02 June 2009

What Makes This Poem Beautiful?

Rising up inside him was the sensation he had always felt as a child and as a young man at moments of extraordinary happiness: the prospect of future misery and hopelessness. In a panic, he tried to bring this happy moment to a close. This, he hoped, would lessen the impact of the unhappiness he knew would follow. The surest way to calm himself, he thought, would be simply to accept the inevitable: that the love he felt for Itak - the source of his anxiety - would be his undoing; that any intimacy he might enjoy with her would undo him, as salt dissolves ice; that he didn't deserve his happiness but rather the disgrace and denigration that would result.

Orhan Pamuk, Snow, Chapter 10

1 comment:

Hugo Liu said...

Felíz lectura, ya lo leí hace un par de meses (en chino, claro). Hay que releérlo, a ver si me da tiempo.

Ahora estoy con ME LLAMO ROJO, con este completo mi colección traducida de Pamuk.