Jean-Marie Le Clézio has to be the most humble Nobel-prize-winning author. Ri and I heard him last Friday, being interviewed by the New Yorker’s Adam Gopnik. He has the distance of adult wisdom but sees the world through the thrilled eyes of a child. And he has a deep sense of privilege – he’d describe, for example, seeing abuses in colonial Nigeria where his father worked when he was young – a procession of Nigerians led “like a chain gang” to build a colonial official’s swimming pool, the official overseeing them in his shorts and white socks and wide-brimmed hat – and said that while such scenes made him angry he still felt intensely privileged to have born witness to them. He’s fascinated (as you’d expect) by words. Yet in an almost mystical way. “Each word is a world by itself – each word contains a world.” I thought of this the next day when I explored Brooklyn Botanical Garden where each of the plant names contains world upon world of meaning…
Blue Atlas Cedar
Schiedecker Crabapple
Toringo Crabapple
Scarlet Oak
Chinese Fountain Bamboo
Carolina Allspiece
Saucer Magnolia
Weeping Pagoda Tree (it was)
Snow Azalea
Virginia Bluebells
Weeping Hemlock
Hybrid Oak
Narcissus Poeticus
Nodding Virgin’s Bower
Siberian Fritillary
Bosnian Pine
Interrupted Fern
Wild Bleeding-Heart
Nodding Onion
Bloodroot
Eastern shooting star
Wild oats!
And that’s just a handful of them. Material for a multitude of stories.
Le Clézio is anti-affirmation (to the extent he can be "anti" anything!). Rather than novels presenting truths to the world he sees them as birthing questions. He talked about a humanism that isn’t human-centric, that tries to express, as far as possible from within the confines of a human mind, not only the dreams of humans but the dreams of animals and the dreams of plants as well. In the Botanical gardens I thought of all those plants dreaming away at night.
So much more to say…but rushing (comme toujours!) to a wedding in Puerto Rico. To be continued…
Just noticed on posting this that in blog-entry terms it's EWINY's golden anniversary.
No comments:
Post a Comment