Bart Westgeest

Kategori: English

  • Rilke, Rådlund and even Hamsun.

    Rilke, Rådlund and even Hamsun.

    I thought this morning about the turns life can take, movements that confuse me as I want it to be linear.

    I liked to write in the early 90’ties. But I replaced it by painting landscapes and was bit by it for more than a decade. This passion became impossible and I returned to writing, still longing for the same passion I felt for painting. Trying, wondering, giving up.

    One of the things I ponder about is a fear of loosing possibilities to obtain some sort of fulfilment. If my life isn’t linear, how can I then get to the end of my possibilities? In other words: If I don’t choose and continue writing, or painting, or .. what…. how can I then develop?

    In a discussion I was told that everything I have done has not been for nothing, it made me who I am, not who I could have been. There is no need to give up and let life pass. But I don’t always know how to continue.

    Today.

    Some weeks ago I heard a radioprogram about the music of Portugal, Fado. I got interested and googled it. This brought me to Swedish blogs about music and literature. Today I ended up on Bodil Zalesky’s blog where I found a post about the  writer/poet Rainer Maria Rilke. I got interested because I know Rilke from my painting time – he wrote about the painters colony in Worpswede. She started a post with the wonderful sentences: “Kanske har jag aldrig läst någon Rilke-dikt här under trädet. Vilken ska då bli den första?”, and then she choose the following poem:

    Wunderliches Wort

    Wunderliches Wort: die Zeit vertreiben!
    Sie zu halten, wäre das Problem.
    Denn, wen ängstigts nicht: wo ist ein Bleiben,
    wo ein endlich Sein in alledem? –

    Sieh, der Tag verlangsamt sich, entgegen
    jenem Raum, der ihn nach Abend nimmt:
    Aufstehn wurde Stehn, und Stehn wird Legen,
    und das willig Liegende verschwimmt –

    Berge ruhn, von Sternen überprächtigt; –
    aber auch in ihnen flimmert Zeit.
    Ach, in meinem wilden Herzen nächtigt
    obdachlos die Unvergänglichkeit.

    Rainer Maria Rilke

    I had thought about the feeling of giving up that comes over me sometimes, but one resigns to do silly things if you want to make time pass. Indeed, I know actually, as Rilke says: Wunderliches wort: die Zeit vertreiben! Sie zu halten, wäre das Problem.

    On the right side of Bodil’s blog is a place for “Senaste kommentarer”, and at the moment the latest is made by Christopher Rådlund. And I know him too from my painting time. This morning I noticed to my surprise that I couldn’t remember some names of painters I liked or corresponded with, but I recognized Chrishopher’s as soon as I saw it. He was my “secret tip” if people asked me for my favourite painters. It is always a remarkable feeling I get when my two worlds, writing and painting, meet.

    In the post Christopher reacts on a discussion about artists and political opinions that can often be connected to them. This is something that is often being discussed, and these days also in connection with the celebrations of Knut Hamsun’s 150th birthday. One of the few books that made an impression on me – few, because I only read a few – was the first chapters of Knut Hamsun’s “Den Siste Glæde“. But as we know Knut Hamsun has connected himself actively to the Nazis during the 40ties and even 50ties. So did another favourite of mine, the writer of -I would almost say “the other book I once read” –Filip de Pillecijn. I am never sure how to deal with these connections, as I don’t think that artists and their works have to be thoroughly connected: a wonderful painting doesn’t have to be made by a wonderful person.

    It all meant that while I was already thinking about my seemingly non-linear life, I went back and forth between writing and painting while I read a post or two. And as was mentioned to me during the discussion, because of my background I could get the most out of it. I better keep going.

    Du musst das Leben nicht verstehen

    Du musst das Leben nicht verstehen,
    dann wird es werden wie ein Fest.
    Und lass dir jeden Tag geschehen
    so wie ein Kind im Weitergehen von jedem Wehen
    sich viele Blüten schenken lässt.

    Sie aufzusammeln und zu sparen,
    das kommt dem Kind nicht in den Sinn.
    Es löst sie leise aus den Haaren,
    drin sie so gern gefangen waren,
    und hält den lieben jungen Jahren
    nach neuen seine Hände hin.

    Rainer Maria Rilke

  • Quote Edward Abbey

    “Humanity´s view of the world as our property, our dominion, our stewardship, is like that of a child who imagines himself the center of existence, with all other beings having no purpose but to serve him”. Edward Abbey: Confessions of a barbarian.

    Found on: Occident

  • Ludwig Uhland – Die Königstochter

    Des Königs von Spanien Tochter
    Ein Gewerb zu lernen begann.
    Sie wollte wohl lernen nähen,
    Waschen und nähn fortan.

    Und bei dem ersten Hemde,
    Das sie sollte gewaschen han,
    Den Ring von ihrer weißen Hand
    Hat ins Meer sie fallen lan.

    Sie war ein zartes Fräulein,
    Zu weinen sie begann.
    Da zog des Wegs vorüber
    Ein Ritter lobesan.

    »Wenn ich ihn wiederbringe,
    Was gibt die Schöne dann?« –
    »Einen Kuß von meinem Munde
    Ich nicht versagen kann.«

    Der Ritter sich entkleidet,
    Er taucht ins Meer wohlan,
    Und bei dem ersten Tauchen
    Er nichts entdecken kann.

    Und bei dem zweiten Tauchen
    Da blinkt der Ring heran,
    Und bei dem dritten Tauchen
    Ist ertrunken der Rittersmann.

    Sie war ein zartes Fräulein,
    Zu weinen sie begann.
    Sie ging zu ihrem Vater:
    »Will kein Gewerb fortan!«

    Ludwig Uhland (1787 -1862)
    Aus der Sammlung Altfranzösische Gedichte

    Source: Die Deutsche Gedichtebibliothek

  • Potgieters

    I noticed a pattern in a whirl of thoughts and finds the last days. I had just finished a story from an old book that I took from the shelves a couple of days ago. The book from 1886 is the 7th edition of the Prose of E.J. Potgieter (1808 -1875). I read the story ” ‘t Is maar een penelikker” in which he writes down his vision upon the people working in the offices and desks, copying letters, bookkeeping and doing all those tasks connected to the extensive paperwork that accompanies trade. His words paint a black and rather hopeless world of dependency, low wages and no social security. A gray mass of people who just try to survive. He ends with saying that it is good that the government now (1840) thinks about pensions for their employees but also that the Dutch should take an example of how things were in the golden age of the Dutch, the 17th century. There people dared to explore, they went out and discovered the world, (“without needing so much paperwork as nowadays”). So he concludes by saying that we should sent our young and ambitious people abroad to let them learn, exploit, start companies and bring honor and glory to themselves and their country.

    I searched for his name on the internet and read a biography of E.J. Potgieter, an important name in Dutch literature because he was one of the founders and major contributor of “De Gids”, the leading, if not only, Dutch magazine about literature for decennia. The article was negative about his efforts to get some 17th century spirit into the people he wrote for, it said it never worked and it couldn’t work because he wrote too complicated, too intellectual, even using words that did not fit into the time he lived, or in a form that was too hard to appreciate. It was said that he created his own world and that in the end no one got permission to enter it, nothing was good enough.
    The story was written in 1840, the same year where (thanks google) a man named Andries Henrik Potgieter became the leader of a colony in South Africa that he apparently named “Potchefstroom” after himself. I know virtually nothing about South-African history, but I do know it wasn’t a peaceful an uncomplicated one, and being a “voortrekker-leader” like Andries Henrik was probably not something to be favored either. So while one influential Potgieter wrote about creating opportunities abroad another Potgieter was doing so in practice, for whatever reason and with whatever consequences.
    The writer Potgieter liked an intellectual use of language, even referring to 17th century Dutch, the South-African Potgieter spoke Afrikaans, a language that is spoken today by app. 6,5 mill. people in the south of the African continent and that is based upon Dutch dialects with influences that reach back to the 17th century.
    So the story of one Potgieter seems to compliment the story of the other.

    The search revealed a lot of Potgieters in South-Afrika and following one link I found and listened to videos of the South-African Band Glaskas. Great, and for me as a Dutchman it is very special to hear Afrikaans. I can thank the writer E.J. Potgieter for it, because his short story made me curious enough to search for his name.

    This is my favourite:

    Glaskas: Stormstille

  • Yes!?

    I can’t help thinking about what it is I learn from a short internet article like this: McGill Tribune  – MINDFUNK: Journal writing for health

    It might be worth noticing as stated that just writing about how bad or good you feel doesn’t help much in solving issues in your life and that making a true effort to write your thoughts down can be beneficial. But “The process of writing about traumatic events or important events can have beneficial physical and mental health effects” makes me wiggle a little on my chair. Yes, the process of writing most certainly will make you go through feelings and memories so it must be true. But it is the acceptance and understanding, the dealing with a problem that is truly beneficial. Not the writing itself.
    Besides, writing about a trauma on a moment in your life where you can’t handle it might not be such a good idea. So, naturally, before you have the wish to write things down there probably already started a healthy process of dealing with it, conscious or not.

    What about talking, singing, fiction-writing, dancing, performing, drawing, meditating or what ever one can do to get into contact with anything beneath the superficial smile to the neighbor?

    But ok. I blog about writing and I am sure writing a journal can have a good effect.

    Shall we dance now?

    (Via Time to Write)

  • My NaNoWriMo 08

    NaNoWriMo ’08 was a mixed pleasure for me. I had chosen a not complicated storyline with many autobiographical elements and after plotting it all into yWriter I felt pretty comfortable. In the beginning the writing progressed well but I quickly noticed that this writing 1667 words a day – no matter what quality – was something different than I am used to. It was fun to notice that writing 50.000 words in a month is possible and the thrill of seeing a book evolve was very nice and fulfilling. Plotting is something I had not really done before but it seemed to work well.

    I got quickly bored however by just filling out the chapters and the thoughtless typing down what I remembered and wanted to say and soon after I got convinced that the quality of the writing itself was horrible. It felt like forcing.
    It made that I wasn’t very interested in the what I was doing and halfway through the month I even started looking for distraction that would prevent me from writing (thanks Ubuntu!).

    The whole exercise has given me the idea that a lot is possible and what I wrote is of personal importance for me, or rather the fact that I wrote it. I don’t think that I will join again next year. It seemed to me to be a waist of time to produce something so forcefully and to know that 90% of it is garbage because of it.

    I left my carefully build writing habits and I will need to make an effort to get back into it and to reset my mind and intensity in writing.