{"id":58,"date":"2008-03-07T21:25:44","date_gmt":"2008-03-07T19:25:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ertzgaard.net\/skrift\/?p=58"},"modified":"2008-03-07T21:25:44","modified_gmt":"2008-03-07T19:25:44","slug":"jose-saramago-journey-to-portugal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ertzgaard.net\/skrift\/2008\/03\/07\/jose-saramago-journey-to-portugal\/","title":{"rendered":"Jos\u00e9 Saramago: Journey to Portugal"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Jos\u00e9<\/a>For \u00e5 kunne skrive Journey to Portugal<\/em> fant nobelprisvinneren Jos\u00e9 Saramago ut at han m\u00e5tte forlate sitt hjemland en stakket stund – for s\u00e5 \u00e5 returnere fem dager senere i den hensikt \u00e5 gjennomf\u00f8re en flere m\u00e5neder lang reise gjennom lillebrorlandet p\u00e5 den iberiske halv\u00f8y. Og p\u00e5 mange m\u00e5ter gir hans omstendelige reiseskildring et fascinerende innblikk i kultur og natur i denne fordums stormakten.<\/p>\n

Saramago begynner sin portugisiske reise i byen Miranda i den nord\u00f8stlige Bragan\u00e7a-provinsen og avslutter den i Alcoutim i s\u00f8r\u00f8st etter \u00e5 ha snirklet seg sakte men sikkert p\u00e5 kryss og tvers over fjell, langs kyst, gjennom daler og \u00f8rkenaktige str\u00f8k. S\u00e5 ofte som mulig langs elver og innsj\u00f8er.<\/p>\n

Hans skildring kretser i sv\u00e6rt stor grad rundt beskrivelsen av kirker, borger, museer og andre historiske byggverk i de sm\u00e5 og store byene og tettstedene han stopper i. Dette er i og for seg interessant, men i Journey to Portugal<\/em> syns jeg faktisk at det blir for mye av det gode. Jeg antar at vel 70 – 80% av boka best\u00e5r av slike bygningsbeskrivelser. Og etter beskrivelsen kirke nr. 45 og borg nr. 28 begynner det ene bygget \u00e5 ligne fryktelig mye p\u00e5 det neste. Det blir rett og slett litt kjedelig og monotont – uansett hvor dyktig Saramago er til \u00e5 skildre det han ser.<\/p>\n

Der som likevel gj\u00f8r boka vel verd \u00e5 lese er beskrivelsene av landskapet, karakteristikkene av folket han ser og gjengivelsen av de mange m\u00f8tene «the traveller» har med disse menneskene:<\/p>\n

A large group of English tourists has just come in to the Gaivota restaurant. NEarly all of them ask for the steak. The Saxons are still barbarians.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When she understands the question, she smiles and the traveller is amazed, because although her teeth are false, the smile is so genuine and she is obiously so pleased to be smiling that he feels like hugging her and asking her to do it again.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The River Guadiana, the river he played hide-and-seek with earlier,also runs through M\u00e9rtola. This river was born beautiful and will end its days beautiful: such is its destiny, which it will have to fulfil. The traveller goes again to stare down at it, and sees it has lost none of its deep colour, nor any of its life, even when as now it flows between tranquil banks. It is part of its nature, like the cry of the hawk.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Ogs\u00e5 skildringen av sitt eget hum\u00f8r og sinnsstemninger, samt de mange velformulerte betraktninger han gj\u00f8r seg p\u00e5 sin ferd, er vel verd \u00e5 f\u00e5 med seg:<\/p>\n

It shows St. Michael with his sacred lance, painted in strokes of natural colour, but ith his eyes ogling the supremely beautiful victim, endowed with firm and tempting breasts, burning voluptiously among the flames. It can’t be right for the Church to punish temptations of the flesh and simultaneously stimulate them in such a fashion at Tel\u00f5es. The traveller departed from the church in a state of mortal sin.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Catholicism is a joyless thing, the only jubilations permitted being either celestial and contemplative or mystical and ecstatic.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Watching the water flow by, the traveller begins to feel thirsty, while consideration of the capon revives his appetite for food. It was definitely dinner-time. He throws himself into the quest, walking and sniffing where there’s no lack of good smells, yet without doubt he must have been propelled by destiny, taken by the shoulders and pushed towards the appointed spot: to the Arantes restaurant. The traveller went inside, sat down, requested the menu and ordered: meatballs Sarrubulho-style, salt cod roasted with new potatoes, and to drink vinho verde. This came endowed with the greatest virtue among wines: no traveller could have resisted it, nor in its turn was it resistant to the traveller’s palate. As to the honest cod, which came garnished with exactly the right sauce and exactly the right potatoes, you could rightly describe it as excellent. But the papas de sarrabulho, esteemed ladies and gentlemen, the Sarrabulho meatballs showed that he could never hope to find nor live to eat such a tasty dish again, since it’d never be possible to repeat the human inventiveness contained in such marvellous rustic fare, with its blend of substance and delicacy, the number and fusion of flavours, all from a pig and sublimated in a hot gravy which offers sustenance to the body and solace to the soul. However much the traveller voyages the world over, he’ll never cease singing the praises of those papas de sarrabulho he ate in Arantes.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I disse mange korte og lange avsnittene kommer Saramagos spr\u00e5klige kyndighet fullt ut til sin rette. Og det redder boka og gj\u00f8r den s\u00e5 absolutt lesverdig.<\/p>\n

Sammenfattende kan en vel si at Journey to Portugal<\/em> er tidvis traurig lesning ispedd mange funklende gullkorn av humor, visdom og spr\u00e5klig briljanse.<\/p>\n

Forlag: Harvest Book Harcourt Inc.
\nISBN: 0-15-600713-4
\nUtgivelses\u00e5r: 2000
\n443 sider<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For \u00e5 kunne skrive Journey to Portugal fant nobelprisvinneren Jos\u00e9 Saramago ut at han m\u00e5tte forlate sitt hjemland en stakket stund – for s\u00e5 \u00e5 returnere fem dager senere i den hensikt \u00e5 gjennomf\u00f8re en flere m\u00e5neder lang reise gjennom lillebrorlandet p\u00e5 den iberiske halv\u00f8y. Og p\u00e5 mange m\u00e5ter gir hans omstendelige reiseskildring et fascinerende […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90],"tags":[377,551,570],"class_list":["post-58","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-saramago-jose","tag-jose-saramago","tag-portugal","tag-reiseskildring"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ertzgaard.net\/skrift\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ertzgaard.net\/skrift\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ertzgaard.net\/skrift\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ertzgaard.net\/skrift\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ertzgaard.net\/skrift\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ertzgaard.net\/skrift\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ertzgaard.net\/skrift\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ertzgaard.net\/skrift\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ertzgaard.net\/skrift\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}