pale fire

cuánto tiempo hacía que no deseaba como loca el momento de retomar una lectura. contar el tiempo para volver a un libro. me pone tan feliz este deseo de enfermarme de literatura nuevamente. entonces ando con cuarenta libros encima, crimen y castigo (para repasar), el de zweig, la biografía de kinski (va a quedar para otro momento), pale fire (libro, fotocopias, anotaciones).

leer dostoievski me da ganas de leer más.

leer a nabokov me da ganas de escribir. otro ruso, más europeo, menos salvaje (por lo menos en el estilo) que el condenado a siberia.

al sol, leo estas verdades acerca de la belleza de las mujeres, de la expectativa de la belleza física.

She might have been you, me, or some quaint blend:
Nature chose me so as to wrench and rend
Your heart and mine. At first we'd smile and say:
"All little girls are plump" or "Jim McVey
(The family oculist) will cure that slight
Squint in not time." And later: "She'll be quite
Pretty, you know"; and trying to assuage
The swelling torment: "That's the awkward age."
"She should take riding lessons," you would say
(Your eyes and mine not meeting). "She should play
Tennis, or badminton. Less starch, more fruit
She may not be a beauty, but she's cute."

It was no use, no use. The prizes won
In French and history, no doubt, were fun;
At Christmas parties games were rough, no doubt,
And one shy little guest might be left out;
But let's be fair: while children of her age
Were cast as elves and fairies on the stage
That she'd helped paint for the school pantomime,
My gentle girl appeared as Mother Time,
A bent charwoman with a slop pail and broom,
And like a fool I sobbed in the men's room.


Another winter was scraped-scropped away.
The Toothwart White haunted our woods in May.
Summer was power-mowed, and autumn, burned.
Alas, the dingy cygnet never turned
Into a wood duck. And again your voice:
"But this is prejudice You should rejoice
That she is innocent. Why overstress
The physical? She wants to look a mess.
Virgins have written some resplendent books.
Lovemaking is not everything. Good looks,
Are not that indispensable!" And still
Old Pan would call from every painted hill,
And still the demons of our pity spoke:
No lips would share the lipstick of her smoke;
The telephone that rang before a ball
Every two minutes in Sorosa Hall
For her would never ring; and, with a great
Screeching of tires on gravel, to the gate
Out of lacquered night, a white-scarfed beau
Would never come for her; she'd never go,
A dream of gauze and jasmine, to that dance.

We sent her, though, to a chateau in France.