"lyra's oxford", de philip pullman

depois de ter publicado aquela que é considerada uma das mais importantes trilogias de fantasia, his dark materials, philip pullman decidiu revelar mais um pouco desse estranho, mas delicioso, mundo de lyra. desta vez, não apela ao nosso mundo nem aos incontáveis mundos paralelos que constituíam, a par com a exploração do daimon grego, aquilo que caracterizava a obra de pullman. neste livro, o escritor inglês narra uma pequena história acontecida no estranho mundo de lyra. é muito interessante, apesar de estar uns furos abaixo da trilogia (como seria de esperar).

jorge vicente

oscar baedecker

(esculturas situadas na torre do relógio do Magdalen College, Oxford. As esculturas foram esculpidas entre 1492 e 1505)


"...Oxford, where the real and the unreal jostle in the streets; where North Parade is in the south and South Parade is in the north, where Paradise is lost under a pumping station;(1) where the river mists have a solvent and vivifying effect on the stone of the ancient buildings, so that the gargoyles of Magdalen College climb down at night and fight with those from Wykeham, or fish under the bridges, or simply change their expressions overnight; Oxford, where windows open into other worlds..."

Oscar Baedecker, The Coasts of Bohemia" (2)

(1) The old houses of Paradise Square were demolished in order to make an office block, in fact, not a pumping station. But Baedecker, for all his wayward charm, is a notoriously unreliable guide.

(2) BAEDECKER, Oscar apud PULLMAN, Phillip - Lyra's oxford. 2ª edição. London: Corgi, 2007. ISBN 978-0-552-55751-1. p. [5].

philip pullman, the amber spyglass

não deixa de ser interessante constatar que, num mundo dominado pelas aventuras de harry potter e por milionésimas versões d'O Senhor dos Anéis, se façam obras tão singulares e tão inteligentes como a trilogia de philip pullman his dark materials. tal como já foi dito antes (ver aqui), esta obra é uma das mais espectaculares e controversas da moderna literatura fantástica e não deve muito a tolkien. de facto, o que o autor pretende é criar uma espécie de realismo mágico, ou, para estarmos de acordo com as palavras de pullman, realismo puro e duro.

"I have said that His Dark Materials is not fantasy but stark realism, and my reason for this is to emphasise what I think is an important aspect of the story, namely the fact that it is realistic, in psychological terms. I deal with matters that might normally be encountered in works of realism, such as adolescence, sexuality, and so on; and they are the main subject matter of the story – the fantasy (which, of course, is there: no-one but a fool would think I meant there is no fantasy in the books at all) is there to support and embody them, not for its own sake.

Dæmons, for example, might otherwise be only a meaningless decoration, adding nothing to the story: but I use them to embody and picture some truths about human personality which I couldn't picture so easily without them. I'm trying to write a book about what it means to be human, to grow up, to suffer and learn. My quarrel with much (not all) fantasy is it has this marvelous toolbox and does nothing with it except construct shoot-em-up games. Why shouldn't a work of fantasy be as truthful and profound about becoming an adult human being as the work of George Eliot or Jane Austen?"

(retirado daqui)

e é justamente neste ponto (assim como em outros) que o autor difere da maior parte da literatura fantástica contemporânea: a importância dada às personagens, ao seu crescimento, à sua história, à sua evolução. a importância do daimon, retirada do imaginário greco-latino, é aqui fundamental: o daimon simboliza o nosso demónio / espírito interior, aquilo em que acreditamos, a nossa identidade, a nossa força, mas também as nossas fraquezas. foi muito interessante descobrir que, apesar de, no mundo de lyra, os génios / daimons estarem visíveis para toda a gente, no nosso próprio mundo, eles também existem, mas precisamos de os procurar. em civilizações tão antigas como a africana, os homens primitivos marcavam nas madeiras os animais de poder, ainda hoje visíveis nos totéms. num sistema de desenvolvimento pessoal como a biodança, dança-se os animais da natureza: o hipopótamo, que simboliza o nosso lado bonacheirão e de prazer de viver; a garça, que simboliza a liberdade, o tigre o nosso lado mais vital e a cobra, que simboliza o nosso lado mais sensual e rastejante. no fundo, temos dentro de nós milhares e milhares de animais.

outro aspecto muito interessante do livro, especialmente neste último the amber spyglass e que me deixou maravilhado foi a ida ao reino dos mortos: não me lembro de nenhum romance fantástico que tenha evocado de maneira tão inteligente o imaginário da grécia: o hades, o rio aqueronte, a barca de caronte, as harpias. e, claro, a crítica ao imaginário cristão simbolizado pela morte do criador, pelo retorno de lúcifer ao reino da Autoridade, aqui simbolizado por Lorde Asriel.

um livro maravilhoso.

jorge vicente

good / evil

(imagem de vídeo de rustam khalfin e lida blinova, "bride and groom", 2001)


"
«When you stopped believing in God,» he went on, «did you stop believing in good and evil?»

«No. But I stopped believing there was a power of good and a power of evil that were outside us. And I came to believe that good and evil are names for what people do, not for what they are. All we can say is that this is a good deed, because it helps someone, or that's an evil one, because it hurts them. People are too complicated to have simple labels.»" (1)

philip pullman



(1) PULLMAN, Philip - The Amber Spyglass. London: Scholastic Press, 2001. ISBN 0-439-99414-4. pg. 470, 471.

alma/espírito/corpo

(estátua de auguste rodin, "pygmalion et galatée", s/d)


"The story was taking a long time; they wouldn't get to the world of the dead that day. As they neared the village, Will was telling Mary what he and Lyra had come to realize about the three-part nature of human beings.

«You know,» Mary said, «the church - the Catholic Church that I used to belong to - wouldn't use the word daemon, but St. Paul talks about spirit and soul and body. So the idea of three parts in human nature isn't so strange.»

«But the best part is the body,» Will said. «That's what Baruch and Baltamos told me. Angels wish they had bodies. They told me that angels can't understand why we don't enjoy the world more. It would be sort of ecstasy for them to have our flesh and our senses." (1)

philip pullman


(1) PULLMAN, Philip - The Amber Spyglass. London: Scholastic Press, 2001. ISBN 0-439-99414-4. pg. 462, 463.

philip pullman again

(fotografia de arno r. minkkinen, "ivalo, finland", 1995)


"«This is what'll happen,» she said, «and it's true, perfectly true. When you go out of here, all the particles that make you up will loosen and float apart, just like your daemons did. If you've seen people dying, you know what that looks like. But your daemons en't just nothing now; they're part of everything. All the atoms that were them, they've gone into the air and the wind and the trees and the earth and all the living things. They'll never vanish. They're just part of everything. And that's exactly what'll happen to you, I swear to you, I promise on my honour. You'll drift apart, it's true, but you'll be out in the open, part of everything alive again.»" (1)

philip pullman


(1) PULLMAN, Philip - The Amber Spyglass. London: Scholastic Press, 2001. ISBN 0-439-99414-4. pg. 335.

philip pullman

(pintura de george sand, "une rivière dans une vallée, des moutons sur les hauteurs et des bergers", s/d)


"Then she told them all about the great battle between the Oxford townies and the clay-burners.

First she described the Claybeds, making sure she got in everything she could remember, the wide ochre-coloured washing pits, the dragline, the kilns like great brick beehives. She told them about the willow trees along the river's edge, with their leaves all silvery underneath; and she told how when the sun shone for more than a couple of days, the clay began to split up into great handsome plates, with deep cracks between, and how it felt to squish your fingers into the cracks and slowly lever up a dried plate of mud, trying to keep it as big as you could without breaking it. Underneath it was still wet, ideal for throwing at people.

And she described the smells around the place: the smoke from the kilns, the rotten-leaf-mould smell of the river when the wind was in the south-west, the warm smell of the baking potatoes the clay-burners used to eat; and the sound of the water slipping slickly over the sluices and into the washing-pits; and the slow thick suck as you tried to pull your foot out of the ground; and the heavy wet slap of the gate-paddles in the clay-thick water." (1)

philip pullman



(1) PULLMAN, Philip - The Amber Spyglass. London: Scholastic Press, 2001. ISBN 0-439-99414-4. pg. 330.

philip pullman e o hades

(gravura de gustave doré para a divina comédia, parte 1: inferno de dante alighieri. trabalho de 1861-1868)


"«Are we dead now?» Will said to the boatman.

«Makes no difference,» he said. «There's some that came here never believing they were dead. They insisted all the way that they were alive, it was a mistake, someone would have to pay; made no difference. There's others who longed to be dead when they were alive, poor souls; lives full of pain or misery; killed themselves for a chance of a blessed rest, and found that nothing had changed except for the worse, and this time there was no escape; you can't make yourself alive again. And there's been others so frail and sickly, little infants, sometimes, that they're scarcely born into the living before they come down to the dead. I've rowed this boat with a little crying baby on my lap many, many times, that never knew the difference between up there and down here. And old folk too, the rich ones are the worst, snarling and savage and cursing me, railing and screaming: what did I think I was? Hadn't they gathered and saved all the gold they could garner? Wouldn't I take some now, to put them back ashore? They'd have the law on me, they had powerful friends, they knew the Pope and the King of this and the Duke of that, they were in a position to see I was punished and chastised... But they knew what the truth was in the end: the only position they were in was in my boat going to the land of the dead, and as for those kings and popes, they'd be in here too, in their turn, sooner than they wanted. I let 'em cry and rave; they can't hurt me; they fall silent in the end.

«So if you don't know whether you're dead or not, and the little girl swears blind she'll come out again to the living, I say nothing to contradict you. What you are, you'll know soon enough.»" (1)

phillip pullman



(1) PULLMAN, Philip - The Amber Spyglass. London: Scholastic Press, 2001. ISBN 0-439-99414-4. pg. 301, 302.