Şairin Vedası

by Forrest Gander, Olcay Sevimli (Translator)

Yaşadığımız her an ve alıp verdiğimiz her nefes, iç içe geçmiş iki gerçekle yüklüdür: Aşk ve nefret.

İnsanları kolay etkisi altına alan, dışa dönük ve çok eşli bir yapısı olan Les samimiyet, bağlanma ve ilişkileri derinleştirme konularında sorunlar yaşamaktadır. Tüm ilişkilerini hayli karışık, son derece kırılgan dengeler üzerine kurmuştur. Kendi yaşamı da bu ustaca tasniflenmiş hassas ilişkilerin devamlılığına, yani aslında pamuk ipliğine bağlıdır. Çekimine kapılan bir oyunbozan, sebebiyet vereceği yıkımı hiç hesaplamadan, dev bir meteor gibi yaklaşmaktadır Les’in hayatına.
Çarpışma kaçınılmazdır.

Aynı zamanda bir şair olan, metnini de şairane bir üslupla yazan Forrest Gander, bir şair için uzun bir koşu olarak niteleyebileceğimiz bu kısa romanda nefesini çok doğru bir şekilde ayarlıyor. Okunup rafa kaldırıldıktan sonra da okura fısıldayacak, kendini hatırlatacak, hep ele alınmayı, avuç içinde şöyle bir çevrilip yeniden okunmayı isteyecek bu cazip eser, acı tatlı duygularla bezeli bir okuma hazzı vaat ediyor okura.

Genres: Fiction, Poetry, American, Literary Fiction, Novels, The United States Of America

96 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

Born in the Mojave Desert, Forrest Gander grew up in Virginia and spent significant periods in San Francisco, Dolores Hidalgo (Mexico), and Eureka Springs, Arkansas before moving to Rhode Island. He holds degrees in literature and in geology, a subject that recurs in his writing and for which his work has been connected to ecological poetics.

Collaboration has been an important engagement for Gander who, over the years, has worked with artists such as Ann Hamilton, Sally Mann, Eiko & Koma, Lucas Foglia, Ashwini Bhat, Richard Hirsch & Michael Rogers. He also translates extensively and has edited several anthologies of contemporary poetry from Latin America, Spain, and Japan.

He writes across the genres. A recent project with the Chilean poet Raul Zurita is Pinholes in the Night Essential Poems from Latin America. Other titles by Gander include The Trace, a novel set on the border with Mexico; Fungus Skull Eye Wing Selected Poems of Alfonso D'Aquino, translations; and Redstart an Ecological Poetics, essays and poems written with John Kinsella. Gander's 2011 book of poems, Core Samples from the World, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award.

Reviews

[Greg · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you want a kind of dark and unsettling novel that can be read in the time it takes to do your laundry, well you found a book that fits what you've been looking for. It also is a perfect size to fit in your back pocket so you can carry your laundry bag and detergent and not have to worry about dropping your book!

Most books I choose to take with me to do laundry turn out terrible, the shock and surprise at not picking a bad book to read while cleaning my clothes might have upped my opinion, but it's still a very good book (and much better than say that Donaldson book about the leper, or Ringworld, two other 'laundry' books).

As other reviewers remark, the author is a poet, and there is something poetry like about the sparse prose. Other reviewers also say that they didn't know the author was a poet, I didn't either. I could say I did know and try to sound like a better person than the other reviewers, but that is mean to do. Especially if I have to lie to do it.

If you have some laundry to do and want to read a novel by a poet that can be finished in between the time of soak and the dryer clicking off, then well, this might be the only book in existence that will fit your criteria.

[Fatih Dönmez · Rating 3 out of 5]

İlk bölüm ve son bölümün mantığı hoşuma gitti.

Yazar zaten şair, dili de bu yönde. Çeviri olmasından ötürü şiirsel yapıyı hissedemiyoruz pek.

Okunabilir, kısacık bir eser. 95 sayfa gözüküyor ama boşlukları ortadan kaldırsak 50 sayfaya kadar düşecektir.

[Ocean Chamberlain · Rating 5 out of 5]

I haven’t read a book like this in a while, and I can’t tell you exactly what I am trying to pinpoint when I say “like this”. Something so slow and interior where it feels like nothing is happening at all and then all of a sudden everything happens. I probably just need to sit with it a little longer. I loved it. It was devastating.

[Raül De Tena · Rating 3 out of 5]

Deberíamos aterrorizarnos cada vez que, en medio de una conversación, alguien abre su parlamento con aquello de “Como amigo…“. Está claro que la cosa no va a acabar bien: “Como amigo te digo que…” es la forma políticamente correcta de decir “voy a meterte una puñalada trapera pero intentaré suavizarla haciéndote ver que lo hago por amistad“. Partiendo de ahí, no es de extrañar que Forrest Gander haya escogido esta expresión como título de su debut en el campo de la novela: autor de poesía más que experimentado (llegó a estar nominado al Pulitzer el año pasado), Gander abordaba la prosa en el año 2008 con “Como Amigo” (publicado ahora en nuestro país por Sexto Piso), la historia de un personaje fascinante visto a través de los ojos de su mejor amigo -quien confunde amistad y amor- y de su novia. Les es, como suele decirse comúnmente, un tuerto en el país de los ciegos: en un entorno iletrado y rural, sus ínfulas de intelectual basadas en referencias más que básicas (desde Ingmar Bergman a Miles Davis) están destinadas a deslumbrar a los paletos recalcitrantes como su colega Clay. Y, pese a todo, es inevitable que esa fascinación que su entorno siente por Les acabe trasladándose al lector, quien lo concibe como un personaje lejano y casi canonizado por el drama final de su vida.

Gander divide su texto en tres capítulos, cada uno asignado a uno de los personajes protagonistas. Antes, sin embargo, prologa la acción con una introducción que describe el duro nacimiento de Les: el detallismo del proceso de alumbramiento es fascinante casi a un nivel voyeurista, pero lo que aquí realmente importa es que este parto es el primer contacto del protagonista con la muerte (con la misma muerte que, más tarde, Clay afirma notar debajo de la piel de su amigo / amado). El corazón del libro lo conforma el primer capítulo, narrado a la altura de los ojos de Clay: es este el tramo más novelístico de “Como Amigo“, muy cerca de la novela rural americana atomizada que tan pronto puede tener ecos de Faulkner como de Donald Ray Pollock. Aquí las descripciones vuelven a ser sublimes, ya sean a la hora de retratar el trabajo de los protagonistas (con amplias referencias topográficas en las que se notan los estudios del autor en Geología), en el dolce far niente versión rednek que ve la vida pasar en bares en los que no pasa nada e incluso en momentos de homoerotismo palpable como cuando Clay observa embobado el cockring de su amigo. Es también el tramo de la novela en el que se incuba la tragedia: el hecho de que Les sea un objeto del deseo (mental, sensual) para Clay implica que quiere ser como él primero, poseerle después… y acabar odiándole finalmente cuando nada de ello ocurra.

A partir de aquí, “Como Amigo” se cierra con otros dos capítulos. Primero, con un caótico magma de notas que toma Sarah (la pareja de Les) tras la muerte de su amante: el desorden de las notas, la disgregación de las intenciones, la digresión que no va hacia ninguna parte… Enfoca perfectamente el desestabilizado estado mental de alguien que acaba de sufrir una pérdida profunda a la vez que sigue arrojando luz sobre el retrato del protagonista. Y, finalmente, unas escasas páginas narradas por el propio Les serán las encargadas de cerrar su retrato (auto-retrato a estas altura) expresando en primera persona todo lo que habíamos podido intuir hasta el momento gracias a los otros dos personajes. De esta forma, no sólo hemos ido asistiendo al desmantelamiento de un personaje, a su desvanecimiento hacia las sombras de la muerte, sino que el principal logro de “Como Amigo” acaba siendo cómo el autor hace exactamente lo mismo con la prosa: fuerte al principio, cada vez más débil, Gander va pinchando la carne de su libro con destructivas pero deliciosas inyecciones de poesía hasta que, al final, no sabes exactamente en qué terreno te encuentras. ¿Prosa? ¿Poesía? ¿O simplemente un valiosísimo retrato de la muerte como destructora de la personalidad e incluso del recuerdo de esta?

[Jim Elkins · Rating 1 out of 5]

It's not surprising tha Jeannette Winterson likes this (NYT book review). It has short sections, many just one sentence long, which are often bursts of emotion or violently condensed images. Like Winterson, Gander is content to compromise narrative drive in order to insert poetic images. "As a Friend" is, in effect, a novella interlarded with fragments of late twentieth-century American poetry. It's mainly very effective. I had two reservations:[return][return]1. The book is divided into four narratives. Their affective power increases from the first to the third, which is a lyric about despair, and the heart of the book to that point. The narrator of the fourth section ruined the lives of the narrators of the second and third sections. But in the fourth section, where the character responsible for the others' despair is finally given a voice, it becomes difficult to pay attention. The excerpts of that character's thoughts can only serve as condemnations of pretense and artifice -- but readers who have responded appropriately to the second and third sections don't need to be persuaded of such things. It would be devastating if the person who wrecked the lives of the other characters turned out to be genuinely inspired or otherwise profound, but no matter how much he talks about himself, art, love, and friendship -- even if that fourth section had been hundreds of pages long -- it isn't persuasive, shocking, or even interesting.[return][return]2. Many of Gander's images are typical North American lyric moments: large cricket-like creatures swarm from a cave; a dead shrew wriggles from the activity of the beetles burrowing in its body; a moth is cut in half by a machete. The squashed bugs, moments of sudden disgust, piles of shit or vomit (at least six in the book), are supposed to function as compressed, partly unreadable epiphanies: but they are a such a common device that they read more like placeholders for more appropriate metaphors -- images that might resonate with the surrounding narrative.

[Jim Coughenour · Rating 3 out of 5]

A small melancholy tale about a charismatic young man, told first from the point of view of his neglected friend, then from that of his wounded lover, then in the thoughts of the man himself. It succeeds, not so much as a story as an evocation of how we experience our friends early (rather than later) in life. Gander's prose is of a high quality; nothing felt false or forced – although the central character is a bit too wonderful for real life. It reminded me of Guy Davenport's fiction without the precious mannerisms.

[Galina Velichkova · Rating 5 out of 5]

A magical, frantic collage, a patchwork from snapshots of the lives of a young poet - Les - and his circle of friends, lovers and relatives... More than an avangard biographical movie scenario, more than the records of a complicated friendship, more than the story of a destructive love affair... With a lot of Bob Dylan and the faraway memories of smokey blues sets, a lot of land surveying and too much thrill for life to be squeezed into a review!

[Offuscatio · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Fatalmente, me abrí en un poema. Tú eres su nombre."
Un librito singular.

[Carlos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Una historia sobre el amor y la muerte que descoloca, que te confronta con lo que crees conocer sobre la vida y su anulación, sin mayores pretensiones, pero con una sabiduría innata que raya en lo inverosímil. Se debe leer con parsimonia, para deleitarse en cada una de sus partes (está dividida en cuatro secciones, cada una con un particular narrador).
Desde el inicio sabemos que quien escribe este relato es un poeta: la magnificencia del lenguaje con que está contada esta historia conmueve, en el sentido menos afectado y sentimentaloide de este verbo.
Esta novela, según la opinión de Jeanette Winterson, “tiene una forma notable de desafiar las nociones fáciles de la verdad y del comportamiento correcto, y lo hace sin ira. Hay tanta honestidad en este libro: su propósito, su lenguaje, su sentimiento. Ofrece una manera, como dice Les [el protagonista], ‘de acercarnos unos a otros y al mundo con tanta vulnerabilidad como podamos soportar’”.

[Jesús Ramón Ibarra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gran novela breve que narra, a tres voces, los pasajes de una relación compleja, abrumadora, tensa, entre personajes que caminan bajo el signo de lo indefectiblemente trágico. Se trata de un relato escrito en los márgenes de la poesía, la reflexión, la narración fragmentaria, escrito a la luz de Patricia Highsmith (sin la intención de perfilar un noir distinguible, claro) y la literatura de David Markson.

[Magaly Sáenz · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Qué es lo que anda mal en mí, que decidí creerte.”

[Alan Reese · Rating 2 out of 5]

Posing as a novel, this prose poetry novella recounts the tragic friendship of three individuals. Before you can get engaged in the personalities or drawn into the web of complications, it is over, and even though the language is full of poetry and startling images and stylistically, it is deft and skillful, I was left feeling distant and less caring as if I had read a newspaper article on the unfortunate circumstances described. Again, just as the characters were beginning to take shape, they were snuffed out, and just as the entanglements began to get interesting, they unraveled. As ordinary as it seemed, it deserved a fuller treatment.

[Mientras Leo · Rating 3 out of 5]

tiene sus momentos, pero acabé con la sensación de estar ante un experimento que podía haber dado más de si

[Krassi Zourkova · Rating 5 out of 5]

Poetic. Spare. Unforgivingly nuanced. This little gem of a novel had me on p. 64, and from then on each word won its place completely, as words on a page rarely do.

[Frank · Rating 3 out of 5]

Le segunda parte es la mejor.

[Humberto Vela · Rating 3 out of 5]

Carisma: cualidad o don natural que tiene una persona para atraer a los demás por su presencia, palabra o personalidad. Presencia: buen aspecto exterior de alguien o algo. Personalidad: conducta de cada individuo que persiste a lo largo del tiempo frente a diversas situaciones.

“Su rostro iba tan a favor de su pesarosa guapura, que parecía mayor y más convincente que cualquiera de nosotros…..Sus palabras no eran tanto registros memoriosos de acontecimientos como algo que lo hacía capaz de practicar una manera de hablar que nos hechizaba, incluso a sabiendas que eran pendejadas… Mentía no sólo acerca de su esposa Cora, su novia Sarah, sus amantes, sino acerca de todo”.

Erase una vez que era un joven carismático llamado Les, casado con Cora, que vivía en una ciudad vecina de donde trabajaba nuestro protagonista, lo que aprovechaba Les para vivir con Sarah, cuya estancia en su departamento justificaba ante Cora señalándola como lesbiana, por lo que su relación, le mentía, era la de una conveniente room mate con quien compartía gastos.

Clay era amigo, compañero de trabajo y ferviente admirador de Les. Besaba el suelo por donde pasaba Les. Desesperado porque ignoraba su presencia, porque sentía que su adoración no valía nada, molesto porque no le tiraba ni una migaja de conversación, porque lo eclipsaba, lo bajaba de nivel, lo vaciaba, empezó a pensar sobre las maneras de curarse de la veneración que le entregaba.

Sarah era la novia “lesbiana” de Les, el primer hombre a quién se la mamó, mamada que le supo a agua de pozo. Sarah, la que pensó, la primera vez que escuchó hablar a Les, que “está hablando de mis sentimientos, está hablando por mí, lo sabe todo”. Sarah, la que nos quiere contar cómo es la vida sin Les.

Forrest Gander es poeta. “Como amigo” es su primera novela. Estudió geología, y también literatura inglesa, ya ven ustedes que se complementan; vivió en la cuna de la independencia mexicana Dolores Hidalgo, de ahí, viene, supongo, la traducción al español mexicano de la poeta mexicana Pura López.

“Como amigo” es, y perdón para los que les parece que todo lo que leo son la octava, novena, …. maravilla de la literatura, es, digo, una novela p r e s c i n d i b l e. Con un arranque espectacular, perturbador, inquietante, “Como amigo” va perdiendo fuelle a la medida en que va transcurriendo la novela, muy, muy corta, por lo que no la vas a dejar sin terminar, porque con ese arranque, con ese personaje, esperas algo, pero, por desgracia, te quedas aguardando.

Tampoco estoy diciendo que es una pésima novela. No, se lee, te pone a pensar sobre temas importantes como el carisma, la envidia o el rechazo, pero quizá, saturado por tanta lectura, está se me atoró, o quizá no la comprendí, o a lo mejor la leí muy aprisa, o quizá me preocupó que se notaba una traducción a la mexicana, a mi, que siempre me molestaron las traducciones de Anagrama, por tanta hostia, tío, joder y cojones.

Narrada por tres protagonistas -Clay, Sarah y Les-, ubicada en algún rincón de los Estados Unidos de Trump, “Como amigo” es un ejercicio de un poeta escribiendo prosa que a ratos quiere ser poética -lo que Sarah nos cuenta a ratos parecen versos- pero que se queda en el vacío, el mismo que te deja la novela al terminarla después de la tormenta, que Hanna, creo se llamaba.


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[Jeff · Rating 3 out of 5]

The question here concerns the singe lives make on those whose survival commemorates a fall through it.

This is the novel of a friendship between a young man, Clay, whose work, as a geologist, draws him near the Satyr-poet Les, whose name seems to register the essential framework within which he will draw in those near him. Les is based on the poet-filmmaker Frank Stanford. That fact opens Gander's novel to the question of whether the material might be more aptly presented in memoir. The bother is that Gander has achieved much more worldly success than Stanford ever did. (I read Stanford's work entire in my early twenties and've never returned to it.) So Gander's knowledge of Stanford (lore in the poetry world) is aptly parabolized, i.e., in a parable. The satyr is flayed through sheer sexiness. Whatever Les's achievement, at some given moment, being unreal to himself, he was flayed. It's the stuff of myth, the mythographer, Clay, who tells us little about himself, in the role of the scapegoat. This makes Les' glamour near everything, about whom the reader will know less than they ever did (the poetry's certainly not there, as it might be in something bio-critical).

[Anne Earney · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a quick read, but not as quick as 100 sparsely printed pages might be in the hands of a writer who wasn't a poet. The story is divided into three sections, each with a different narrator. I found the first two sections most interesting. The third was okay (this was where I noticed the most techniques borrowed from poetry), but the fourth section didn't really work for me. Essentially, the sections move closer and closer to the pivotal character and while the last section was the closest, it was the most disappointing. The pivotal character is a charismatic young man who leads a double life, but is so fascinating, those around him overlook signs of his duplicity. I wondered at the end if it was even possible to portray such an individual in a way that would be as interesting as their effect on others, if maybe that type wasn't the result of some sort of alchemy that could never be reflected in their actual words.

[Paul Wilner · Rating 5 out of 5]

God.damn.

Well, it's tempting to say that with friends like FS, the poet on whose life and death this novel is based, who needs enemies. But it's also cheap. The double-edged title says it all: I'm telling you this as a friend - the hard truths I never got to tell you in life - the disappointments, angers accompanying it. Along with the love, eroticized admiration, desire to be the Dionysian figure who fails the world and himself.

This is a beautiful meditation, told in several parts, with notes of music (Miles Davis, Pharoah Sanders, Roland Kirk falling in between the beats, along with summons to bandit spirits like Villon. It reads like a long poem, beautifully, even tenderly, rendered. We poets in our youth begin in gladness, but thereof come in the end despondency and madness.

[claire zachanassian · Rating 2 out of 5]

şairin vedası roman olsa da aslında bir şairin yazdığı kısa bir hikaye daha çok. ilk bölümde les’in doğumuyla başlayan ve 4 bölüm boyunca farklı anlatıcılardan dinlediğimiz les’in intiharına kadar olan kısa hikayesi.
4 bölümün sonunda les’i her şeyiyle, tüm rolleriyle tanıyoruz. ilk bölüm olan doğumda onu evlatlık veren annesini, ikinci bölümde onu ilah gibi gören arkadaşı clay’i, üçüncü bölümde yalanlarına rağmen onu seven sevgilisi sarah’yı ve son kısımda les’in kendi dilinden birbiriyle bağdaşmayan farklı zamanlarda yapılan kısa itiraflarını dinliyoruz.
kitabın çevirisi bizi biraz yanıltıyor. orijinal adı olan “as a friend” i şairin vedası olarak çevirmek yazarın kitaba başlarken yaptığı ilk alıntıdaki gibi bizi konumlandırmak istediği “bir yabancının dostluğu”ndan uzaklaştırıyor bence ve çeviri bir şiiri okurken olduğu gibi forrest gander’ın şairene dilinin tadına da pek varamıyoruz.
tek bir gecede bitirebileceğiniz bir kitap. okurken yarısı boş basılan sayfaları gördükçe kısacık romanı 90 sayfaya yaymak büyük bir israf olmuş.

[Richard Subber · Rating 1 out of 5]

This short novel is not to my taste.
Gander’s style is pugnaciously casual, brittle, too earthy, tangential, and inelegant.
The layout of As a Friend is choppy and annoying. The characters don’t work real hard to be appealing. The story line is barely intelligible.
I believe Gander intends to write in depth and with feeling.
Perhaps he has, by his own lights.
Read more of my book reviews and poems here:
www.richardsubber.com

[MissTerremoto · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hace años mi ex me prestó este libro. Supongo que me conocía bien y sabía que me gustaría. Lo tuve esperando en mi librero demasiado tiempo. No planeo devolvérselo. Sorry y gracias, dude. La vida de Les, topógrafo escribidor de poesía, se narra desde tres ángulos, de manera fragmentada, ligera, pero sumamente bella.

[Berk · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Masaya Les'i göreceğim için mutlu, neşeli, beni karakterize ettiğini düşündüğüm mahcup bir kasılmayla, bir şekilde ve bir sonraki sefere hesabı ödeme niyetiyle gelmiştim. Hiç şüphesiz ki söyleyecek bir şeyim olurdu. Ama Les beni sonsuza kadar niteliksizleştirdi. Bomboş kıldı. Beni bir tür adamcığa çeviren bir tür muskası vardı. En iyi ihtimalle, onunla her karşılaşmada yaralanıyordum."

[maram · Rating 5 out of 5]

"you not here to blame, I blame myself. you not here to flay, I flay myself.
face in the mirror crumpled by grief..
but to whom do I write this
if you are not coming back?
never heard from again
A black kitten crossed my trail
the name of my beloved is irrecuperable liar."

"like I said as poet, as a friend."

[Dilsah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bir şair tarafından kaleme alındığından şiir esintileri taşımakta. Eserin ilk yarısı oldukça ilgimi çekse de diğer yarısını okurken ilgimi bir o kadar kaybetti. Okunabilir. Akıcılığını son kısımlara doğru yitirdiğini söyleyebilirim.

[María Teresa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Más que 3 diría 3.5 Rodea bien al personaje con distintas voces que muestran por qué Les despierta fascinación y sufrimiento a la vez. Sí se vuelve intrigante, pero por lo mismo quizá pudo desarrollarse un poco más. Como sea, se disfruta.

[Fer Aportela · Rating 4 out of 5]

Novela corta que se lee en un rato, dónde Les es el centro de la historia. Está dividida en cuatro partes, la primera narra su nacimiento y las complicaciones que se dieron durante el parto, la segunda narrada por Clay (mejor amigo/rival) dónde conocemos a Les, su relación con Clay, Sarah (amante de Les) y Cora (esposa de Les), la tercera son las notas se Sarah de lo que fue, es y ya no será, por último la cuarta pate son fragmentos breves de Les en los que terminamos de conocer al personaje.

[belisa · Rating 2 out of 5]

bölük pörçük anlatım, bağlantıyı yitirip baştan aldığım yerler oldu, okunabilir...

[Leah · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been reading C.D. Wright for years for Frank Stanford clues. And here they are, all laid out by her husband. The "Sarah" section sounds almost too much like CD...
A beautiful lyric.

[Cary Stough · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perfect