Manflora y victoriana

Hay pocas cosas peores que retomar un libro que se ha abandonado. No alcanza la memoria para volver al precipicio donde lo dejamos, pero el repaso de los ene capitulos ya leidos se hace tortuoso. Sobre todo si habiamos pasado por algunas revelaciones de la trama.

A pesar de esto, confieso estar disfrutando "El retrato de Dorian Gray". No estoy convencido de que sea un gran libro; en cuanto a Wilde, se dije que Bierce se despacho con esta lindeza:

"The ineffable dunce has nothing to say … embroidering it with reasonless vulgarities of attitudes, gestures and attire. There was never an impostor so hateful … a crank so variously stupid and dull. He makes me tired."

Las ideas, sin embargo, estan ahi. Para alguien como el que escribe, que no logra odiar la "literatura de ideas" aunque se esfuerce, los desvarios de Wilde sobre la etica, la estetica y el arte no dejan de ser agradables. Comparado con "Dracula", es una novela victoriana mucho mas pasable.

Una cita:

"It often happens that the real tragedies of life occur in such an inartistic manner that they hurt us by their crude violence, their absolute incoherence, their absurd want of meaning, their entire lack of style. They affect us just as vulgarity affects us. They give us an impression of sheer brute force, and we revolt against that. Sometimes, however, a tragedy that possesses artistic elements of beauty crosses our lives. If these elements of beauty are real, the whole thing simply appeals to our sense of dramatic effect."