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Big Sur

Li o On the Road há uns bons anos e, ao contrário do que esperava, não achei particular piada a tipos a andar de um lado para o outro, um chulando a sua tia enquanto o outro coçava a barriga  (dois bêbedos drogados preguiçosos e misóginos, what's not to like?). Decidi, não obstante, dar uma segunda oportunidade ao Kerouac.


Continuo a ter um problema com o Kerouac, e é um problema que se chama stream of consciousness. É um problema que tenho com vários outros autores (estou a olhar para ti, Virginia Woolf/dêem-me o The Sound and the Fury todos os dias, porém), portanto não são eles, sou eu. Percebo que estar a pensar em pontuação e parágrafos seja uma seca quando se está inspirado, mas o meu attention span nunca foi grande coisa. Por exemplo, gostei muito da frase seguinte, mas leiam-na lá no seguimento e na pontuação que tem:

Always so wonderful in fact to get away from that and back to the more human woods and come to the cabin where the fire's still red and you can see the Bodhisattva's lamp, the glass of ferns on the table, the box of Jasmine tea nearby, all so gentle and human after that rocky deluge out there - So I make an excellent pan of muffins and tell myself 'Blessed is the man can make his own bread" - Like that, the whole three weeks, happiness - And I'm rolling my own cigarettes, too - And as I say sometimes I meditate how wonderful the fantastic use I've gotten out of cheap little articles like the scourer, but in this instance I think of the marvelous belongings in my rucksack like my 25-cent plastic shaker with which I've just made the muffin batter but also I've used it in the past to drink hot tea, wine, coffee, whiskey and even stored clean handkerchiefs in it when I traveled - The top part of the shaker, my holy cup, and had it for five years now - And other belongings so valuable compared to the worthlessness of expensive things I'd bought and never used - Like my black soft sleeping sweater also five years which I was now wearing in the damp Sur summer night and day, over a flannel shirt in the cold, and just the sweater for the night's sleep in the bag - Endless use and virtue of it! - And because the expensive things were of ill use, like the fancy pants I'd bought for recent recording dates in New York and other television appearances and never even wore again, useless things like a $40 raincoat I never wore because it didn't have slits in the side pockets (you pay for the label and the so called "tailoring') - Also an expensive tweed jacket bought for TV and never worn again - Two silly sports shirts bought for Hollywood never worn again and were 9 bucks each! - And it's almost tearful to realize and remember the old green T-shirt I'd found, mind you, eight years ago, mind you, on the DUMP in Watsonville California mind you, and got fantastic use and comfort from it - Like working to fix that new stream in the creek to flow through the convenient deep new waterhole near the wood platform on the bank, and losing myself in this like a kid playing, it's the little things that count (cliches are truisms and all truisms are true) - On my deathbed I could be remembering that creek day and forgetting the day MGM bought my book, I could be remembering the old lost green dump T-shirt and forgetting the sapphired robes - Mebbe the best way to get into Heaven.

*respirar*

Custou-me horrores a ler, larguei o livro a meio e voltei a pegar nele passado um ano, tirei a foto acima algures no ano passado, perco-me nestes raciocínios, mas, em partes, até gostei. O On the Road é famosíssimo e adorado por, sei lá, adolescentes, hippies, pessoas que percebem mais disto que eu e pessoas influenciáveis por opiniões aparentemente globais sobre literatura, mas o Big Sur é das coisas mais honestas e humanas que já li, falando sobre farpelas e os seus preços e a fama e tratar de animais e o mar no Big Sur, California e a morte do seu gato e amigos asiáticos e amantes carentes do melhor amigo (que no livro anterior coçava a barriga).

Big Sur é o Kerouac (aqui Duluoz) no fundo do poço, um breakdown massivo, lidando com o conflito entre o alcoólico deprimido e eremita em que se tornou após o On the Road e a pessoa que ele pensou ser, e à qual quer voltar.

Manhattans and more Manhattans and finally when we got back to the cabin in late afternoon I was feeling good but realized I was going to be finished tomorrow - But poor young Ron Blake asked me if he could stay with me in the cabin, the others were all going back to the city in the three cars, I couldn't think of any way to reject his request in a harmless way so said yes... So when they all left suddenly I was alone with this mad beatnik kid singing me songs and all I wanta do is sleep - But I've got to make the best of it and not disappoint his believing heart. Because after all the poor kid actually believes that there's something noble and idealistic and kind about all this beat stuff, and I'm supposed to be the King of the Beatniks according to the newspapers, so but at the same time I'm sick and tired of all the endless enthusiasms of new young kids trying to know me and pour out all their lives into me so that I'll jump up and down and say yes yes that's right, which I cant do any more - My reason for coming to Big Sur for the summer being precisely to get away from that sort of thing - Like those pathetic live highschool kids who all came to my door in Long Island one night wearing jackets that said "Dharma Bums" on them, all expecting me to be 25 years old according to a mistake on a book jacket and here I am old enough to be their father - But no, hep swinging young jazzy Ron wants to dig everything, go to the beach, run and romp and sing, talk, write tunes, write stories, climb mountains, go hiking, see everything, do everything with everybody But having one last quart of port with me I agree to follow him to the beach. 

O poema no final, Sea, é um bocado estranho.

3/5 não fui feita para ler Kerouac mas continuo a querer ler o Dharma Bums

Podem comprar uma outra edição em inglês aqui, ou em português aqui.

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