Day: April 22, 2013

The other day I was surfing the internet. In and of itself, this is hardly an uncommon experience. More often than not, "surfing the internet" involves a lot of returns to wikipedia, "because that's how I roll." Whatever that means.

The other day, though, was more than just a "surfing the internet" moment. I'm not sure why. It was just one of those times when everything seems to link along to everything else, and it feels like I'm following some kind of [broken link! FIXME] apophenic chain across a universe of memes amd meanings.

Thus it was that, starting with a lake in Patagonia, I ended up researching a quote by Shakespeare, via a Nabokovian interlude with an aging dictator in 1955. Hmm.

I had ended up at the lake in Patagonia because sometimes I hit the "random" button in wikipedia (sometimes in English, sometimes in Spanish, sometimes even in Korean). I try to do this at least once a day – just to keep my brain topped off with irrelevancies.

From that lake in Argentina, I found myself researching the 1920 labor union uprisings in Argentina, which led me, in turn, to Argentinian President Yrigoyen, thence to Union Civica Radical, thence to the Partido Justicialista (Peronist), thence to Perón himself. Then things got weird.

There was a reference to a certain character in the the Perón saga, Nélida Rivas. She was apparently Perón's teenage protogée during his first twilight, before the coup in 1955 that removed him. I say "first twilight" because he subsequently returned to the presidency, as a very old man, in 1973 – only to die promptly.

As I looked into this historical personage – she liked to be called "Nelly" – there were all these little glimmerings on the web, only glimpses, of a strange, May-December, almost Lolitesque something-or-other between the General and his protogée. Following, here are some things I ran across.

Firstly, I found brief references to the affair in the online archives (direct from 1970s era microfiche, I suspect, with nary a human hand involved) of many second-tier North American newspapers of the era (e.g. Ottawa Citizen, Oct. 3, 1955 or Spokane Daily Chronicle, same date). I find it fascinating that these are newspapers Nabokov may have read while, having finished Lolita, the book was being prepared for publication – because there are weird parallels, with a [broken link! FIXME] Garciamarquezesque overlay.

Secondly, I found this quite strange reference, in a book at googlebooks, Los bienes del ex dictador (The possessions of the ex-dictator). I quote at length:

En cuanto a la joven Nélida Haydée Rivas no me fue posible tener contacto directo con
ella, es decir, no tuve ocasión de conocerla personalmente pero siguiendo muy de cerca la
narración verídica de los hechos en mi paso por la comisión interventora, debo expresar
que en oportunidad de interrogar al Sr. Atilio Renzi, me dio una completa versión acerca
de la presencia de la menor en la Residencia Presidencial.

Al describirla, me refirió que se trataba de una niña de diecisiete años de edad que tomó
contacto con el Gral. Perón cuando tenía catorce, como integrante de la UES, no muy
hermosa sino más bien suave y candorosa. Explicó Renzi que poseía un espíritu travieso,
transformándose al poco tiempo en una suerte de "fierecilla indomatable" que llegó a
dominar completemente la residencia presidencial. Todos le temían. [Enfásis mía]

My own translation of the above is:

With respect to the young lady Nélida Haydée Rivas, it wasn't possible for me to get in
direct contact with her, which is to say, I didn't have a chance to get to know her
personally, but following closely is a the true narration of events I heard through the
inventorying commision, as I was able to interview a Mr. Atilio Renzi, who gave me a complete
accounting of the young woman's presence at the Presidential Residence.

He described that she was a girl, 17 years of age, who first met General Perón when she
was 14, as a member of the UES [a youth activity league, a kind of Peronist interpretation
of the Communist Youth Leagues or suchlike]; she wasn't very beautiful but she was gentle and
straightforward. Renzi explained that she had a bit of a mischievous spirit, and after a short time she became a sort of "little wild thing" who ended up completely dominating the presidential residence. Everyone was afraid of her. [Emphasis mine]

Lastly, however, I found the best write-up at a certain blog by someone named (or pseudonymmed) Sergio San Juan here
(in Spanish) – I am unable to decide if that text is a fictional (or fictionalized) bastard-child
of Nabokov and Borges or if it is, in fact, sincere journalism. I'm not sure that 
it matters, as it is so very well done. Perhaps someday I will make a translation of that post.

Naturally, that last link sent me to Borges, eventually, who was lecturing (in Spanish) on the topic of nightmares and English literature – as was his wont.

That link also got me curious about the tagline at the top of Sergio San Juan's blog: "Estamos hechos de la misma madera que nuestros sueños." This, he has attributed to William Shakespeare.

Of course, finding a Shakespeare quote in Spanish is not the same as finding one in English – it becomes more difficult to get at the original text. So it took a bit of research, but I finally found it. I noted that the Spanish version contains some additional "meaning" that the English seems to miss, and I was reminded of Nabokov's comment that Shakespeare was better in translation (although obviously he was meaning Pushkin's famous translations).

The literal translation back to English of the tag-line phrase above is, "We are made of the same wood as our dreams." This is delightful – imagistic, metaphoric, what-have-you. The original Shakespeare, although famous and appropriately pentametric, seems wooden (pardon the pun) in comparison: here is the extended quote from The Tempest, Act IV, scene 1.

You do look, my son, in a moved sort,
As if you were dismayed. Be cheerful, sir.
Our revels are now ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air;
And like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve;
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep. (4.1 146-158)

The two enchained half-lines are: "We are such stuff / As dreams are made on." There's nothing wrong with that, but it seems less striking. Perhaps it is rendered banal by four centuries of familiarity and citation.