Some weeks ago —how many I cannot tell because I have an awful memory and a peculiar sense of time— I was reading two books, one of them in Spanish, the other one in English. The first was a novel by Benito Pérez Galdós whose title is “Miau” and yes, that’s the onomatopoeic Spanish word for “meow”, and, in the story, it’s the nickname given to a whole family because of the resemblance it’s women bear to cats. The other book was George Eliot’s seventh novel. I would often begin my bedtime reading with Miau, then leave it on the night stand and pick up Midlemarch. Miau is much shorter, so I read for a little while before going for a longer dive into Middlemarch —the fictional work and the fictional world—.
Well, these two works have some things in common and, of course, they display many striking differences. Both of them are classified under the label Realistic Literature, emerge from the general mainframe of European culture and were written in the nineteenth century. On the other hand, they sprout from very different countries and the social grounds and problems they tackle are also quite different. George Eliot, that is, Mary Anne Evans, lived from 1819 to 1880. Benito Pérez Galdós was born in the Canary Islands in 1843 and died in Madrid in 1920. For 37 years they were contemporaries. Middlemarch was published in 1871. Miau appeared in 1888. So George Eliot was 52 when she gave Middlemarch to the press. On May of that year Galdós turned 28. He wrote Miau when he was 45. Around those days, Mary Anne Evans was a woman of 69.
During the XIXth Century, French was generally studied in Spain as a second language. Pérez Galdós not only learned French, but English too, for it was taught at the school he attended as a young boy. It was only natural for him to keep many English books when he was an adult and a writer. He called Dickens his “dear teacher”, because he loved his works and reading them was crucial for his own development as a novelist. Galdós has more frequently been compared to the French masters of the realistic period, but he was especially fond of British and American authors. He owned 21 books by Charles Dickens. Seven of them were French translations. All other 14 he read in English. But he had only one title by George Eliot, and this was Scenes of Clerical Life. The chances of a noticeable influence drawn from this eventual reading are very small. But of course there are qualities in both authors that spread from the common root of European XIXth century culture. Every night, as I travelled from Galdós’ fictional Madrid to Evans’ Midlemarch I was aware both of the distance between them and the resemblances that crossed the gap (though they didn’t close it). And one common thing which is most evident, noticeable and relevant is a literary technique: the famous OMNISCIENT NARRATOR. Whenever we open a novel of the realistic period, chances are we’ll find that voice coming to meet us, a voice that tells the story from the third person but knows everything about the characters, everything about the story itself. What, who is this narrator? It’s a device, a technique, an ingredient of the narration, but it speaks to us, it knows, it has opinions and feelings which correspond, more or less, to those of the author. How can we possibly not envisage this thing as a sort of character itself? Not only a mere point of view, a grammatical person, a constituent of the narration, but an invisible someone that talks to us from an invisible place. Both narrators in the novels we’re dealing with are omniscient: they know the past, they see the present, they feel the future. Actions, emotions, thoughts, all the inner and outer world of the characters is available to their gaze. But they are also disparate, just like characters are different from one another. Galdós’ narrator is warm, sympathetic, plain, and though he can see even the visions of little Luisito Cadalso and the creepy intentions of the child’s mad aunt sometimes he gets almost diluted in a sort of free indirect speech. There’s a magic going on that allows us to see the world from the eyes of the characters, from the words they say to themselves and the passions that throb in their hearts. Surrounded by the prose of life, Luisito Cadalso allows us to peep into a world of wonders, sometimes sinister and fearful, sometimes luminous and allaying. Eliot’s narrator is more intellectual, takes an eminently moral point of view and oh God, isn’t it intrusive! It’s heavy like the warm atmosphere before a summer storm. You never forget it’s there. Never the story or it’s protagonists weight more than the voice that reveals their lives, feelings and conflicts. The book is great, it delivers to its readers a fully significant microcosm, but, not being a fan of the omniscient narrator, I’ve had to pay with a little suffering for it’s pleasures and beauties. I can remember right now another omniscient narrator, the one you can find in Dickens’ Bleak House, where we meet so many memorable characters, whose lives, fears and desires, weaknesses and virtues the narrator reveals to us while he slides through cottages and manors, country roads and city streets. This voice comes from a point of view that finds its way into the private chambers of the wealthy and the dilapidated houses of the destitute, moving along all sorts of intermediate stages. At the beginning of the novel it seems to float over London like the mist itself, rising to get an overall view and descending to watch more closely. Along it’s chapters it sweeps across the walls of the buildings, the alleys, the paths where poor Jo rambles and the windows that hide the doings of death. Like a ghost. A ghost. Indeed that’s what the omniscient narrator is: a ghost. A disembodied mind that reaches the whole world of it’s characters and speaks to us with a disembodied voice.
Descubrí Jonathan Strange y Mr Norrell por la serie de TV, en la que encontré elementos que me atrajeron mucho y, sobre todo, una forma de combinarlos profundamente original. Aún no conocía a Susanna Clarke y no sabía que estaba ante la marca de la casa. Pero era evidente que esos elementos venían de la novela y que, al contrario de lo que suele suceder con otras obras audiovisuales, probablemente la novela era mejor. ¿Por qué? Bueno, las cosas malas (exageraciones, efectos y efectismos creados para darle al espectador su ración acostumbrada) afectan a la narrativa visual; casi todo lo interesante o que da pie a componentes interesantes (el mundo, los personajes, el argumento, la combinación de novela neovictoriana y magia, el ambiente) procede de la obra literaria. Me equivoqué en cuanto al grado: la novela no era mejor, era mucho mejor. Ya en la serie de la BBC (que, por otra parte, está bastante bien) se podía percibir el encanto de la mezcla: la novela neovictoriana, con su sólido fundamento realista, su detallado ambiente de época, recibe un injerto fantástico que produce un fruto de sabor enteramente nuevo. Lo genial es que la magia no es algo ajeno a la sociedad en la que se desenvuelven los personajes: aunque se ha perdido casi por completo, ellos saben que fue abundante en el pasado; algunos individuos pueden ser cínicos o escépticos, pero por lo que se refiere al país, forma parte de su historia, y la gente acepta su regreso con cierto asombro, pero sin mayor resistencia. Esa naturalidad de lo mágico dentro de un marco histórico, esa convivencia de diferentes expectativas y cánones, hace que el mundo representado tenga la cualidad de un objeto deliciosamente incongruente. Y esa cualidad despliega la distancia a través de la cual podemos tender una mirada vigilante sin dejar de disfrutar con la narración, la ironía, la trama, todos los juegos y juguetes que Clarke construye con exquisita gracia.
La consistencia psicológica e histórica de los personajes, la rigurosa documentación, el conocimiento de la literatura y de la historia literaria aportan la cercanía de la verosimilitud en la parte realista, pero la ironía, el humor, la presencia subversiva de la magia, aportan distancia. Los elementos paródicos, folklóricos, culturales y hasta metalíterarios, revelan la existencia de un autor (autora) que los conoce y que tiene el poder de encajarlos y relacionarlos de forma llamativamente original. Desde que se publicó la novela en 2004 se han dicho y escrito sobre esta toda clase de críticas y opiniones. Se ha destacado la maestría de los diálogos, el rigor histórico del fondo realista, la imaginación creadora de Clarke, su conocimiento de la tradición literaria… Personalmente, lo que más me admira es lo que he llamado la marca de la casa: desde el conocimiento de unos ingredientes que salen del folklore, la literatura o la historia, Clarke hace algo consistente y enteramente personal. Los ingredientes en sí no son originales. La forma de ensamblarlos lo es por completo. Y en este sentido, lo más original en este teatro de 800 págs donde actúan Norrell y Strange es la magia. La magia lo cambia todo: cambia la historia, proporcionándole una dimensión extraña y burlesca se cambia a sí misma, porque la magia del mundo de Susanna Clarke tiene algo diferente, al ser presentada como un elemento histórico, y nos nos brinda una incursión en una realidad alternativa, en un universo paralelo cambia la novela, que ya no es ni novela histórica ni novela fantástica, o tal vez sea ambas cosas, pero sobre todo es literatura (creación, invención y juego).
La magia no es algo que está ahí sin más pegado a las cosas, como milagro o excepción o secreto. Para empezar, tiene esa función de crear extrañeza, distanciamiento. No me parece que el distanciamiento esté en la mirada del narrador. Este es un narrador omnisciente propio de la novela que se escribía a finales de siglo XIX, en la que frecuentemente se contaban hechos situados a comienzos de la centuria. El otro elemento distanciador y transformador (una suerte de magia en sí mismo) es el humor, íntimamente ligado a las proezas de los magos y de la gente feérica, a la caracterización de los personajes y a las falsas notas a pie de página con toda su carga de folklore inventado y de erudición imaginaria, con sus micro relatos burlescos y sus referencias paródicas.
Esa distancia es lo que algunos lectores lamentan y perciben como una imposibilidad de dejarse arrastrar, absorber por la historia. Algunos se han quejado de que Susanna Clarke no haya escrito la gran fantasía épica que esperaban encontrar al abrir el libro. No creo que haya escasez de fantasía épica ni en librerías ni en bibliotecas. En cambio, lo que Clarke aporta es algo que no vamos a encontrar en otra parte. Todo lo que nos permite ver las piezas y las jugadas un poco desde lejos, deja un espacio abierto a la inteligencia, que desarrolla un diálogo con la emoción sin que esta la avasalle. Pero la emoción y la intensidad hacen su jugada maestra al final del relato.
En esta misma línea, un crítico del New York Times señaló que a la novela le falta la pugna decidida y grandiosa entre el bien y el mal que es propia de la novela fantástica, y donde la magia encuentra grandes y rotundos objetivos. De nuevo yo diría que estamos empachados de villanos insuperablemente perversos y de héroes iluminados por el aura de su misión redentora. Prefiero con mucho la aportación de Susanna Clarke, menos estereotipada, menos esquemática, la cual, con toda su variedad de ingredientes tomados de la tradición cultural, entre casas victorianas y tapices vivientes, a lo largo de escenarios que parecen cuadros de Monsú Desiderio o grabados de Piranesi, esconde la posibilidad de cuestiones morales y metafísicas como ocurre con los relatos de Borges. No es un mundo en blanco y negro. Los héroes no son perfectos y los villanos ni siquiera son villanos. Y eso está bien.
La presencia de algo oculto, maravilloso, admirable y temible, la comunicación entre la Naturaleza y el ser humano, la unión de todas las cosas, revelación de una realidad diferente: eso es la presencia del rey Cuervo, magia, religión primordial y poesía. Eso es lo numinoso que se nos acerca página tras página
En cuanto a la épica que algunos lectores esperaban encontrar, Clarke nos compensa con creces mediante la poesía. La relación de la poesía con la magia se hace más fuerte a medida que se hace más fuerte la magia y surge con mayor pureza de sus orígenes oscuros. A lo largo del relato sentimos que el rey Cuervo se acerca y, cuanto más cerca está, más poderosa es la poesía, hasta sustituir al humor como prisma o lente que condiciona el relato. Vamos de la magia norrelesca a la magia extraña (de Strange). Y cuando el mundo incorpora lo extraño, deja de estar extrañado. La presencia de algo oculto, maravilloso, admirable y temible, la comunicación entre la Naturaleza y el ser humano, la unión de todas las cosas, revelación de una realidad diferente: eso es la presencia del rey Cuervo, magia, religión primordial y poesía. Eso es lo numinoso que se nos acerca página tras página. Al principio dominan los elementos distanciadores y la función distanciadora del humor y de la magia misma. Pero cuando la profecía se cumple los mundos se juntan. Ya no hay separación y la naturaleza nos habla como si nunca hubiéramos abandonado el jardín del Edén.
Rama II is the most conspicuous… rubish I’ve read in a long, long time. I read it because I lovedRendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke, but this is a novel written by a scientist. Its language is precise, correct, governed by utility and clarity both of purpose and expression. The characters are outlined to the extent required by the story. The content serves two goals: first, it guides the reader through a wonderful exploration of an entirely alien world, and secondly, it conveys scientific knowledge in a most pleasurable manner. Rama isn’t at the top of literary art, but it’s a good Sci-Fi narrative, a classical example of “hard science fiction”, well built, thoroughly enjoyable. And then comes Rama II. I didn’t expect a sequel, but a continuation. I didn’t expect something so different in quality, outline and tone. Rama II is more an oversized film screenplay than a novel. We get stock characters, like the merciless, ambitious, clever, sexy villainess; the egotistic, ambitious, unscrupulous villain; the small, exquisitely polite japanese, one of the best of the good guys along with general O’Toole, who is (almost?) a saint. The main hero, a woman, and the man hero are quite ridiculously built up by using gross strokes in the picture of their habilites, traits and past experiences (I almost laughed out loud when I found out who was the father of the protagonist’s son). And the plot revolves around the typical situation that can be summarized as “the menace from inside (to be discovered) versus the outer menace or mystery (to be solved). It’s what we can also call “the story of the hidden traitor” or “how an isolated human group is decimated by/manages to survive to inside and outside malignant forces”. Well, you can actually get good stories out of that kind of plot, but not with the quality of the building blocks used in Rama II. This, plus the bore of lots of pages that are only there as completely dispensable extra material (adventures that maybe would make some sense on a screen given they had visual appeal) turns the book into a most efficient form of torture. The start of the whole thing is a sort of fictional essay pages and pages long, devoted to explaining the conditions and evolution of the world between the first and the second encounter with Rama. Such aim could certainly have been approached in a more artistic and less tiresome way. The beautiful idea of getting lost in an alien world with all its insolvable mysteries is also progressively lost in favour of a chain of devices, conventional adventures and hollow surprises. When aliens appear (not Ramans) they can be compared to terrestrial species. The avians are like ridiculous Disney beasts, non human animals that act like humans. They don’t have an advanced technology (I suppose that’s because they don’t have opposable thumbs). The creepy, menacing creatures that also seem to have been collected by Rama somewhere in the Universe look like spiders. As the prose is not outstanding and much of the things told are of little interest, I read the book jumping lines, trying to scan Clarke’s contribution of ideas on Raman exploration, but, if there are some, they’re suffocated under bad dialogues, redundant pages and scenes we’ve seen many times in commercial films. The cheap mysticism is another reason to hate the book. Apparently, the author has decided to put in it some spiritual content to counterbalance the cold scientific look cast on the first Rama. Such content turns out to be a caricature of spirituality. Jumping and hopping I got to the end. Immediately, I took a decision underpinned by unwavering determination: this is the last Rama for me. No garden will tempt me, no new visit will allure me.
Bleak House is a long, long book with several subplots and different sections that can be clearly told apart according to their atmosphere and characters. So much so that, although as a whole it has the features of the XIXth century realistic novel, with its social worries and minutely depicted world, we can find inside it a mystery novel and a ghost tale playing their part as important pieces in the general machinery. The mystery novel (it would more properly be called a “novella”) has Mr. Bucket as the main character. It also has a definite end and a clear beginning. By the way, what a wonderful work that of Dickens’ giving life to such a memorable detective, even though it’s no more and no less than a secondary character. As for the ghost story, it’s diluted in the main plot current, giving hints of it’s presence now and then, suggesting, underlining, announcing certain facts. We could even call it an intermittent, recurring apparition. I’m not talking of Mrs. Rouncewell’s narration, the legend of the Dedlock family (a tale inside the tale) which accounts for the steps to be heard on the Ghost’s Walk on melancholic, gloomy days. What I mean is that from the onset point of this narration which Mrs. Rouncewell conveys to the visitors at the mansion, especially to Mr. Guppy (who is especially interested), the role played by The Ghost’s Walk alongside the novel can be read as a genre narrative (a ghost tale, of course), though its presence in the realistic frame of the novel has an explanation more according to its rationale: it certainly is a metaphorical projection of the characters’ forebodings, an expression of their fears, anguish and other feelings. This, anyway, doesn’t cancel the possibility of the ghost story, putting it only in the subgenre where stories of these kind have two explanations, one natural and the other one supernatural, without one of them sweeping away the other. The love for the mysterious and macabre, the importance of spiritism as a social phenomenon in Dickens’ time, its cultural influence, sprout in Bleak House as the (probable, maybe) supernatural portent that comes back again and again, stronger and more distinctly as certain outcome is getting nearer. This is the ghost tale that we can extract without too much hindrance from the body of the novel. Its title, of course, would be the same of chapter VII: The Ghost’s Walk. But all the mentions, descriptions and forebodings which apply to it don’t constitute a narrative on their own. They need much of what is told about some if not all of the characters to have sense and even be complete as a story. The fate of Lady Dedlock is of the most importance here, but she is not the one that hears the ghost steps in her hours of anguish. She doesn’t need to, for, after all, she knows better than the rest what is approaching.
ALL APPARITIONS OF THE GHOST’S WALK IN CHARLES DICKENS’ BLEAK HOUSE
1. The view from my Lady Dedlock’s own windows is alternately a lead-coloured view and a view in Indian ink. The vases on the stone terrace in the foreground catch the rain all day; and the heavy drops fall — drip, drip, drip — upon the broad flagged pavement, called from old time the Ghost’s Walk, all night.
2… while Esther wakes, it is still wet weather down at the place in Lincolnshire. The rain is ever falling — drip, drip, drip — by day and night upon the broad flagged terrace-pavement, the Ghost’s Walk.
3. All things have an end, even houses that people take infinite pains to see and are tired of before they begin to see them. He has come to the end of the sight, and the fresh village beauty to the end of her description; which is always this: “The terrace below is much admired. It is called, from an old story in the family, the Ghost’s Walk.” “No?” says Mr. Guppy, greedily curious. “What’s the story, miss? Is it anything about a picture?” “Pray tell us the story,” says Watt in a half whisper. “I don’t know it, sir.” Rosa is shyer than ever. “It is not related to visitors; it is almost forgotten,” says the housekeeper, advancing. “It has never been more than a family anecdote.”
4. It is now dusk. Mrs. Rouncewell can trust to the discretion of her two young hearers and may tell THEM how the terrace came to have that ghostly name. She seats herself in a large chair by the fast-darkening window and tells them: “In the wicked days, my dears, of King Charles the First — I mean, of course, in the wicked days of the rebels who leagued themselves against that excellent king — Sir Morbury Dedlock was the owner of Chesney Wold. Whether there was any account of a ghost in the family before those days, I can’t say. I should think it very likely indeed.” Mrs. Rouncewell holds this opinion because she considers that a family of such antiquity and importance has a right to a ghost. She regards a ghost as one of the privileges of the upper classes, a genteel distinction to which the common people have no claim. “Sir Morbury Dedlock,” says Mrs. Rouncewell, “was, I have no occasion to say, on the side of the blessed martyr. But it IS supposed that his Lady, who had none of the family blood in her veins, favoured the bad cause. It is said that she had relations among King Charles’s enemies, that she was in correspondence with them, and that she gave them information. When any of the country gentlemen who followed his Majesty’s cause met here, it is said that my Lady was always nearer to the door of their council-room than they supposed. Do you hear a sound like a footstep passing along the terrace, Watt?” Rosa draws nearer to the housekeeper. “I hear the rain-drip on the stones,” replies the young man, “and I hear a curious echo — I suppose an echo — which is very like a halting step.” The housekeeper gravely nods and continues: “Partly on account of this division between them, and partly on other accounts, Sir Morbury and his Lady led a troubled life. She was a lady of a haughty temper. They were not well suited to each other in age or character, and they had no children to moderate between them. After her favourite brother, a young gentleman, was killed in the civil wars (by Sir Morbury’s near kinsman), her feeling was so violent that she hated the race into which she had married. When the Dedlocks were about to ride out from Wold in the king’s cause, she is supposed to have more than once stolen down into the stables in the dead of night and lamed their horses; and the story is that once at such an hour, her husband saw her gliding down the stairs and followed her into the stall where his own favourite horse stood. There he seized her by the wrist, and in a struggle or in a fall or through the horse being frightened and lashing out, she was lamed in the hip and from that hour began to pine away.” The housekeeper has dropped her voice to a little more than a whisper. “She had been a lady of a handsome figure and a noble carriage. She never complained of the change; she never spoke to any one of being crippled or of being in pain, but day by day she tried to walk upon the terrace, and with the help of the stone balustrade, went up and down, up and down, up and down, in sun and shadow, with greater difficulty every day. At last, one afternoon her husband (to whom she had never, on any persuasion, opened her lips since that night), standing at the great south window, saw her drop upon the pavement. He hastened down to raise her, but she repulsed him as he bent over her, and looking at him fixedly and coldly, said, ‘I will die here where I have walked. And I will walk here, though I am in my grave. I will walk here until the pride of this house is humbled. And when calamity or when disgrace is coming to it, let the Dedlocks listen for my step!’” Watt looks at Rosa. Rosa in the deepening gloom looks down upon the ground, half frightened and half shy. “There and then she died. And from those days,” says Mrs. Rouncewell, “the name has come down — the Ghost’s Walk. If the tread is an echo, it is an echo that is only heard after dark, and is often unheard for a long while together. But it comes back from time to time; and so sure as there is sickness or death in the family, it will be heard then.” “And disgrace, grandmother—” says Watt. “Disgrace never comes to Chesney Wold,” returns the housekeeper.
5. Through the same cold sunlight, colder as the day declines, and through the same sharp wind, sharper as the separate shadows of bare trees gloom together in the woods, and as the Ghost’s Walk, touched at the western corner by a pile of fire in the sky, resigns itself to coming night, they drive into the park. The rooks, swinging in their lofty houses in the elm-tree avenue, seem to discuss the question of the occupancy of the carriage as it passes underneath, some agreeing that Sir Leicester and my Lady are come down, some arguing with malcontents who won’t admit it, now all consenting to consider the question disposed of, now all breaking out again in violent debate, incited by one obstinate and drowsy bird who will persist in putting in a last contradictory croak. Leaving them to swing and caw, the travelling chariot rolls on to the house, where fires gleam warmly through some of the windows, though not through so many as to give an inhabited expression to the darkening mass of front. But the brilliant and distinguished circle will soon do that.
6. At length, one afternoon a little before sunset, when the bright groups of figures which have for the last hour or two enlivened the Ghost’s Walk are all dispersed and only Sir Leicester and my Lady remain upon the terrace, Mr. Tulkinghorn appears. He comes towards them at his usual methodical pace, which is never quickened, never slackened. He wears his usual expressionless mask — if it be a mask — and carries family secrets in every limb of his body and every crease of his dress. Whether his whole soul is devoted to the great or whether he yields them nothing beyond the services he sells is his personal secret. He keeps it, as he keeps the secrets of his clients; he is his own client in that matter, and will never betray himself.
7. She drops a piece of money in his hand without touching it, and shuddering as their hands approach. “Now,” she adds, “show me the spot again!”
Jo thrusts the handle of his broom between the bars of the gate, and with his utmost power of elaboration, points it out. At length, looking aside to see if he has made himself intelligible, he finds that he is alone. His first proceeding is to hold the piece of money to the gas-light and to be overpowered at finding that it is yellow — gold. His next is to give it a one-sided bite at the edge as a test of its quality. His next, to put it in his mouth for safety and to sweep the step and passage with great care. His job done, he sets off for Tom-all-Alone’s, stopping in the light of innumerable gas-lamps to produce the piece of gold and give it another one-sided bite as a reassurance of its being genuine.
(…)
The Mercury in powder is in no want of society to-night, for my Lady goes to a grand dinner and three or four balls. Sir Leicester is fidgety down at Chesney Wold, with no better company than the gout; he complains to Mrs. Rouncewell that the rain makes such a monotonous pattering on the terrace that he can’t read the paper even by the fireside in his own snug dressing-room. “Sir Leicester would have done better to try the other side of the house, my dear,” says Mrs. Rouncewell to Rosa. “His dressing-room is on my Lady’s side. And in all these years I never heard the step upon the Ghost’s Walk more distinct than it is to-night!”
8. Such the guests in the long drawing-room at Chesney Wold this dismal night when the step on the Ghost’s Walk (inaudible here, however) might be the step of a deceased cousin shut out in the cold. It is near bed-time. Bedroom fires blaze brightly all over the house, raising ghosts of grim furniture on wall and ceiling.
9. When my Lady goes to her boudoir, she sits down thoughtfully by the fire, and inattentive to the Ghost’s Walk, looks at Rosa, writing in an inner room. Presently my Lady calls her.
10. Rosa softly withdraws; but still my Lady’s eyes are on the fire. In search of what? Of any hand that is no more, of any hand that never was, of any touch that might have magically changed her life? Or does she listen to the Ghost’s Walk and think what step does it most resemble? A man’s? A woman’s? The pattering of a little child’s feet, ever coming on — on — on? Some melancholy influence is upon her, or why should so proud a lady close the doors and sit alone upon the hearth so desolate?
11. I was resting at my favourite point after a long ramble, and Charley was gathering violets at a little distance from me. I had been looking at the Ghost’s Walk lying in a deep shade of masonry afar off and picturing to myself the female shape that was said to haunt it when I became aware of a figure approaching through the wood. The perspective was so long and so darkened by leaves, and the shadows of the branches on the ground made it so much more intricate to the eye, that at first I could not discern what figure it was. By little and little it revealed itself to be a woman’s — a lady’s — Lady Dedlock’s. She was alone and coming to where I sat with a much quicker step, I observed to my surprise, than was usual with her.
12. Thence the path wound underneath a gateway, and through a court-yard where the principal entrance was (I hurried quickly on), and by the stables where none but deep voices seemed to be, whether in the murmuring of the wind through the strong mass of ivy holding to a high red wall, or in the low complaining of the weathercock, or in the barking of the dogs, or in the slow striking of a clock. So, encountering presently a sweet smell of limes, whose rustling I could hear, I turned with the turning of the path to the south front, and there above me were the balustrades of the Ghost’s Walk and one lighted window that might be my mother’s.
13. The way was paved here, like the terrace overhead, and my footsteps from being noiseless made an echoing sound upon the flags. Stopping to look at nothing, but seeing all I did see as I went, I was passing quickly on, and in a few moments should have passed the lighted window, when my echoing footsteps brought it suddenly into my mind that there was a dreadful truth in the legend of the Ghost’s Walk, that it was I who was to bring calamity upon the stately house and that my warning feet were haunting it even then. Seized with an augmented terror of myself which turned me cold, I ran from myself and everything, retraced the way by which I had come, and never paused until I had gained the lodge-gate, and the park lay sullen and black behind me.
14. He would know it all the better if he saw the woman pacing her own rooms with her hair wildly thrown from her flung-back face, her hands clasped behind her head, her figure twisted as if by pain. He would think so all the more if he saw the woman thus hurrying up and down for hours, without fatigue, without intermission, followed by the faithful step upon the Ghost’s Walk. But he shuts out the now chilled air, draws the window-curtain, goes to bed, and falls asleep. And truly when the stars go out and the wan day peeps into the turret-chamber, finding him at his oldest, he looks as if the digger and the spade were both commissioned and would soon be digging.
15. What delusion can this be? What power does she suppose is in the person she petitions to avert this unjust suspicion, if it be unjust? Her Lady’s handsome eyes regard her with astonishment, almost with fear. “My Lady, I came away last night from Chesney Wold to find my son in my old age, and the step upon the Ghost’s Walk was so constant and so solemn that I never heard the like in all these years. Night after night, as it has fallen dark, the sound has echoed through your rooms, but last night it was awfullest. And as it fell dark last night, my Lady, I got this letter.” “What letter is it?”
16. “For I dread, George,” the old lady says to her son, who waits below to keep her company when she has a little leisure, “I dread, my dear, that my Lady will never more set foot within these walls.” “That’s a bad presentiment, mother.” “Nor yet within the walls of Chesney Wold, my dear.” “That’s worse. But why, mother?” “When I saw my Lady yesterday, George, she looked to me — and I may say at me too — as if the step on the Ghost’s Walk had almost walked her down.” “Come, come! You alarm yourself with old-story fears, mother.” “No I don’t, my dear. No I don’t. It’s going on for sixty year that I have been in this family, and I never had any fears for it before. But it’s breaking up, my dear; the great old Dedlock family is breaking up.” “I hope not, mother.” “I am thankful I have lived long enough to be with Sir Leicester in this illness and trouble, for I know I am not too old nor too useless to be a welcomer sight to him than anybody else in my place would be. But the step on the Ghost’s Walk will walk my Lady down, George; it has been many a day behind her, and now it will pass her and go on.” “Well, mother dear, I say again, I hope not.” “Ah, so do I, George,” the old lady returns, shaking her head and parting her folded hands. “But if my fears come true, and he has to know it, who will tell him!”
17. There is no improvement in the weather. From the portico, from the eaves, from the parapet, from every ledge and post and pillar, drips the thawed snow. It has crept, as if for shelter, into the lintels of the great door — under it, into the corners of the windows, into every chink and crevice of retreat, and there wastes and dies. It is falling still; upon the roof, upon the skylight, even through the skylight, and drip, drip, drip, with the regularity of the Ghost’s Walk, on the stone floor below.
Charles Dickens. Complete Works of Charles Dickens. Delphi Classics.
Bleak House es una novela larga con varias subtramas y con partes muy diferentes por su ambiente y sus personajes. Tanto es así que, aunque en conjunto tiene los rasgos de la novela realista decimonónica, con sus preocupaciones sociales y su detallada representación del mundo, dentro de ella podemos encontrar un relato policiaco y una historia de fantasmas. La primera, con Mr Bucket como detective, se distingue muy claramente, con un principio y un final definidos. Por cierto, qué estupendo trabajo hace Dickens al crear un detective tan memorable que no es ni más ni menos que un notable personaje secundario. La historia de fantasmas, al revés que la indagación policiaca, está diluida en la trama principal y se sugiere intermitentemente en ella, insinuando, subrayando, anunciando ciertos acontecimientos. Es ella misma como una aparición recurrente. No me refiero al relato de Mrs. Rouncewell: este es una leyenda familiar de los Dedlock, un cuento dentro del cuento, y establece el origen mítico de los pasos fantasmales que se escuchan en el fantasmal paseo de Chesney Wold. Me refiero a que, partiendo de ese cuento que Mrs. Rouncewell transmite a los visitantes (principalmente a Mr. Guppy), el papel que juega el Paseo del fantasma (The Ghost’s Walk) se puede leer como un relato de género, aunque su presencia en la novela esté justificada dentro del marco realista como una proyección metafórica y lírica de la angustia de los personajes y una expresión de sus presentimientos. Eso no lo invalida como relato de este tipo; solamente lo clasificaría dentro del subtipo en el que los acontecimientos que caracterizan el misterio propio del género tienen una doble explicación sobrenatural y natural, sin que una de ellas llegue a anular por completo a la otra. En la novela abundan los elementos folletinescos: el suspense y el misterio son empleados a discreción. También están presente lo siniestro, el horror, lo macabro, y casi todas las cosas siniestras, horribles y ominosas tienen lugar en la proximidad de Lincoln’s Inn. El gusto de la época por el espiritismo, su presencia en la sociedad y en la cultura del tiempo, hacen que el tema del anuncio sobrenatural germine espontáneamente en la trama. Con algunos de estos ingredientes, autores de menos calidad hacían (y hacen) guisos indigeribles. Pero Dickens añadía a la mezcla otros materiales (la compasión, la burla, la ironía, la crítica social, la poesía, la ingenuidad de sus personajes más queridos) y todo lo fundía en un arte narrativo de muchos recursos, desplegado con un estilo superior. Lo horripilante se ve cuestionado por la ironía, atemperado por la descripción burlona de ambientes y caracteres. El cuento de fantasmas que un autor de menos talento emplearía como una concesión fácil se convierte a lo largo de Bleak House en un recurso narrativo y estilístico que va marcando la aproximación de cierto desenlace. A veces es solo una mención para recordarnos su existencia, un contrapunto, un componente arquitectónico destacado en la última luz (o por ella), una forma de melancolía, una amenaza que crece y se va concretando a medida que el lector sabe más de las relaciones entre los personajes y de la progresión del argumento.
Nuestro cuento de fantasmas se puede extraer sin mucha dificultad del cuerpo de la novela. Y su título sería, por supuesto, el mismo del capítulo VII: The Ghost’s Walk. Pero las referencias a este no constituyen un relato por sí mismo. El que cuenta Mrs Rouncewell sí lo es. Pero el otro relato está escondido en la estructura actual de la novela y solo lo podemos ver reorganizando en nuestra imaginación algunas partes y algunos hilos, centrándonos en la historia de Lady Dedlock y su punto de vista, con el sonido del Paseo del fantasma avisando, insistiendo, reapareciendo sin que ella lo escuche. Lo escuchan otros personajes acaso más crédulos, que no pueden ni necesitan avisar de ningún peligro, pues, al fin y al cabo, ella lo conoce mejor que nadie.
TODAS LAS APARICIONES DEL PASEO DEL FANTASMA EN BLEAK HOUSE ALL APPARITIONS OF THE GHOST’S WALK IN CHARLES DICKENS’ BLEAK HOUSE
The Ghost Walk by “Phiz” (Hablot K. Browne)
1. The view from my Lady Dedlock’s own windows is alternately a lead-coloured view and a view in Indian ink. The vases on the stone terrace in the foreground catch the rain all day; and the heavy drops fall — drip, drip, drip — upon the broad flagged pavement, called from old time the Ghost’s Walk, all night.
2… while Esther wakes, it is still wet weather down at the place in Lincolnshire. The rain is ever falling — drip, drip, drip — by day and night upon the broad flagged terrace-pavement, the Ghost’s Walk.
3. All things have an end, even houses that people take infinite pains to see and are tired of before they begin to see them. He has come to the end of the sight, and the fresh village beauty to the end of her description; which is always this: “The terrace below is much admired. It is called, from an old story in the family, the Ghost’s Walk.” “No?” says Mr. Guppy, greedily curious. “What’s the story, miss? Is it anything about a picture?” “Pray tell us the story,” says Watt in a half whisper. “I don’t know it, sir.” Rosa is shyer than ever. “It is not related to visitors; it is almost forgotten,” says the housekeeper, advancing. “It has never been more than a family anecdote.”
4. It is now dusk. Mrs. Rouncewell can trust to the discretion of her two young hearers and may tell THEM how the terrace came to have that ghostly name. She seats herself in a large chair by the fast-darkening window and tells them: “In the wicked days, my dears, of King Charles the First — I mean, of course, in the wicked days of the rebels who leagued themselves against that excellent king — Sir Morbury Dedlock was the owner of Chesney Wold. Whether there was any account of a ghost in the family before those days, I can’t say. I should think it very likely indeed.” Mrs. Rouncewell holds this opinion because she considers that a family of such antiquity and importance has a right to a ghost. She regards a ghost as one of the privileges of the upper classes, a genteel distinction to which the common people have no claim. “Sir Morbury Dedlock,” says Mrs. Rouncewell, “was, I have no occasion to say, on the side of the blessed martyr. But it IS supposed that his Lady, who had none of the family blood in her veins, favoured the bad cause. It is said that she had relations among King Charles’s enemies, that she was in correspondence with them, and that she gave them information. When any of the country gentlemen who followed his Majesty’s cause met here, it is said that my Lady was always nearer to the door of their council-room than they supposed. Do you hear a sound like a footstep passing along the terrace, Watt?” Rosa draws nearer to the housekeeper. “I hear the rain-drip on the stones,” replies the young man, “and I hear a curious echo — I suppose an echo — which is very like a halting step.” The housekeeper gravely nods and continues: “Partly on account of this division between them, and partly on other accounts, Sir Morbury and his Lady led a troubled life. She was a lady of a haughty temper. They were not well suited to each other in age or character, and they had no children to moderate between them. After her favourite brother, a young gentleman, was killed in the civil wars (by Sir Morbury’s near kinsman), her feeling was so violent that she hated the race into which she had married. When the Dedlocks were about to ride out from Wold in the king’s cause, she is supposed to have more than once stolen down into the stables in the dead of night and lamed their horses; and the story is that once at such an hour, her husband saw her gliding down the stairs and followed her into the stall where his own favourite horse stood. There he seized her by the wrist, and in a struggle or in a fall or through the horse being frightened and lashing out, she was lamed in the hip and from that hour began to pine away.” The housekeeper has dropped her voice to a little more than a whisper. “She had been a lady of a handsome figure and a noble carriage. She never complained of the change; she never spoke to any one of being crippled or of being in pain, but day by day she tried to walk upon the terrace, and with the help of the stone balustrade, went up and down, up and down, up and down, in sun and shadow, with greater difficulty every day. At last, one afternoon her husband (to whom she had never, on any persuasion, opened her lips since that night), standing at the great south window, saw her drop upon the pavement. He hastened down to raise her, but she repulsed him as he bent over her, and looking at him fixedly and coldly, said, ‘I will die here where I have walked. And I will walk here, though I am in my grave. I will walk here until the pride of this house is humbled. And when calamity or when disgrace is coming to it, let the Dedlocks listen for my step!’” Watt looks at Rosa. Rosa in the deepening gloom looks down upon the ground, half frightened and half shy. “There and then she died. And from those days,” says Mrs. Rouncewell, “the name has come down — the Ghost’s Walk. If the tread is an echo, it is an echo that is only heard after dark, and is often unheard for a long while together. But it comes back from time to time; and so sure as there is sickness or death in the family, it will be heard then.” “And disgrace, grandmother—” says Watt. “Disgrace never comes to Chesney Wold,” returns the housekeeper.
5. Through the same cold sunlight, colder as the day declines, and through the same sharp wind, sharper as the separate shadows of bare trees gloom together in the woods, and as the Ghost’s Walk, touched at the western corner by a pile of fire in the sky, resigns itself to coming night, they drive into the park. The rooks, swinging in their lofty houses in the elm-tree avenue, seem to discuss the question of the occupancy of the carriage as it passes underneath, some agreeing that Sir Leicester and my Lady are come down, some arguing with malcontents who won’t admit it, now all consenting to consider the question disposed of, now all breaking out again in violent debate, incited by one obstinate and drowsy bird who will persist in putting in a last contradictory croak. Leaving them to swing and caw, the travelling chariot rolls on to the house, where fires gleam warmly through some of the windows, though not through so many as to give an inhabited expression to the darkening mass of front. But the brilliant and distinguished circle will soon do that.
6. At length, one afternoon a little before sunset, when the bright groups of figures which have for the last hour or two enlivened the Ghost’s Walk are all dispersed and only Sir Leicester and my Lady remain upon the terrace, Mr. Tulkinghorn appears. He comes towards them at his usual methodical pace, which is never quickened, never slackened. He wears his usual expressionless mask — if it be a mask — and carries family secrets in every limb of his body and every crease of his dress. Whether his whole soul is devoted to the great or whether he yields them nothing beyond the services he sells is his personal secret. He keeps it, as he keeps the secrets of his clients; he is his own client in that matter, and will never betray himself.
7. She drops a piece of money in his hand without touching it, and shuddering as their hands approach. “Now,” she adds, “show me the spot again!”
Jo thrusts the handle of his broom between the bars of the gate, and with his utmost power of elaboration, points it out. At length, looking aside to see if he has made himself intelligible, he finds that he is alone. His first proceeding is to hold the piece of money to the gas-light and to be overpowered at finding that it is yellow — gold. His next is to give it a one-sided bite at the edge as a test of its quality. His next, to put it in his mouth for safety and to sweep the step and passage with great care. His job done, he sets off for Tom-all-Alone’s, stopping in the light of innumerable gas-lamps to produce the piece of gold and give it another one-sided bite as a reassurance of its being genuine.
(…)
The Mercury in powder is in no want of society to-night, for my Lady goes to a grand dinner and three or four balls. Sir Leicester is fidgety down at Chesney Wold, with no better company than the gout; he complains to Mrs. Rouncewell that the rain makes such a monotonous pattering on the terrace that he can’t read the paper even by the fireside in his own snug dressing-room. “Sir Leicester would have done better to try the other side of the house, my dear,” says Mrs. Rouncewell to Rosa. “His dressing-room is on my Lady’s side. And in all these years I never heard the step upon the Ghost’s Walk more distinct than it is to-night!”
8. Such the guests in the long drawing-room at Chesney Wold this dismal night when the step on the Ghost’s Walk (inaudible here, however) might be the step of a deceased cousin shut out in the cold. It is near bed-time. Bedroom fires blaze brightly all over the house, raising ghosts of grim furniture on wall and ceiling.
9. When my Lady goes to her boudoir, she sits down thoughtfully by the fire, and inattentive to the Ghost’s Walk, looks at Rosa, writing in an inner room. Presently my Lady calls her.
10. Rosa softly withdraws; but still my Lady’s eyes are on the fire. In search of what? Of any hand that is no more, of any hand that never was, of any touch that might have magically changed her life? Or does she listen to the Ghost’s Walk and think what step does it most resemble? A man’s? A woman’s? The pattering of a little child’s feet, ever coming on — on — on? Some melancholy influence is upon her, or why should so proud a lady close the doors and sit alone upon the hearth so desolate?
11. I was resting at my favourite point after a long ramble, and Charley was gathering violets at a little distance from me. I had been looking at the Ghost’s Walk lying in a deep shade of masonry afar off and picturing to myself the female shape that was said to haunt it when I became aware of a figure approaching through the wood. The perspective was so long and so darkened by leaves, and the shadows of the branches on the ground made it so much more intricate to the eye, that at first I could not discern what figure it was. By little and little it revealed itself to be a woman’s — a lady’s — Lady Dedlock’s. She was alone and coming to where I sat with a much quicker step, I observed to my surprise, than was usual with her.
12. Thence the path wound underneath a gateway, and through a court-yard where the principal entrance was (I hurried quickly on), and by the stables where none but deep voices seemed to be, whether in the murmuring of the wind through the strong mass of ivy holding to a high red wall, or in the low complaining of the weathercock, or in the barking of the dogs, or in the slow striking of a clock. So, encountering presently a sweet smell of limes, whose rustling I could hear, I turned with the turning of the path to the south front, and there above me were the balustrades of the Ghost’s Walk and one lighted window that might be my mother’s.
13. The way was paved here, like the terrace overhead, and my footsteps from being noiseless made an echoing sound upon the flags. Stopping to look at nothing, but seeing all I did see as I went, I was passing quickly on, and in a few moments should have passed the lighted window, when my echoing footsteps brought it suddenly into my mind that there was a dreadful truth in the legend of the Ghost’s Walk, that it was I who was to bring calamity upon the stately house and that my warning feet were haunting it even then. Seized with an augmented terror of myself which turned me cold, I ran from myself and everything, retraced the way by which I had come, and never paused until I had gained the lodge-gate, and the park lay sullen and black behind me.
14. He would know it all the better if he saw the woman pacing her own rooms with her hair wildly thrown from her flung-back face, her hands clasped behind her head, her figure twisted as if by pain. He would think so all the more if he saw the woman thus hurrying up and down for hours, without fatigue, without intermission, followed by the faithful step upon the Ghost’s Walk. But he shuts out the now chilled air, draws the window-curtain, goes to bed, and falls asleep. And truly when the stars go out and the wan day peeps into the turret-chamber, finding him at his oldest, he looks as if the digger and the spade were both commissioned and would soon be digging.
15. What delusion can this be? What power does she suppose is in the person she petitions to avert this unjust suspicion, if it be unjust? Her Lady’s handsome eyes regard her with astonishment, almost with fear. “My Lady, I came away last night from Chesney Wold to find my son in my old age, and the step upon the Ghost’s Walk was so constant and so solemn that I never heard the like in all these years. Night after night, as it has fallen dark, the sound has echoed through your rooms, but last night it was awfullest. And as it fell dark last night, my Lady, I got this letter.” “What letter is it?”
16. “For I dread, George,” the old lady says to her son, who waits below to keep her company when she has a little leisure, “I dread, my dear, that my Lady will never more set foot within these walls.” “That’s a bad presentiment, mother.” “Nor yet within the walls of Chesney Wold, my dear.” “That’s worse. But why, mother?” “When I saw my Lady yesterday, George, she looked to me — and I may say at me too — as if the step on the Ghost’s Walk had almost walked her down.” “Come, come! You alarm yourself with old-story fears, mother.” “No I don’t, my dear. No I don’t. It’s going on for sixty year that I have been in this family, and I never had any fears for it before. But it’s breaking up, my dear; the great old Dedlock family is breaking up.” “I hope not, mother.” “I am thankful I have lived long enough to be with Sir Leicester in this illness and trouble, for I know I am not too old nor too useless to be a welcomer sight to him than anybody else in my place would be. But the step on the Ghost’s Walk will walk my Lady down, George; it has been many a day behind her, and now it will pass her and go on.” “Well, mother dear, I say again, I hope not.” “Ah, so do I, George,” the old lady returns, shaking her head and parting her folded hands. “But if my fears come true, and he has to know it, who will tell him!”
17. There is no improvement in the weather. From the portico, from the eaves, from the parapet, from every ledge and post and pillar, drips the thawed snow. It has crept, as if for shelter, into the lintels of the great door — under it, into the corners of the windows, into every chink and crevice of retreat, and there wastes and dies. It is falling still; upon the roof, upon the skylight, even through the skylight, and drip, drip, drip, with the regularity of the Ghost’s Walk, on the stone floor below.
Charles Dickens. Complete Works of Charles Dickens. Delphi Classics.
To go into Bleak House (the novel) you must go into the fog, the thick fog at the begining of the book. First you see it wetting and clogging streets, rooms, windows, boats, river banks, the whole sky and the whole city of London. Then it turns into a metaphorical fog inside Chancery Lane. And it’s not only the fog, but the mud, mud and mire, a sticky, churning substance that clings onto people and carriages, dogs, horses and dresses, reason, justice and good will, soiling them, wearing them off. So I opened the book and entered the fog, it’s visions. I listened to the voice of the omniscient narrator (which is, more or less, Dickens’ own voice). It had the power to summon all kinds of things while it kept the fog going, moving slowly, forcing the world to move slowly in its wake.
The fog hinders our ability to see, but it also makes it possible. The narrator seems to be giving an account of every thing touched by the fog. Maybe because of it we are short sighted, we have to get near to discern people and objects, but the voice guides us, lighting the darkness and sharpening the blurry apparitions. In this way, the reader (that was me) got entangled in those tentacles of pale, dirty clouds, and moved ahead with difficulty. (It happened that my head was also a bit foggy those days.) I hadn’t read a XIXth century novel for a while and I came from much quicker roads, so I also had to adjust to the new pace. It took some time and I took my time, just as the author had took his to write the novel (too many pages, indeed, for an evening’s read). Besides, I love the fog. I didn’t mind retracing my steps and staying there for a while. Modern novels are films. Old ones are a mix of tragedy and comedy represented on the stage of the reader’s mind. Everything took more time in those days when novels were written along large, minute chapters and published in long awaited installments. One of their pleasures is the slow time they invite us to. In Bleak House the parts that flow from the voice of the omniscient narrator are the slowest, with wonderful descriptions that bring to life characters and places. Long sentences full of connections frequently display humorous tones and different forms of irony, which is a peculiar way of putting things in connection. The narrative undertaken by Esther Summerson is more vivacious, written in a plainer English, but also representative of her wit and her whole personality. And the different narratives and chapters stretch minutely across encounters and scenes of social life, dialogues, roads, fields and houses. So let yourseIf drift in the fog and you’ll be starting a delightful journey. A hot, dreary summer is waiting pages ahead, and a cruel winter, and lots of sad, cheerful, intriguing or comical situations. Bleak House and Chesney Wold, Tom’s All Alone and the Deadlocks’ house in London… A whole world of scenes and characters that act their parts in the living fog of the reader’s imagination.
I’ve been busy (and enormously happy) reading Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, though I must say I finished the book in a surprisingly short amount of time, considering it has eight hundred pages. This means my happiness lasted less than expected.
The book is a wonderful structure balanced in such a way that joy and amusement are it’s natural byproducts. Though it has been said that it is something like a Harry Potter novel for adults I definitely wouldn’t put it that way. Such a formula is too simple to picture the original mix of ingredients Susanna Clarke poured into her magic cauldron. Historical knowledge; classical, efficient narrative techniques; a thorough acquaintance with XIXth century authors such as Charles Dickens and Jane Austen; imagination, fantasy, folklore, fake scholarship thrown into the lot for the sake of a most pleasurable sense of humour (the real scholarship, the science and the knowledge, lies behind and beyond)… No wonder I went through all those pages so quickly. Clarke’s novel has sold 4 million copies since it was published in 2004 but her work certainly delivers a higher level of quality than the typical bestseller. The figures she brings to life before the reader are not stock characters. They have entity, nuances contradictions, defined personalities, they certainly evolve and interact in many subtle ways. The author’s love for Italian painting and architecture plays an important part supplying backgrounds, motifs, atmospheres and sceneries. Many other cultural elements are set into this delightful construction. The rhythm of the narration fluctuates constantly so it doesn’t overwhelm the reader with a continual flow of action and miracles. A novel can always be likened to a river even not being a roman-fleuve. Like a river that runs swiftly and then broadens and calms down before making a display of its most spectacular rapids, this great narrative takes a course most convenient to it’s length, allowing the reader to rest and watch the calm banks, then to be swallowed by novelty and emotion, then to set foot on new territories, some of them provided with some sort of supernatural beauty. These elements the author masters and combines to produce a unique construction which has enthralled me as a reader and kept me going without pause till the end.
Now I’m reading another book of about eight hundred pages: Bleak House, by Charles Dickens. And it’s taking me much longer to read it, and Iv’e even paused between chapters to enjoy a couple of short books. Is it because I dislike it? Not at all. We’ll tackle this point soon.
Leí Encuentro con Rama, de Arthur C. Clarke, gracias a Los Morlocks: no a los Morlocks de H.G. Wells ni a los Morlocks de Marvel Comics, sino a ¡¡¡¡LOS MORLOCKS!!!! Reseñas e ilustraciones sobre subcultura y cómics Leí su reseña y decidí que tenía que leer el libro, que éste era uno de esos clásicos de la ciencia ficción con los que iba a disfrutar enormemente. Y así fue. Con todo el encanto, los defectos y los prejuicios de la época en que se escribió, es un libro para amantes del género. Y dentro de este, se puede decir que pertenece al subgénero de “descubrimiento de mundos”. Porque Rama es un mundo cerrado y el peso de la novela recae en la exploración de ese mundo, exploración que el lector comparte con los personajes. Maravilloso. La reseña de Carles Llonch Molina en Los Morlocks podéis leerla en el enlace de arriba, al principio de la página. Voy a destacar dos conceptos de la misma: Ciencia ficción dura y voluntad pedagógica. La primera es la especialidad de Arthur C. Clarke. Era un científico. La segunda fue, según nos dice Carles Llonch, el motivo de que Clarke se metiera a escritor de novelas. Además, digo yo, esa intención de enseñar, puesta en práctica dentro del argumento, es un ingrediente imprescindible en las obras de ciencia ficción de este tipo (o en los tecno-thrillers). Una parte de los descubrimientos que el lector debe hacer están ahí, y son la base para que pueda descubrir y entender el resto del panorama que el autor le va presentando. Adentrarse en un mundo desconocido muy especial, un mundo cerrado y enigmático, ir descubriendo sus extrañas leyes o contemplando sus enigmas irresolubles: eso es Cita con Rama. El autor no tiene tiempo de dedicarse a personajes muy complejos que evolucionan, aunque los traza bastante bien dentro de las necesidades de la obra. Tampoco se entretiene en desarrollar conflictos entre ellos, y gracias a Dios o a la Fuerza no suple estos conflictos con la presencia de un malo malísimo que, dominado por los celos, el afán de venganza o de poder, la mezquindad, el egoísmo y otras pulsiones similares, se dedique a minar la misión desde dentro, traicionar y engañar bajo la capa de la más convincente hipocresía y esas cosas. No hay tiempo para tonterías. Y el objetivo principal de la novela está claro. Así que el placer, la emoción del descubrimiento, del hallazgo, del conocimiento, del territorio virgen que se recorre por vez primera, es todo (o casi todo) lo que nos ofrece. ¡Ni más ni menos! Ni siquiera se detuvo el autor a solventar el problema de los microrganismos que pudieran haber enfermado al equipo de exploración, o describir las precauciones que éste debería haber tomado para evitar la contaminación del mundo extraño en el que se adentran. Hay apenas en el libro un par de menciones a posibles microrganismos y a un sistema de defensa contra posibles contaminaciones… Por parte del mundo que visitan, no por parte del equipo de exploración ni de su nave. Hoy nos parece raro ¿verdad?
¿Te interesa leer un libro publicado en 1892 del que se ha dicho que es la primera novela en la que se describe una invasión alienígena de la Tierra, libro publicado seis años antes de La guerra de los mundos de H.G. Wells? Pues, primeramente, debes estar dispuest@ a hacerlo en inglés. Luego, debes ir a gutenberg.org, descargarlo, leer y sólo después regresar aquí, ya que estoy a punto de estropear las principales sorpresas del relato. No tengo más remedio, pues voy a explicar por qué NO ES LA PRIMERA NOVELA DE INVASIONES ALIENÍGENAS. Así que, a la inversa, si no quieres leer el libro, puedes seguir con este artículo y, muy rápidamente, informarte sobre los principales elementos de la trama. O sea, de qué va.
En mi opinión, H. G. Wells es el indiscutible creador del subgénero de invasiones alienígenas, a pesar de que en Wikipedia se afirma que “en 1892 Robert Potter, un clérigo australiano, publicó en Londres Los cultivadores de gérmenes. Ahí se describe una invasión encubierta en la que los alienígenas toman forma humana e intentan desarrollar una virulenta enfermedad en la que apoyar sus planes de conquista global. El libro no fue muy leído y, en consecuencia, la novela de Wells, que obtuvo un gran éxito, se considera generalmente el origen de todas las historias de invasiones extraterrestres que vinieron después” (He traducido libremente un fragmento de la entrada en inglés dedicada a La Guerra de los mundos). Del mismo modo, en la Science Fiction Encyclopedia encontramos el siguiente resumen de la trama: “Una raza de seres desencarnados, habitantes del “ether” interplanetario y capaces de asumir forma humana, controlar mentalmente a los humanos y con habilidades de teletransportación, invaden la Tierra y establecen cabezas de puente donde cultivan gérmenes infecciosos para usarlo contra la humanidad”. A pesar de esto, el redactor de la entrada nos advierte de que “el elemento de alegoría cristiana (ángeles caídos a los que se enfrenta un ángel bueno) impide que se realice completamente el potencial de ciencia ficción del libro”
Vale, si pedís mi opinión (lo cual supongo que no teníais intención de hacer, lo que no impedirá que os la dé) no hay ninguna alegoría en la narración de Potter. Nada. Ni un ápice. Los alienígenas son de hecho criaturas espirituales, buenos o malos, es decir, lo que la Biblia llama ángeles, y el libro es un intento de armonizar una explicación científica del universo con la cosmovisión (o visión del mundo) cristiana donde la noción clásica de éter (no confundir con el éter que sirve para dormir a la gente en la viejas novelas de misterio) o ether o aether ya había encontrado un sitio en relación con el cielo, el espacio exterior, seres angélicos y otras cosas parecidas. Esta idea situada en el centro mismo de la trama es claramente mucho más original que cualquier alegoría. En realidad el mundo del que vienen los invasores de la novela es nuestro mismo mundo. Hoy diríamos que se trata de “otra dimensión” o algo así.
Potter recurre a la noción de “aether” (tal como escribe él la palabra) no como “el quinto elemento” de la antigua Grecia, sino como concepto científico todavía muy importante en su época, y lo hace converger con las cualidades “etéreas” de los ángeles y los espíritus y la materia sutil (¿o quizá deberíamos llamarla energía?) en donde estos viven. Esta materia sutil que está en todas partes y lo atraviesa todo, que está en el origen de cualquier otra sustancia contenida en el Universo es de lo que está hecho el espíritu y el “lugar” de donde vienen los”aliens” del argumento. Para entrar en nuestro mundo de objetos groseros estos ángeles deben “materializarse”, cosa que hacen sin problema, pero una vez que se han convertido en seres humanos están sujetos a todas las leyes de la naturaleza que gobiernan la nuestra. Aquí es donde la parte de ciencia ficción se vuelve real, destacable. Pues, gracias a su elevada inteligencia y conocimiento, las legiones rebeldes que llegan a la Tierra a sembrar la enfermedad en cuerpos y almas usan máquinas que, cuando son vistas por los protagonistas, aparecen a sus ojos como el producto de una tecnología muy avanzada y de una civilización basada en ese tipo de tecnología. Emplean también su profundo conocimiento de la biología para cultivar gérmenes en plantaciones secretas, gérmenes que son mutaciones mortales obtenidas a partir de especímenes inocuos a través de extensos experimentos. Luego difunden estos gérmenes con ayuda de sus “coches voladores” para probarlos y para empujar a la humanidad a la desesperación y la rebeldía.
La “teletransportación” de que habla la Enciclopedia de Sci Fi es tan solo lo que pasa cuando uno de los ángeles encarnados muere, o cuando deciden por propia voluntad volver al éter de donde proceden y luego regresar, tomando nuevamente la materia y la forma del cuerpo humano. La verdad es que las meditaciones y ensueños del Sr. Potter me han parecido muy entretenidas, a pesar de que emplea tanto tiempo en describir algunos de los ingeniosos ingenios usados por las malélovas criaturas que se ocultan en un remoto y escondido valle australiano. Estos ingenios y artilugios nos pueden hacer gracia hoy en día. Debemos tener en cuenta el tiempo en que se escribió la novela. Esto también es esencial para entender los defectos y prejuicios del narrador, muy característicos de su siglo.
Ciertamente debo decir que el título de la novela llamó mi atención especialmente porque estos días hay un virus que nos tiene a raya a los seres humanos. En la primera parte del libro, antes de contar la historia de sus aventuras australianas, al narrador recuerda algunas cosas que le sucedieron en su juventud, entre ellas una epidemia y algunos otros hechos que cree que puedan estar conectados aunque no lo parezca. Tras saber todo lo que hay que saber sobre sus andanzas y descubrimientos australianos, vemos claramente que tenía razón: los acontecimientos que tuvieron lugar en Gales cuando el narrador era un muchacho estaban, en efecto, conectados entre sí. Esta primera parte del libro es mi favorita aún después de haber obtenido todos los indicios concluyentes que nos proporciona el relato principal. Con esos acontecimientos aparentemente sueltos, atados entre sí solo por el misterio y las sugestiones que unas cuantas creencias y relatos folclóricos, esta primera parte me recuerda el aura sobrenatural que crece alrededor de hechos y lugares normales en las obras de Arthur Machen.
Mary Wolfhouse & CO 