdam lies below sea level, and Venice sits on little islands of silt deposited by the tides of the Adriatic. No wonder Brodsky and Nooteboom returned to Venice so very often.

The quality of winter light seems to be something that attracts both of them too, and especially light as it is reflected on water. On one of his visits, Nooteboom had an apartment with windows looking onto a canal, "and when the wind or one of the few boats that came by stirred the water, all manner of moving pictures were created in the grayish green, and I could watch for hours. Long before modern painters, wind and water distorted and stretched things and colours, making rectangles ripple and gleam in a way that a window or a wall can never in fact move" all of which echoes Brodsky's "hues and rhythms of the local facades [reflected in] the waves' ever-changing colors and patterns" which in turn reflects my own photos from my time there.



Further on, after stepping out from a music recital, Brodsky thinks about the history of Venice and its waters, and I immediately understood why he is principally known as a poet: "For water, too, is choral, in more ways than one. It is the same water that carried the Crusaders, the merchants, St Mark's relics, Turks, every kind of cargo, military, or pleasure vessel, above all it reflected everybody who ever lived, not to mention stayed, in this city, everybody who ever strolled or wades its streets. Small wonder that it looks muddy green in the daytime and pitch black at night, rivaling the firmament. A miracle that, rubbed the right and the wrong way for over a millennium, it doesn't have holes in it, that it is still H2O, though you would never drink it; that it still rises. It really does look like musical sheets, frayed at the edges, constantly played, coming to you in tidal scores, in bars of canals with innumerable obbligati of bridges, mullioned windows, or curved crownings of Coducci cathedrals, not to mention the violin necks of gondolas. In fact, the whole city, especially at night, resembles a gigantic orchestra, with dimly lit music stands of palazzi, with a restless chorus of waves, with the falsetto of a star in the winter sky. The music is, of course, greater than the band, and no hand turns the page."

Interestingly, Nooteboom talks about reading Brodsky's poems while in Venice, and also his Watermark essay which I've been quoting from here. And Nooteboom goes on to say: "If you walk along the Zattere to the tip of the Dogana, you pass the famous guesthouse La Calcina—the house where Ruskin once lived…Not far from there is a brick wall with a simple plaque stating that Brodsky often stayed in the house behind it, the home of a noble Venetian friend. Through a gate you can catch a glimpse of the house and garden, but that is all. On the cover of his collected poems in English, which I have with me, he sits relaxed on a bench on a quayside, with his eternal cigarette, legs crossed, left hand in the pocket of his jeans, someone who did not necessarily want to be photographed. With a slightly ironic smile, he looks into the camera. He had a bad heart, was not actually allowed to smoke or drink, but disregarded that advice. It must be autumn or winter, judging by the peeling walls of the house behind him, it may also be Venice, through one of the windows a chaos of furniture and antique frames for paintings, possibly a second-hand bookshop. In the book, I read the poems that have to do with Venice…What strikes the reader of 'Watermark' is the lightning fast eye through which everything he sees and thinks is processed with an undertone of melancholy; in the poetry, it is the rapid succession of kaleidoscopic images, with a combination of that quickness of seeing and thinking and a form of sadness, especially in the longer poems."

While visiting the Jewish cemetery on the Lido, Nooteboom gives us some further thoughts on Brodsky—and on another author I admire a lot, Georgio Bassani:
"The tall gravestones lean towards one another, as if bowing and courtseying....everything is possible here now, the illegible names, the dancing shadows on the fallen stones, all a mixture of misery and another sentiment that is much harder to interpret, perhaps an almost inexplicable joy because the world is as it is. Suddenly, I wonder if Brodsky ever walked around here. What would he have thought beside the grave of Esther Finzi Cohen? Anyone who has ever read Georgio Bassani's 'Il Giardino dei Finzi-Contini' or seen Vittorio De Sica's film about Jewish life in this part of Italy and how the war and hatred put an end to it, knows the forms of nostalgia for the past that has gone for good, which makes you stop at this grave because something impossible and incomprehensible is expressed on this stone too... I stand there for a while, looking at the broken branches, the withered laurel leaves, and leave this Esther alone among all those others she knew or did not know. On the way out, I deposit my kippah in a basket among the other kippahs..."

Before this review becomes as 'yawn-inducing' as Brodsky considers recounting dreams to be, a thought prompted by quoting compatriot Anna Akhmatova's statement that, "Italy is a dream that keeps returning for the rest of your life", I will wrap up with a quote from Brodsky about his final trip to Venice.
He'd spent the evening visiting the cemetery island of San Michele just north of the city, the place where Stravinsky, Diaghilev, and many other famous people are buried. On the way back to his hotel, he says, "Suddenly I wanted a drink. I swerved into the piazza San Marco in the hope that Florian's was still open. It was closing; they were removing the chairs from the arcade and mounting wooden boards on the windows. A short negotiation with the waiter, who had already changed to go home but whom I knew slightly, had the desired result; and with that result in hand I stepped out from under the arcade and scanned the piazza. It was absolutely empty, not a soul..."
Joseph Brodsky died in 1996 a few short years after he finished this book. He is buried in the island cemetery of San Michele.

[Antonomasia · Rating 4 out of 5]

[4.5] A long time ago I was supposed to have studied Venice - or rather I did study it, with no great enthusiasm. I never understood why it was a popular topic, and went on to associate the place with chore-ish dullness, dimly aware it also had some mysterious cult following.

A couple of days ago, though, I watched repeats of a 2004 BBC documentary series, Francesco's Venice, which first time round I either deliberately ignored or never noticed. The documentary was a little jumbled in chronology, but made up for it in atmosphere. It also doesn't hurt that presenter Francesco da Mosto is the sort of silver fox that would suit a bored nearly-middle-aged woman's daydream of a cheerfully fleeting fling, like Elizabeth Gilbert's Italian in Eat Pray Love. But how extremely weird that I didn't previously know about the great eighteenth and nineteenth century mythos of Venice as a place of decadence, Romanticism and beautiful decay, and how that lingers in the present popular idea of the place (even whilst the reality may be a carefully tended living museum, stuffed to the gills with camera-clicking tourists). From my mid teens onwards, I somehow managed to read about all sorts of aesthetes and decadents, aware of plenty of other European cities having associations with them, without ever really noticing Venice beyond the title of a book by Ruskin. I even saw the scenes in the David Tennant Casanova series 11 years ago and assumed they had as much dramatic licence as the ball costumes, or were relevant only to a tiny coterie. A few years ago I really connected with the film Death in Venice (because Aschenbach never does anything with the boy, I think it can easily be transposed to some other love-object one can't have), but again that seemed isolated, not the efflorescence of a spirit of place. Venice was just somewhere they happened to have canals instead of roads, where it was probably unpleasantly hot and muggy, and there was a load of Baroque art I'm not all that into. (Northern Renaissance all the way for me: sumptuousness and gloomy interiors *and* clean lines with fine detail: it still amazes me you can actually have it all in one picture. Baroque is too fuzzy round the edges, and I regret to say that there is, IMO, such a thing as too much gold leaf.) It's very odd to think that all this time, Venice had associations that I'd have rather liked, if only I'd known.

So I wanted to read more about this side of Venice, to see if I could get into it after all this time - this needed writing that was heavy on atmosphere more than geographical fact and political history. Going by its beginning, this novella-length essay seemed perfect. Brodsky, after his defection from the USSR to the USA, was in the habit of visiting Venice most winters. (I would never come here in summer, not even at gunpoint. I take heat very poorly; the unmitigated emissions of hydrocarbons and armpits still worse. The shorts-clad herds ... also get on my nerves.) He is another of those wonders, like Nabokov, who writes beautifully in English regardless of its being a second language - and though parts of the essay were more introspective and personal than I hoped or wanted, I connected with a good few of those. Overall it is lovely, and its density justifies its being a separate book. I was glad of Brodsky's wide-ranging references to different academic fields, that he thinks well beyond literature, even if the metaphors playing with science did sometimes get a little too fanciful.

Most of the rest is quotes:


I was smitten by a feeling of utter happiness: my nostrils were hit by what to me has always been its synonym, the smell of freezing seaweed. For some people, it’s freshly cut grass or hay; for others, Christmas scents of conifer needles and tangerines. For me, it’s freezing seaweed—partly because of onomatopoeic aspects of the very conjunction (in Russian, seaweed is a wonderful vodorosli), partly due to a slight incongruity and a hidden underwater drama in this notion.
Personally, I hate the smell of seaweed - but reading this, how could one not understand what it is to like it?

I’d also bought from them my first pack ever of what in years to come was to stand for “Merde Statale,” “Movimento Sociale,” and “Morte Sicura”: my first pack of MS. So I lifted my bags and stepped outside. In the unlikely event that someone’s eye followed my white London Fog and dark brown Borsalino, they should have cut a familiar silhouette.
I love the flow of such writing when the references aren't overtly explained. (It makes me sad on here to see reviews where the writer would naturally not have explained such things, and feels the need to preface their reference with a sentence or two explaining the TV series or brand and its character in their country, despite readers being on the internet and therefore quite able to look things up if they don't know, and although many of the writer's friends probably do know.)

Water unsettles the principle of horizontality, especially at night, when its surface resembles pavement. No matter how solid its substitute —the deck—under your feet, on water you are somewhat more alert than ashore, your faculties are more poised. On water, for instance, you never get absentminded the way you do in the street: your legs keep you and your wits in constant check, as if you were some kind of compass.
Elucidating feelings one never really knew how to verbalise.

As my beloved Akutagawa Ryunosuke once said, I have no principles; all I’ve got is nerves.

the city emerging from these pages was easily recognizable and felt like Petersburg’s extension into a better history, not to mention latitude.
How a Russian came to be smitten with the idea of Venice long before he'd been there.

the Roman Colosseum, where, in the words of a friend of mine, somebody invented the arch and couldn’t stop.


These rooms feel like the centrepiece; I should have cut some lines from this, but couldn't:
Whatever the original color and pattern of the drapes had been, they now looked pale yellow and very brittle. A touch of your finger, let alone a breeze, would mean sheer destruction to them, as the shards of fabric scattered nearby on the parquet suggested. They were shedding, those curtains, and some of their folds exposed broad, bald, threadbare patches, as though the fabric felt it had come full circle and was now reverting to its pre-loom state. Our breath was perhaps too great an intimacy also; still, it was better than fresh oxygen, which, like history, the drapes didn’t need. This was neither decay nor decomposition; this was dissipation back into time, where color and texture don’t matter, where perhaps having learned what may happen to them, they will regroup and return, here or elsewhere, in a different guise...

Having grown unaccustomed over the centuries to reflecting anything but the wall opposite, the mirrors were quite reluctant to return one’s visage, out of either greed or impotence, and when they tried, one’s features would come back incomplete...
staring at a largish, three-by-four-foot gilded rectangle, and instead of myself I saw pitch-black nothing. Deep and inviting, it seemed to contain a perspective of its own—perhaps another enfilade. For a moment I felt dizzy; but as I was no novelist, I skipped the option and took a doorway...

There was a great deal of dust everywhere; the hues and shapes of everything in sight were mitigated by its gray. Marble inlaid tables, porcelain figurines, sofas, chairs, the very parquet. Everything was powdered with it, and sometimes, as with figurines and busts, the effect was oddly beneficial, accentuating their features, their folds, the vivacity of a group. But usually its layer was thick and solid; what’s more, it had an air of finality, as though no new dust could be added to it. Every surface craves dust, for dust is the flesh of time, as a poet said, time’s very flesh and blood; but here the craving seemed to be over. Now it will seep into the objects themselves, I thought, fuse with them, and in the end replace them...

The cherubs’ faces were terribly grotesque: they all had these corrupt, lecherous grins as they stared—very keenly—downward upon the bed...
I felt that from time’s point of view such entertainment here could only seem appropriate, as it generated nothing. After all, for three centuries, nothing here reigned supreme. Wars, revolutions, great discoveries, geniuses, plagues never entered here due to a legal problem.


now and then, across the canal, two or three well-lit, tall, rounded windows, half shaded with gauze or tulle, reveal an octopal chandelier, the lacquered fin of a grand piano, opulent bronze framing auburn or rubescent oils, the gilded rib cage of a ceiling’s beams—and you feel as though you are looking into a fish through its scales, and inside of it there’s a party.

I don’t think this place has evolved from the famous chordate only, triumphant or not. I suspect and submit that, in the first place, it evolved from the very element that gave that chordate life and shelter and which, for me at least, is synonymous with time...
Splashing, glittering, glowing, glinting, the element has been casting itself upward for so long that it is not surprising that some of these aspects eventually acquired mass, flesh, and grew solid...
Why it should have happened here, I have no idea. Presumably because the element here had heard Italian.

I think it was Hazlitt who said that the only thing that could beat this city of water would be a city built in the air.

[Amaranta · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Il mondo è piccolo, e quanto più si vive tanto più piccolo diventa” .
Un amore per una città che dura una vita. Ogni anno lo scrittore torna nella sua amata Venezia per ritrovare un po’di sé, per perdersi nelle sue acque. Perché Venezia è doppio: è realtà e riflesso; è sogno e verità. E quelle Fondamenta di cui il titolo parla erano l’attracco all’antico ospedale degli incurabili, i malati di peste; e allo stesso tempo sono le basi su cui si fonda la nostalgia, che come una malattia riporta Brodsky sempre alla Laguna, con il freddo, la nebbia, quando le alghe sono gelate. Una città splendida raccontata con misura, come una carezza rubata, un passaggio sul corpo di una donna delicato come un vaporetto sull’acqua. Quell’acqua come uno specchio che rimanda infinite volte immagini di architetture cesellate mai uguali nella stessa onda, volti come specchi che nascondono io sconosciuti, specchi sconosciuti che riflettono un’immagine di noi estranea, fredda. “Quella che ti restituiscono non è la tua identità, ma la tua anonimità, specialmente in un luogo come questo. Perché qui tu sei l'ultima cosa che t'interessa vedere.”
E’ la bellezza che qui si celebra. Negli infiniti vicoli, nelle acque che lambiscono le case, che sono come lacrime sul viso di un uomo. Acqua: casa= uomo: lacrima. “ una lacrima è il modo con cui la retina - come la lacrima stessa - ammette
la propria incapacità di trattenere la bellezza… La lacrima è una regressione,
un omaggio del futuro al passato.Perché noi siamo diretti verso il futuro mentre la bellezza è l'eterno presente. ”

[Sidharth Vardhan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well, Venice is the city of poets just as rose is their flower and nightingale their bird. It is hardly surprising then that another writer should fell prey to her. Beautiful prose though.

[SCARABOOKS · Rating 4 out of 5]

Confesso che la lettura me l’ha un po’ contaminata il Limonov di Carrere e la pessima opinione (non del tutto infondata, pare) che aveva di Brosdskij. Però un sospetto di artificiosità furba, esibizionistica, da primattrice su red carpet, di allestimento per scopi narcisi e mercantili (il lavoro gli fu commissionato e pagato), di una “recita veneziana” molto impostata in prosa e in posa, non mi ha mai abbandonato, leggendo.
Sensazione rafforzata anche da una certa dose di banalità ad effetto sparse qua e là.

Nonostante tutte queste sensazioni e questi pregiudizi assolutamente personali, il libro resta bello: lirico, ammaliante, stimolante.
Anzi, pensavo, che Venezia sia anche, tra tanta bellezza e in quell’atmosfera che la rende veramente unica al mondo, come si dice sempre, tutte queste tre cose: artificiosità, venalità, banalità. Se è così allora questo libro centra l’obiettivo di trasmetterci con le parole l’emozione-Venezia anche in virtù dei suoi difetti.

E poi non mancano una serie di cosette che ho trovato assolutamente condivisibili. Ne riporto tre a titolo di esempio:
- “la cucina locale, per gli standard italiani, non è tanto straordinaria”;
- “questo è un ottimo posto per le lune di miele, ma ho pensato spesso che bisognerebbe provarlo anche per i divorzi - per quelli in corso e per quelli già conclusi. Non c'è miglior fondale per un'estasi, per una passione che debba sfumare in dissolvenza”;
- Venezia dà il meglio di se al tramonto e d’inverno, col freddo e, aggiungerei, possibilmente con la nebbia. E non è vero invece che diventa invisibile Venezia con la nebbia. Si frantuma piuttosto in una serie di set cinematografici. Diventa davvero uno studio di posa. D’estate, d’altra parte, diventa, per tante ragioni (gli odori, in primis), il fondale scenico perfetto di ogni cupio dissolvi. E Visconti in Morte a Venezia ha reso l’idea in modo meraviglioso (contrariamente a quel che dice lui, Brodskji, film e libro sono, per me, uno più bello dell’altro).

Certo, maramaldeggia su Ezra Pound, si lancia in disamine politiche snobbine sulla politica e il futuro della città, in una previsione borsistica al rialzo, disastrosa, sulla Kodak e in altre amenità del genere. Ma sono peccati tutto sommato veniali (cose che facevano tutti a quei tempi: banalità, per l’appunto) rispetto alla bellezza di certe riflessioni o di alcune descrizioni o della mezza paginetta su Stravinskij, o della citazione di Wystan Auden: “Il modo migliore per ascoltare la Messa" diceva "è non conoscere la lingua”. Tanto per dire. O di alcune considerazioni sull’amore e Venezia, che mi hanno toccato.

Insomma, un bel pomeriggio di lettura e la voglia di tornarci sono garantiti.

[Grazia · Rating 4 out of 5]

noi andiamo e la bellezza resta.
Acqua.
Nebbia.
Specchi.
Riflessi.
Occhi.

Ma soprattutto Acqua. Inverno e grigio. Perché "alle basse temperature la bellezza è bellezza."

Ironia e amore (seppur prodotto su commissione) per questa città, Venezia, che sembra " fatta di porcellana: [..] con tutte le sue cupole coperte di zinco che somigliano a teiere, o a tazzine capovolte, col profilo dei suoi campanili in bilico che tintinnano come cucchiaini abbandonati e stanno per fondersi nel cielo."

Luogo ideale si per celebrare matrimoni ma pure per sancire divorzi dato che "nessun egoista [..] può fare il divo per molto tempo in mezzo a questo servizio di porcellana posato su un'acqua di cristallo, perché il fondale gli ruba la scena."

Il posto ideale dove riposare in eterno. Il posto ideale dove essere sepolti (secondo l'autore) il cui desiderio è stato alla fine soddisfatto.

Il luogo in cui tempo, polvere e bellezza si fondono e sono fonte di sollievo. Perché la bellezza è un riflesso innocuo delle cose, del permanere nonostante l'uomo.
"Perché noi siamo diretti verso il futuro mentre la bellezza è l'eterno presente."


Questa la Venezia amata da Brodskji.

[Uroš Đurković · Rating 5 out of 5]

Uz rizik da priču nisam dobro zapamtio i bez želje da proveravam njenu autentičnost jer bi to pokvarilo želju mog sećanja, biću slobodan da ispričam priču o pečatiranju vode. Kako mi je davno rečeno, grupa budističkih monaha kao sastavni deo svojih verskih aktivnosti praktikuje pečatiranje vode. To rade tako što zagaze u neku vodenu površinu i po njoj udaraju drvenim predmetima. Posao jeste uzaludan, sizifovski, ali ne i besmislen. Kad govorim o smislu takvog delovanja, poslednja stvar na umu mi je rekreacija, iako bi nekome i to moglo da padne na um. Nisu li, uostalom, monasi iz manastira Šaolin čuveni po svojim borilačkim veštinama? Međutim, pečatiranje vode nije fizička, već duhovna vežba – zen u praksi. Koliko god se ko trudio da dođe do traga na vodi, toliko mu uzaludnost uzvraća udarac. U neuspesima da se ispuni zadatak i ovekoveči žig leži suština sveta. Doduše, voda će i zaista biti pečatirana, ali u jednom beskonačno malom trenutku. Promena juri za promenom, neposredno.

Što se istoka tiče, najdalje što je Brodski u „Vodenom žigu” otišao je spominjanje Rjunosukea Akugatave, japanskog pisca kojeg je duboko poštovao. Izuzimajući ovaj detalj, nema za istok u „Vodenom žigu” nema mesta. I mada je ovo delo pre svega putopisno-dnevnički zapis o Veneciji, gradu koji je Brodski beskrajno voleo, vidovi vode o kojima piše mogu da vode daleko od zapadnog sveta. Pesnik i esejista se drže ovde ruku pod ruku, a izdvojeno mesto imaju oči – naši jedini „sirovi, riboliki organ” (19). I mada počinje knjigu sa jednim od najlepših olfaktornih opisa koje sam čitao, Brodski ističe kako je Venecija, zapravo, grad za oko, gde ostala čula igraju ulogu jedva čulne violine. Zbog toga se telo, nakon nekog vremena provedenog u gradu, samoodređuje isključivo kao transport oka (25). Lirski okular Brodskog je retko delikatan i divan čak i kad je distanciran. Pogled nije samo susret u radosti sa svetom i branje lepote već i nešto posve drugo: „Pogled je oruđe prilagođavanja okolnoj sredini koja ostaje neprijateljska koliko god joj se čovek prilagođavao” (54). A celokupna umetnost, pita se Brodski, možda predstavlja prosstu reakciju organizma na vlastitu ograničenost (42)? Iz lične strasti i predanosti u ljubavi prema mestu, pisac dolazi do daleko šireg plana, da bi vaskrsao vreme. Pečatirao vodu.

A na poslednjoj stranici, ovo:

„Da ponovim: voda se izjednačava sa vremenom i snabdeva lepotu svojim dvojnikom. Pošto smo deo vode, mi lepoti služimo na isti način. Dok glača vodu, ovaj grad poboljšava izgled vremena, ulepšava budućnost. U tome se i sastoji njegova uloga u vasioni. Zato što grad miruje, a mi smo u kretanju. Suza je dokaz za to. Jer mi odlazimo, a lepota ostaje. Zato što smo mi okrenuti budućnosti, a lepota predstavlja večnu sadašnjost. Suza je pokušaj da se ne ide, da čovek ostane, da se slije s gradom. Ali to je protiv pravila. Suza je korak nazad, danak koji budućnost plaća prošlosti. Ili je ona možda rezultat oduzimanja većeg od manjeg: lepote od čoveka. A čovek traga za ljubavlju, jer je njegova ljubav, takođe, veća od njega samog.” (68)

(Uzgred, nesviđanja Brodskog su zanimljiva gotovo koliko i sviđanja. Prezir prema „Smrti u Veneciji” – i filmu i noveli, ili poetičko-politički prigovori na račun Ezre Paunda nisu nevažne sitnice.)

(I jedna sjajna rečenica koju moram da dodam, premda nije tešnje povezana sa prethodnim tekstom: „San je, naravno, bio apsolutno dekadentan, ali sa dvadeset osam godina, svako ko ima malo mozga u glavi pomalo je dekadentan. (23))

Prevod Nede Nikolić Bobić za poštovanje!

[Evi * · Rating 4 out of 5]

TRIBUTO O ODE A VENEZIA

Chi sono gli incurabili per Brodskij?
Sono coloro i quali ils n’arrivent pas a ce lasser de Venise, lo scrivo in francese perché in italiano non riesco a trovare l’equivalente perfetta efficace espressione che traduca la parola incurabili: coloro che non arrivano mai a stancarsi di qualcosa, nonostante quel qualcosa, e pur ripetendolo all’infinito.
Quegli incurabili che devono ritornare a quelle fondamenta marcescenti, galleggianti sull’acqua che sorreggono palazzi dalle facciate verticali rivestite di pizzi e trine, in un gioco di mattoni e marmo.

Così l’incurabile Brodskij, una volta all’anno e per diciassette anni, continua a ritornare a Venezia, come una droga, un richiamo, un mal di Venezia, Circe che incanta..

Una Venezia sempre nella sua veste invernale che non genera né luce o calore dove il baltico Brodskij scorge come una proiezione o un prolungamento della sua San Pietroburgo, ma ad una latitudine migliore, una Venezia crepuscolare finalmente un po’ più sgombra dalle

mandrie in pantaloncini (che gli danno i nervi) specialmente quelle che nitriscono in tedesco: per l'inferiorità della loro anatomia rispetto a quella delle colonne, delle lesene, delle statue; perché la loro mobilità e tutto ciò che essa esprime stride troppo con la stasi del marmo

Venezia con la sua laguna come nera incerata d’acqua
Dove l’elemento acquatico tra calli ponti, piazze, rii, campi campielli e sestieri non si limita a lambire le sponde, come banale città costiera affacciata a un mare o a un lago, ma è acqua che penetra Venezia impunemente, quando sale ed è alta la allaga fin nei suoi recessi più intimi

la stessa acqua che ha portato i crociati, i mercanti, le reliquie di san Marco, i turchi, galee, galeoni, galeotte, galeazze, navi da carico, da guerra, da diporto; e, soprattutto, ha riflesso l'immagine di chiunque abbia vissuto o anche solo soggiornato in questa città, di chiunque sia andato a zonzo o a guado per queste strade, come tu stai facendo adesso. Non stupisce che di giorno si colori di verde, come il fango, e diventi nera come la pece di notte, quando fa concorrenza al firmamento

Venezia con la sua nebbia che la trascina fuori dal tempo, inghiotte rendendola città metafisica cancellata da ogni sua forma

“Re Nebbia entrò al galoppo nella piazza, tirò le redini del suo stallone e
“cominciò a sciogliere il suo grande turbante bianco. Aveva gli stivali umidi, come i ricchi finimenti del cavallo; il suo mantello era tempestato degli scialbi gioielli miopi di lampadine accese. Vestiva a quel modo perché non aveva idea di che secolo fosse, tanto' meno di che anno. Ma poi, essendo nebbia, non poteva proprio.

Venezia la città che più di ogni altra stimola la capacità visiva, dove ci dice Brodskij, si possono fare solo sogni belli perché

si è ciò che si guarda - be', almeno in parte. La credenza medioevale secondo cui una donna incinta doveva guardare solo cose belle se voleva avere un bel bambino non è poi così ingenua se si considera la qualità dei sogni che si sognano in questa città. Nelle notti veneziane si registra una scarsa frequenza di incubi

Allora dunque frotte di insonni, dalla notti devastate dai deliri più scuri, la vostra cura forse è qui tra queste fondamenta fragili e robuste degli incurabili, dove il bello genera solo sogni buoni e belli.

Un libretto che si legge veloce, nulla di eccezionale sia chiaro, ma leggere di Venezia per me è sempre un privilegio e una gioia innanzitutto, in ogni caso con Iosif Brodskij ho letto un Nobel e la cosa non mi lascia mai, mai indifferente.

[Melani · Rating 2 out of 5]

As part of the Nobel Readers Project... I knew it would invariably come up that I did not really think the writer "that good." (I did not think that it would happen with the letter "B") Who am I to say Joseph Brodsky is mediocre when a panel of experts said otherwise. Should the Nobel Prize transcend taste? I am not sure the answer to that question, but here is what I think of Joseph Brodsky's work:

It is like a dull and clouded sky pierced with shafts of light: the effect can be lovely at times, but the day is still mostly dark. I was impressed immensly with the power of this book about Venice, one of the most beautiful cities in the world, to bore me. I had to really push myself to get through the 130 pages of disjointed prose... and though I will say that I found the end to be a relief, it was hardly worth the trouble of getting there. His voice is the voice of a loner and an outcast (most probably a biproduct of his involutary exile from the Soviet Union) and yet instead of having pity for him, you think you might like to throw him into one of those famous venetian canals yourself. That would probably be murder, as I picture him as a man unable to swim. Though his voice is a sensual one (and he is obviously thinking of sex whenever he looks at a Venetian cathedral or a torn up curtain or a crumbling apartment facade) he lacks a power and a direction and a virility in his writing that I found very depressing from a nobel winner.

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are plenty of guidebooks to Venice, and plenty of fictional accounts by writers who lived there and fell in love with the city. (Indeed, novels set in Venice by writers who weren't Venetian is a kind of literary sub-genre that ranges from Henry James to Ian Fleming.) It's hard to imagine a more beautiful love song to a city than Joseph Brodsky's Watermark. It won't tell you about curious sites to see, or hotels to stay in, or describe romantic gondola rides at midnight. But Brodsky, who for many years spent his winter break from teaching in Venice, provides a poet's perspective on the fog-filled, misty, decaying vistas that are Venice in winter. "I would never come here in summer, not even at gunpoint," he says. Scattered through the pages are remarkable, unforgettable observations that make the book so memorable. For example, "Beauty can't be targeted...it is always a by-product of other, often very ordinary pursuits." That seems to me to describe this book perfectly.

[Hank1972 · Rating 4 out of 5]

L'importanza di Venezia nella vita del poeta e per tutta l'umanità, composta in 51 frammenti.

Brodskij, dissidente sovietico, dopo una condanna al gulag deve lasciare l'amata Leningrado per gli Stati Uniti. Professore universitario in Michigan, in occasione della pausa invernale, per due decenni, visita regolarmente Venezia, città acquatica come la sua d'origine. Solitario, armato di libri e macchina da scrivere, soggiorna in freddi appartamentini o camere d'hotel. Frequenta l'intellighènzia internazionale, senza troppo entusiasmo, mentre vorrebbe passare molto più tempo a discutere con qualche avvocato o farmacista locale al Danieli o al Florian. Soprattutto percorre le calli - senza direzione né meta, l’acqua come compagna di escursione - assorbendo bellezza: terapia contro l'ostilità e la bruttezza del mondo.

La bellezza indicibile di Venezia. Le facciate dei palazzi. Le chiese. I caffè storici. Le cupole come teiere ed i camini come trombe. Un vaporetto che nella nera notte attraversa le bianche curve dei ponti. Una gondola che scivola silenziosamente verso l'isola dei morti. Inondata dalla luce, anche in inverno. Malinconica quando cala la nebbia. Immersa nel suo elemento, l'acqua, origine della vita. Nella visione poetica di B. la bellezza indicibile di Venezia passa, viene percepita, innanzitutto, dai nostri occhi. Viene duplicata specchiandosi in essi e nelle acque. E scorre nel tempo, nel grande panta rei, per nostro tramite e per quello dell'acqua, abbellendo il futuro.

[Joselito Honestly and Brilliantly · Rating 3 out of 5]

A love letter to a place, Venice, which the author (a Russian-American) fell in love with and went back to again and again. The reviewer Kalliope even pointed out that his remains were buried there, like those of a couple of other famous dead people (Brodsky won the Nobel in 1987, nine years before his death in 1996).

Venice is, of course, the city of canals, waterways, gondolas and water. I have read a couple of novels set there but I've never been to that place. I know water, however. During rainy season parts of the metropolis where I live would often suddenly sink in water, water which could kill for it would be strong and deep enough to drown people and carry deadly germs and viruses including those from the sewer rats' urine mixed with it. So whenever I am caught in a heavy downpour inside my car on a street with a known history of going under, with this very real possibility of my car being turned into a submarine, stalling it, and destroying all its electrical parts beyond repair, I'd try to placate this irate force of nature by bargaining with it, praying and promising that if I and my car would be spared, and we can get to safe grounds before the deluge, I will someday write lovingly of it too, like Brodsky, who saw the holy in the waters of Venice:

"I always adhered to the idea that God is time, or at least that His spirit is. Perhaps this idea was even of my own manufacture, but now I don't remember. In any case, I always thought that if the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the water, the water was bound to reflect it. Hence my sentiment for water, for its folds, wrinkles, and ripples, and--as I am a Northerner--for its grayness. I simply think that water is the image of time, and every New Year's Eve, in somewhat pagan fashion, I try to find myself near water, preferably near a sea or an ocean, to watch the emergence of a new helping, a new cupful of time from it. I am not looking for a naked maiden riding on a shell; I am looking for either a cloud or the crest of a wave hitting the shore at midnight. That, to me, is time coming out of water, and I stare at the lace-like pattern it puts on the shore, not with a gypsy-like knowing, but with tenderness and with gratitude."

It is about time that floods cease to be seen as instruments of God's wrath.

[Zeynep T.]

DNF (didnotfinish). 127 sayfalık kitabın yarısını okudum.Venedik'te Ölüm ve Yabancı Kucak kitaplarından sonra Venedik'te geçen ya da şehir üzerine yazılmış okuduğum üçüncü eser. Anı, otobiyografi, deneme türleri arasında gezen bir metin. Anlatımın şiirselliğinden bahsedilmiş ama ben hissetmedim lirik bir yaklaşım. Şehre özellikle denize ve mimarisine atfedilen özellikler, simgesel açıklamalar zorlama geldi. Çevirmen Emre Ağanoğlu'nun ve yayına hazırlayan Cem Alpan'ın emeklerine sağlık.

[Agris Fakingsons · Rating 5 out of 5]

..dabūjis savu eksemplāru (pateicoties Ingai G. man šo grāmatu nebija jācenšas kaut kur nozagt), gribēju pārlasīt, lai var pasvītrot visu to skaisto, ko reiz jau tiku izlasījis. šī ir pasakaina grāmata.

[trovateOrtensia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Di notte, in terra straniera, l'infinito comincia con l'ultimo lampione ...

[sinepudore · Rating 5 out of 5]

In questa città si può versare una lacrima In diverse occasioni. Posto che la bellezza sia una particolare distribuzione della luce, quella più congeniale alla retina, una lacrima è il modo in cui la retina - come la lacrima stessa - ammette la propria incapacità di trattenere la bellezza.
#quote

[Philippe · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just spent a week in winterly Venice and wanted to extend and deepen the enchantment with a good piece of writing. Brodsky’s Watermark was a felicitous choice. This layered, labyrinthine collection of vignettes deliberately recreates „the sense of damp, cold, narrow streets through which one hurries in the evening in a state of growing apprehension, turning left, turning right.” For Brodsky Venice embodies the compositional principle „that what makes a narrative good is not the story itself but what follows what”. And so, in a long shot unfolding over two pages of precious prose the perspective moodily floats from the acqua alta to Vivaldi and onward to Olga Rudge - fêted pre-war concert violinist and devoted mistress of Ezra Pound - to come to a full stop with the uninvited hand of Stravinsky turning the page of a score.

Watermark is an unabashed declaration of love to the uncanny marriage of water and stone specifically experienced under a winterly light that has „the extraordinary property of enhancing your eye’s power of resolution to the point of microscopic precision.” But Venice in winter is more than an optically mediated love affair. It’s pathos goes beyond the merely visible. Goethe, Wagner and Nietzsche were mesmerized by the city’s intrinsically musical qualities. And so is Brodsky: „(The water) really looks like musical sheets, frayed at the edges, constantly played, coming to you in tidal scores, in bars of canals with innumerable obbligati of bridges, mullioned windows, or curved crownings of Coducci cathedrals, not to mention the violin necks of gondolas. In fact, the whole city, especially at night, resembles a gigantic orchestra, with dimly lit music stands of palazzi, with a restless chorus of waves, with the falsetto of a star in the winter sky. The music is, of course, greater than the band, and no hand can turn the page.”

A beautiful book, to be consumed with moderation.

[Giovanna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Brodskij è poeta, e si sente. La scrittura è preziosa e raffinata, quasi un merletto, i pensieri sono suggestivi, sottili, corrono sul pelo dell'acqua. Però non mi convince, mi pare che giri attorno al punto senza arrivarci mai, che costruisca una struttura delicata e pregevole senza un centro di gravità. Soprattutto, non ci ho riconosciuto tanto la "mia" Venezia quotidiana. Brodskij dice, giustamente, che sarebbe sbagliato fare della città un museo, ma poi si sforza per renderla astratta, eterea, rimarca lo stereotipo di una Venezia che è bella solo quando è ferma, svuotata e sospesa (e per farlo esagera sugli effetti di nebbia e acqua alta). Tutto il contrario di quello che Venezia deve essere se vuole sopravvivere come città. Non lo so, sarà che questo libretto è stato scritto su commissione, ma c'è qualcosa che non mi torna.
"Forse Venezia ho paura di perderla tutta in una volta, se ne parlo.", diceva Marco Polo nelle Città invisibili di Calvino. Forse aveva ragione. Alla fine del libro di Brodskij, che resta comunque una lettura bella e piacevole, mi pare di aver trattenuto solo un pugno di nebbia.

p.s. è un problema di traduzione, il povero Brodskij non c'entra, ma non si può leggere "le fondamenta". Non sono le fondazioni degli edifici, a Venezia le strade che costeggiano i canali sono le fondamentE (sing. la fondamenta).

[Hulyacln · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘Neticede aşk ışık hızıyla çıkagelir; ayrılık ise ses hızıyla. Gözleri nemlendiren de ışığın ses kadar yavaşlamasıdır işte.’
.
Bir şehrin sokaklarını arşınlamak, her mevsiminde ayrı bir tadı duyumsamak, köşelerine sinen tarihi okumak çok yakın gelmiştir bana. Bir o kadar da zor. Kendinden parça vererek olur çünkü bunlar. Zamanını, çabanı, gücünü, sevgini ya da nefretini verirsin çünkü. Düşlerini ve korkularını da elbette. O yüzden içinde yürümenin, şehirlerin, sokakların geçtiği metinleri ayrı bir severim. Su Seviyesi de onlardan oldu.
Joseph Brodsky Venedik’i yazıyor. Şöyle güzel böyle derin diye de değil üstelik. Suya odaklanıyor, güzelliğe, gözyaşına, sevginin renklerine ve ısılarına. Bir yolculuğa da çıkarıyor, kızıyor-endişeleniyor ve umursamamanın sınırlarında da duruyor.
Kimi cümlelerine hak vermesem de Su Seviyesi daha önce görmediğim bir yerin özlemini bırakıyor içime: Venedik’in.
Bir zaman gidersem oraya yanıma bu kitabı da götüreceğim, Brodsky’in gözlerini de alacağım yanıma ~
.
Emre Ağanoğlu çevirisi, Emir Tali kapak tasarımıyla ~

[Celeste Corrêa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Joseph Brodsky, Prémio Nobel da Literatura 1987, fala-nos do amor visto como «um sentimento desinteressado, uma rua de sentido único que torna possível amar as cidades, a arquitectura em si, a música, os poetas mortos.»

É esse amor que o leva a Veneza durante 17 frios, chuvosos e nebulosos invernos. Quando o seu editor lhe pergunta como é Veneza na estação mais fria do ano, depois de tentar encontrar a melhor maneira de identificar as belezas da cidade, responde assim:«É como Greta Garbo a tomar banho.»

A escrita de Joseph Brodsky, pretensiosa e com frases rebuscadas que soam a artificial, não me cativou.

Como se não bastasse é maldizente, tem um sentido de humor corrosivo e irónico que está bem patente na visita que faz à viúva de Ezra Pound em companhia de Susan Sontag.

Curiosamente os controversos Ezra Pound e Joseph Brodsky estão enterrados quase lado a lado num cemitério de Veneza.

A seu favor, registo que apreciei a descrição do sol de inverno em Veneza e do nevoeiro nocturno sobre a Praça de San Marco.

Quase todo o livro é bastante maçador e confuso. Se para mim teve algum interesse foi pelo facto de conhecer Veneza, essa cidade tão bonita à qual até a decadência fica bem.

Lido em 2015

[Paula Mota]

DNF
Depois dos biliões em vez de milhares de milhões, veio a mulher que tinha 5 pés de altura, isto nas primeiras quatro páginas. Sei que vai ser uma caça à parvoíce na tradução e não uma leitura proveitosa. Talvez volte a ele no original.

[Cemre · Rating 4 out of 5]

Akademik hayatımda sürekli bir şeyler okuduğumdan mı bilmiyorum; fakat kurgu dışı kitapları nadiren okuyorum. Akademik bir zorunluluk olmadığı takdirde ancak çok ilgimi çeken kurgu dışı metinleri okumayı tercih ediyorum. Su Seviyesi'nin Brodsky'nin deneme kitabı olduğunu da unutarak kitaba başladım. Hemen söyleyeyim, hiç pişman olmadım.

Su Seviyesi, Brodsky'nin Venedik üzerine bir denemelerinden oluşuyor. Venedik'i görme fırsatım olmadı; ama daima merak ettiğim bir şehirdi. Bunun da etkisiyle Brodsky'nin anlattığı ve aynı zamanda okuyucuya gösterdiği, onu yaşattırdığı, hissettirdiği Venedik'i okumak çok hoşuma gitti.

[Teresa · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Convenci-me há muito da virtude que é não nos consumirmos na vida das nossas emoções. Há sempre trabalho bastante para nos entreter, não falando já do vasto mundo lá fora. Em última análise, há sempre esta cidade."
"Aflorando a água, esta cidade apura as feições do tempo, embeleza o futuro. Nisto consiste o papel desta cidade no universo. Porque a cidade é estática, ao passo que nós nos movemos. Porque nós passamos e a beleza fica. Porque nos dirigimos para o futuro, enquanto a beleza é o eterno presente."

A cidade de Brodsky é a Bela Veneza. Desde que aos trinta e dois anos a viu pela primeira vez, e sempre que problemas de saúde não o impedissem, passava o Natal nesta cidade. Em 1989, ano em que escreveu Marca de Água, já contava dezassete invernos em Veneza. Nela descansa para sempre...

Neste livro de reflexões dispersas, Joseph Brodsky divaga sobre vários temas (Literatura, Pintura, Arquitetura, Mitologia, episódios desgarrados, curiosidades, fantasias,...) mas, essencialmente, sobre Veneza.


(Joseph Mallord William Turner)

=================================

"Existem crimes piores do que queimar livros. Um deles é não os ler."
— Joseph Brodsky



Joseph Brodsky nasceu em Leningrado, Rússia, no dia 24 de Maio de 1940 e morreu em Nova Iorque, Estados Unidos da América, no dia 28 de Janeiro de 1996. Oriundo de uma família judia russa, trabalhou como médico legista até ser expulso da União Soviética, em 1972, radicando-se nos EUA, onde leccionou em várias universidades norte-americanas. Em 1987, foi-lhe atribuído o Prémio Nobel da Literatura "por um trabalho de grande envergadura, imbuído de clareza de pensamento e intensidade poética.". Morreu de ataque cardíaco aos 55 anos e está sepultado em Veneza, no cemitério de San Michele.

[Tretratti · Rating 4 out of 5]

"...e io avevo la sensazione di essere entrato nel mio stesso autoritratto sospeso nell'aria fredda".
Un passo oltre l'ingresso della stazione, un altro, e mi manco, già.

[Giovanni Picus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Venezia è una città in cui è necessario perdersi. Dopo esser stato tante volte in questo luogo completamente fuori dallo spazio e dal tempo, mi è stato consigliato questo libro. Vi posso assicurare che girare per le vie e i canali con questo piccolo volume in mano arricchirà la vista esperienza, vi aprirà gli occhi e vi farà meravigliare. Da leggere assolutamente prima/durante un viaggio nella città d’acqua

[a.g.e. montagner · Rating 4 out of 5]

"A costo di venire accusato di depravazione, confesso che il mio Paradiso è puramente visivo, ha a che fare con Lorrain più che con la dottrina ed esiste solo per approssimazione. In fatto di approssimazione, questa città è la massima possibile".

Di base, un commento a questo libro sarebbe superfluo.

Il casus è piuttosto noto: il Consorzio Venezia Nuova commissionò l’opera a Brodskij nel 1989, due anni dopo l’assegnazione del Nobel per la letteratura. A partire dal 1972, anno del suo esilio, Brodskij aveva visitato la città quasi ogni inverno.

La mia impressione è che l’autore abbia coagulato attorno a Venezia alcune caratteristiche della sua poetica: ironia, autobiografia, levità, primato dell’occhio e della vista… Il risultato è un testo breve, volutamente lieve ma non per questo meno prezioso. Brodskij inanella pareri idiosincratici tanto sono personali, eppure così brillanti da lasciare senza parole. Non inganni l’incipit dimesso; il pregio sta nell’apparente nonchalance con cui l’autore intesse le sue riflessioni.
Il suo discorso è così stringente da provocare un’autentica coazione alla citazione: verrebbe voglia di riportare interi capitoli. Il numero di note a margine per questo libretto di appena cento pagine è più che eloquente; io stesso ho contribuito con la mia dose, che per inciso vale più di questo commento. Ho cercato di estrapolare i brani che mi parevano capaci di vivere di vita propria, ma è nel tessuto del testo che acquistano tutto il loro valore.

Personalmente rientro nel novero di quanti hanno letto quest libro non perché è di Brodskij ma perché parla di Venezia. Non ho ancora letto null'altro del poeta e saggista (anche se a questo punto sono curioso) ma ero ansioso di aggiungere questo libro alla lista: Il mercante di Venezia, il primo atto dell'Othello e il quarto canto del Childe Harold's Pilgrimage; poi Il carteggio Aspern, Il ritorno di Casanova, La morte a Venezia, Venezia salva (non stupisce che in epoca post-decadentista Venezia abbia ispirato gli scrittori di lingua tedesca) e ancora Concerto barocco, Passione, L'altra Venezia... Alcuni di questi ancora non li ho letti, ed altri, come Le pietre di Venezia, non ho nessuna fretta di leggerli.
Per non parlare dei nativi, Casanova e Giorgio Baffo e perfino Hugo Pratt e Carlo Scarpa—risalendo fino al Milione di Marco Polo, che Calvino catalogava tra i “libri che diventano continenti immaginari in cui altre opere letterarie troveranno il loro spazio”. Pur non condividendone la struttura regolarmente poliedrica, per me Fondamenta degli incurabili fa il paio appunto con Le città invisibili di Calvino, che peraltro Brodskij cita esplicitamente:
http://bit.ly/GQlRjS
D’altro canto, come mi faceva notare un’amica, è a Venezia che il Marco Polo di Calvino pensa sempre, quando descrive a Kublai Kan le città visitate, forse solamente nell’immaginazione.

Coda:
Iosif riposa ora nell'isola di S. Michele, in quello che lui stesso definiva "l'acquerello più bello del mondo", assieme ad altri suoi conterranei, come Stravinskij e Djagilev.

E a me rimane la domanda: con che criterio avventurarmi nella sua produzione?

[Anthi · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 αστεράκια
Ένα μικρό βιβλίο με πολλά μικρά κεφάλαια για το χειμώνα στη Βενετία. Ο συγγραφέας με αισθησιακό τρόπο περιγράφει το χειμωνιάτικο φως, την ομίχλη, τους δρόμους, το νερό, τις σκονισμένες προσόψεις των κτιρίων, τις σκισμένες κουρτίνες. Μας χαρίζει μια περιήγηση σε ένα Palazzo, κάποιες αναφορές στους μύθους και στη λογοτεχνία για την πόλη, κάποιες συναντήσεις με πρόσωπα της ιστορίας ή τις χήρες τους.
Το βιβλίο έχει κάποιες υπέροχες στιγμές αλλά στερείται κατεύθυνσης. Διαβάζεται εύκολα και ευχάριστα σαν χρονογράφημα. Δεν πειράζει αν ξεχάσετε να διαβάσετε μερικά κεφάλαια ή το αφήσετε στη μέση. Αρκεί να πάρετε μια γεύση ενός αφηγήματος που θέλει να είναι περισσότερο διασκεδαστικό. Ο αφηγητής έχει σίγουρα το χάρισμα του λόγου και δεν το ΄χει σε τίποτα να κρατάει το λόγο χωρίς λόγο.