Daily reminiscences of novels: oranges in 1930s Depression, onions during World War II, artificial flowers in a sci-fi future

I always enjoy small daily actions that remind me of some favourite scenes in great novels. The hero Rick Deckard in Phil K Dick's "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" in his apocaliptic future sees artificial life imitations all around him, from the electric sheep in his home to the frog he offers his wife at the end. It is a bit too bleak to own robot animals, but I am often pleased to have artificial flowers both at home (in picture) and in the office. Originally, the novel was supposed to be  in 1992 or 2021, but despite the pandemic we still have animals all around us. But I believe that actually my artificial flower vases are quite ecological and mood soothing, since they spend no water, unlike the robot animals of Deckard.

There is also the onions that I always eat plentiful in every salad buffet, which remind me of the scene when Bendrix first meets Sarah in The End of the Affair during the years just before World War II, "Is it possible to fall in love over a dish of onions? It seems improbable and yet I could swear it was just then that I fell in love."

But my favorite literary reference to a daily item or activity is in John Fante's book, where the young author Arturo Bandini living in poverty in his rented LA room has been eating oranges as meals for month, a sweet liquid sunlight that fills up his stomach, the cheapest food he can find. Orange peels pile up with cigarette ashes in his room. Other creative solutions for his poverty is to use the strings from the cereal boxes as a belt and shoe laces, then applying the carton box paper to fix up his shoe sole. Arturo reflects upon looking at the nice ladies arriving to the luxury hotels in LA that their shoes are worth more than everything he ever owned... But Arturo - despiste his rough philosophy - is in fact a soft-hearted boy and ends up using his first check as an author to pay a beef meal to a senior neighbor. Arturo also adds extra sugar to his coffee in order to get a bit more taste and calories. The same choice of taking several bags of sugar in a coffee cup is admitted by a character in John Steinbeck's novel "The winter of our discontent".

I just really love the Arturo Bandini character, because of his so many flaws and realism, his cowardice, made up lies even to himself, lack of success and inability to talk elegantly to people. Yet Arturo's deep honesty and resilience makes him rise up above the poverty around him. 

I have a great taste for sweet oranges and enjoy eating 2 per day in winter while looking at the city of Santiago in the mid-afternoon with its smog-filled horizon. In some ways it is a bit like the smoggy LA. That is why eating oranges - fortunately, for me a food choice - always makes me think of Bandini and his so many flaws, yet always painted with the colored sincerity of a good heart.

Poema para una niña con tres nacionalidades (Chile, Portugal, USA): Día de Portugal

En el Día de Portugal y de las Comunidades Portuguesas decidí poner un poema dedicado a mi hija de 3 años en su cumple en los tres idiomas de sus nacionalidades, español, portugués e inglés. Me inspiré en un poema original de Camoes. Desafortunadamente, no tengo la calidad de nuestro bardo, pero le he dado mi cariño y esfuerzo:

http://www.citador.pt/poemas/quanto-mais-vos-pago-mais-vos-devo-luis-vaz-de-camoes




A uma menina no seu aniversário
Bebé, conhecendo a fortuna das tuas manhãs,
se não te entregasse todo o meu esforço,
seria injusto e imerecido.
Tendo feito dos meus trabalhos uma escravatura
e acorrentado sendo teu prisioneiro,
mais daria a alma, o meu sangue, a minha vida.
Tudo o que é meu é agora teu,
uma vez ver-te tem um preço tão elevado,
que se mais pago mais devo.

A una niña de cumpleaños
Bebé, conociendo la fortuna de tus mañanas
se no entregase todo mi esfuerzo y aprecio
sería inferior, injusto, indebido.
Haciendo de mis trabajos una esclavitud
y en cadenas entregándome prisionero,
más daría mi alma, mi sangre, mi vida.
Todo lo mío es ahora tuyo,
una vez verte es tan alto precio,
que siempre más me endeudo.

To a little girl on her birthday
Baby, having experienced the brightness of your mornings,
if I had not given you all my efforts,
it would have been unfair, undeserved.
Having made my labours a slavery
and delivering myself in chains a prisoner,
still I would offer my blood, my soul, my life.
All that is mine is now yours,
for seeing you demands such a high price,
that always higher is my debt.

A Night Train to Lisbon, a House of Spirits and a Sailor between Chile and Portugal

As a Portuguese arriving to live in Chile seven years ago my first thoughts were entwined on the coincidences between both countries’ cultural, political and cinematic experiences. My embracing of this country was entirely unplanned and the result of a twist of fate (or “fado” as the Portuguese call it). As I was completing my studies in the United States, the economic crisis in Europe gave me the idea of looking at another continent for prospects. I and my Chilean supervisor thought “why not Chile” and a life changing project was born to answer such question. I had never been in Chile before, had met only three Chileans in my whole life until that moment, and I realized with some mixed feelings of anxiety and expectation that Chile is the farthest country on Earth from Portugal. I had no clue then that I would stay so many years in Chile, but afterwards each single second here inspired me with passion, serenity and an eagerness to embrace a new life born equally out of destiny, random chance and my deep inner self.

My airborne thoughts in that cloudy grey May morning as the plane descended over Santiago turned to the subtle links between Chile and my birth country. Both countries lie at the extremes of their continents, giving the feeling of lands at the end of the world, where poets contemplate the dark foamy sea and drown their thoughts in the sound of the waves. Interestingly, there is a very famous Chilean novelist, Luis Sepúlveda, who lives in Spain and sells millions of books in Portugal and Spain, and yet is completely unknown in Chile. Thinking about this I wondered if I too could be more successful in Chile than in Portugal. Want to listen to Fado/Destiny? My favorite place as a child - 8 to 12 years old - was the big supermarket Jumbo in Lisbon! I didn't know then it was a Chilean supermarket, but I was in love with its design, the elephant logo and its books section. One could say I loved Chilean grocery before I knew it.

Most strikingly, Chilean and Portuguese political culture were joined together four decades ago. In the early 1970s a Portuguese underground political movement flourished even under a brutal repression of a nationalistic right-wing regime. Two consecutive generations of Portuguese reached adulthood without a local model of what a democracy and its leaders should be. The oldest of the repressed generations had a cynical view that nothing would ever change, but the youngest – among them my parents and cousins – saw the world as a blank state where all kinds of communities and ideas were possible. Young people were fragmented in different political parties and groups. Many such groups sought inspiration from other political movements in the wider world, including Latin America. Chile was taken by some as a cultural model with songs borrowed from Víctor Jara, poems from Neruda and fiery speeches from Salvador Allende. Brigada Víctor Jara is of the most famous Portuguese folk music groups of the last 40 years and was directly inspired by Víctor Jara’s brave resistance and death. In 1973/74 Chile changed from a democratic regime to a dictatorship, while Portugal became a free nation, although one confused by the many possibilities offered by freedom. The Portuguese had to learn that not all free choices are good and that beautiful pipe dreams only flourish if sustained by hard reality.

However, even more surprising is that both countries are symbiotically linked through the cinema. Chilean director Raoul Ruiz used Lisbon to create Valparaiso in his movies, since his long political exile blocked him from filming in Chile. One example is the movie Three Crowns of the Sailor, where a drunken sailor in a ghostly ship travels from Valparaiso to other ports, living strange fantasies. Also, Ruiz' last movie "Mysteries of Lisbon" adapts a Portuguese novel by Camilo de Castelo Branco and again shows how much Portuguese culture impacts Chilean art.

Another movie on my mind that day was the celebrated adaptation of House of Spirits from Chilean novelist Isabel Allende, which was filmed in Lisbon and Alentejo in Portugal. Two generations of a Chilean family: one lives in a democracy plagued by wealth and land inequality, the second is crushed by a military coup. More recently, a movie by the same director Bille August adapts the novel “A Night Train to Lisbon” by Swiss author Pascal Mercier. The movie is about a Swiss literature professor who travels to Lisbon in search of a little known Portuguese writer and ends up finding how the Portuguese dictatorship broke his friendships apart. One of the major scenes in “A night train to Lisbon” shows a Portuguese communist activist, João Eça, being captured by the secret police at his home. João is forced to play the piano in front of his torturers, only to have his hands broken and his fingers smashed. I cannot remember such an incident being reported against a Portuguese musician during the dictatorship times, but it is quite possible that Bille August and Pascal Mercier may have been inspired by a similar incident which happened to Víctor Jara, who was forced to play and sing by his torturers after having his hands and finger nails broken. Again Portugal and Chile are united through dark political events and their experiences were mixed to form a great novel and cinematic piece.

Now Bille August is perhaps the only director who can claim to have made movies about both the Chilean and the Portuguese dictatorships, with both movies being filmed in Portugal. And both works feature a stellar acting by Jeremy Irons! Let’s hope Bille August and Jeremy Irons return to Portugal and film a third movie as passionate, enthralling and literary as these.