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Compass
As night falls over Vienna, Franz Ritter, an insomniac musicologist, takes to his sickbed with an unspecified illness and spends a restless night drifting between dreams and memories, revisiting the important chapters of his life: his ongoing fascination with the Middle East and his numerous travels to Istanbul, Aleppo, Damascus, and Tehran, as well as the various writers, artists, musicians, academics, orientalists, and explorers who populate this vast dreamscape. At the center of these memories is his elusive love, Sarah, a fiercely intelligent French scholar caught in the intricate tension between Europe and the Middle East.
With exhilarating prose and sweeping erudition, Mathias Énard pulls astonishing elements from disparate sources—nineteenth-century composers and esoteric orientalists, Balzac and Agatha Christie—and binds them together in a most magical way.
With exhilarating prose and sweeping erudition, Mathias Énard pulls astonishing elements from disparate sources—nineteenth-century composers and esoteric orientalists, Balzac and Agatha Christie—and binds them together in a most magical way.
448 pages, Hardcover
First published August 19, 2015
488 people are currently reading
7,860 people want to read
About the author
Mathias Énard
38books461followersMathias Énard studied Persian and Arabic and spent long periods in the Middle East. A professor of Arabic at the University of Barcelona, he won the Prix des Cinq Continents de la Francophonie and the Prix Edmée-de-La-Rochefoucauld for his first novel, La perfection du tir. He has been awarded many prizes for Zone, including the Prix du Livre Inter and the Prix Décembre.
Compass, which garnered Énard the renowned Prix Goncourt in 2015, traces the intimate connection between Western humanities and art history, and Islamic philosophy and culture. In one sentence that's over 500 pages long, Zone tells of the recent European past as a cascade of consequences of wars and conflicts.
Énard lives and works in Barcelona, where he teaches Arabic at the Universitat Autònoma. His latest publications include a poetry collection titled Dernière communication à la société proustienne de Barcelone (Final message to the Proust Society of Barcelona) and Le Banquet annuel de la confrérie des fossoyeurs, a long novel published in 2020.
Compass, which garnered Énard the renowned Prix Goncourt in 2015, traces the intimate connection between Western humanities and art history, and Islamic philosophy and culture. In one sentence that's over 500 pages long, Zone tells of the recent European past as a cascade of consequences of wars and conflicts.
Énard lives and works in Barcelona, where he teaches Arabic at the Universitat Autònoma. His latest publications include a poetry collection titled Dernière communication à la société proustienne de Barcelone (Final message to the Proust Society of Barcelona) and Le Banquet annuel de la confrérie des fossoyeurs, a long novel published in 2020.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 444 reviews
November 4, 2024
Compass is a single sleepless night of intertwined reminiscences, dreams, fantasies and intellectual contemplations.
Dissimilar to One Thousand and One Nights it is a tale of just one night. Insomniac Austrian musicologist Franz Ritter is Shahryar but his Scheherazade � Sarah � is seven seas away in Malaysia so he tells the stories himself: musicological, literary, amorous, historical and oriental tales out of his imaginary book On the Divers Forms of Lunacie in the Orient. And on the way he flays romantic illusions from the oriental world�
Man creates then other man comes and destroys what was created� It is history.
Sleep will have to come by surprise, from behind, the way the executioner strangles or decapitates you, the way the enemy strikes you � I could take a pill, quite simply, instead of curling up like a petrified dog under my damp covers which I pull back, too warm underneath, let’s go back to Sarah and to memory since both are inevitable: she too has her illness, much different from mine that’s for sure, but an illness all the same. This Sarawak business possibly confirms my doubts, has she too become lost in turn, lost body and soul in the Orient like all those characters she has studied so?
Dissimilar to One Thousand and One Nights it is a tale of just one night. Insomniac Austrian musicologist Franz Ritter is Shahryar but his Scheherazade � Sarah � is seven seas away in Malaysia so he tells the stories himself: musicological, literary, amorous, historical and oriental tales out of his imaginary book On the Divers Forms of Lunacie in the Orient. And on the way he flays romantic illusions from the oriental world�
We were able to breathe in blood, fill our lungs with blood and enjoy death to the fullest extent. For centuries we transmuted death into beauty, blood into flowers, into fountains of blood, filled the museum cases with blood-stained uniforms and eyeglasses smashed in by martyrdom and we are proud of it, for each martyr is a poppy that is red, that is a little bit of beauty that is this world. We have produced a liquid, red people, it lives in death and is happy in Paradise. We have stretched a black canvas over Paradise to protect it from the sun. We have washed our corpses in the rivers of Paradise. Paradise is a Persian word. We give passersby the water of death, to drink from it under the black tents of mourning. Paradise is the name of our country, the cemeteries where we live, the name of sacrifice.
Man creates then other man comes and destroys what was created� It is history.
January 18, 2024
Finished this finally, unintentionally in the perfect way, reading from three to five in the morning when I couldn't sleep. It's the perfect way to finish because this is an insomniac's diary, or more so, its conceit involves an Austrian insomniac's cognitive perambulations in bed in Vienna as he makes his way, only ordered by the increasingly late hour, through the occidental experience of (the novel's keyword) in the orient. It's about the interpenetration of east and west, self in the other. Like Zone, it's a vehicle for erudition, an assemblage of a whole lot of stuff previously unbeknownst to me. In "Zone," each phrase of a discontinuous, single, 500-page sentence is like the ties along the tracks the narrator rolls over seated in a train, providing basic forward movement and structure, whereas in this one, the narrator is in bed mostly, or puttering around his apartment, as nocturnal hours pass. In both novels, the masks the author wears (his narrators) have insider information -- although he's not a former spy as in "Zone," the academic orientalist narrator of "Compass" feels more naturally aligned with the author who I believe at one time taught Arabic at the University of Barcelona. The narrative mask seems more transparent. At one point, research is associated with espionage and this is sort of like the secret history of the western infatuation with the east, but Enard being a great writer blurs the duality and complexifies it. He also refers to Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata solely as his 14th sonata, which I then had to look up on Spotify, which really comes in handy when reading this since you can find Mendelssohn's Octet and choose from dozens of versions, or pieces by Schubert, Chopin, Wagner, or any other piece by western classical composers you don't know at all or well that are discussed at one point. Someone with more time should put together a "Compass" playlist. (Update: !) The title itself refers in part to Beethoven's compass, which is set to point east instead of north. It's not all about "orientalist" interests, however -- there's also a love story with another academic, Sarah, who the narrator loved and loves still, and idealizes, especially times together in Tehran and Damascus, and the love story, the history of their interactions since then, the cooling off, the letters, the time together in Vienna when Sarah only wants to visit museums related to horror, establish the novel's spine, the trunk from which the limbs of episodes and anecdotes and the foliage of essay and ideas can grow. Although nowhere near as conventional as Enard's last translated novel, Street of Thieves, the love story is satisfying enough, as is all the esoteric information and all the reference particularly to writers and artists and composers. Ultimately, like "Zone," this is a Major Reference Work, what I've decided to call these contemporary novels that rely so heavily on biographical reference, particularly to artists, philosophers, musicians, et al, that they're almost something like disordered encyclopedias, like fragments from the fourteen-thousand volume compendium of all knowledge at the time that went up in flames thanks to the incursion/aggression of Westerners in China. It's five-stars in terms of the author's ambition, execution, and erudition but I nevertheless docked a star for my reading experience: I could only read this in bits and pieces, a few pages on the subway to and from work, a few pages before sleep overwhelmed me or I decided to put it down in favor of a tight NBA playoff fourth quarter streaming to my tablet. At times I thought it could have been edited more stringently, could have been pruned throughout and lost a hundred or more pages without missing much overall, but its ranginess and excessive stream-o'-consciousness sleepless progression also seem essential to what makes it feel unique. Anyway, definitely recommended reading for anyone willing to immerse themselves in the long history of western addiction to oriental alterity, beyond belly dancers, magic carpets, genies, all the way up to those recent black-hooded Islamic State decapitators from London. Lots of interesting opium-related stuff in here, too. And a nod to hope in the end. All of the author's novels I've read in English have been translated by Charlotte Mandel, a tandem I count with confidence among my favorite contemporary writers thanks to this one's addition to their achievements, all different yet united in their focus on Euro-Eastern interaction and the often but not always resultant atrocities.
July 7, 2020
بوصلة الكاتب الفرنسي ماتياس إينار تُشير إلى روح الشرق وجماله
في الليل ما بين الألم والأرق يستعيد بطل روايته فرانز ريتر ذكريات الحب والترحال
ريتر عالِم الموسيقى الذي يربط الشرق والغرب على مر العصور
ومن حكاية لحكاية ومن ذكرى لأخرى ينتقل بين البلاد والشخصيات
الموسيقى والفن, الشعر والأدب, الإشارات التاريخية والثقافية والاستشراقية
رحلة ليلية بين عوالم الشرق وطيف الحبيبة الغائبة التي تسكن قلبه
ومع نور الفجر تنتهي الذكريات ويتجدد الأمل والسؤال "متى سأحتضن حبي بين ذراعيّ"؟...
في الليل ما بين الألم والأرق يستعيد بطل روايته فرانز ريتر ذكريات الحب والترحال
ريتر عالِم الموسيقى الذي يربط الشرق والغرب على مر العصور
ومن حكاية لحكاية ومن ذكرى لأخرى ينتقل بين البلاد والشخصيات
الموسيقى والفن, الشعر والأدب, الإشارات التاريخية والثقافية والاستشراقية
رحلة ليلية بين عوالم الشرق وطيف الحبيبة الغائبة التي تسكن قلبه
ومع نور الفجر تنتهي الذكريات ويتجدد الأمل والسؤال "متى سأحتضن حبي بين ذراعيّ"؟...
December 7, 2017
Now on the outstanding longlist for the 2017 Republic of Consciousness Prize for 'gorgeous prose and hardcore literary fiction' from small, independent presses.
In Germany they impose the Scriptures on you in the back of the bedside table drawer, in Muslim countries they stick a little compass for you into the wood of the bed, or they draw a wind rose marking the direction of Mecca on the desk, compass and wind rose that can indeed serve to locate the Arabian Penisula, but also, if you're so inclined, Rome, Vienna or Moscow: you're never lost in these lands. I even saw some prayer rugs with a little compass woven into them, carpets you immediately wanted to set flying, since they were so prepared for aerial navigation.
Matthias Enard's Compass, translated, like his wonderful novel Zone, by the highly accomplished Charlotte Mendel, is a novel dedicated to, inter alia, "The Circle of Melancholy Orientalists" and the Syrian people.
The book consists of the recollections and stream of associations, during one insomnia filled night in Vienna, by Frank Ritter, a musicologist specialising in the influence of the oriental on Western Music.
I've shown that the revolution in music in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries owed everything to the Orient, that it was not a matter of 'exotic procedures' as thought before, this exoticism had a meaning, that it made external elements, alterity, enter, it was a large movement and gathered together, among others, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Liszt, Berlioz, Bizet, Rimsky-Korsakov, Debussy, Bartok, Hindemith, Schoenberg, Szymanowski,, hundreds of composers throughout all of Europe, all over Europe the wind of alterity blows, all these great men use what comes to them from the Other to modify the Self, to barstardize it, for genius wants barstardy, the use of external procedures to undermine the dictatorship of church chant and harmony, why am I getting worked up all alone on my pillow now, probably because I'm a poor academic with a revolutionary thesis no one cares about. No one is interested any more in Felicien David who became extraordinarily famous on 8 December 1844 after the premiere of Le Desert.
Franz has just received an, albeit unconfirmed, diagnosis that he is suffering from a (unspecified in the novel) degenerative and ultimately fatal condition, prompting his night of reflection, particularly on his unconsummated relationship with Sarah, whose PhD thesis kicks off his memories and thoughts. It began:
There are certain wounds in life that, like leprosy, eat away at the soul and diminish it," writes the Iranian Sadegh Hedayat at the beginning of his novel The Blind Owl; the little man with round glasses knew this better than anyone.
And he reflects:
Today as I reread the beginning of this text, I must admit there was something strong and innovative in these four hundred pages on the images and representations of the Orient, non-places, utopias, ideological fantasies in which many who wanted to travel had got lost: the bodies of artists, poets and travellers who have tried to explore them were pushed little by little towards destruction; illusion as Hedayat said, ate away at the soul in solitude - what had long been called madness, melancholy, depression was often the result of friction, a loss of self in creation, in contact with alterity.
This concept of alterity is crucial to the novel. Franz's thoughts take us widely through the history of music, literature, archaeology and those Westerners who embraced the East. But he is equally aware that one can only really become the other if one erases oneself:
When Chateaubriand invented travel literature with his Itinerary from Paris to Jerusalem in 1811, long before Stendhal and his Memoirs of an Egotist, more or less the same time as the publication of Goethe's Italian journey, Chateaubriand was spying for the sake of art; he was certainly no longer the explorer who spied for science or for the army: he spied mainly for literature. Art has its spies, just as history or the natural sciences have theirs. Archaeology is a form of espionage, botany, poetry as well; ethnomusicologists are spies of music. Spies are travellers, travellers are spies. 'Don't trust the stories of travellers,' says Saadi in The Gulistan. They see nothing. They think they see, but they observe only reflections. We are prisoners of images, of representations, Sarah would say, and only those who, like her or the peddler, choose to rid themselves of their lives (if such a thing is possible) can reach the other.
A contemporary note is sounded by the his contrasting his own experience in Syria to what he sees in the news today, as the country is caught between the forces of the Syrian state and the Islamic State for example reflecting on a visit on the 1990s to the Baron Hotel in Aleppo:
In the evening as the day faded the bar filled up not only with hotel clients, but also with tourists staying elsewhere coming to soak in the nostalgia, drinking a beer or an arak whose smell of anise, mixed with that of peanuts and cigarettes, was the only Oriental touch on the decor.
[...]
This Baron Hotel that still reeked of nostalgia and decadence, just as today it reeks of bombs and death.
[...]
Impossible at that time, at the bar of the Baron Hotel, to foresee the civil war that was about to seize hold of Syria, even if the violence of dictatorship was omnipresent, so present that you'd rather forget it, for there was a certain comfort that foreigners found in police regimes, a muffled, silent peace from Deraa to Qamisilhi, from Kassab to Quneytra, a peace humming with suppressed hatred and fates bending under a yoke to which all the foreign scholars willingly accommodated, the archaeologists, the linguists, the historians, the geographers, the political scientists, they all enjoyed the leaden calm of Damascus or Aleppo, and we did too, Sarah and I, reading the letters from Annemarie Schwarzenbach the inconsolable Angeline in the bar of the Baron Hotel, eating white-coated pumpkin seeds and long, narrow, pistachios with light brown shells, we were enjoying the calm of the Syria of Hafez-el-Hassad, the father of the nation.
This is a novel full of what the publishers blurb describes, accurately, as "generous erudition." This isn't research gleaned from Wikipedia or indeed a book that requires frequent use of Wikipedia to follow it, although the reader, should he or she so choose, can follow up on the many fascinating references to novels, music and fascinating characters such as Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall, Annemarie Schwarzenbach and Marga d'Andurian.
I couldn't help but draw the contrast to last year's deeply unimpressive Man Booker winner and this is the very type of novel that makes me prefer the Man Booker International variant. One for the shortlist and a contender for the overall prize.
In Germany they impose the Scriptures on you in the back of the bedside table drawer, in Muslim countries they stick a little compass for you into the wood of the bed, or they draw a wind rose marking the direction of Mecca on the desk, compass and wind rose that can indeed serve to locate the Arabian Penisula, but also, if you're so inclined, Rome, Vienna or Moscow: you're never lost in these lands. I even saw some prayer rugs with a little compass woven into them, carpets you immediately wanted to set flying, since they were so prepared for aerial navigation.
Matthias Enard's Compass, translated, like his wonderful novel Zone, by the highly accomplished Charlotte Mendel, is a novel dedicated to, inter alia, "The Circle of Melancholy Orientalists" and the Syrian people.
The book consists of the recollections and stream of associations, during one insomnia filled night in Vienna, by Frank Ritter, a musicologist specialising in the influence of the oriental on Western Music.
I've shown that the revolution in music in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries owed everything to the Orient, that it was not a matter of 'exotic procedures' as thought before, this exoticism had a meaning, that it made external elements, alterity, enter, it was a large movement and gathered together, among others, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Liszt, Berlioz, Bizet, Rimsky-Korsakov, Debussy, Bartok, Hindemith, Schoenberg, Szymanowski,, hundreds of composers throughout all of Europe, all over Europe the wind of alterity blows, all these great men use what comes to them from the Other to modify the Self, to barstardize it, for genius wants barstardy, the use of external procedures to undermine the dictatorship of church chant and harmony, why am I getting worked up all alone on my pillow now, probably because I'm a poor academic with a revolutionary thesis no one cares about. No one is interested any more in Felicien David who became extraordinarily famous on 8 December 1844 after the premiere of Le Desert.
Franz has just received an, albeit unconfirmed, diagnosis that he is suffering from a (unspecified in the novel) degenerative and ultimately fatal condition, prompting his night of reflection, particularly on his unconsummated relationship with Sarah, whose PhD thesis kicks off his memories and thoughts. It began:
There are certain wounds in life that, like leprosy, eat away at the soul and diminish it," writes the Iranian Sadegh Hedayat at the beginning of his novel The Blind Owl; the little man with round glasses knew this better than anyone.
And he reflects:
Today as I reread the beginning of this text, I must admit there was something strong and innovative in these four hundred pages on the images and representations of the Orient, non-places, utopias, ideological fantasies in which many who wanted to travel had got lost: the bodies of artists, poets and travellers who have tried to explore them were pushed little by little towards destruction; illusion as Hedayat said, ate away at the soul in solitude - what had long been called madness, melancholy, depression was often the result of friction, a loss of self in creation, in contact with alterity.
This concept of alterity is crucial to the novel. Franz's thoughts take us widely through the history of music, literature, archaeology and those Westerners who embraced the East. But he is equally aware that one can only really become the other if one erases oneself:
When Chateaubriand invented travel literature with his Itinerary from Paris to Jerusalem in 1811, long before Stendhal and his Memoirs of an Egotist, more or less the same time as the publication of Goethe's Italian journey, Chateaubriand was spying for the sake of art; he was certainly no longer the explorer who spied for science or for the army: he spied mainly for literature. Art has its spies, just as history or the natural sciences have theirs. Archaeology is a form of espionage, botany, poetry as well; ethnomusicologists are spies of music. Spies are travellers, travellers are spies. 'Don't trust the stories of travellers,' says Saadi in The Gulistan. They see nothing. They think they see, but they observe only reflections. We are prisoners of images, of representations, Sarah would say, and only those who, like her or the peddler, choose to rid themselves of their lives (if such a thing is possible) can reach the other.
A contemporary note is sounded by the his contrasting his own experience in Syria to what he sees in the news today, as the country is caught between the forces of the Syrian state and the Islamic State for example reflecting on a visit on the 1990s to the Baron Hotel in Aleppo:
In the evening as the day faded the bar filled up not only with hotel clients, but also with tourists staying elsewhere coming to soak in the nostalgia, drinking a beer or an arak whose smell of anise, mixed with that of peanuts and cigarettes, was the only Oriental touch on the decor.
[...]
This Baron Hotel that still reeked of nostalgia and decadence, just as today it reeks of bombs and death.
[...]
Impossible at that time, at the bar of the Baron Hotel, to foresee the civil war that was about to seize hold of Syria, even if the violence of dictatorship was omnipresent, so present that you'd rather forget it, for there was a certain comfort that foreigners found in police regimes, a muffled, silent peace from Deraa to Qamisilhi, from Kassab to Quneytra, a peace humming with suppressed hatred and fates bending under a yoke to which all the foreign scholars willingly accommodated, the archaeologists, the linguists, the historians, the geographers, the political scientists, they all enjoyed the leaden calm of Damascus or Aleppo, and we did too, Sarah and I, reading the letters from Annemarie Schwarzenbach the inconsolable Angeline in the bar of the Baron Hotel, eating white-coated pumpkin seeds and long, narrow, pistachios with light brown shells, we were enjoying the calm of the Syria of Hafez-el-Hassad, the father of the nation.
This is a novel full of what the publishers blurb describes, accurately, as "generous erudition." This isn't research gleaned from Wikipedia or indeed a book that requires frequent use of Wikipedia to follow it, although the reader, should he or she so choose, can follow up on the many fascinating references to novels, music and fascinating characters such as Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall, Annemarie Schwarzenbach and Marga d'Andurian.
I couldn't help but draw the contrast to last year's deeply unimpressive Man Booker winner and this is the very type of novel that makes me prefer the Man Booker International variant. One for the shortlist and a contender for the overall prize.
May 8, 2017
We Europeans see them with the horror of otherness; but this otherness is just as terrifying for an Iraqi or a Yemenite. Even what we reject, what we hate, emerges in this common imaginal world. What we identify in these atrocious decapitations as ‘other�, ‘different�, ‘Oriental�, is just as ‘other�, ‘different�, and ‘Oriental� for an Arab, a Turk, or an Iranian,
My initial bliss digging into this rich novel soon gave way to more serious labor. Whereas Jim Gauer's masterful Novel Explosives was a fanfare of images and poetry, this is a sustained exercise , an unflinching exploration of the relations between East and West and perhaps, ultimately, what Pessoa quipped is the "East east of the East." Pessoa looms large here, but alas, so do ranks of figures from Cervantes and Beethoven to Balzac.
The novel is a nightlong insomniac agony of a (perhaps dying) Austrian musicologist Franz Ritter who ponders the efficacy of scholarship in our world-- while his misspent attentions and affections have crisscrossed the globe - especially towards and in the form of Sarah, a French ethnologist whom the protagonist has loved for decades and cravenly been unable to articulate.
There are lateral paths and stories revealed on nearly every page, how the vampire novel has roots in the cross-pollination of Turkish and central European music. Thomas Mann and his children wave a significant shadow over these proceedings. Leverkuhn as Nietzsche/Schoenberg proceeds, finding nurturing in Flaubert's Egyptian orgy and thus affording a mirrored reading of Leg Over Leg: Shidyaq is thusly embraced.
There are links between Rimbaud's amputation and Edward Said's piano playing -- if you look for them. Despite such erudite architecture, this is also a novel of opium, wine and unfortunately beheadings. Etymology, poetry and emancipatory politics make for cumbersome bedmates but the reader can only benefit from such congestion. Matters did appear to lose momentum but I felt it to be tremendously moving throughout. 4.5 stars
My initial bliss digging into this rich novel soon gave way to more serious labor. Whereas Jim Gauer's masterful Novel Explosives was a fanfare of images and poetry, this is a sustained exercise , an unflinching exploration of the relations between East and West and perhaps, ultimately, what Pessoa quipped is the "East east of the East." Pessoa looms large here, but alas, so do ranks of figures from Cervantes and Beethoven to Balzac.
The novel is a nightlong insomniac agony of a (perhaps dying) Austrian musicologist Franz Ritter who ponders the efficacy of scholarship in our world-- while his misspent attentions and affections have crisscrossed the globe - especially towards and in the form of Sarah, a French ethnologist whom the protagonist has loved for decades and cravenly been unable to articulate.
There are lateral paths and stories revealed on nearly every page, how the vampire novel has roots in the cross-pollination of Turkish and central European music. Thomas Mann and his children wave a significant shadow over these proceedings. Leverkuhn as Nietzsche/Schoenberg proceeds, finding nurturing in Flaubert's Egyptian orgy and thus affording a mirrored reading of Leg Over Leg: Shidyaq is thusly embraced.
There are links between Rimbaud's amputation and Edward Said's piano playing -- if you look for them. Despite such erudite architecture, this is also a novel of opium, wine and unfortunately beheadings. Etymology, poetry and emancipatory politics make for cumbersome bedmates but the reader can only benefit from such congestion. Matters did appear to lose momentum but I felt it to be tremendously moving throughout. 4.5 stars
April 11, 2017
Compass takes place over the course of one, long night during which Franz Ritter, a Viennese musicologist, suffers from a terrible bout of insomnia. The symptoms from his recently diagnosed illness, the memories of an unrequited love, and the dissatisfaction at his mediocre academic career all contribute to his sleepless night. Instead of chapters, Énard uses time stamps to denote the hours that are slowly ticking away as Franz runs through years of memories. Sarah, a French Academic with whom Franz has spent many years in love, sends him an article she has written from Sarawak, in Malaysia, which is her current place of residence. It is unclear at the beginning what Franz and Sarah mean or have meant to each other, but Franz slowly unravels their complicated history throughout the course of his sleepless night.
As an academic musicologist, Franz has had a deep interest in the music of the Middle East, which studies have brought him into close contact with many orientalists, including Sarah. Compass is a travelogue, an historical essay, a literary catalog and a music lesson on the Orient. Franz takes us on his travels from Istanbul, to Palmyra, to Damascus, to Aleppo and to Tehran as he explores eastern music and his growing, emotional attachment to Sarah. The Orient becomes just as beautiful, enchanting and elusive as his love for Sarah. When Franz and Sarah are suddenly forced to end their travels together in Tehran, Franz nurses his wounds by going back home and retreating into himself and his academic career. Sarah consoles herself by wandering father east where she ends up spending quite a bit of time in a Buddhist monastery. But the objects in his apartment are a constant reminder of his travels with her in the east:
My glasses were under a pile of books and journals, obviously, I’m so absentminded. At the same time, to contemplate the ruins of my bedroom (ruins of Istanbul, ruins of Damascus, ruins of Tehran, ruins of myself) I don’t need to see them, I know all these objects by hear. The faded photographs and yellowing Orientalist engravings. The poetic works of Pessoa on a sculpted wooden book stand meant to house the Koran. My tarboosh from Istanbul, my heavy wood indoor coat from the souk in Damascus, my lute from Aleppo bought with Nadim.
The disjointed and rambling narrative structure is fitting for a man whose mind cannot rest over the course of a sleepless night. He jumps from one topic to the next: his illness, musicology, literature, archaeology and, of course, Sarah. Some might find this stream-of-consciousness style frustrating but a more straightforward narrative would not have been as fitting or appropriate for Franz’s state-of-mind and circumstances. One common thread that runs through his thoughts are the connections between East and West. He has a joke compass that points east which is fitting for Franz since his thoughts are always pulled in that direction. He discusses travelers, writers, musicians, academics and archaeologists who were fascinated by Orientalist travels and study. One of my favorite examples Franz brings up is the Swiss author, journalist, traveler, and even occasional archaeologists, Annmarie Schwarzenbach whose wanderlust brings her to different parts of the East. Schwarzenbach flees the turmoil brewing in Europe in 1933-34 and travels to Syrian and the desert, where Franz and Sarah follow in the footsteps of this interesting woman’s Eastern journey.
More than any other book I have ever read, Compass made me want to travel to the Middle East, to the desert and to the ancient ruins of the Orient; but the narrative also made me sad that such a journey isn’t feasible nowadays. The Baron Hotel that Franz and Sarah stay at in Aleppo, and probably the entire neighborhood, has been reduced to a pile of rubble. The descriptions of his travels in Palmyra were particularly striking to me. Franz and Sarah, with a few other travel companions, sleep among the ruins of an ancient fort in Palmyra: “A night when the sky was so pure and the stars so numerous that they came down all the way to the ground, lower than you could see, in the summer, when the sea is calm and dark as the Syrian badiya.�
Finally, I have never read a book that has caused me to buy so many other books based on the literary observations contained within. My “to-read� stacks have grown by leaps and bounds this past week as I made my way through Compass. The amount of research that must have gone into the writing of this erudite book is astonishing. Descriptions of Pessoa, Magris, Schwarzenbach and Hedayat to name a few, have caused me to add all of these authors to my always-growing library. Some of the writers Enard mentions are so esoteric that I was disappointed not to find them in English translation—the surrealist French poet Germain Nouveau, for example. It is truly a great thing when one piece of literature gives one such a full list of further reading. One could form an interesting book club to go through the volumes mentioned in Compass and spend many months exploring and discussing Franz’s syllabus.
As an academic musicologist, Franz has had a deep interest in the music of the Middle East, which studies have brought him into close contact with many orientalists, including Sarah. Compass is a travelogue, an historical essay, a literary catalog and a music lesson on the Orient. Franz takes us on his travels from Istanbul, to Palmyra, to Damascus, to Aleppo and to Tehran as he explores eastern music and his growing, emotional attachment to Sarah. The Orient becomes just as beautiful, enchanting and elusive as his love for Sarah. When Franz and Sarah are suddenly forced to end their travels together in Tehran, Franz nurses his wounds by going back home and retreating into himself and his academic career. Sarah consoles herself by wandering father east where she ends up spending quite a bit of time in a Buddhist monastery. But the objects in his apartment are a constant reminder of his travels with her in the east:
My glasses were under a pile of books and journals, obviously, I’m so absentminded. At the same time, to contemplate the ruins of my bedroom (ruins of Istanbul, ruins of Damascus, ruins of Tehran, ruins of myself) I don’t need to see them, I know all these objects by hear. The faded photographs and yellowing Orientalist engravings. The poetic works of Pessoa on a sculpted wooden book stand meant to house the Koran. My tarboosh from Istanbul, my heavy wood indoor coat from the souk in Damascus, my lute from Aleppo bought with Nadim.
The disjointed and rambling narrative structure is fitting for a man whose mind cannot rest over the course of a sleepless night. He jumps from one topic to the next: his illness, musicology, literature, archaeology and, of course, Sarah. Some might find this stream-of-consciousness style frustrating but a more straightforward narrative would not have been as fitting or appropriate for Franz’s state-of-mind and circumstances. One common thread that runs through his thoughts are the connections between East and West. He has a joke compass that points east which is fitting for Franz since his thoughts are always pulled in that direction. He discusses travelers, writers, musicians, academics and archaeologists who were fascinated by Orientalist travels and study. One of my favorite examples Franz brings up is the Swiss author, journalist, traveler, and even occasional archaeologists, Annmarie Schwarzenbach whose wanderlust brings her to different parts of the East. Schwarzenbach flees the turmoil brewing in Europe in 1933-34 and travels to Syrian and the desert, where Franz and Sarah follow in the footsteps of this interesting woman’s Eastern journey.
More than any other book I have ever read, Compass made me want to travel to the Middle East, to the desert and to the ancient ruins of the Orient; but the narrative also made me sad that such a journey isn’t feasible nowadays. The Baron Hotel that Franz and Sarah stay at in Aleppo, and probably the entire neighborhood, has been reduced to a pile of rubble. The descriptions of his travels in Palmyra were particularly striking to me. Franz and Sarah, with a few other travel companions, sleep among the ruins of an ancient fort in Palmyra: “A night when the sky was so pure and the stars so numerous that they came down all the way to the ground, lower than you could see, in the summer, when the sea is calm and dark as the Syrian badiya.�
Finally, I have never read a book that has caused me to buy so many other books based on the literary observations contained within. My “to-read� stacks have grown by leaps and bounds this past week as I made my way through Compass. The amount of research that must have gone into the writing of this erudite book is astonishing. Descriptions of Pessoa, Magris, Schwarzenbach and Hedayat to name a few, have caused me to add all of these authors to my always-growing library. Some of the writers Enard mentions are so esoteric that I was disappointed not to find them in English translation—the surrealist French poet Germain Nouveau, for example. It is truly a great thing when one piece of literature gives one such a full list of further reading. One could form an interesting book club to go through the volumes mentioned in Compass and spend many months exploring and discussing Franz’s syllabus.
October 31, 2015
I remembered the beginning of Salammbô. "C'était à Megara, faubourg de Carthage, dans le jardin d'Hamilcar." In only one sentence, I live in the Mysterious Orient, there is the color, the scent, the wet suffocating heat (in french we name it touffeur) of the luxuriant vegetation. I was already in love with Salammbô.
I did not want to read this book. It belongs to the short list for the Goncourt Prize then which the best french book (Laurent Binet) has been eliminated.
And I read the beginning of this novel in the bookseller. There is a brilliant text on Sadegh Hedayat. Enard compares him to Kafka and it is well seen. So I decided to read it.
Pitch? An austrian musicolog have a love affair with Sarah, brilliant young university researcher. The book became a kind of treasure hunt between them with different stop from Vienna to Viet Nam. But too much erudition, too much references. It is a debeauche of exotics word and tones. It is too much. there is even photos. Photos in literature book have only a goal, prevent the author to write description like Breton in Nadja. Here, they have no utility.
I have the impression that the author had collected all the cultural references on orient and had built his book around them.We are far from the conciseness of Flaubert. The novel becomes boring even if sarah does not miss charm. Dommage.
I did not want to read this book. It belongs to the short list for the Goncourt Prize then which the best french book (Laurent Binet) has been eliminated.
And I read the beginning of this novel in the bookseller. There is a brilliant text on Sadegh Hedayat. Enard compares him to Kafka and it is well seen. So I decided to read it.
Pitch? An austrian musicolog have a love affair with Sarah, brilliant young university researcher. The book became a kind of treasure hunt between them with different stop from Vienna to Viet Nam. But too much erudition, too much references. It is a debeauche of exotics word and tones. It is too much. there is even photos. Photos in literature book have only a goal, prevent the author to write description like Breton in Nadja. Here, they have no utility.
I have the impression that the author had collected all the cultural references on orient and had built his book around them.We are far from the conciseness of Flaubert. The novel becomes boring even if sarah does not miss charm. Dommage.
March 29, 2020
Sunkaus darbo reikalaujanti knyga. Skaičiau ilgai, vietomis patiko labai, vietomis, jaučiu, praskrido over the head. Gal taip ir turi būti. Ir tik baigdama suvokiau, kad čia akademinis romanas - ne Stouneris, ne Secret History, ne Davidas Lodge'as, ne parodija ar linksmybės - bet vis tiek tai, kas duoda bendrą struktūrą, bendrą rėmą, yra akademija ir mokslinis tyrimas. Neišbaigtas, laisvos struktūros (gal maždaug tai, kas dabar vadinama meniniu tyrimu?), piiiilnas info, kuri dažnai atrodo perteklinė ir sunkiai suvirškinama. Bet sykiu ir poetiškas, lyrinis, ir tai jį ištraukia - bent man ištraukė.
Teksto struktūra panaši į "Petro imperatorės" (ir sykiu tikresnė): pasakotojas naktį nemiega, merdi, jam į galvą plūsta visokiausi atsiminimai, istorijos, kliedesiai ir fantazijos. Pasakotojas - jaunas austras muzikologas, nelaimingai įsimylėjęs Rytų tyrinėtoją Sarą ir su ja keliskart keliavęs po Rytus, senovinius griuvėsius ir miestus, aptarinėjęs ir aiškinęsis orientalizmą, skaitęs Rytų poeziją, susirašinėjęs, ieškojęs Rytų atšvaitų Vakarų kultūroj ir visą laiką rasdavęs tai, kuo įsitikinęs, - kad Rytų ir Vakarų perskyra yra dirbtinė ir schematiška, kad Rytai nėra kažkas kita, nepažinu, kad jie visada jau yra paveikę Vakarus - jų architektūra jau perimta, jų poezija jau paveikusi gausybę rašytojų ir tt. Lyriška, bet gražu - kai jis kalba, kad, pvz, Islamo valstybės ar kitų radikalų kraujo karai ir egzekucijos rytiečiui yra tokie pat baisūs, atgrasūs ir nesuvokiami kaip vakariečiui.
(Vyrišką giminę palieku sąmoningai, nes nors knyga persunkta progresyvumo, žingsnių anapus dirbtinių skirčių ir barjerų - taip pat ir lyčių, tas ribų perženginėjimas atrodo labai... akademinis, pavargęs, kaip ir ta ilga merdėjimo naktis.)
Labai patiko:
1. Visas jauno žmogaus nuovargis, silpnumas ir to sąsaja su akademiniu buvimu - gal net ne tiek univeru, kiek apskritai darbo ir žiūrėjimo į gyvenimą būdu. Kai tu renki renki renki info, daug jos atsimeni, ji tarpusavyje nebūtinai rišasi - rišasi nebent per asociacijas ar minčių šuolius. Atsimenu, Andriuškevičius rašė: aš esu konsteliacija tekstų, kurie niekaip kitaip nesiriša, kaip tik mano galvoje. Tai "Kompasas" yra tobula iliustracija, žvilgsnis į žmogaus protą - net nebūtinai akademiko, bet gal labiausiai akademiko, nes būtent tokiam prote - įsivaizduoju - daugiausiai koliažo, paskirų vaizdinių (o ne dinamikos ar veiksmų grandinių). Taip pat ir šiaip akademikų ir akademikių aprašymai:
2. Gražiausias ir sykiu turbūt tipiškiausias sakinys, kur užtenka perskaityt ir žinai, ar norėsi visą knygą skaityti, ar užknis (dėčiau tokius ant ketvirto viršelio):
3. Visa poezija (nuostabiai išversta Vlado Braziūno ir Lanio Breilio). Čia Pessoa seka Chajamu:
4. Įsidėjau į to-read sąrašą - Annemarie Schwarzenbach. (Turbūt niekada ir neperskaitysiu, neatrodo, kad versta į anglų, bet, kaip ir daugybė dalykų "Kompase", paliko tą įspūdį - norėčiau daugiau apie juos sužinoti, nepamiršti, nors turbūt jau ir pamiršau net nebaigus knygos.)
Nepatiko:
1. Praktiškai viskas tas pats, kas ir patiko. Ne visada esi nuotaikoj tokioms dozėms egocentriškos melancholijos, ne visada gali pakančiai žiūrėti į tas nesibaigiančias kančias (pas Sabaliauskaitę tai bent veiksmo užtektinai :D ), bet svarbiausia - ne visada pakeli savo kaip skaitytojo/s ribotumą, kad pusė, du trečdaliai, šeši septintadaliai knygos tau nėra ir niekad nebus prieinama, nes neištirsi nei 19 amžiaus Europos kultūros, nei visų amžių Rytų kultūrų ir mąstysenų, nes Rytų yra tiek daug, jie tokie visokie, o galiausiai supranti, kad lygiai tiek pat daug yra Vakarų, kuriuos tu atseit jau turėtum pažinoti, bet anaiptol nepažįsti, ir tas nervina, ir vargina, ir užknisa, bet sykiu, kai jau pabaigi knygą, ir vėl iš naujo žavi.
2. MUILO OPEROS A.K.A. ŠEKSPYRO PABAIGA, KUR PAAIŠKĖJA, KAD JI VISADA JĮ MYLĖJO, TIK NEDRĮSO PASAKYTI, BET DABAR JAU DRĮSTA IR PLANUOJA ATVAŽIUOTI, O JIS JAU MIRŠTA, LOL.
Teksto struktūra panaši į "Petro imperatorės" (ir sykiu tikresnė): pasakotojas naktį nemiega, merdi, jam į galvą plūsta visokiausi atsiminimai, istorijos, kliedesiai ir fantazijos. Pasakotojas - jaunas austras muzikologas, nelaimingai įsimylėjęs Rytų tyrinėtoją Sarą ir su ja keliskart keliavęs po Rytus, senovinius griuvėsius ir miestus, aptarinėjęs ir aiškinęsis orientalizmą, skaitęs Rytų poeziją, susirašinėjęs, ieškojęs Rytų atšvaitų Vakarų kultūroj ir visą laiką rasdavęs tai, kuo įsitikinęs, - kad Rytų ir Vakarų perskyra yra dirbtinė ir schematiška, kad Rytai nėra kažkas kita, nepažinu, kad jie visada jau yra paveikę Vakarus - jų architektūra jau perimta, jų poezija jau paveikusi gausybę rašytojų ir tt. Lyriška, bet gražu - kai jis kalba, kad, pvz, Islamo valstybės ar kitų radikalų kraujo karai ir egzekucijos rytiečiui yra tokie pat baisūs, atgrasūs ir nesuvokiami kaip vakariečiui.
(Vyrišką giminę palieku sąmoningai, nes nors knyga persunkta progresyvumo, žingsnių anapus dirbtinių skirčių ir barjerų - taip pat ir lyčių, tas ribų perženginėjimas atrodo labai... akademinis, pavargęs, kaip ir ta ilga merdėjimo naktis.)
Labai patiko:
1. Visas jauno žmogaus nuovargis, silpnumas ir to sąsaja su akademiniu buvimu - gal net ne tiek univeru, kiek apskritai darbo ir žiūrėjimo į gyvenimą būdu. Kai tu renki renki renki info, daug jos atsimeni, ji tarpusavyje nebūtinai rišasi - rišasi nebent per asociacijas ar minčių šuolius. Atsimenu, Andriuškevičius rašė: aš esu konsteliacija tekstų, kurie niekaip kitaip nesiriša, kaip tik mano galvoje. Tai "Kompasas" yra tobula iliustracija, žvilgsnis į žmogaus protą - net nebūtinai akademiko, bet gal labiausiai akademiko, nes būtent tokiam prote - įsivaizduoju - daugiausiai koliažo, paskirų vaizdinių (o ne dinamikos ar veiksmų grandinių). Taip pat ir šiaip akademikų ir akademikių aprašymai:
Sara jautėsi labai laiminga atsidūrusi tarp visų tų orientalistų ir juos stebėdama: kartais atrodydavo, kad ji aprašinėja zoologijos sodą, žmones narvuose, kurių daugelis pasiduodavo paranojai, prarasdavo sveiką protą ir išsiugdydavo nuostabią neapykantą vieni kitiems, beprotybę, įvairiausias patologijas, odos ligas, mistinius kliedesius, obsesijas, mokslines blokuotes, verčiančias juos dirbti ir dirbti, valandų valandas trinti alkūnėmis rašomuosius stalus nieko nesukuriant, nieko, išskyrus smegenų garą, išsprūstantį pro to garbingo instituto langus ir ištirpstantį Damasko ore. Kai kurie uoliai lankydavosi bibliotekoje naktimis; vaikščiodavo tarp lentynų kiauras valandas, tikėdamiesi, kad spausdinta medžiaga galiausiai ims tekėti, prisodrins juos mokslu ir baigdavo paieškas paryčiais, viskuo nusivylę, susmukę kur kampe, kol juos papurtydavo į darbą atėję bibliotekininkai. (p. 126-127)
2. Gražiausias ir sykiu turbūt tipiškiausias sakinys, kur užtenka perskaityt ir žinai, ar norėsi visą knygą skaityti, ar užknis (dėčiau tokius ant ketvirto viršelio):
Laikas atsiėmė savo teises į "Sissi House"; "Barono" viešbutis dar laikosi, užvertos jo langinės miega kietu miegu laukdamos, kada gi "Islamo valstybės" galvažudžiai įkurs ten savo generalinį štabą, pavers jį kalėjimu, seifu arba galiausiai susprogdins: susprogdins mano gėdą ir negęstantį jos prisiminimą drauge su šitiekos keliautojų atmintimi, dulkės užklos Anemari, T. E. Lorensą, Agatą Kristi, Saros kambarį, didelį koridorių (geometrinių motyvų plytelės, sienos nulakuotos kremine spalva); aukštos lubos užgrius laiptų aikštelę, kur stovėjo dvi didelės kedro skrynios, nostalgijos karstai su memorialinėmis plokštėmis: "London - Baghdad in 8 days by Simplon Orient Express and Taurus express", nuolaužos praris monumentalius laiptus, kuriais kopiau, pagautas staigaus impulso, praėjus ketvirčiui valandos po to, kai Sara apie vidurnaktį nusprendė eiti gulti: vėl regiu save beldžiant į jos duris, dvivėres medines duris pageltusiais dažais, krumpliai - prie trijų metalinių skaičių, aš pilnas baimės, ryžto, vilties ir apakimo, suspausta krūtine, kaip žmogus, puolęs veikti, trokštantis rasti lovoje būtybę, kurią jis jautė po antklode Palmyroje, ir pratęsti tai, kas buvo, įsikibti, panirt į užmarštį, į pojūčių pasotinimą, kad švelnumas nuvytų melancholiją, kad godus kito tyrinėjimas pralaužtų tavo paties tvirtovės pylimus. (p. 220)
3. Visa poezija (nuostabiai išversta Vlado Braziūno ir Lanio Breilio). Čia Pessoa seka Chajamu:
Sako, kad Chajamo kapą puošia
Nišapūro svaigiai kvapnios rožės.
Bet kape nėr gerojo Chajamo:
Jis čionai, ir jis - tai mūsų rožės. (p. 427, vertė Breilis)
4. Įsidėjau į to-read sąrašą - Annemarie Schwarzenbach. (Turbūt niekada ir neperskaitysiu, neatrodo, kad versta į anglų, bet, kaip ir daugybė dalykų "Kompase", paliko tą įspūdį - norėčiau daugiau apie juos sužinoti, nepamiršti, nors turbūt jau ir pamiršau net nebaigus knygos.)
Nepatiko:
1. Praktiškai viskas tas pats, kas ir patiko. Ne visada esi nuotaikoj tokioms dozėms egocentriškos melancholijos, ne visada gali pakančiai žiūrėti į tas nesibaigiančias kančias (pas Sabaliauskaitę tai bent veiksmo užtektinai :D ), bet svarbiausia - ne visada pakeli savo kaip skaitytojo/s ribotumą, kad pusė, du trečdaliai, šeši septintadaliai knygos tau nėra ir niekad nebus prieinama, nes neištirsi nei 19 amžiaus Europos kultūros, nei visų amžių Rytų kultūrų ir mąstysenų, nes Rytų yra tiek daug, jie tokie visokie, o galiausiai supranti, kad lygiai tiek pat daug yra Vakarų, kuriuos tu atseit jau turėtum pažinoti, bet anaiptol nepažįsti, ir tas nervina, ir vargina, ir užknisa, bet sykiu, kai jau pabaigi knygą, ir vėl iš naujo žavi.
2. MUILO OPEROS A.K.A. ŠEKSPYRO PABAIGA, KUR PAAIŠKĖJA, KAD JI VISADA JĮ MYLĖJO, TIK NEDRĮSO PASAKYTI, BET DABAR JAU DRĮSTA IR PLANUOJA ATVAŽIUOTI, O JIS JAU MIRŠTA, LOL.
December 18, 2017
I mille e un Oriente
Vincitore nel 2015 del prestigioso premio letterario francese Goncourt, “Bussola� non è un romanzo di facile recensione. Che cosa racconta?
Una storia d’amore, anzi due storie d’amore: prima di tutto, quella tra una donna e un uomo, due orientalisti che per anni s’incontrano, fuggono e s’inseguono tra Europa, Turchia, Siria e Iran; sullo sfondo, superba e affascinante cornice, la seconda storia d’amore che per gran parte del libro sembra offuscare la prima: quella tra Occidente e Oriente (in particolare, quello più prossimo), inquieta e ancestrale passione, raccontata attraverso le tantissime piccole grandi storie di coloro che di essa, in passato così come in tempi più recenti, fecero una ragione di vita. Scrittori e studiosi a vario titolo, viaggiatori, avventurieri e sognatori� È lunga la lista degli occidentali irrimediabilmente stregati dall’Oriente: tra queste oltre quattrocento densissime pagine si susseguono nomi europei ben noti legati, in un modo o nell’altro, al mondo orientale. E si scoprono cose curiose e interessanti. Non sapevo, per esempio, che Flaubert avesse tenuto un diario egiziano né che Goethe si fosse dilettato a scrivere esercizi di lingua araba. Nel nostro vecchio continente c’� molto più Oriente di quanto si creda; e in Oriente, paradossalmente, esiste molto dell’Oriente stesso rielaborato dall’Occidente.
“[…] lampade fornite di genio, tappeti volanti e pantofole miracolose; dimostrerebbe come questi oggetti sono il risultato di sforzi successivi comuni, e come ciò che consideriamo puramente “orientale� è in realtà molto spesso la ripresa di un elemento “occidentale� che a sua volta modifica un elemento “orientale� precedente, e così di seguito; ne trarrebbe la conclusione che Oriente e Occidente non appaiono mai separatamente, e sono sempre fusi, presenti uno nell’altro […]�
Un’opera straordinaria e monumentale che racchiude storia, letteratura, musica, nonché esotismo ed erotismo davvero raffinati: un’erudizione sconfinata in materia di Oriente e orientalismo, che sono viaggio, esplorazione continua, forse pure perdizione. Considerati gli specifici riferimenti geografici, letterari e linguistici ad arabo e persiano, purtroppo non si tratta di una lettura per tutti, semmai per appassionati del settore, altrimenti essa rischia di annoiare o, peggio, di non essere capita.
E a me, indegna appassionata di questioni orientali, che cosa ha lasciato questo libro?
Moltissimo, più di quanto potessi immaginare. Anzitutto, una bella lista di nomi dei quali approfondire la conoscenza (in testa, quelli dell’avventuriera francese Marga d'Andurain, della scrittrice e fotografa svizzera Annemarie Schwarzenbach e dello scrittore iraniano Sadeq Hedayat); poi, il promemoria relativo a una lettura di Edward Sa’id che avevo interrotto quand’ero più giovane; infine, oltre a quello per i miei ormai lontani giorni d’Oriente, anche il rimpianto di non essermi recata in Siria quando, per diverso tempo, mi trovavo a un tiro di schioppo dalla frontiera e gli schioppi, quelli veri, ancora tacevano.
Énard dipinge splendide descrizioni di Aleppo, di Palmira e del deserto siriano sospeso tra la notte stellata e lo sbocciar dell’aurora. Uno strazio profondo al pensiero di ciò che il Paese è diventato dopo ormai sei anni di guerra: un cumulo insanguinato di macerie e morte, perenne monumento alla stupidità e crudeltà umane.
Vincitore nel 2015 del prestigioso premio letterario francese Goncourt, “Bussola� non è un romanzo di facile recensione. Che cosa racconta?
Una storia d’amore, anzi due storie d’amore: prima di tutto, quella tra una donna e un uomo, due orientalisti che per anni s’incontrano, fuggono e s’inseguono tra Europa, Turchia, Siria e Iran; sullo sfondo, superba e affascinante cornice, la seconda storia d’amore che per gran parte del libro sembra offuscare la prima: quella tra Occidente e Oriente (in particolare, quello più prossimo), inquieta e ancestrale passione, raccontata attraverso le tantissime piccole grandi storie di coloro che di essa, in passato così come in tempi più recenti, fecero una ragione di vita. Scrittori e studiosi a vario titolo, viaggiatori, avventurieri e sognatori� È lunga la lista degli occidentali irrimediabilmente stregati dall’Oriente: tra queste oltre quattrocento densissime pagine si susseguono nomi europei ben noti legati, in un modo o nell’altro, al mondo orientale. E si scoprono cose curiose e interessanti. Non sapevo, per esempio, che Flaubert avesse tenuto un diario egiziano né che Goethe si fosse dilettato a scrivere esercizi di lingua araba. Nel nostro vecchio continente c’� molto più Oriente di quanto si creda; e in Oriente, paradossalmente, esiste molto dell’Oriente stesso rielaborato dall’Occidente.
“[…] lampade fornite di genio, tappeti volanti e pantofole miracolose; dimostrerebbe come questi oggetti sono il risultato di sforzi successivi comuni, e come ciò che consideriamo puramente “orientale� è in realtà molto spesso la ripresa di un elemento “occidentale� che a sua volta modifica un elemento “orientale� precedente, e così di seguito; ne trarrebbe la conclusione che Oriente e Occidente non appaiono mai separatamente, e sono sempre fusi, presenti uno nell’altro […]�
Un’opera straordinaria e monumentale che racchiude storia, letteratura, musica, nonché esotismo ed erotismo davvero raffinati: un’erudizione sconfinata in materia di Oriente e orientalismo, che sono viaggio, esplorazione continua, forse pure perdizione. Considerati gli specifici riferimenti geografici, letterari e linguistici ad arabo e persiano, purtroppo non si tratta di una lettura per tutti, semmai per appassionati del settore, altrimenti essa rischia di annoiare o, peggio, di non essere capita.
E a me, indegna appassionata di questioni orientali, che cosa ha lasciato questo libro?
Moltissimo, più di quanto potessi immaginare. Anzitutto, una bella lista di nomi dei quali approfondire la conoscenza (in testa, quelli dell’avventuriera francese Marga d'Andurain, della scrittrice e fotografa svizzera Annemarie Schwarzenbach e dello scrittore iraniano Sadeq Hedayat); poi, il promemoria relativo a una lettura di Edward Sa’id che avevo interrotto quand’ero più giovane; infine, oltre a quello per i miei ormai lontani giorni d’Oriente, anche il rimpianto di non essermi recata in Siria quando, per diverso tempo, mi trovavo a un tiro di schioppo dalla frontiera e gli schioppi, quelli veri, ancora tacevano.
Énard dipinge splendide descrizioni di Aleppo, di Palmira e del deserto siriano sospeso tra la notte stellata e lo sbocciar dell’aurora. Uno strazio profondo al pensiero di ciò che il Paese è diventato dopo ormai sei anni di guerra: un cumulo insanguinato di macerie e morte, perenne monumento alla stupidità e crudeltà umane.
Read
June 24, 2022Video review, along with other Énard books:
September 15, 2019
البوصلة.....ماتياس إينار
رواية عظيمة، دسمة، اختلط فيها الشرق مع الغرب لينتج نص روائي متين ساحر، يمشي الكاتب فيها على نسق من الغرابة المحببة لنفس كل قاريء، ولم تخل رواياته من كلام مطول عن الشرق ونصوصه البديعة، ولا سيما كلامه عن بومة هدايت العمياء، فقد قدم لها إينار تصور مذهل يشجع المرء على إعادة قراءتها.
بين عواصم أوروبا وعواصم الشام وإيران، ينتقل الكاتب بانسيابية يُحسد عليها، مستعيدا ذكريات وأحداث ناسجا منها حكاياته لتكون في النهاية نص عظيم.
الرواية ممتازة، متماسكة محبوكة، فيها من الخيال والحقيقة ما يعطيها قوة هائلة، وتُقرأ مرات ومرات بدون ملل أو ثقل، وخاصة لمحبي المزج بين الشرق والغرب في الكتابة.
January 12, 2018
RE-VISITED (NOT FULLY RE-READ - SEE COMMENTS BELOW) DUE TO ITS LONGLISTING FOR THE REPUBLIC OF CONSCIOUSNESS PRIZE
Fitzcarraldo Editions is an independent publisher (their words) specialising in contemporary fiction and long-form essays �.. it focuses on ambitious, imaginative and innovative writing, both in translation and in the English language . Their novels are (my words) distinctively and beautifully styled, with plain, deep blue covers and a "French-flap" style ....
And that serves as something of an introduction to this novel ........ distinctive, at times beautiful styled, but also very French - a winner of the Prix Goncourt, the most prestigious French literary prize - but perhaps a novel less designed obviously appealing to non-French speaking literary tastes (it was shortlisted for but did not win the 2017 Man Booker International Prize).
Ostensibly the set-up of this novel is that it is set over a single night of insomnia, as Franz Ritter (an Austrian Musicologist, suffering from an unnamed, but he believes, serious illness) thinks back on his various travels and researches in the Middle East and in particular his (at least on his side) obsessive relationship with a French academic, Sarah.
In practice this book is more of a Sebald-esque meditation on the Middle East (particularly Syria, Iran and Turkey), on Orientalism, and the relationships and interactions of Westerners (archaeologists, writers, musicians, academics) with that area over the last few centuries.
Sarah’s central thesis (one which explicitly rejects Edward Said’s “Orientalism�) about this relationship is that:
The actual conceit of the novel is very weak � Ritter’s feverish thoughts seem to allow him to reproduce details both of his own adventures and (even more unlikely) various historical episodes in encyclopaedic (and often also tedious) delay including with reproductions of articles and documents, which are sometimes excused by Ritter apparently getting up to look at them, but which at other times are unexplained.
At times also the book turns effectively into a non-fictional book or perhaps more of some form of cultural essay or doctoral thesis � and, it has to be said, a poorly organised and at times tedious one. I found at times myself sympathising with Ritter’s own thoughts
And only wishing he would have followed through on an early resolution
However overall, I found that on a first read I was just about able to skim read the more tedious passages and instead join Ritter in abandoning myself to his memory: to the overall impressions he creates both of the cities in which he stays (Damascus, Aleppo, Palmyra, Tehran, Istanbul, Vienna); to the complexities and depths of his relationship with Sarah (an aspect which grows in strength as the book progresses and particularly as we understand the ambiguities of Sarah’s reciprocal feelings).
On a second read - I realised that this is a book to be dipped into, to lose oneself in one of Franz's digressions for 15 minutes just before sleeping makes a wonderful digression ..... but trying to read it conventionally and serially is challenging (despite its conceit of it taking place over a single night). Perhaps in this way the novel mirrors a night of insomnia and fever, drifting between chains of association.
The book increases in power due to its topicality � much of Ritter and Sarah’s early travels are in areas of Syria which Ritter is now aware are at the heart of the Syrian civil war and ISIS’s atrocities and this adds added urgency to the attempts to really understand the Orient.
Overall a flawed novel but an important and, if approached in the correct way, ultimately enjoyable one.
Fitzcarraldo Editions is an independent publisher (their words) specialising in contemporary fiction and long-form essays �.. it focuses on ambitious, imaginative and innovative writing, both in translation and in the English language . Their novels are (my words) distinctively and beautifully styled, with plain, deep blue covers and a "French-flap" style ....
And that serves as something of an introduction to this novel ........ distinctive, at times beautiful styled, but also very French - a winner of the Prix Goncourt, the most prestigious French literary prize - but perhaps a novel less designed obviously appealing to non-French speaking literary tastes (it was shortlisted for but did not win the 2017 Man Booker International Prize).
Ostensibly the set-up of this novel is that it is set over a single night of insomnia, as Franz Ritter (an Austrian Musicologist, suffering from an unnamed, but he believes, serious illness) thinks back on his various travels and researches in the Middle East and in particular his (at least on his side) obsessive relationship with a French academic, Sarah.
In practice this book is more of a Sebald-esque meditation on the Middle East (particularly Syria, Iran and Turkey), on Orientalism, and the relationships and interactions of Westerners (archaeologists, writers, musicians, academics) with that area over the last few centuries.
Sarah’s central thesis (one which explicitly rejects Edward Said’s “Orientalism�) about this relationship is that:
What we regard as Oriental is in fact very often the repetition of a ‘western� element that itself modifies another previous ‘Oriental� element, and so on � the Orient and the Occidental never appear separately, they are always intermingled, present in each other and ..these words � Orient, Occidental - have no more heuristic value than the unreachable directions they designate.
The actual conceit of the novel is very weak � Ritter’s feverish thoughts seem to allow him to reproduce details both of his own adventures and (even more unlikely) various historical episodes in encyclopaedic (and often also tedious) delay including with reproductions of articles and documents, which are sometimes excused by Ritter apparently getting up to look at them, but which at other times are unexplained.
At times also the book turns effectively into a non-fictional book or perhaps more of some form of cultural essay or doctoral thesis � and, it has to be said, a poorly organised and at times tedious one. I found at times myself sympathising with Ritter’s own thoughts
What an atrocity to think that some people find dreaming pleasant .... It's so tiresome
And only wishing he would have followed through on an early resolution
I'll try to reduce my thoughts to silence, instead of abandoning myself to memory
However overall, I found that on a first read I was just about able to skim read the more tedious passages and instead join Ritter in abandoning myself to his memory: to the overall impressions he creates both of the cities in which he stays (Damascus, Aleppo, Palmyra, Tehran, Istanbul, Vienna); to the complexities and depths of his relationship with Sarah (an aspect which grows in strength as the book progresses and particularly as we understand the ambiguities of Sarah’s reciprocal feelings).
On a second read - I realised that this is a book to be dipped into, to lose oneself in one of Franz's digressions for 15 minutes just before sleeping makes a wonderful digression ..... but trying to read it conventionally and serially is challenging (despite its conceit of it taking place over a single night). Perhaps in this way the novel mirrors a night of insomnia and fever, drifting between chains of association.
The book increases in power due to its topicality � much of Ritter and Sarah’s early travels are in areas of Syria which Ritter is now aware are at the heart of the Syrian civil war and ISIS’s atrocities and this adds added urgency to the attempts to really understand the Orient.
Sarah talked to me about her thesis …�. , Hedayat, Schwarzenbach, her beloved characters; about those mirrors between East and East that she wanted to break, she said by making the promenade continue. Bring to light the rhizomes of that common construction of modernity. Show that “Orientals� were not excluded from it, but that, quite the contrary, they were often the inspiration behind it, the initiators, the active participants, to show that in the end Said’s theories had become, despite themselves, one of the most subtle instruments of domination there are: the question was not whether Said was right or wrong in his vision of Orientalism; the problem was the breach, the ontological fissure his readers had allowed between a dominating West and a dominated East, a breach that by opening up a well beyond colonial studies, contributed to the realisation of the model it created, that completed a posteriori the scenario of domination which Said’s thinking meant to oppose. Whereas history could be read in an entirely different way, she said, written in an entirely different way, in sharing and continuity. She spoke at length on the postcolonial holy trinity � Said, Bhabha, Spivak; on the question of imperialism, of difference, of the 21st-century, when, facing violence, we needed more than ever to rid ourselves of the absolute otherness of Islam and to admit not only the terrifying violence of colonialism but also all that Europe owed to the Orient � the impossibility of separating from each other, the necessity of changing our perspective. We had to find, she said, beyond the stupid repentance of some or the colonial nostalgia of others, a new vision that includes the other or the self. On both sides.
Overall a flawed novel but an important and, if approached in the correct way, ultimately enjoyable one.
November 25, 2023
## Con sofferenza e amore, al sorgere del giorno
GDL PIANOBI
Per scoraggiare subito chi volesse leggere questo libro: non c’� nessuna trama, di più, nessun tipo di azione. Franz, il protagonista e unico personaggio in scena, va a dormire e per 400 pagine seguiamo la sua notte insonne. Qualche rumore dall’appartamento soprastante del sig. Gruper e cane. Una tisana nel corso della notte. Fine.
Questo in apparenza. In realtà seguendo i pensieri insonni di Franz si apre un racconto multistrato con un reticolo di storie e personaggi. Un flusso di pensiero che fluttua non troppo linearmente nel tempo e travolge per la mole di informazioni che ti invoglia, a mo� di ipertesto, ad approfondire googlando.
In partenza e al centro c’� Franz, professore universitario di musicologia a Vienna. Franz ha un qualche tipo di malattia, forse mortalmente grave, forse no, forse immaginaria. Il rapporto con il suo medico, dott. Kraus, è dialettico. Scoprire gli esiti di questa malattia è un elemento di suspence che ti invoglia a proseguire. Franz è tendenzialmente malinconico, con un pizzico di ironia. Franz scandisce il tempo del libro, la sua notte (ed il titolo dei capitoli) va dalle 11 di sera alle 7 di mattina, ed il tempo dei ricordi, spalmati in un arco di oltre 20 anni. Il tempo, il suo scorrere, è uno degli strati del libro. Una citazione di Proust c’�.
La affascinante Sarah, studiosa di storia orientale, è il suo amore della vita, poco corrisposto. Capire se questo amore si realizzerà è un altro elemento di suspence. Sì, è anche una storia di amore. Fuori dai canoni. Per me i momenti più belli di questo amore sono stati quelli poco eclatanti, minimi se vogliamo, ma molto dolci nella loro intimità: sotto una tenda tra le rovine di Palmira, affiancati ad un concerto di musica iraniana, in pranzi e cene a due ad Aleppo, Parigi, Vienna/Austria.
Si conoscono nel giro degli “orientalisti�, esperti di storia e cultura medio-orientale. E questo è uno degli strati del libro, il mondo di questi cultori della materia, tra cui, inaspettatamente, anche alcuni italiani.
Franz e Sarah, assieme e in solitaria, battono a lungo l’oriente - Turchia, Siria, Iran, i Balcani - e l’oriente oltre l’oriente - India, Borneo. E noi con loro. Un altro strato del libro: il racconto di viaggio.
E� l‘Oriente la stella polare del libro: la bussola di Franz, regalo di Sarah, non segna il nord, segna l’Est. Quell’Oriente che non è lontano e che ha influenze e ibridazioni con l’occidente. Una tesi che Franz/Enard cerca di dimostrare con una molteplicità di digressioni eruditissime che mostrano questo intreccio che parte dal dato storico/militare e si dispiega in letteratura, poesia, arte, musica, avventurieri, diplomatici. Questo strato, tutte queste storie, costituiscono una parte fondamentale del del libro.
Che ci porta agli ultimi due strati: uno personale e uno politico.
Sul piano personale, tante figure del libro ci rappresentano anche una crisi interiore una crisi che a volte è combattuta con l’oppio (rimanendo sulla via orientale), o con l’alcol, a volte sfocia drammaticamente in suicidio. Una crisi, , un dis-orienta-mento, una perdita di direzione e di senso, che origina dalla presa di coscienza della finitudine del tempo e delle cose, da una fessurazione tra il sè, i diversi sè e l’altro in senso lato. Riconoscere l’alterità, l’altro, e sentirlo nel sè, farlo proprio, è la via che Enard ci indica: sentire il fluire del tutto, sofferenza-amore-morte-compassione-rinnovamento, e trovare una pace interiore, idealmente fino al satori buddista.
Sul piano politico, questo potrebbe trasporsi in una pace ‘politica� tra cristiani e mussulmani: al tempo in cui è stato scritto Bussola imperversavano in Siria i tagliagole dell’Isis. Oggi potremmo dire anche tra russi e ucraini/europei, israeliani e palestinesi, ora come allora, in senso generale, tra noi occidentali e gli “altri� (Brics).
Mantenendo sempre viva la speranza, perchè il sole sorge sempre, a Est.
Delacroix, Donne di Algeri nei loro appartamenti, 1834
Annemarie Schwarzenbach
"Sarah...era felice di ritrovare l’ombra di Annemarie Schwarzenbach, la sua svizzerina errante, che aveva trascinato lì il suo spleen durante l’inverno 1933-1934 � erano crollate le ultime vestigia della Repubblica di Weimar, Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer risonava su tutta la Germania e la giovane Annemarie viaggiava disperatamente per sottrarsi alla tristezza europea che invadeva anche Zurigo. Il 6 dicembre 1933 Annemarie arrivò ad Aleppo, all’hotel Baron; Sarah era al settimo cielo quando, su una pagina ingiallita e polverosa, scoprì la calligrafia sottile e raccolta della viaggiatrice che aveva compilato in francese il modulo di arrivo"
Tempio di Baal, Palmira, distrutto dall’ISIS
GDL PIANOBI
Per scoraggiare subito chi volesse leggere questo libro: non c’� nessuna trama, di più, nessun tipo di azione. Franz, il protagonista e unico personaggio in scena, va a dormire e per 400 pagine seguiamo la sua notte insonne. Qualche rumore dall’appartamento soprastante del sig. Gruper e cane. Una tisana nel corso della notte. Fine.
Questo in apparenza. In realtà seguendo i pensieri insonni di Franz si apre un racconto multistrato con un reticolo di storie e personaggi. Un flusso di pensiero che fluttua non troppo linearmente nel tempo e travolge per la mole di informazioni che ti invoglia, a mo� di ipertesto, ad approfondire googlando.
In partenza e al centro c’� Franz, professore universitario di musicologia a Vienna. Franz ha un qualche tipo di malattia, forse mortalmente grave, forse no, forse immaginaria. Il rapporto con il suo medico, dott. Kraus, è dialettico. Scoprire gli esiti di questa malattia è un elemento di suspence che ti invoglia a proseguire. Franz è tendenzialmente malinconico, con un pizzico di ironia. Franz scandisce il tempo del libro, la sua notte (ed il titolo dei capitoli) va dalle 11 di sera alle 7 di mattina, ed il tempo dei ricordi, spalmati in un arco di oltre 20 anni. Il tempo, il suo scorrere, è uno degli strati del libro. Una citazione di Proust c’�.
La affascinante Sarah, studiosa di storia orientale, è il suo amore della vita, poco corrisposto. Capire se questo amore si realizzerà è un altro elemento di suspence. Sì, è anche una storia di amore. Fuori dai canoni. Per me i momenti più belli di questo amore sono stati quelli poco eclatanti, minimi se vogliamo, ma molto dolci nella loro intimità: sotto una tenda tra le rovine di Palmira, affiancati ad un concerto di musica iraniana, in pranzi e cene a due ad Aleppo, Parigi, Vienna/Austria.
Si conoscono nel giro degli “orientalisti�, esperti di storia e cultura medio-orientale. E questo è uno degli strati del libro, il mondo di questi cultori della materia, tra cui, inaspettatamente, anche alcuni italiani.
Franz e Sarah, assieme e in solitaria, battono a lungo l’oriente - Turchia, Siria, Iran, i Balcani - e l’oriente oltre l’oriente - India, Borneo. E noi con loro. Un altro strato del libro: il racconto di viaggio.
E� l‘Oriente la stella polare del libro: la bussola di Franz, regalo di Sarah, non segna il nord, segna l’Est. Quell’Oriente che non è lontano e che ha influenze e ibridazioni con l’occidente. Una tesi che Franz/Enard cerca di dimostrare con una molteplicità di digressioni eruditissime che mostrano questo intreccio che parte dal dato storico/militare e si dispiega in letteratura, poesia, arte, musica, avventurieri, diplomatici. Questo strato, tutte queste storie, costituiscono una parte fondamentale del del libro.
Che ci porta agli ultimi due strati: uno personale e uno politico.
Sul piano personale, tante figure del libro ci rappresentano anche una crisi interiore una crisi che a volte è combattuta con l’oppio (rimanendo sulla via orientale), o con l’alcol, a volte sfocia drammaticamente in suicidio. Una crisi, , un dis-orienta-mento, una perdita di direzione e di senso, che origina dalla presa di coscienza della finitudine del tempo e delle cose, da una fessurazione tra il sè, i diversi sè e l’altro in senso lato. Riconoscere l’alterità, l’altro, e sentirlo nel sè, farlo proprio, è la via che Enard ci indica: sentire il fluire del tutto, sofferenza-amore-morte-compassione-rinnovamento, e trovare una pace interiore, idealmente fino al satori buddista.
Sul piano politico, questo potrebbe trasporsi in una pace ‘politica� tra cristiani e mussulmani: al tempo in cui è stato scritto Bussola imperversavano in Siria i tagliagole dell’Isis. Oggi potremmo dire anche tra russi e ucraini/europei, israeliani e palestinesi, ora come allora, in senso generale, tra noi occidentali e gli “altri� (Brics).
Mantenendo sempre viva la speranza, perchè il sole sorge sempre, a Est.
Delacroix, Donne di Algeri nei loro appartamenti, 1834
Annemarie Schwarzenbach
"Sarah...era felice di ritrovare l’ombra di Annemarie Schwarzenbach, la sua svizzerina errante, che aveva trascinato lì il suo spleen durante l’inverno 1933-1934 � erano crollate le ultime vestigia della Repubblica di Weimar, Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer risonava su tutta la Germania e la giovane Annemarie viaggiava disperatamente per sottrarsi alla tristezza europea che invadeva anche Zurigo. Il 6 dicembre 1933 Annemarie arrivò ad Aleppo, all’hotel Baron; Sarah era al settimo cielo quando, su una pagina ingiallita e polverosa, scoprì la calligrafia sottile e raccolta della viaggiatrice che aveva compilato in francese il modulo di arrivo"
Tempio di Baal, Palmira, distrutto dall’ISIS
November 25, 2023
Франц Ритер, интровертни, анксиозни музиколог из Беча, током једне бесане ноћи присећаће се свог пређашњег живота, својих професионалних путовања и дужих боравака по Оријенту, пре свега Сирији и Ирану.
Древне рушевине Палмире, бучни сукови Алепа и убрзани живот велеграда какав је Техеран, све је то овде живо и готово опипљиво. Испреплетано, у мисли ће му долазити и прелепа Сара, врхунски познавалац Оријента, његова честа професионална сапутница, али и дугогодишња емотивна чежња.
На свакој страници види се изузетна ерудиција аутора; он са лакоћом прелази из епохе у епоху, мења углове посматрања, описује револуције, скицира друштвена таласања и открива читав један нови свет, маестрално и живо приповедајући.
Матијас Енар овом књигом одаје огромну почаст оријенталној култури, показујући њену недељивост и неодвојивост од онога што се сматра западним културним вредностима. Изузетно ми прија како Енар пише и подстиче на даље истраживање.
Ово је заиста једно ремек-дело и радујем се даљем откривању Енарових дела.
Древне рушевине Палмире, бучни сукови Алепа и убрзани живот велеграда какав је Техеран, све је то овде живо и готово опипљиво. Испреплетано, у мисли ће му долазити и прелепа Сара, врхунски познавалац Оријента, његова честа професионална сапутница, али и дугогодишња емотивна чежња.
На свакој страници види се изузетна ерудиција аутора; он са лакоћом прелази из епохе у епоху, мења углове посматрања, описује револуције, скицира друштвена таласања и открива читав један нови свет, маестрално и живо приповедајући.
Матијас Енар овом књигом одаје огромну почаст оријенталној култури, показујући њену недељивост и неодвојивост од онога што се сматра западним културним вредностима. Изузетно ми прија како Енар пише и подстиче на даље истраживање.
Ово је заиста једно ремек-дело и радујем се даљем откривању Енарових дела.
May 20, 2017
Énard has written a masterwork, a long meditation on the Other, as embodied in his two main characters and their lifelong study of the idea and reality of the ‘Orient� and the West. The entire work consists of the reminiscences of insomniac, fiftyish (?) Franz over one night as he wrestles with the knowledge that he has a fatal disease and has failed in a lifelong attempt to win Sarah, the object of his obsession. The irony, we come to see, is that despite his long academic meditations on the necessity of recognizing the self in the other, Orient in Occident and vice-versa, he is so self-absorbed that he misses every chance to hear Sarah and to respond to her alterity, to absorb her being into himself and become vulnerable to her. Sarah, a very successful academic, has her own weaknesses, a steely ambition and shell that prevent her from being honest with him.
Their story is interwoven integrally over the period of about twenty-five years, as these two Occident academics criss-cross the “Orient� researching a wide range of concepts about how the two spatial and mindset constructs of Orient and Occident affect each other. A dark current running throughout is the collapse of the old Islamic/Persian world, and destruction of the cultural treasures and culture of that world.
There is so much pleasure in this book. The astoundingly wide-ranging erudition flows naturally through Franz’s reflections and his renditions of episodes in his and travels and researches over the course of decades in Europe and the ‘Orient.� Where the Orient starts and ‘ends� is one of the ongoing questions, as it might start in Vienna, flow through the Balkans, Istanbul, Syria, Iran,…all of which places they have been, and now even to Sarawak, where Sarah is living in the wild studying death wine. Sarah’s academic fascination with the macabre may have roots in her own otherness, a French Jew with an Algerian French mother. Franz is another sort of other, an awkward, hapless mama’s boy.
I came to Compass without the burden of Said’s Orientalism to color my reading. But I was so happy that over the past few years I had read so many of the authors referenced in Énard’s endless flow of reflections on the flow of literature from and about these countries. For some of them I have my ŷ friends to thank (e.g. Faris al-Shidyaq’s Leg over Leg) and for many others my chipping away at Philip Ward’s A Lifetime’s Reading. I expected the literary references; I wasn’t prepared for all of the musical commentary (Franz is a musicologist). Lists of sample references:
Literary/historical: Blind Owl by Sedegh Hedayat (on ongoing talisman work), Hofmannsthal, Danube by Magris, Hafez, Ta-abbata Sharran, Le Fanu, Rückert, Lousie Labé. Dumas, Grilllparzer, Balzac, Chateaubriand, Gomez de la Serna, Nerval, Richard Burton, Burckhard, Isabelle Eberhardt, Said, Trakl, Benn, Leopold Weiss, Hölderlin, Bloch, René Guenon, Lou Andreas-Salomé, Pierre Louÿs, Joseph Roth, Gautier, Lemaître, Luci Delarue-Mardrus, Proust, Schopenhauer, Pessoa, Rimbaud, Segelen, Hesse, Durrell, Govineau, Eliot, Avicenna, Ali Shariati, Khadjou, Nezami, Nima, Sepehri, Char, Heine (often), Suhrawardi, Mann (Doctor Faustus), Farugh Farrokhzad, Naim Frasheri Ebard, Ignac Goldziher, Flaubert, Sarga Moussa, Goethe (East West Divan), Hebraic love poetry of Andalusia, Masudi, Milarepa, Cervantes as the ultimate Orient-Occident melding author in Don Quixote.
Music: Tristan and Isuelt, Felicien David, Ismayl Urbain, Badr Shakir, Sayyab-Iraq, Szymanowski, Wagner, etc etc. I’m not a musician and didn’t make as many notes on them. I listened to several over the internet as I read to try to see what Enard was getting at, which was a delightful side benefit of Compass.
This should not be daunting but inspiring. Énard provides context for all of these references so that you know why he’s mentioning them. They give credence to Franz’s academic persona and substance to his arguments. Another irony, though, is that while Franz’s closely argued theories are persuasive and impressive, it is the quotes from Sarah’s papers and letters that show the agility and genius of a remarkable mind as it leaps to truly insightful and profound ideas about east and west, the other, death, the macabre, and so much else.
I’ve only read three of the nominees for the Man Booker, but this has got to get into the very short list. It is valuable book for our times as we try to find out way toward a way to overcome our seemingly innate self-other reactions that now threaten to destroy not the other, but ourselves.
Some quotes:
There is no such thing as chance. (p 10, again p 30 and throughout)
In the meantime, there had been Félicien David, Delacroix, Nerval, all those who visited the façade of the Orient, from Algeciras to Istanbul, or its backyard, from India to Cochin China; in the meantime, this Orient had revolutionized literature, and music, especially music: after Félicien David nothing would be the same…I’ve shown that the revolution in music in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries owed everything to the Orient, that it was not a matter of “exotic procedures,� as was thought before, this exoticism had a meaning, that it made external elements, alterity, enter, it was a large movement, and gathered together, among others, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Liszt, Berlioz, Bizet, Rimsky-Korsakov, Debussy, Bartók, Hindemith, Schönberg, Szymanowski, hundreds of composers throughout all of Europe, over all of Europe the wind of alterity blows, all these great men use what comes to them from the Other to modify the Self, to bastardize it, for genius wants bastardy, to use of external procedures to undermine the dictatorship of church chant and harmony�(p 140-141)
It would include a discussion of genie lamps, flying carpets, and fabulous slippers; she could show who these objects are the result of successive shared efforts, and how what we regard as purely “oriental� is in fact, very often, the repetition of a “Western� element that itself modifies another previous “Oriental� element, and so on; she could conclude that Orient and Occident never appear separately, that they are always intermingled, present in each other, and tahat these words—Orient, Occident—have no more heuristic value than the unreachable directions they designate. (p 210)
Sometimes I feel as if night has fallen, that Western darkness has invaded the Orient of enlightenment. That spirit and learning, the pleasures of the spirit and of learning, of Khayyam’s and Pessoa’s wine, have not been able to stand up to the twentieth century; I feel that the global construction of the world is no longer carried out by the exchange of love and ideas, but by violence and manufactured objects. Islamists fighting against Islam. The United States, Europe, at war against the other in the self. (p 398-399)
Life is a long meditation on death.
Remember the Death of Isolde, which you spoke to me about at such length? You heard in that a total love, of which Wagner himself wasn’t aware. A moment of love, of union, of unity with the Alll, unity between the Eastern enlightened ones and Western darkness, between text and music, between voice and orchestra. As for me, I hear in it the expression of compassion, karuna. Not just Eros seeking eternity. Music as the “universal expression of the suffering of the world,� said Nietzsche. This Isolde loves, at the instant of her death, so much, that she loves the entire world. Flesh allied with spirit. It’s a fragile instant. It contains the seed for its own destruction. Every work contains the seeds of its own destructions. Like us. We are equal neither to love nor to death. For that we need enlightenment, awareness�(p 442)
August 24, 2017
I made a start on this book several months ago when it was long listed for the Man Booker International prize. I gave up after a third of the book because I felt like I was being tortured by being force-fed Wikipedia articles.
This time, I stuck with it and made it to 100%.
I’m not at all sure what it is I want to say about this book, so I took the unusual (for me) step of looking at some other reviews before writing my own. There are two quotes from The Guardian that, I think, sum up my sentiments:
Fascinating though the facts often are, the scores of pages of this kind of thing are mainly rendered in detailed precis: there is very little direct speech in the novel, which helps to evoke the febrile meanderings of insomniac memory but it also threatens to send the reader, if not Franz, off to merciful sleep.
…and the book concludes with a surprisingly upbeat, if not sentimental, flourish. As the dawn does for our sleepless hero, this comes as a relief tothe reader, who emerges from this strangely powerful work as from a feverish dream.
I think one thing that helped me get to the end this time was the fact that I recently read and from the main Man Booker long list. Compass is a sort of meditation on the interaction between East and West and it often gave me cause to think back over those two books.
…she could show how these objects are the result of successive shared efforts, and how what we regard as purely ‘Oriental� is in fact, very often, the repetition of a ‘western� element that itself modifies another previous ‘Oriental� element, and so on; she could conclude that Orient and Occident never appear separately, that they are always intermingled, present in each other, and that these words � Orient, Occident � have no more heuristic value than the unreachable directions they designate.
This quote also highlights one of the problems I had with this book: the sentences are simply too long (this is a relatively short example) and I found it (even though I have read all of Pynchon!) rather mind-numbing.
That said, I think the mind-numbing is partly deliberate. The book is the rambling thoughts of Franz Ritter through a sleepless night. He is wrestling with his thwarted love for Sarah and remembering the times they have spent together. Both of them, in different fields, are fascinated by the interaction of East and West, so his thinking about Sarah feeds his thinking about Orientalism (and vice versa).
Unfortunately, I ended up in the place the narrator finds himself when considering a colleague
…he would pace up and down the corridors thinking out loud in a low voice, for hours, kilometres of corridors travelled, and this monody, as knowledgeable as it was unintelligible, got on my nerves terribly.
Last time I read this I abandoned it and gave it 1 star. This time, I have completed it and I am upping my rating because I can recognise the literary merit of the book. But I cannot claim to have enjoyed it, despite the odd flash of humour. So, 2 stars is as far as I can go. It’s won prizes already and may well go on to win more, but it’s not one I could support.
This time, I stuck with it and made it to 100%.
I’m not at all sure what it is I want to say about this book, so I took the unusual (for me) step of looking at some other reviews before writing my own. There are two quotes from The Guardian that, I think, sum up my sentiments:
Fascinating though the facts often are, the scores of pages of this kind of thing are mainly rendered in detailed precis: there is very little direct speech in the novel, which helps to evoke the febrile meanderings of insomniac memory but it also threatens to send the reader, if not Franz, off to merciful sleep.
…and the book concludes with a surprisingly upbeat, if not sentimental, flourish. As the dawn does for our sleepless hero, this comes as a relief tothe reader, who emerges from this strangely powerful work as from a feverish dream.
I think one thing that helped me get to the end this time was the fact that I recently read and from the main Man Booker long list. Compass is a sort of meditation on the interaction between East and West and it often gave me cause to think back over those two books.
…she could show how these objects are the result of successive shared efforts, and how what we regard as purely ‘Oriental� is in fact, very often, the repetition of a ‘western� element that itself modifies another previous ‘Oriental� element, and so on; she could conclude that Orient and Occident never appear separately, that they are always intermingled, present in each other, and that these words � Orient, Occident � have no more heuristic value than the unreachable directions they designate.
This quote also highlights one of the problems I had with this book: the sentences are simply too long (this is a relatively short example) and I found it (even though I have read all of Pynchon!) rather mind-numbing.
That said, I think the mind-numbing is partly deliberate. The book is the rambling thoughts of Franz Ritter through a sleepless night. He is wrestling with his thwarted love for Sarah and remembering the times they have spent together. Both of them, in different fields, are fascinated by the interaction of East and West, so his thinking about Sarah feeds his thinking about Orientalism (and vice versa).
Unfortunately, I ended up in the place the narrator finds himself when considering a colleague
…he would pace up and down the corridors thinking out loud in a low voice, for hours, kilometres of corridors travelled, and this monody, as knowledgeable as it was unintelligible, got on my nerves terribly.
Last time I read this I abandoned it and gave it 1 star. This time, I have completed it and I am upping my rating because I can recognise the literary merit of the book. But I cannot claim to have enjoyed it, despite the odd flash of humour. So, 2 stars is as far as I can go. It’s won prizes already and may well go on to win more, but it’s not one I could support.
December 25, 2021
Unfortunately, I must call a foul on this one. This otherwise ingenious book was ruined by it's own attempts to impress. In this review, I shall demonstrate why it is perfectly okay to not drool all over Mathias Énard's "Boussole," aka "Compass."
I was really looking forward to a stimulating literary romance that would give me a greater understanding of the soul of a region once dominated by the Ottomans, an area with a rich past sadly skimmed over in American world history courses and dominated by distrust due to international politics and religious conflict. Unfortunately, I don't think I can recall a more blatant example of how the industry of contemporary literature and art pulls the wool over the eyes of otherwise intelligent audiences hungry for cerebral stimulation.
First, let's take a look at the author's entry in Wikipedia, shall we?
Oh my... So many awards. So much recognition. He must be important. This is the guy to tell a story!
But beyond the list of pats on the back, Wikipedia offers little other information. Now, we all have heard the criticisms concerning Wikipedia, and considering the forum tends to be a "catch-all" kind of advertisement, the first item in a search when someone Google's the name of an artist, the people who wrote Énard's article knew what they were doing. It says hardly anything about the man himself or the kind of work he does. It doesn't say anything about the themes of his writings. There are no individual articles about his books.
"But Warren," I hear you cry, "They just haven't gotten to all that yet." Though the man has been steadily active since 2003, you may be right. But you can certainly see where the priorities are. His recognitions begin after the second sentence of the opening paragraph in his bio. Then, as if that were not eye-catching enough, the whole next section is entitled "Awards and Honours," before they even get to his list of works. Looking further down the search engine, you don't receive much more enlightenment from other sites, reviews, bios, or reportage. He's not a man--he's a PRIZE!
And word got out. Look at all the gushing reviews that mention "Short listed for Man Booker! Winner of the 2015 Prix Goncourt!" I certainly am not saying I know better than experienced literary judges, though I've read quite a few Pulitzer, Nobel, Nebula, Hugo, Bram Stoker, and other award winners and scratched my pointy head wondering what the hell they were thinking. I am suggesting that this author is in the right circles and echo-chambers, and these recognitions are big business for him and clearly preinform the reader's expectations of a quality literary experience. It certainly did for me.
But let's stop speculating and look at the contents of the novel itself. The basic premise is that a man named Franz is lying in bed suffering from insomnia during an unnamed illness (it's opioid withdrawal) and reminiscing about his life, mostly involving years of unrequited love with a woman named Sarah. We read about Franz's rendezvous with Sarah in picturesque locations, only to have them part in Damascus, and follow Franz's further travels and musings about the cultural connections and transition between the Occidental West and Oriental East while he dreams of reuniting with his high IQ lady friend. The two are committed intellectuals, and I am not even sure where they get all their money to be flitting about the world, touring historic locations, drinking fine wines, and waxing philosophic. Somehow I don't think research grants on European music in Istanbul would quite cut it, but if it does, then I'm in the wrong line of work. Maybe Énard could write books on finance next. Franz is not even portrayed as a human being. He is a musicologist first and foremost. Every thought he has is couched in musical and overall academia. I mean EVERY thought. You'll see what I mean later.
For now, let's just say that "Compass" is a prime demonstration of one of my few pet peeves when it comes to literature-- pseudo-intellectual posturing that some books purposefully geared towards an undefined class of "readers who like SERIOUS literature" are so often guilty. "Compass" is a non-stop onslaught of "erudition," a favorite word among reviews of this book, with the narrator spouting list after list of things he has studied or experienced--esoteric musical compositions, poets and novelists you've never heard of, disjointed slices of history trivia, cultural reminisces from his travels, etc. Certainly the inquisitive mind will find a lot of possibly interesting things to highlight and look up later, but I didn't think the point of this book was to be a Nurse With Wound list. You see what I did there? I purposefully threw in a reference that is sure to go right over the heads of many readers. Aren't I clever?
Let me explain. Nurse With Wound is an experimental musical act that for a long time contained a running gag on their albums which was to include a list of "cool stuff" that had been influential to the creation of their music. So at least my reference is relevant to this review by illustrating my main complaint about this book. Mathias Énard, on the other hand, simply throws a bunch of scholarly minutiae at us haphazardly, often with no context or relevance, at least not always apparent to the reader. I enjoy learning about my world and taking deep anthropological dives into human cultures, and I equally enjoy associating with great people who can enrich my soul and mind. But I swear that if I ever met this narrator in real life at, say, a cocktail party on the 67th floor of a Chicago condo, I'd be very tempted to do the world a favor and toss the pompous ass through the nearest window. And everyone would applaud too, or else never again invite me to another one of their parties.
I was attracted to this book because I wanted something meaty to chew on, as novels like these are often my virtual means of travel. As Publisher's Weekly put it: "For readers who ask literature to do what history and politics cannot..." That's me! PW also promised that "unraveling Énard's arabesque yields a bounty." And indeed, the book is dense with information, but instead of these details creating the rich tapestry I expected, "Énard's arabesque" felt artificial, forced, narcissistic, and pedantic. I knew going in that this was written as a stream of consciousness, but I still expected to read a novel. I didn't want a string of vomited disembodied encyclopedia entries or a file on the author's I-player. I guess this style of writing must have appealed to some folks, because when I've later read the four and five star reviews of this book, they rarely failed to reference the references! Fans have clearly expressed their gratitude over being introduced to some of the music, literature, history, and cultural landmarks mentioned in "Compass." I cannot deny that this is a good thing.
But then why did the author not just write a treatise regarding art and history, tracing the connection between the European West and culture of the 'Orient'? Énard is clearly writing from personal experience here, so much so that the narrator is obviously just him under the pseudonym of "Franz." But I suppose Énard did not want to go through the rigor of juried scholarship. And most importantly, an obvious academic work would have appealed to a limited audience with identified interests in Énard's areas of expertise. Easier, and far more profitable, to just write an autobiographical travelogue and market it as a work of haute literature. Now people who carefully follow the announcement for the Man Booker international prize long list, but who never would have ever spent two seconds considering the purchase of a book about Persian poets and sultans, are reading the very same material because they want to share vicariously in the prestige of having read something importantly cerebral to tell their friends about at their 67th floor condo party. And let's face it, this book would certainly have won no awards with more truthful titles such as "Dreaming about a Freckled Redhead in a Miniskirt," or "Everything I Ever Learned as a Post-graduate," or "Me, myself, and Mathias," or (my favorite) "Stuff I Like."
When used judiciously, the practice of name-dropping and referencing various works of art and moments of history can color a novel, or describe the gestalt of an experience through analogy, or give context to a character or setting. But Énard takes it too far here, giving us a thinly disguised autobiography, a literary Vanitas.
Absolutely every single page and almost every line overdoes it. Let's pick on just a couple of pages chosen at random by my dowsing finger, shall I? Ah--
"...the streetlight on the corner of Porzellan is bothering me." Because just any old streetlight on any old corner won't suffice.
Franz reminisces about his state of mind when he moved to Vienna, "when I felt as if I were Bruno Walter summoned to assist Mahler the Great at the Vienna Opera, a hundred years later: having returned victorious from a campaign in the Orient, in Damascus to be precise..." Because that means absolutely nothing to almost anyone on the planet.
A tram rumbles by. "There’s something musical in this clattering, something of Alkan’s 'Chemin de fer' but slower, Charles-Valentin Alkan the forgotten piano maestro, friend of Chopin, Liszt, Heinrich Heine, and Victor Hugo...Arthur Honegger’s 'Pacific 231,' 'Essais de locomotives' by the Orientalist Florent Schmitt, and even Berlioz’s 'Chant des chemins de fer'..." Because I bet every reader can identify with those thoughts every time they hear a tram.
"I was happily in a Heuriger taking advantage of a magnificent spring evening and now I have Mahler and his Kindertotenlieder in my head, songs for dead children, composed by a man who held his own dead daughter in his arms in Maiernigg in Carinthia three years after composing them..." Because that sounds much sexier than, "So I was drunk in some bar and I couldn't get 'Come on Eileen' out of my head."
Mind you, this is all within just a few pages, and we're not even 5% into the book! And it doesn't tone down as the narrative goes on. It's as if Énard had no initial story idea, but instead took all of his notes, journals, dissertations, high school term papers, Discog reviews, and ŷ TBR, then blew up Wikipedia, set the whole mess into Microsoft Word, THEN decided to concoct a novel out of that.
"Okay, Warren, we get it," I hear you protest. "But you are in the minority here. This book is highly regarded and loved by many, so don't pretend you could not find any merits to a book that clearly pushes the right buttons in so many readers."
Énard himself already foresaw your argument. While drinking white wine in the aforementioned Heuriger, "discussing Istanbul perhaps, Syria, the desert, who knows, or talking about Vienna and music, Tibetan Buddhism, the trip to Iran that was looming on the horizon. Nights in Grinzing after nights in Palmyra, Grüner Veltliner after Lebanese wine, the coolness of a spring evening after the stifling nights of Damascus," Sarah has the temerity of panning Franz's favorite book, Claudio Magris’s "Danube." After articulating her thoughtful objections to the book, Franz replies:
“Sorry, I don’t see the problem; Magris’s book seems scholarly, poetic, and even sometimes funny to me, a stroll, an erudite and subjective stroll... but what do you want, you can’t snatch away from me the notion that 'Danube' is a great book, and what’s more a worldwide bestseller.� Franz's objection seems awfully prophetic, as though Énard himself anticipated the criticism which "Compass" would receive and was already preparing a defense for his own readers.
An author who has composed a truly timeless work of literature does not seek to impress us with his intellect with some peacock display like that narcissist neighbor who won't shut up about all the people he knows in town and all the trips abroad he's taken. Great art does not rely so heavily on referencing the art of others. Should we accept a "painting" as a work of genius that consisted solely of the titles of the artist's favorite inspirational works simply written all across the canvas, no matter how beautiful the calligraphy or the quality of the ink? Well, I'm sure there are elitists who would try to convince themselves of the merit of such a piece. But I would be the guy standing in the back of the gallery going, "I don't get it."
That is how I feel about "Compass." And I've already been told by a few friends to give it a second or third try to truly "get it." And though I remain open-minded, I think the chances of a second full read, let alone a third, will be low on a scale of probability. There are too many other things to read that don't require hundreds of nods to superior things.
It is true that I cannot in good faith completely dismiss "Compass." Let's discuss the positives. I give the book points for attempts at avant-garde storytelling. I actually did not mind the run-on sentences. I'm guilty of them myself, obviously. It's how we think. And Énard (or his translator) still manages to capture the feel of a delirious internal dialogue while maintaining a prudent cadence to spoken language that makes the entire work accessible.
I also truly enjoyed some of the academic content. For example, one thing you may not have known about me is that I play the triangle. Quit snickering! Yes, I play the triangle, and as such I have been fascinated with world percussion as well as classical compositions which employ the instrument. As such, I have taken an interest in Janissary marches and how Turkish percussion had been synthesized by artists like Mozart into Western music. Sure enough, there is a section in this novel about this very subject as "(m)ilitary music is decidedly a point of exchange between East and West..." And another thing you may very well know about me is my love of horror and the supernatural. Énard delivers again with a lovely little exposition about the folklore of ghouls and vampires.
You know what? I would have been one of those people who'd have bought Énard's book if only he had written it as purely an academic work!
But he lied to us by calling "Compass" a novel when in reality he had compromised, taking subject matters that he knew a lot about and couching it as a work of fiction instead of non-fiction. Why is this a problem? Because the compromise doesn't work in my opinion. Sure this book can be very educational. Sure it can be a pleasure to read. But the author is stuffing a square peg in a round hole, with the end result being that this is neither a novel nor a textbook.
It doesn't work as a novel because, despite everything it does right, it fails to illustrate a point or to stir emotions within me. Énard is so obsessed with cramming his narrative full of personal experience and knowledge that he forgot about pathos. If someone were to ask me to describe the moment I knew I had fallen in love with the woman who was to be my bride, and I answered "It reminded me of Alvin Lucier's 'Silver Streetcar for the Orchestra,'" what have I conveyed? Assuming the person was familiar with Lucier, their subjective experience of the music would still likely be different than mine as we are all unique. So what has the person learned about my wife or about me or my experience of falling in love? Have I told a story that could make them weep with joy, identify with my pleasure, bring me closer to the person interested in sharing a part of my life and the mystery of love? No. Such an answer would only lead to disappointment and must indicate my lack of empathy or capacity to connect to a fellow human being.
Even my friends who recommended this book admitted they had no investment in Franz or Sarah, who are largely wooden intellectual blowhards. Well then why are we reading about them? If the real stars are the poets and musicians and fantasies and cultures of Vienna and the Arab world, who needs Franz and Sarah? They're like Raymond Burr in the American version of the 1954 "Godzilla." They're just Uber drivers to show us what Énard has seen--merely a conduit for what Énard really wanted to talk about. A novel can certainly take breaks from an investing story to discuss politics, history, music, philosophy, culture, or whatever--tangients between the major acts, "erudite strolls" as Énard would call them. But "Compass" takes this to such extremes that it is distracting in it's absurdity. I swear this could easily have worked as a satire against academic types. If someone told me that satire was actually the original intent behind the creation of "Compass" and that Énard had been conducting research on mass psychology by exploring the effects of awards and marketing on general interpretation of works of literature, I would not be completely surprised. But I am convinced this is not the case, just as I am convinced "Compass" does not work as a novel.
Yet it's not a textbook either. For one, it's far too subjective. It's not a thesis because there is no stated hypothesis, no conclusion drawn from evidence and resources. Énard couldn't make this a proper thesis even if he wanted to, because this book tries to be too many things and discuss too many topics. He wanted to take a huge chunk of Austria and Syria and spit out half a continent over millennia. It's too much stuff for the reader to swallow, too disjointed to learn anything truly cohesive, and too ironic to be about a man suffering from insomnia while the book often serves as a cure for sleeplessness. Still, I have marked up my copy with highlights of interest that I may want to reference later, but unlike a textbook, there's no damn index to consult.
I know I probably burst quite a few bubbles with this review, but remember this is just one opinion. Certainly everyone has different tastes, and in this case I encourage anyone reading this review to not just take my word for it--give "Compass" a try and see what you think for yourself.
For any of you patient souls who have read my review carefully and disagreee with me, give me a hint of what I missed beyond the razzle-dazzle of the infinite lists and references. I genuinely want to understand this book better if in fact there is more to understand. Also, in your experience, are there any better examples of Énard's ouvre?
And now if you will excuse me, I am going to continue my Christmas vacation with my family in the verdant swamplands of Louisiana, Lafourche Parish, on the banks of the Bayou Black, where I arrived from Chicago after listening to hours of Albrecht/d performing live with Throbbing Gristle in Hackney, London, reminding me of the electroacoustic genius of Johanna Meyer and how I used to watch the northern lights and pontificate over the linguistic differences of Northern Sami from other Uralic languages while vacationing at Jukkasjärvi after spending so many wonderful evenings drinking schlivovitz with Orthodox Slavs and dining on donner kabob with Jordanian expats in Copenhagen, by way of Interstate 57 before eventually connecting with 55 (is it irony that it was built in '57?) after passing Effingham, Illinois where stands the 198 foot tall Cross of the Crossroads, dwarfed only by the Great Cross of St. Augustine, and which was once home to George Bauer, Jack Birch, Chad Green, Miles Mills, Jimmy Kite, Nick Gardewine, Daniel Winkler, Ada Kepley, and Uwe Blab...
I was really looking forward to a stimulating literary romance that would give me a greater understanding of the soul of a region once dominated by the Ottomans, an area with a rich past sadly skimmed over in American world history courses and dominated by distrust due to international politics and religious conflict. Unfortunately, I don't think I can recall a more blatant example of how the industry of contemporary literature and art pulls the wool over the eyes of otherwise intelligent audiences hungry for cerebral stimulation.
First, let's take a look at the author's entry in Wikipedia, shall we?
Oh my... So many awards. So much recognition. He must be important. This is the guy to tell a story!
But beyond the list of pats on the back, Wikipedia offers little other information. Now, we all have heard the criticisms concerning Wikipedia, and considering the forum tends to be a "catch-all" kind of advertisement, the first item in a search when someone Google's the name of an artist, the people who wrote Énard's article knew what they were doing. It says hardly anything about the man himself or the kind of work he does. It doesn't say anything about the themes of his writings. There are no individual articles about his books.
"But Warren," I hear you cry, "They just haven't gotten to all that yet." Though the man has been steadily active since 2003, you may be right. But you can certainly see where the priorities are. His recognitions begin after the second sentence of the opening paragraph in his bio. Then, as if that were not eye-catching enough, the whole next section is entitled "Awards and Honours," before they even get to his list of works. Looking further down the search engine, you don't receive much more enlightenment from other sites, reviews, bios, or reportage. He's not a man--he's a PRIZE!
And word got out. Look at all the gushing reviews that mention "Short listed for Man Booker! Winner of the 2015 Prix Goncourt!" I certainly am not saying I know better than experienced literary judges, though I've read quite a few Pulitzer, Nobel, Nebula, Hugo, Bram Stoker, and other award winners and scratched my pointy head wondering what the hell they were thinking. I am suggesting that this author is in the right circles and echo-chambers, and these recognitions are big business for him and clearly preinform the reader's expectations of a quality literary experience. It certainly did for me.
But let's stop speculating and look at the contents of the novel itself. The basic premise is that a man named Franz is lying in bed suffering from insomnia during an unnamed illness (it's opioid withdrawal) and reminiscing about his life, mostly involving years of unrequited love with a woman named Sarah. We read about Franz's rendezvous with Sarah in picturesque locations, only to have them part in Damascus, and follow Franz's further travels and musings about the cultural connections and transition between the Occidental West and Oriental East while he dreams of reuniting with his high IQ lady friend. The two are committed intellectuals, and I am not even sure where they get all their money to be flitting about the world, touring historic locations, drinking fine wines, and waxing philosophic. Somehow I don't think research grants on European music in Istanbul would quite cut it, but if it does, then I'm in the wrong line of work. Maybe Énard could write books on finance next. Franz is not even portrayed as a human being. He is a musicologist first and foremost. Every thought he has is couched in musical and overall academia. I mean EVERY thought. You'll see what I mean later.
For now, let's just say that "Compass" is a prime demonstration of one of my few pet peeves when it comes to literature-- pseudo-intellectual posturing that some books purposefully geared towards an undefined class of "readers who like SERIOUS literature" are so often guilty. "Compass" is a non-stop onslaught of "erudition," a favorite word among reviews of this book, with the narrator spouting list after list of things he has studied or experienced--esoteric musical compositions, poets and novelists you've never heard of, disjointed slices of history trivia, cultural reminisces from his travels, etc. Certainly the inquisitive mind will find a lot of possibly interesting things to highlight and look up later, but I didn't think the point of this book was to be a Nurse With Wound list. You see what I did there? I purposefully threw in a reference that is sure to go right over the heads of many readers. Aren't I clever?
Let me explain. Nurse With Wound is an experimental musical act that for a long time contained a running gag on their albums which was to include a list of "cool stuff" that had been influential to the creation of their music. So at least my reference is relevant to this review by illustrating my main complaint about this book. Mathias Énard, on the other hand, simply throws a bunch of scholarly minutiae at us haphazardly, often with no context or relevance, at least not always apparent to the reader. I enjoy learning about my world and taking deep anthropological dives into human cultures, and I equally enjoy associating with great people who can enrich my soul and mind. But I swear that if I ever met this narrator in real life at, say, a cocktail party on the 67th floor of a Chicago condo, I'd be very tempted to do the world a favor and toss the pompous ass through the nearest window. And everyone would applaud too, or else never again invite me to another one of their parties.
I was attracted to this book because I wanted something meaty to chew on, as novels like these are often my virtual means of travel. As Publisher's Weekly put it: "For readers who ask literature to do what history and politics cannot..." That's me! PW also promised that "unraveling Énard's arabesque yields a bounty." And indeed, the book is dense with information, but instead of these details creating the rich tapestry I expected, "Énard's arabesque" felt artificial, forced, narcissistic, and pedantic. I knew going in that this was written as a stream of consciousness, but I still expected to read a novel. I didn't want a string of vomited disembodied encyclopedia entries or a file on the author's I-player. I guess this style of writing must have appealed to some folks, because when I've later read the four and five star reviews of this book, they rarely failed to reference the references! Fans have clearly expressed their gratitude over being introduced to some of the music, literature, history, and cultural landmarks mentioned in "Compass." I cannot deny that this is a good thing.
But then why did the author not just write a treatise regarding art and history, tracing the connection between the European West and culture of the 'Orient'? Énard is clearly writing from personal experience here, so much so that the narrator is obviously just him under the pseudonym of "Franz." But I suppose Énard did not want to go through the rigor of juried scholarship. And most importantly, an obvious academic work would have appealed to a limited audience with identified interests in Énard's areas of expertise. Easier, and far more profitable, to just write an autobiographical travelogue and market it as a work of haute literature. Now people who carefully follow the announcement for the Man Booker international prize long list, but who never would have ever spent two seconds considering the purchase of a book about Persian poets and sultans, are reading the very same material because they want to share vicariously in the prestige of having read something importantly cerebral to tell their friends about at their 67th floor condo party. And let's face it, this book would certainly have won no awards with more truthful titles such as "Dreaming about a Freckled Redhead in a Miniskirt," or "Everything I Ever Learned as a Post-graduate," or "Me, myself, and Mathias," or (my favorite) "Stuff I Like."
When used judiciously, the practice of name-dropping and referencing various works of art and moments of history can color a novel, or describe the gestalt of an experience through analogy, or give context to a character or setting. But Énard takes it too far here, giving us a thinly disguised autobiography, a literary Vanitas.
Absolutely every single page and almost every line overdoes it. Let's pick on just a couple of pages chosen at random by my dowsing finger, shall I? Ah--
"...the streetlight on the corner of Porzellan is bothering me." Because just any old streetlight on any old corner won't suffice.
Franz reminisces about his state of mind when he moved to Vienna, "when I felt as if I were Bruno Walter summoned to assist Mahler the Great at the Vienna Opera, a hundred years later: having returned victorious from a campaign in the Orient, in Damascus to be precise..." Because that means absolutely nothing to almost anyone on the planet.
A tram rumbles by. "There’s something musical in this clattering, something of Alkan’s 'Chemin de fer' but slower, Charles-Valentin Alkan the forgotten piano maestro, friend of Chopin, Liszt, Heinrich Heine, and Victor Hugo...Arthur Honegger’s 'Pacific 231,' 'Essais de locomotives' by the Orientalist Florent Schmitt, and even Berlioz’s 'Chant des chemins de fer'..." Because I bet every reader can identify with those thoughts every time they hear a tram.
"I was happily in a Heuriger taking advantage of a magnificent spring evening and now I have Mahler and his Kindertotenlieder in my head, songs for dead children, composed by a man who held his own dead daughter in his arms in Maiernigg in Carinthia three years after composing them..." Because that sounds much sexier than, "So I was drunk in some bar and I couldn't get 'Come on Eileen' out of my head."
Mind you, this is all within just a few pages, and we're not even 5% into the book! And it doesn't tone down as the narrative goes on. It's as if Énard had no initial story idea, but instead took all of his notes, journals, dissertations, high school term papers, Discog reviews, and ŷ TBR, then blew up Wikipedia, set the whole mess into Microsoft Word, THEN decided to concoct a novel out of that.
"Okay, Warren, we get it," I hear you protest. "But you are in the minority here. This book is highly regarded and loved by many, so don't pretend you could not find any merits to a book that clearly pushes the right buttons in so many readers."
Énard himself already foresaw your argument. While drinking white wine in the aforementioned Heuriger, "discussing Istanbul perhaps, Syria, the desert, who knows, or talking about Vienna and music, Tibetan Buddhism, the trip to Iran that was looming on the horizon. Nights in Grinzing after nights in Palmyra, Grüner Veltliner after Lebanese wine, the coolness of a spring evening after the stifling nights of Damascus," Sarah has the temerity of panning Franz's favorite book, Claudio Magris’s "Danube." After articulating her thoughtful objections to the book, Franz replies:
“Sorry, I don’t see the problem; Magris’s book seems scholarly, poetic, and even sometimes funny to me, a stroll, an erudite and subjective stroll... but what do you want, you can’t snatch away from me the notion that 'Danube' is a great book, and what’s more a worldwide bestseller.� Franz's objection seems awfully prophetic, as though Énard himself anticipated the criticism which "Compass" would receive and was already preparing a defense for his own readers.
An author who has composed a truly timeless work of literature does not seek to impress us with his intellect with some peacock display like that narcissist neighbor who won't shut up about all the people he knows in town and all the trips abroad he's taken. Great art does not rely so heavily on referencing the art of others. Should we accept a "painting" as a work of genius that consisted solely of the titles of the artist's favorite inspirational works simply written all across the canvas, no matter how beautiful the calligraphy or the quality of the ink? Well, I'm sure there are elitists who would try to convince themselves of the merit of such a piece. But I would be the guy standing in the back of the gallery going, "I don't get it."
That is how I feel about "Compass." And I've already been told by a few friends to give it a second or third try to truly "get it." And though I remain open-minded, I think the chances of a second full read, let alone a third, will be low on a scale of probability. There are too many other things to read that don't require hundreds of nods to superior things.
It is true that I cannot in good faith completely dismiss "Compass." Let's discuss the positives. I give the book points for attempts at avant-garde storytelling. I actually did not mind the run-on sentences. I'm guilty of them myself, obviously. It's how we think. And Énard (or his translator) still manages to capture the feel of a delirious internal dialogue while maintaining a prudent cadence to spoken language that makes the entire work accessible.
I also truly enjoyed some of the academic content. For example, one thing you may not have known about me is that I play the triangle. Quit snickering! Yes, I play the triangle, and as such I have been fascinated with world percussion as well as classical compositions which employ the instrument. As such, I have taken an interest in Janissary marches and how Turkish percussion had been synthesized by artists like Mozart into Western music. Sure enough, there is a section in this novel about this very subject as "(m)ilitary music is decidedly a point of exchange between East and West..." And another thing you may very well know about me is my love of horror and the supernatural. Énard delivers again with a lovely little exposition about the folklore of ghouls and vampires.
You know what? I would have been one of those people who'd have bought Énard's book if only he had written it as purely an academic work!
But he lied to us by calling "Compass" a novel when in reality he had compromised, taking subject matters that he knew a lot about and couching it as a work of fiction instead of non-fiction. Why is this a problem? Because the compromise doesn't work in my opinion. Sure this book can be very educational. Sure it can be a pleasure to read. But the author is stuffing a square peg in a round hole, with the end result being that this is neither a novel nor a textbook.
It doesn't work as a novel because, despite everything it does right, it fails to illustrate a point or to stir emotions within me. Énard is so obsessed with cramming his narrative full of personal experience and knowledge that he forgot about pathos. If someone were to ask me to describe the moment I knew I had fallen in love with the woman who was to be my bride, and I answered "It reminded me of Alvin Lucier's 'Silver Streetcar for the Orchestra,'" what have I conveyed? Assuming the person was familiar with Lucier, their subjective experience of the music would still likely be different than mine as we are all unique. So what has the person learned about my wife or about me or my experience of falling in love? Have I told a story that could make them weep with joy, identify with my pleasure, bring me closer to the person interested in sharing a part of my life and the mystery of love? No. Such an answer would only lead to disappointment and must indicate my lack of empathy or capacity to connect to a fellow human being.
Even my friends who recommended this book admitted they had no investment in Franz or Sarah, who are largely wooden intellectual blowhards. Well then why are we reading about them? If the real stars are the poets and musicians and fantasies and cultures of Vienna and the Arab world, who needs Franz and Sarah? They're like Raymond Burr in the American version of the 1954 "Godzilla." They're just Uber drivers to show us what Énard has seen--merely a conduit for what Énard really wanted to talk about. A novel can certainly take breaks from an investing story to discuss politics, history, music, philosophy, culture, or whatever--tangients between the major acts, "erudite strolls" as Énard would call them. But "Compass" takes this to such extremes that it is distracting in it's absurdity. I swear this could easily have worked as a satire against academic types. If someone told me that satire was actually the original intent behind the creation of "Compass" and that Énard had been conducting research on mass psychology by exploring the effects of awards and marketing on general interpretation of works of literature, I would not be completely surprised. But I am convinced this is not the case, just as I am convinced "Compass" does not work as a novel.
Yet it's not a textbook either. For one, it's far too subjective. It's not a thesis because there is no stated hypothesis, no conclusion drawn from evidence and resources. Énard couldn't make this a proper thesis even if he wanted to, because this book tries to be too many things and discuss too many topics. He wanted to take a huge chunk of Austria and Syria and spit out half a continent over millennia. It's too much stuff for the reader to swallow, too disjointed to learn anything truly cohesive, and too ironic to be about a man suffering from insomnia while the book often serves as a cure for sleeplessness. Still, I have marked up my copy with highlights of interest that I may want to reference later, but unlike a textbook, there's no damn index to consult.
I know I probably burst quite a few bubbles with this review, but remember this is just one opinion. Certainly everyone has different tastes, and in this case I encourage anyone reading this review to not just take my word for it--give "Compass" a try and see what you think for yourself.
For any of you patient souls who have read my review carefully and disagreee with me, give me a hint of what I missed beyond the razzle-dazzle of the infinite lists and references. I genuinely want to understand this book better if in fact there is more to understand. Also, in your experience, are there any better examples of Énard's ouvre?
And now if you will excuse me, I am going to continue my Christmas vacation with my family in the verdant swamplands of Louisiana, Lafourche Parish, on the banks of the Bayou Black, where I arrived from Chicago after listening to hours of Albrecht/d performing live with Throbbing Gristle in Hackney, London, reminding me of the electroacoustic genius of Johanna Meyer and how I used to watch the northern lights and pontificate over the linguistic differences of Northern Sami from other Uralic languages while vacationing at Jukkasjärvi after spending so many wonderful evenings drinking schlivovitz with Orthodox Slavs and dining on donner kabob with Jordanian expats in Copenhagen, by way of Interstate 57 before eventually connecting with 55 (is it irony that it was built in '57?) after passing Effingham, Illinois where stands the 198 foot tall Cross of the Crossroads, dwarfed only by the Great Cross of St. Augustine, and which was once home to George Bauer, Jack Birch, Chad Green, Miles Mills, Jimmy Kite, Nick Gardewine, Daniel Winkler, Ada Kepley, and Uwe Blab...
December 31, 2017
إلتقاء الشرق بالغرب في عمل "ماتياس إينار" جعله يستحق وبجدارة الـ"غونكور". من قرأ رواية (أنبئوني بالرؤيا) للناقد والكاتب "عبد الفتاح كيليطو" (1) سيعرف ظاهرة الرواية المعرفية. تقرأ العمل فتظن أنك لوهلة أمام بحث معرفي لكن بسردية ناجحة وتواجد لكل مقومات القصة أو الرواية وحقيقة ما تتجاهله ليس عدم قدرتك على تمييز نوع العمل بل أنت قد أحسنت تميزه بينما كرهت المعلومات الموجودة في سياق النص. أعلم أنك هربت من فضاء الكتب العلمية والأبحاث والدراسات ثم فجأة تقع بين يديك مثل نوعية هذه العمل وهنا يكون مأزق المثقف هروبه نحو فضاء السرد فيغرق من جديد
في المادة العلمية.
ماتياس في البوصلة راق لي جدًا، وأعجبني محاولاته الجادة في تلاقي الشرق بالغرب حتى لو من خلال علاقة حب. لإيماني بأن هذا العظيم � الحب � قادر على التلاقي ولن يعي ما أقول إلا المؤمنين. الشرق الذي يراه ماتياس شرق مختلف عن النظرة الماضية والعالقة في أذهان الفرنسيين والغرب.
وفقًا للمواقع البريطانية والإمريكية نافسه في هذه الدورة الكاتب "التونسي هادي قدور" رغم حساسية موضوعه تجاه الغرب عن حقبة الإستمعار في الشمال الإفريقي، ولا أعلم عن تعليق الفرنسيين على الأمر لعدم إيجادتي الفرنسية. ولكن يبدو أن التونسي كان الأقرب وسأحكم حين اقرأ عمله "لي بريبونديران" مترجمًا للعربية أو الإنجليزية.
______________
لا أعرف له رواية غيرها، وربما هي تجربته الوحيدة حتى الآن.
في المادة العلمية.
ماتياس في البوصلة راق لي جدًا، وأعجبني محاولاته الجادة في تلاقي الشرق بالغرب حتى لو من خلال علاقة حب. لإيماني بأن هذا العظيم � الحب � قادر على التلاقي ولن يعي ما أقول إلا المؤمنين. الشرق الذي يراه ماتياس شرق مختلف عن النظرة الماضية والعالقة في أذهان الفرنسيين والغرب.
وفقًا للمواقع البريطانية والإمريكية نافسه في هذه الدورة الكاتب "التونسي هادي قدور" رغم حساسية موضوعه تجاه الغرب عن حقبة الإستمعار في الشمال الإفريقي، ولا أعلم عن تعليق الفرنسيين على الأمر لعدم إيجادتي الفرنسية. ولكن يبدو أن التونسي كان الأقرب وسأحكم حين اقرأ عمله "لي بريبونديران" مترجمًا للعربية أو الإنجليزية.
______________
لا أعرف له رواية غيرها، وربما هي تجربته الوحيدة حتى الآن.
October 10, 2021
Chi abbia qualche sia pur modesta familiarità coi libri secenteschi saprà benissimo che, a parte i titoli monumentali e i frontespizî folti d’allegorie, li contrassegnavano anche svariati elementi che i moderni studiosi definiscono paratestuali: dediche a illustri patroni, sonetti o epigrammi latini e greci encomiastici di amici o discepoli, epistole celebrative o esplicative dell’autore o altrui; ma oggi, dopo qualche secolo di obsolescenza, un’affine pratica è tornata in auge sotto forma di ringraziamenti a coniugi, congiunti, contubernali, sodali di studî e merende, ispiratori e suggeritori di varia risma, quasi a voler dire che di scienza propria lo scrittore attuale non sa fare un passo né buttar giù mezza pagina: il che appare possibile; ma, come poi attestano le opere, non basta codesta fungaia di esperti e amichevoli guide a porre il malcapitato scrittore de quo al riparo da spiritose invenzioni, tristi corbellerie o sconfortanti cantonate. Mathias Enard � e gliene si renda merito � non segue l’andazzo, e non ringrazia qui anima viva, né in testa né in calce al libro: si limita a dedicarlo ad amici e maestri, alcuni nominati, altri no; eppure si tratta d’un testo ad alto grado di erudizione. Poiché anzi Enard è un orientalista, il protagonista di Bussola è un orientalista, e narrazioni ed allusioni hanno sovente ad oggetto l’Oriente, soprattutto arabo e persiano, e la musica (orientale oltre che nostrana: nostrana, dico, del nostro continente), al lettore ignorante come il sottoscritto rimane sempre il piacevole dubbio se l’erudizione del Nostro sia tutta veridica o ve n’abbiano anche parti di fantasia sul tipo, ad esempio, dei ghiribizzi filologici dei quali qua e là il Leopardi fiorisce le Operette morali: e sarebbero fioriture felici. Il testo è, in pratica, una sorta di monologo interiore d’un professore austriaco, Franz Ritter, esperto di musica persiana e araba, condannato (almeno stando a ciò che riferisce lui) da una malattia mortale non meglio specificata, che durante una notte insonne nel suo appartamento a Vienna rievoca ossessivamente una collega francese fascinosa e lontana, Sarah, oggetto d’un amore impossibile, e ricorda in disordine un passato di viaggi, ricerche, entusiasmi intellettuali e disgusti culturali, da ognuno dei quali, quasi per gemmazione, altri ne rampollano senza posa; e ai ricordi personali si mescolano quelli di letture onnivore, che portano a galla decine di personaggi storici vicini e lontani, con un procedimento che rammenta un po� Sebald (anche per l’inserimento d’immagini nel testo, qui tuttavia molto rare, al contrario che nello scomparso autore anglo-tedesco; e c’� almeno un caso in cui se ne sente la mancanza: quando Franz descrive la raccapricciante immagine del boia Lang in bombetta che sorride contento dietro al cadavere d’un anonimo giustiziato, sono sicuro che ha in mente la fotografia, famosissima per noi italiani, scattata subito dopo l’esecuzione capitale di Cesare Battisti), peraltro mai menzionato da Enard. Se a qualcuno, come m’� parso di capire, non garba quest’erudizione densa e diffusa, liberissimi tutti di venerare le pappolate di Dan Brown o gli onerosi tomi con vicende di guardie e ladri, di principesse iperboree, di draghi e di marziani: l’universo delle amene lettere si stende vasto, e quello delle lettere inamene assai di più: io preferisco l’Oriente di Enard, e vi ho cavalcato libero e felice, (ma dopotutto mi sono piaciute anche le sue escursioni tra Francia ed Austria) forse perché ci fu, molti anni fa, la possibilità che diventassi un suo collega; ma poi preferii altri studî. Certo, perfetto il libro non è. Franz sarà pure viennese, ma ad occhio e croce ha l’aria più d’un francese che d’un austriaco; non un parigino, forse, ma un francese di provincia; e l’autore, che non è un babbeo, gli regala infatti una genitrice gallica, giustificandone così anche il bilinguismo. A un certo punto, però, con incongruenza notevole, a Franz scappa l’espressione “quella famiglia di uccelli che in tedesco chiamano Spechte� (p.344), la quale può venire in mente solo a chi il tedesco non lo parli come lingua madre. È invece Sarah la parigina quasi da manuale: sofisticata, elegante, a suo agio dappertutto, un po� torbida, un po� capricciosa, imperiosa e ricca di fascino; così, almeno, la vede l’innamorato collega di Vienna. Franz ne appare quasi l’antitesi e il controcanto: irresoluto, pieno di rovelli, goffo nei rapporti sociali e con le lingue orientali � o almeno così n’esce l’autoritratto. Non so se gli scrittori odierni amino tanto creare protagonisti antieroici perché li ritengono più interessanti, perché li ritengono meno dozzinali (dacché gli eroi li sanno inventare anche gli scrittorelli da mezza tacca) o perché li vedono più politicamente corretti: Franz, a conti fatti, è anche un po� antipatico, e possiede parecchi tratti da intellettualino schizzinoso che lo rendono perfino alquanto prevedibile: tanto per dire, non gli garbano né i valzer di Strauss né gli Asburgo né Wagner, su cui tuttavia dice una cosa molto interessante � la quale, d’altronde, non credo sia farina del sacco di Enard � ossia che la dissoluzione dell’armonia wagneriana in pratica ha ucciso la nostra musica colta. Sulla traduzione italiana non ritengo giusto dir quasi nulla, perché qualche piccola occasionale sciatteria è compensata dall’aver dovuto gestire un testo lungo e complesso: ma la traduttrice dovrebbe sapere che a Vienna “il� Graben vuole l’articolo (anche in tedesco è der Graben: il fossato per antonomasia, benché non sia più tale da molti secoli; un po� come un certo angolo deputato ad appuntamenti malandrini in un certo parco milanese è o era denominato, per antonomasia, “la Fossa�); e che vestigia in italiano non è un singolare ma un plurale. E la bussola del titolo? Non si tratta d’una mera metafora del viaggio: la storia è più complessa; ma per saperla è meglio leggere il libro.
January 27, 2022
Before you can begin to think about beauty, you have to plunge into the deepest horror and go completely through it, according to Sarah’s theory.
*
Such a strange thing, memory; I’m incapable of rediscovering her face from yesterday, her body from yesterday, they vanish to make way for those of today, in the setting of the past �
*
Life is a Mahler symphony, it never goes back, never retraces its steps. This feeling of the passing of time is the definition of melancholy, an awareness of finitude from which there is no refuge, aside from opium and oblivion;
*
Our dreams might be more knowledgeable than we.
*
One must give up explaining these contradictions, the human heart is a strange thing!
*
Poor Balzac, what did he get in Vienna, a few kisses and some promises, if we are to believe these letters that Sarah quotes abundantly � and I, who so looked forward to her coming to my capital, to the point of buying new clothes and getting my hair cut each time she came, what did I get, another offprint I don’t dare decipher � life ties knots, life ties knots and they’re rarely those on St. Francis’s cincture; we meet, we run after one another, for years, in the dark, and when we think we finally hold another’s hand in ours, death takes everything away from us.
*
we play our sonata all alone without realizing the piano is out of tune, overcome by our emotions: others hear how off-key we sound, and at best feel sincere pity, at worst a terrible annoyance at being confronted with our humiliation that sullies them when they themselves had, usually, asked for nothing � Sarah had asked for nothing, that night in the Baron Hotel, or else she did, maybe, I don’t have a clue, I confess I’ve forgotten, today, after all this time, after Tehran, the years, tonight, as I’m plunging into illness like Beethoven and as, despite this morning’s mysterious article, Sarah is more distant than ever, ferne Geliebte, fortunately I don’t write poems, and I stopped writing music a long time ago.
*
I realize how much I miss her. How much she has missed me.
*
If it was five o’clock already I could get up now, exhausted as I am every morning, vanquished by the night; impossible to escape these memories of Sarah, I wonder if it’s better to chase them away or abandon myself completely to desire and reminiscence.
*
Sometimes life is hopeless.
*
we always have the wrong reasons for doing things, our fates, in youth, are as easily swayed as the tip of a fishing float above its hook; Sarah loved reading, studying, dreaming and travel: what do we know of travel when we’re seventeen, we appreciate the sound of it, the words, the maps and all our lives, afterward, we seek to rediscover, in reality, our childhood illusions.
*
Sarah reconstructed herself by going further east, more profoundly into herself, advancing in that spiritual and scientific quest that allowed her to escape her own unhappiness � I prefer to stay in my Viennese apartment, even if it means suffering from insomnia, illness, and Gruber’s dog. I don’t have her courage.
*
I had spent those months remembering her, investing so much in the wait, constructing an imaginary character, so perfect that it would, all of a sudden, fulfill my life �
*
Such a strange thing, memory; I’m incapable of rediscovering her face from yesterday, her body from yesterday, they vanish to make way for those of today, in the setting of the past �
*
Life is a Mahler symphony, it never goes back, never retraces its steps. This feeling of the passing of time is the definition of melancholy, an awareness of finitude from which there is no refuge, aside from opium and oblivion;
*
Our dreams might be more knowledgeable than we.
*
One must give up explaining these contradictions, the human heart is a strange thing!
*
Poor Balzac, what did he get in Vienna, a few kisses and some promises, if we are to believe these letters that Sarah quotes abundantly � and I, who so looked forward to her coming to my capital, to the point of buying new clothes and getting my hair cut each time she came, what did I get, another offprint I don’t dare decipher � life ties knots, life ties knots and they’re rarely those on St. Francis’s cincture; we meet, we run after one another, for years, in the dark, and when we think we finally hold another’s hand in ours, death takes everything away from us.
*
we play our sonata all alone without realizing the piano is out of tune, overcome by our emotions: others hear how off-key we sound, and at best feel sincere pity, at worst a terrible annoyance at being confronted with our humiliation that sullies them when they themselves had, usually, asked for nothing � Sarah had asked for nothing, that night in the Baron Hotel, or else she did, maybe, I don’t have a clue, I confess I’ve forgotten, today, after all this time, after Tehran, the years, tonight, as I’m plunging into illness like Beethoven and as, despite this morning’s mysterious article, Sarah is more distant than ever, ferne Geliebte, fortunately I don’t write poems, and I stopped writing music a long time ago.
*
I realize how much I miss her. How much she has missed me.
*
If it was five o’clock already I could get up now, exhausted as I am every morning, vanquished by the night; impossible to escape these memories of Sarah, I wonder if it’s better to chase them away or abandon myself completely to desire and reminiscence.
*
Sometimes life is hopeless.
*
we always have the wrong reasons for doing things, our fates, in youth, are as easily swayed as the tip of a fishing float above its hook; Sarah loved reading, studying, dreaming and travel: what do we know of travel when we’re seventeen, we appreciate the sound of it, the words, the maps and all our lives, afterward, we seek to rediscover, in reality, our childhood illusions.
*
Sarah reconstructed herself by going further east, more profoundly into herself, advancing in that spiritual and scientific quest that allowed her to escape her own unhappiness � I prefer to stay in my Viennese apartment, even if it means suffering from insomnia, illness, and Gruber’s dog. I don’t have her courage.
*
I had spent those months remembering her, investing so much in the wait, constructing an imaginary character, so perfect that it would, all of a sudden, fulfill my life �
September 23, 2021
Il senso dell'oriente siamo noi occidentali ad averlo
Le cose più ovvie a volte fatico a vederle, o forse, a furia di usare una parola, se ne perde il significato originario, perché orientarsi letteralmente significa - cercare l'oriente - andare verso est, dove sorge sempre il sole.
E dà sicurezza sapere che ogni giorno, qualunque cosa accada, il sole sorgerà. Orientarsi, parola che ha sempre una connotazione positiva; ma, in senso più ampio, orientarsi rimanda ad un universo di cose: capire, sentirsi al sicuro, trovare ciò che si è sempre cercato.
Anche se come dice l'autore Mathias Énard, citando Pessoa
C'è sempre un Oriente a oriente dell'Oriente
E quindi il concetto di oriente si può spostare sempre più in là, come la famosa notte di Mario Calabresi.
È buffo poi perché in verità gli orientali non hanno alcun senso dell'oriente.
Il senso del Oriente siamo noi occidentali ad averlo
Ecco, sulla finzione narrativa di un docente austriaco di mezza età che, malato, ripercorre gli anni trascorsi in Siria, Turchia, Iran come ricercatore sull'influenza della musica occidentale in oriente e, sullo sfondo del ricordo di Sarah, una appasionata orientalista francese, l'Amore della sua vita con cui ha condiviso queste esperienze, Mathias Énard, scrive un romanzo erudito ma forse troppo denso di informazioni che finiscono per seppellire lo stremato lettore.
Bussola è un testo a metà strada tra narrativa e saggio su un tema certamente interessantissimo: come culturalmente l'occidente abbia cominciato a contaminarsi con l'oriente, quali i primi approcci, scambi, fascinazioni, attraverso la rievocazioni di spicchi di vita di esploratori, studiosi, viaggiatori, archeologi, scrittori, musicist,i aristocratici per lo più europei: Rimbaud, Pessoa, Flaubert, Stendhal, Goethe, Listz, Wagner, Kafka, Proust, Balzac...tra i personaggi noti che mi vengono in mente tutti, a loro modo, stregati dalla malia dell'Oriente.
La bellezza di Istanbul, porta d'oriente che la si consideri come la città più a est dell'Europa o quella più a ovest della Asia a cavallo di due mari e di due mondi che si compenetrano, Damasco e Palmira le sue rovinel, il suo deserto roccioso che ha un
cielo di notte così puro e le stelle così numerose da arrivare fino a terra
La Persia Teheran, con il suo esotismo ed erotismo.
Purtroppo devo ammettere che l'evidente entusiasmo iniziale per questo libro è andato un po' scemando nel procedere della lettura.
Troppi i riferimenti musicali, storici e letterari spesso per adepti, specialisti, cataloghi di personaggi che finiscono per rimanere solo nomi oscuri.
Quindi ci si munisca di taccuino, per prendere appunti, memorizzare nomi astrusi, vieppiù in lingua farsi, e guggolate guggolate come non ci fosse un domani, ma tutte queste interruzioni frequenti sincopano la lettura e il ritmo ne risente.
Quando però Énard smette di istruirci, e si lascia andare alla parte più narrativa e di fiction scrive un romanzo eccellente, di notevole grazia e bellezza che nel 2015 ha meritato il Goncourt, il più prestigioso premio letterario francese.
Le cose più ovvie a volte fatico a vederle, o forse, a furia di usare una parola, se ne perde il significato originario, perché orientarsi letteralmente significa - cercare l'oriente - andare verso est, dove sorge sempre il sole.
E dà sicurezza sapere che ogni giorno, qualunque cosa accada, il sole sorgerà. Orientarsi, parola che ha sempre una connotazione positiva; ma, in senso più ampio, orientarsi rimanda ad un universo di cose: capire, sentirsi al sicuro, trovare ciò che si è sempre cercato.
Anche se come dice l'autore Mathias Énard, citando Pessoa
C'è sempre un Oriente a oriente dell'Oriente
E quindi il concetto di oriente si può spostare sempre più in là, come la famosa notte di Mario Calabresi.
È buffo poi perché in verità gli orientali non hanno alcun senso dell'oriente.
Il senso del Oriente siamo noi occidentali ad averlo
Ecco, sulla finzione narrativa di un docente austriaco di mezza età che, malato, ripercorre gli anni trascorsi in Siria, Turchia, Iran come ricercatore sull'influenza della musica occidentale in oriente e, sullo sfondo del ricordo di Sarah, una appasionata orientalista francese, l'Amore della sua vita con cui ha condiviso queste esperienze, Mathias Énard, scrive un romanzo erudito ma forse troppo denso di informazioni che finiscono per seppellire lo stremato lettore.
Bussola è un testo a metà strada tra narrativa e saggio su un tema certamente interessantissimo: come culturalmente l'occidente abbia cominciato a contaminarsi con l'oriente, quali i primi approcci, scambi, fascinazioni, attraverso la rievocazioni di spicchi di vita di esploratori, studiosi, viaggiatori, archeologi, scrittori, musicist,i aristocratici per lo più europei: Rimbaud, Pessoa, Flaubert, Stendhal, Goethe, Listz, Wagner, Kafka, Proust, Balzac...tra i personaggi noti che mi vengono in mente tutti, a loro modo, stregati dalla malia dell'Oriente.
La bellezza di Istanbul, porta d'oriente che la si consideri come la città più a est dell'Europa o quella più a ovest della Asia a cavallo di due mari e di due mondi che si compenetrano, Damasco e Palmira le sue rovinel, il suo deserto roccioso che ha un
cielo di notte così puro e le stelle così numerose da arrivare fino a terra
La Persia Teheran, con il suo esotismo ed erotismo.
Purtroppo devo ammettere che l'evidente entusiasmo iniziale per questo libro è andato un po' scemando nel procedere della lettura.
Troppi i riferimenti musicali, storici e letterari spesso per adepti, specialisti, cataloghi di personaggi che finiscono per rimanere solo nomi oscuri.
Quindi ci si munisca di taccuino, per prendere appunti, memorizzare nomi astrusi, vieppiù in lingua farsi, e guggolate guggolate come non ci fosse un domani, ma tutte queste interruzioni frequenti sincopano la lettura e il ritmo ne risente.
Quando però Énard smette di istruirci, e si lascia andare alla parte più narrativa e di fiction scrive un romanzo eccellente, di notevole grazia e bellezza che nel 2015 ha meritato il Goncourt, il più prestigioso premio letterario francese.
October 17, 2019
Abbruch nach 194 Seiten.
Dabei sehe ich, dass es sich um ein beeindruckendes Werk handelt. Anhand vieler kleiner Geschichten und Details aufzuzeigen, wie sehr Orient und Okzident ineinander verwoben sind; weniger als Gegensätze zu sehen sind, denn als Aspekte, die sich ständig gegenseitig befruchten und durchdringen � das zu beschreiben ist schön, gut und wichtig.
Doch: Es gibt nur wenige Autoren, die mich mit solchen ewig langen inneren Monologen fesseln können ( gehört mit seinen autobiografischen Schriften dazu; eher nicht, obwohl ich auch da die Kunstfertigkeit erkenne).
Und dann: Wenn man solchen mäandernden Gedankengängen folgen soll, müssen die Themen eine Verbindung herstellen zwischen Erzähler und Leser. Da ich, was Musik angeht, ein absoluter Ignorant bin, fehlt mir an vielen Stellen der Bezug. Interessanter sind für mich immer die literarischen Anspielungen und dass Enard die sonst kaum bekannte Annemarie Schwarzenbach erwähnt, nimmt mich sehr für ihn ein. Schwarzenbach war eine enge Freundin von Erika und Klaus Mann, Tochter einer vermögenden Schweizer Familie, die leider sehr mit den Nazis sympathisierte. Schwarzenbach fotografierte, schrieb und reiste � und starb viel zu jung (wer mehr über sie erfahren möchte, dem sei Evelin Haslers empfohlen).
Doch das trägt nicht über so viele Hunderte von Seiten. Und manche Anregung, die zu Recherchen im Internet verleitet, offenbart, dass es im Buch nicht viel Neues über die allgemeinen wikipedia-Artikel hinaus zu finden gibt.
Also alles in allem: Ein kluges Werk eines klugen Autors, das sicher einigen klugen Lesern viel Freude bescheren wird (wenn im richtigen Moment genossen), aber sicher nicht allen.
Dabei sehe ich, dass es sich um ein beeindruckendes Werk handelt. Anhand vieler kleiner Geschichten und Details aufzuzeigen, wie sehr Orient und Okzident ineinander verwoben sind; weniger als Gegensätze zu sehen sind, denn als Aspekte, die sich ständig gegenseitig befruchten und durchdringen � das zu beschreiben ist schön, gut und wichtig.
Doch: Es gibt nur wenige Autoren, die mich mit solchen ewig langen inneren Monologen fesseln können ( gehört mit seinen autobiografischen Schriften dazu; eher nicht, obwohl ich auch da die Kunstfertigkeit erkenne).
Und dann: Wenn man solchen mäandernden Gedankengängen folgen soll, müssen die Themen eine Verbindung herstellen zwischen Erzähler und Leser. Da ich, was Musik angeht, ein absoluter Ignorant bin, fehlt mir an vielen Stellen der Bezug. Interessanter sind für mich immer die literarischen Anspielungen und dass Enard die sonst kaum bekannte Annemarie Schwarzenbach erwähnt, nimmt mich sehr für ihn ein. Schwarzenbach war eine enge Freundin von Erika und Klaus Mann, Tochter einer vermögenden Schweizer Familie, die leider sehr mit den Nazis sympathisierte. Schwarzenbach fotografierte, schrieb und reiste � und starb viel zu jung (wer mehr über sie erfahren möchte, dem sei Evelin Haslers empfohlen).
Doch das trägt nicht über so viele Hunderte von Seiten. Und manche Anregung, die zu Recherchen im Internet verleitet, offenbart, dass es im Buch nicht viel Neues über die allgemeinen wikipedia-Artikel hinaus zu finden gibt.
Also alles in allem: Ein kluges Werk eines klugen Autors, das sicher einigen klugen Lesern viel Freude bescheren wird (wenn im richtigen Moment genossen), aber sicher nicht allen.
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December 24, 2017Από τα βιβλία που δεν μπορώ να αποφασίσω τι βαθμό (αν έχουν καμιά αξία αυτά) να δώσω. Εύκολα, όμως, μπορώ να καταλάβω όποιον του δώσει 1 αστεράκι και όποιον του δώσει 5 και πιο εύκολα μπορώ να καταλάβω όποιον το παρατήσει.
Είναι ένα βιβλίο δύσκολο στην ανάγνωση αλλά όχι δυσνόητο. Για να διαβαστεί θέλει ρυθμό και χρόνο καθώς είναι ελάχιστα τα σημεία που προσφέρονται για διακοπή. Ο αναγνώστης κινδυνεύει να χαθεί μέσα στο δαίδαλο των ονομάτων, περιστατικών και τόπων. Αυτό γιατί ο συγγραφέας γράφει συνειρμικά θα έλεγα πιάνεται από ένα όνομα, μια λέξη και η αφήγηση παίρνει άλλες οδούς. Φυσικά, αυτό δικαιολογημένα συμβαίνει καθώς υποτίθεται ότι ακολουθούμε τις σκέψεις ενός ανθρώπου σε αϋπνία. Όμως, όσο επιμένεις, τόσο φανερώνεται η κεντρική ιστορία που χωρίς να είναι ιδιαίτερη δεν είναι και άσχημη. Παράλληλα έχεις αποκτήσει ένα σωρό γνώσεις για τον οριενταλισμό.
Αυτή είναι και η ουσία θα έλεγα του βιβλίου, η ενασχόληση και η αναζήτηση των Ευρωπαίων (πιο σωστά των δυτικοευρωπαίων) για την περίφημη Ανατολή. Εμείς λόγω των ιστορικών συγκυριών έχουμε μια διαφορετική άποψη για την Ανατολή και αυτό είναι ένα από τα πράγματα που αποκόμισα από το βιβλίο. Έτσι λοιπόν από τις σελίδες παρελαύνει όλη η ιστορία και όλα τα πρόσωπα που ασχολήθηκαν με την Ανατολή άλλος πιο προσγειωμένα άλλος πιο εξιδανικευμένα. Μεγάλο βάρος πέφτει στη μουσική καθώς ο κεντρικός ήρωας είναι μουσικολόγος και αρκετά από τα μουσικά κείμενα που αναφέρει έχουν ενδιαφέρον (ανάγνωση μετά μουσικής, γιατί όχι;).
Δεν μπορώ να πω συμβατικά αν μου άρεσε ή όχι. Σίγουρα με κούρασε, υπήρχαν σημεία αχρείαστα φλύαρα αλλά και σημεία πολύ μεστά, σημεία που η ιστορία έκανε κοιλιά και άλλα που σε κρατούσε σε αγωνία. Εκείνο που μπορώ να πω με βεβαιότητα είναι ότι πιάνει σε πολύ καλό βαθμό τον τρόπο σκέψης και την ατμόσφαιρα των εποχών που περιγράφει και ότι σίγουρα αποκόμισα κάποια πράγματα από αυτό.
Είναι ένα βιβλίο δύσκολο στην ανάγνωση αλλά όχι δυσνόητο. Για να διαβαστεί θέλει ρυθμό και χρόνο καθώς είναι ελάχιστα τα σημεία που προσφέρονται για διακοπή. Ο αναγνώστης κινδυνεύει να χαθεί μέσα στο δαίδαλο των ονομάτων, περιστατικών και τόπων. Αυτό γιατί ο συγγραφέας γράφει συνειρμικά θα έλεγα πιάνεται από ένα όνομα, μια λέξη και η αφήγηση παίρνει άλλες οδούς. Φυσικά, αυτό δικαιολογημένα συμβαίνει καθώς υποτίθεται ότι ακολουθούμε τις σκέψεις ενός ανθρώπου σε αϋπνία. Όμως, όσο επιμένεις, τόσο φανερώνεται η κεντρική ιστορία που χωρίς να είναι ιδιαίτερη δεν είναι και άσχημη. Παράλληλα έχεις αποκτήσει ένα σωρό γνώσεις για τον οριενταλισμό.
Αυτή είναι και η ουσία θα έλεγα του βιβλίου, η ενασχόληση και η αναζήτηση των Ευρωπαίων (πιο σωστά των δυτικοευρωπαίων) για την περίφημη Ανατολή. Εμείς λόγω των ιστορικών συγκυριών έχουμε μια διαφορετική άποψη για την Ανατολή και αυτό είναι ένα από τα πράγματα που αποκόμισα από το βιβλίο. Έτσι λοιπόν από τις σελίδες παρελαύνει όλη η ιστορία και όλα τα πρόσωπα που ασχολήθηκαν με την Ανατολή άλλος πιο προσγειωμένα άλλος πιο εξιδανικευμένα. Μεγάλο βάρος πέφτει στη μουσική καθώς ο κεντρικός ήρωας είναι μουσικολόγος και αρκετά από τα μουσικά κείμενα που αναφέρει έχουν ενδιαφέρον (ανάγνωση μετά μουσικής, γιατί όχι;).
Δεν μπορώ να πω συμβατικά αν μου άρεσε ή όχι. Σίγουρα με κούρασε, υπήρχαν σημεία αχρείαστα φλύαρα αλλά και σημεία πολύ μεστά, σημεία που η ιστορία έκανε κοιλιά και άλλα που σε κρατούσε σε αγωνία. Εκείνο που μπορώ να πω με βεβαιότητα είναι ότι πιάνει σε πολύ καλό βαθμό τον τρόπο σκέψης και την ατμόσφαιρα των εποχών που περιγράφει και ότι σίγουρα αποκόμισα κάποια πράγματα από αυτό.
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September 22, 2023Madre del amor hermoso. Infumable.
Esto es un compendio de cultura, de orientalismo, de música. Ni me atrae, ni me apetece leerlo, ni me han gustado nada cómo están escritas las 30 hojas que he leído. Se me han hecho más cuesta arriba que el Tourmalet.
Necesito algo más "terrenal".
No voy a ser injusto, con lo que seguro es un gran libro, así que esta vez no lo califico, pero no voy a invertir más tiempo con este. Que pena, porque esperaba algo distinto.
Esto es un compendio de cultura, de orientalismo, de música. Ni me atrae, ni me apetece leerlo, ni me han gustado nada cómo están escritas las 30 hojas que he leído. Se me han hecho más cuesta arriba que el Tourmalet.
Necesito algo más "terrenal".
No voy a ser injusto, con lo que seguro es un gran libro, así que esta vez no lo califico, pero no voy a invertir más tiempo con este. Que pena, porque esperaba algo distinto.
June 17, 2019
A lot of people quit reading this book because of the accumulation of names and places. And it is true: Enard overwhelms his reader with an avalanche of references to mainly 19th century European writers (Goethe, Heine, Balzac, Hugo, etc.) and musicians (Mozart, Beethoven, Liszt, Verdi, Wagner, etc.), intermingled with an infinite series of Arabic, Turkish, Persian writers and musicians; and the place of action is constantly shifting from Vienna to Paris, Prague, Berlin, and to Istanbul, Cairo, Damascus, Aleppo, Tehran, and so on. It is really dizzying; the compass (in French: la boussole) is constantly turning (pun intended).
However, there is a clear unity in the story: the Austrian musicologist Franz Ritter has just been told that he is terminally ill, and in a feverish, sleepless night in Vienna he looks back on his dealings with other oriental experts and especially with a certain Sarah. She is both his muse and would-be lover, and the constant focus of theories and visions on the relationship between Europe and the East. Sarah really is of the focal point of the compass of Franz.
It seems like Enard, especially through Sarah, attempted to refute the vision of Egyptian-American literary scholar Edward Saïd, known for his "Orientalism" (1978). In that book Said argued that the West had created a completely distorted, rather derogatory image of the East, which was used and strengthened by the imperialism and colonialism of the 19th century. Enard, through Sarah, on the other hand, argues that instead of appropriation on the basis of a power relationship (in line with Foucault) there was a real crosscultural influencing process, whereby the East simply inspired and elevated the entire European culture of the 19th century to a higher level. So it was not a one way, but a mutual process. In one of her letters Sarah simply states: "All cities in Europe are gateways to the East (...) All Europe is in the East. Everything is cosmopolitan, interdependent."
Enard illustrates this thesis with numerous references (to the exhaustion of the reader). And Franz's constant nocturnal argument is peppered with memories of conversations with other Orientalists, and especially with Sarah, and with letters and scientific tracts. On top of that we get presented flashbacks to the many voyages Franz made, often with Sarah, to European and Eastern cities.
This erudite tangle indeed is difficult to follow, but it is a particularly interesting amendment to the somewhat provocative and schematic theses of Said. Perhaps it is better to speak not of a correction, because I think that Enard in his turn doesn’t really do justice to the complexity of Said's thought: despite the cultural influence between East and West, the power relationship (the one way-appropriation) was certainly real and should not be discarded.
What ultimately makes this book the most captivating is the personal story of Franz and Sarah themselves. Both actually are two tragic protagonists. We can have a certain sympathy for Franz and his everlasting and (almost) unfulfilled desire for Sarah, and for Sarah herself who, in her obsession with the East, forgets the people around her who love her. But to really appreciate this sentimental storyline, it is necessary to read the novel all the way to the end, and I can understand that this is not possible for everyone. So let's say I have rather mixed feelings with this novel. (rating: 2.5 stars)
However, there is a clear unity in the story: the Austrian musicologist Franz Ritter has just been told that he is terminally ill, and in a feverish, sleepless night in Vienna he looks back on his dealings with other oriental experts and especially with a certain Sarah. She is both his muse and would-be lover, and the constant focus of theories and visions on the relationship between Europe and the East. Sarah really is of the focal point of the compass of Franz.
It seems like Enard, especially through Sarah, attempted to refute the vision of Egyptian-American literary scholar Edward Saïd, known for his "Orientalism" (1978). In that book Said argued that the West had created a completely distorted, rather derogatory image of the East, which was used and strengthened by the imperialism and colonialism of the 19th century. Enard, through Sarah, on the other hand, argues that instead of appropriation on the basis of a power relationship (in line with Foucault) there was a real crosscultural influencing process, whereby the East simply inspired and elevated the entire European culture of the 19th century to a higher level. So it was not a one way, but a mutual process. In one of her letters Sarah simply states: "All cities in Europe are gateways to the East (...) All Europe is in the East. Everything is cosmopolitan, interdependent."
Enard illustrates this thesis with numerous references (to the exhaustion of the reader). And Franz's constant nocturnal argument is peppered with memories of conversations with other Orientalists, and especially with Sarah, and with letters and scientific tracts. On top of that we get presented flashbacks to the many voyages Franz made, often with Sarah, to European and Eastern cities.
This erudite tangle indeed is difficult to follow, but it is a particularly interesting amendment to the somewhat provocative and schematic theses of Said. Perhaps it is better to speak not of a correction, because I think that Enard in his turn doesn’t really do justice to the complexity of Said's thought: despite the cultural influence between East and West, the power relationship (the one way-appropriation) was certainly real and should not be discarded.
What ultimately makes this book the most captivating is the personal story of Franz and Sarah themselves. Both actually are two tragic protagonists. We can have a certain sympathy for Franz and his everlasting and (almost) unfulfilled desire for Sarah, and for Sarah herself who, in her obsession with the East, forgets the people around her who love her. But to really appreciate this sentimental storyline, it is necessary to read the novel all the way to the end, and I can understand that this is not possible for everyone. So let's say I have rather mixed feelings with this novel. (rating: 2.5 stars)
October 15, 2019
Der Orient, das sind wir selber. Im Grunde bringt dieser Satz auf den Punkt, wofür Mathias Énard in seinem Roman mehrere hundert Seiten braucht. Eingebettet in eine Rahmenhandlung über einen (nicht nur) liebeskranken Wiener Musikwissenschaftler, erzählt das Buch vom Verhältnis zwischen Orient und Okzident. Ein Begriffspaar, mit dem üblicherweise ein Gegensatz, nämlich der zweier getrennter Sphären, assoziiert wird. Énard positioniert sich explizit gegen dieses vereinfachende Weltbild, indem er die mannigfaltigen Berührungspunkte und gegenseitigen Einflüsse zwischen den beiden Kulturräumen aufzeigt. Dafür schüttet er ein Füllhorn enzyklopädischen Wissens aus den Bereichen Geschichte, Politik und Kunst über dem manchmal überforderten Leser aus. Das ist einerseits faszinierend, welche ungeahnten Verbindungen sich da auftun, bedarf aber auch einer gewissen Bereitschaft, sich in die Details einzuarbeiten.
Unschwer erkennbar ist sein Roman durch den französischen Poststruktualismus beeinflusst. Insbesondere durch Gilles Deleuzes und Félix Guattaris Konzept der Rhizomatik. Das Rhizom (Wurzelgeflecht) als Modell der Wissensorganisation und Welterklärung, bildet quasi das Fundament des ganzen Buchs. Aus der Biografie Mathias Énards ist zu entnehmen, dass er selbst Orientalist ist und amInstitut national des langues et civilisations orientales(INALCO) Arabisch und Persisch studiert hat. Insofern nicht verwunderlich, dass er seinen im Milieu der Orientalistik angesiedelten Roman, gleich auf das entsprechende wissenschaftstheoretische Fundament gestellt hat. Wenn man das berücksichtigt, erklären sich auch einige der Schwierigkeiten bei der Lektüre. Man muss sich als Leser von gewohnten Mustern hierarchischer Ordnungen in der Erzählung lösen. Die einzelnen Namen, Fragmente und Abschweifungen im Buch ergeben am Ende ein großes Ganzes (wenn man denn so lange durchhält). Welche Querverbindungen man zieht oder wie man die Informationen gewichtet, wird einem als Eigenleistung beim Lesen auferlegt.
Kompass ist eine klare Absage an die Vorstellung von homogenen, gegeneinander abgrenzbaren Kulturräumen. Ein Gegenmodell zu simplifizierenden Weltbildern, wie sie etwa von rechten identitären Bewahrern des Abendlandes oder den islamistischen Kämpfern des IS propagiert werden. Den Anspruch eine andere, differenzierte Sicht zum Komplex Orient/Okzident zu vermitteln, löst das Buch zweifellos ein. Allerdings ist die Einbindung der Fakten in die fiktionale Rahmenhandlung, meiner Meinung nach nicht immer gut gelungen. Zu oft hat man den Eindruck eher ein Sachbuch zu lesen, als einen Roman. Insgesamt fand ich das Buch aber sehr interessant und anregend.
Unschwer erkennbar ist sein Roman durch den französischen Poststruktualismus beeinflusst. Insbesondere durch Gilles Deleuzes und Félix Guattaris Konzept der Rhizomatik. Das Rhizom (Wurzelgeflecht) als Modell der Wissensorganisation und Welterklärung, bildet quasi das Fundament des ganzen Buchs. Aus der Biografie Mathias Énards ist zu entnehmen, dass er selbst Orientalist ist und amInstitut national des langues et civilisations orientales(INALCO) Arabisch und Persisch studiert hat. Insofern nicht verwunderlich, dass er seinen im Milieu der Orientalistik angesiedelten Roman, gleich auf das entsprechende wissenschaftstheoretische Fundament gestellt hat. Wenn man das berücksichtigt, erklären sich auch einige der Schwierigkeiten bei der Lektüre. Man muss sich als Leser von gewohnten Mustern hierarchischer Ordnungen in der Erzählung lösen. Die einzelnen Namen, Fragmente und Abschweifungen im Buch ergeben am Ende ein großes Ganzes (wenn man denn so lange durchhält). Welche Querverbindungen man zieht oder wie man die Informationen gewichtet, wird einem als Eigenleistung beim Lesen auferlegt.
Kompass ist eine klare Absage an die Vorstellung von homogenen, gegeneinander abgrenzbaren Kulturräumen. Ein Gegenmodell zu simplifizierenden Weltbildern, wie sie etwa von rechten identitären Bewahrern des Abendlandes oder den islamistischen Kämpfern des IS propagiert werden. Den Anspruch eine andere, differenzierte Sicht zum Komplex Orient/Okzident zu vermitteln, löst das Buch zweifellos ein. Allerdings ist die Einbindung der Fakten in die fiktionale Rahmenhandlung, meiner Meinung nach nicht immer gut gelungen. Zu oft hat man den Eindruck eher ein Sachbuch zu lesen, als einen Roman. Insgesamt fand ich das Buch aber sehr interessant und anregend.
September 1, 2021
Un meraviglioso excursus culturale sulla commistione oriente-occidente a proposito di musica, letteratura, poesia, filosofia, viaggi e arte.
Si parla di Istanbul, Damasco, Palmira, Teheran, di tutti i musicisti, viaggiatori e scrittori che ne hanno subito l'influenza e delle derive che ne sono conseguite sulla cultura occidentale.
Un vero e proprio viaggio dal divano nei luoghi e nel tempo che mira a dimostrare come non esista un "noi e loro", ma un solo (sfaccettato) NOI.
A volte un po' troppo erudito e difficile da seguire, ma nel complesso stupendo.
Si parla di Istanbul, Damasco, Palmira, Teheran, di tutti i musicisti, viaggiatori e scrittori che ne hanno subito l'influenza e delle derive che ne sono conseguite sulla cultura occidentale.
Un vero e proprio viaggio dal divano nei luoghi e nel tempo che mira a dimostrare come non esista un "noi e loro", ma un solo (sfaccettato) NOI.
A volte un po' troppo erudito e difficile da seguire, ma nel complesso stupendo.
September 2, 2019
Encyclopaedic, intelligent and profound. Unexpectedly, but it has turned quite lyrical at the second part, and it has appeared to contain only one, but absolutely beautiful love scene. Total delight to read.
February 19, 2022
“A vida é longa, a vida é por vezes demasiado longa�
“Somos dois fumadores de ópio, cada um confinado à sua nuvem sem nada vermos para além dela, sozinhos, fumamos sem nunca nos compreendermos, rostos que agonizam num espelho, somos uma imagem gelada a que o tempo dá a ilusão de movimento, um cristal de neve que desliza num novelo de orvalho cuja complexa urdidura ninguém entende, eu sou essa gota de água condensada na janela da minha sala, uma pérola líquida que se move e nada sabe do vapor que a gerou nem dos átomos que ainda a compõem, mas que em breve estarão ao serviço de outras moléculas, de outros corpos, das nuvens de chumbo que pesam sobre Viena esta noite: quem sabe em que nuca vai desabar esta água, contra que pele, sobre que passeio, em direção a que rio, e esta face indistinta no vidro é minha apenas por um instante, uma entre as milhentas configurações possíveis da ilusão�
“Dizem que o bom Khayyam jaz onde viçosas
As rosas de Naishapur são formosas
Mas o que jaz ali não é Khayyam
É aqui que jaz: e ele é que é as rosas.�
Fernando Pessoa
“Somos dois fumadores de ópio, cada um confinado à sua nuvem sem nada vermos para além dela, sozinhos, fumamos sem nunca nos compreendermos, rostos que agonizam num espelho, somos uma imagem gelada a que o tempo dá a ilusão de movimento, um cristal de neve que desliza num novelo de orvalho cuja complexa urdidura ninguém entende, eu sou essa gota de água condensada na janela da minha sala, uma pérola líquida que se move e nada sabe do vapor que a gerou nem dos átomos que ainda a compõem, mas que em breve estarão ao serviço de outras moléculas, de outros corpos, das nuvens de chumbo que pesam sobre Viena esta noite: quem sabe em que nuca vai desabar esta água, contra que pele, sobre que passeio, em direção a que rio, e esta face indistinta no vidro é minha apenas por um instante, uma entre as milhentas configurações possíveis da ilusão�
“Dizem que o bom Khayyam jaz onde viçosas
As rosas de Naishapur são formosas
Mas o que jaz ali não é Khayyam
É aqui que jaz: e ele é que é as rosas.�
Fernando Pessoa
November 21, 2021
I probably picked a bad time to read this one, as I read it immediately after , which I loved, and I found my concentration wavering a lot, perhaps because of the meandering nature of Énard's storytelling and my lack of interest in its narrator Franz Ritter. It is not a bad book, but for me it is trying to be too many things, and doesn't entirely succeed in any of them. The parts that held my attention most were the parts on classical music, a subject Énard knows in sufficient depth for his musicologist narrator to be convincing. I was less interested in the doomed love story that the book is built around, and the parts about perceptions of the East were a little dry for my taste.
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