La natura dell'amore

by John Burnside

Quando John per la prima volta si accorge che i testi delle canzoni d'amore che passano alla radio hanno un significato, capisce di essersi innamorato. E il suo incontro con l'amore e ha il volto di Madeleine - la cugina che lo incanta con le sue dita affusolate e le unghie dipinte, sempre diversa eppure sempre lei. Madeleine gli fa ascoltare "I Put a Spell on You" nella versione di Nina Simone, la cosa più bella che lui abbia mai sentito, e mentre suo padre si prepara a lasciare la Scozia per approdare a Corby, dove lo attende un lavoro in un'acciaieria, John è totalmente avvinto da quest'incantesimo, un incantesimo che si trasforma in ossessione e durerà tutta la vita. È in effetti Madeleine ricorre in tutto il ogni donna che John incontrerà non sarà che un riflesso della cugina, la prima di una schiera celeste di misteriose e belle ragazze che infiammano la sua immaginazione - una sconosciuta che in un caffè gli canta una canzone, un'amica incontrata in un ospedale psichiatrico che danza davanti a lui nella sala da pranzo, e infine Christine, una ragazza di cui da giovane si era follemente innamorato ma che ha rifiutato senza mai spiegarsene la ragione. La natura dell'amore è uno scorcio lucido e disarmante sul modo in cui gli uomini vivono l'amore e un'indagine sulla natura inquietante dell'attrazione, che si dipana in un labirinto contorto di desiderio e rifiuto. In sottofondo la colonna sonora della vita di Burnside e le influenze culturali che hanno contribuito a plasmare la sua il jazz e la musica rock, la fotografia di Diane Arbus, i tristi paesaggi invernali del Nord della Norvegia e le abbuffate di LSD a Cambridge. Questo romanzo è più di un memoir, è un libro sulla memoria, cioè l'altra faccia dell'amore, in cui perdersi e trovarsi sono in fondo la stessa cosa.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Biography, British Literature, Literature

282 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2014

About the author

John Burnside was a Scottish writer. He was the author of nine collections of poetry and five works of fiction. Burnside achieved wide critical acclaim, winning the Whitbread Poetry Award in 2000 for The Asylum Dance which was also shortlisted for the Forward and T.S. Eliot prizes. He left Scotland in 1965, returning to settle there in 1995. In the intervening period he worked as a factory hand, a labourer, a gardener and, for ten years, as a computer systems designer. Laterly, he lived in Fife with his wife and children and taught Creative Writing, Literature and Ecology courses at the University of St. Andrews.

[Author photo © Norman McBeath]

Reviews

[Steffi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Der dritte Band der autobiografischen Werke Burnsides unterscheidet sich deutlich von den vorangegangenen. Es handelt sich hier nicht so sehr um eine chronologisch erzählte Geschichte, sondern um Reflexionen, Assoziationen, Versatzstücke und ja, darin verwoben natürlich auch Erinnerungen.

Das hemmt gelegentlich den Lesefluss, langweilte mich anfangs sogar ein wenig (ein Gefühl, das mich bei Burnside wirklich selten beschleicht), vor allem wenn es zu theoretisierend wird. Auch sind die Ausführungen zu Musikstücken und alten schottischen Begriffen manchmal etwas langatmig geraten.

Dennoch packt Burnside mich dann doch immer wieder, mit klugen Beobachtungen über die Grausamkeit von Teenagern, der Prägung durch die Love Songs, die die Mutter hörte und andererseits die Arbeiter-Kleinstadt, mit ihren eigenen Männlichkeitsbildern und der allgegenwärtigen Bedrohung, in dieselbe Falle zu geraten wie die offensichtlich unglücklichen Eltern. Oder mit seiner Beschreibung von psychischen Erkrankungen. Oder wenn er beschreibt, wie Schlaflosigkeit gleichermaßen grausam wie schön ist.

Das Gute ist, man kann – da es keinen wirklichen Plot gibt, nur den immer wiederkehrenden Begriff thrawn, ein schottisches Wort dessen Deutungsmöglichkeiten immens sind -, einfach mal ein Kapitel querlesen und wird vom nächsten dann ganz sicher wieder angesprochen. Die sogenannten Abschweifungen sind so auch unterschiedlich interessant. Gut gefallen hat mir zum Beispiel die Abschweifung zu ertrunkenen/verschwundenen Frauen, die (prominentestes Beispiel vielleicht Ophelia) durch die Kulturgeschichte geistern. Und Burnside wird nicht müde immer wieder neben Songs und Büchern auch Filme zu benennen – was die Lektüre verlangsamt, weil man sich das alles anschauen möchte (z.B. Jim Jarmuschs Stranger in Paradise, der, siehe da, den titelgebenden Song I put a spell on you geradezu leitmotivisch verwendet.)

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

(2.5) I found this memoir interesting in places but very scattered, with so many digressions and footnotes. Burnside uses popular songs and films, mostly from the 1950s and 1960s, as reference points in his life – starting with the title, a track recorded by Nina Simone and others. Events seem few and far between: his childhood in Corby, schooling at Cambridge (a polytechnic, not the proper university), drug and alcohol abuse, his mother’s death of ovarian cancer at age 47, the murder of an acquaintance, falling in love with a girl from Minnesota named Christina, and a stint in an asylum.

My favorite parts, perhaps less climactic, were about getting lost in Arctic Norway and imagining why his mother stayed in an unhappy marriage.

Here are a couple of lovely passages, but one must wade through a lot of what feels like filler to get to them:

“All any of us wanted was a chance at something new, something our parents hadn’t already failed at. A blind bit of luck. A clean break.”

“If my father made me a man, with all the flaws and clumsiness that entails, then my mother countered him by teaching me to be human, and an artist, after my fashion, as she was after hers. Nothing is perfect, she says, but as much as my father’s ghost rails against that imperfection, hers assures me that what is to hand is, or can be, enough and I try, as well as I am able, to believe her.”

[Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Memoir, short stories, poems, novels...the man can do no wrong. He's got to be in amongst the greatest living writers. Genius.

[Sara (lequazionedeilibri) · Rating 5 out of 5]

amore puro verso la scrittura di Burnside *-*

[Esther · Rating 2 out of 5]

I just couldn't get into it. Maybe it wasn't the right time for it. It bored me...

Probably it helps if you know John Burnside as a writer before reading this kind of autobiography - but I had never heard of him before and could not get interested in his life through this narrative.

The story jumps back and forth, it mentions events from his life but also long passages where John Burnside just reflects on all kinds of subjects ("Digressions") where often I didn't quite understand what they had to do with him specifically.

The only part that I found interesting was his experience in a mental hospital, how he got there, how he felt there and how he got better and out.

I only read it because it was a present and I would have felt bad not finishing it...

[Sabine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Half memoir half volume of essays but still beautifully written.

[Mark Walker · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book is a series of fragments that don't quite fit together. These are honestly described as a set of digressions. Inevitably different digressions will appeal to different readers. I preferred the life story parts, that build on his two earlier books of memoirs. A couple of the digressions were too heavy for me - perhaps because I was on a sun lounger. I suspect the honest answer to how this collection came about is that he wanted to bring together a number of already published pieces, and tell some further tales from his life. The personal bits are John Burnside at his illuminating best - searching for honesty, and accepting blame himself rather than dishing blame on others. One of his themes is the shifting desires he has for solitude and experiencing the natural world in it's raw state, yet also acknowledging his need for others.

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

Come ti vivi, come ti vivono gli altri, nell’eterna lotta fra cosa sento e cosa mostro. L’amore, uno degli argomenti ancora impossibili da decifrare, si rinnova in questo memoir con la visione di John Burnside.
Un’altra prospettiva, un altro modo di sapersi.
Quell’intima speranza, nascosta sotto strati di cose non dette, di trovare nell’altro la stessa prospettiva, per non dover sempre spiegare come ci sentiamo.
la nostra recensione completa al link: http://bookshuntersblog.blogspot.it/2...

[Albertine67 · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the first work of Burnside's that I came across - thanks to a review in The Guardian - and I can hardly wait to read more. It's a memoir, and that is an interesting story in itself, but it is the beauty of his writing, the clarity of his thoughts, the fascinating connections he makes (while wearing his learning so lightly), that makes this an extraordinary book.

[Miriam P.]

Lately there were a few books I didn't finish, so I really wanted to make this one work. I really tried. But I only got to around 30 pages. And it took me days to get there. It just wasn't interesting to me and I had to read every sentence twice. I gave up now.

[zoe ☾٭☆]

dnf

[Mairi Byatt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Adored this book, was recommended by a dear friend and had to read this one! Haunting and beautiful!

[Alex Di Nepi Finzi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Libro strano e, in apparenza, scorbutico. Tremendamente affascinante, però.
Non sono d'accordo con il Sunday Times che ne definisce lo stile "essenziale" .. non so che libro abbiano letto. Non questo di certo.
Lo scrivere di Burnside è, infatti, traboccante di parole, di meraviglia e di spontaneità e ritrae un uomo alle prese con l'idealizzazione dell'amore. Il percorso dell'autore, sovente interrotto da gustose digressioni e flussi di pensieri, non è né noioso, né banale. I continui riferimenti musicali accompagnano piacevolmente la lettura. A impreziosire il testo una traduzione rispettosa ed elegante.
E' il primo libro che leggo di questo autore. Ho già ordinato tutti gli altri.
Buona lettura!

[Hjd]

I enjoyed this book even if I didn't always agree with the author's viewpoints and conclusions. His prose is lovely as you would expect from someone who is an acclaimed poet. I will continue to read his work now that I have read and enjoyed this autobiographical memoir as well as a novel he's written.

[Bettie]

3* The Glister
4* A Summer of Drowning
4* The Devil's Footprint

[Patrick Houweling · Rating 2 out of 5]

Beautifully written, but this book is not for me