[Below, the text of the poem read by David | Abaixo, o texto do poema lido por David]

A poem by Raymond Carver, adapted from the letters of Franz Kafka

KAFKA’S WATCH
–by Raymond Carver

I have a job with a tiny salary of 80 crowns, and
an infinite eight to nine hours of work.
I devour the time outside of the office like a wild beast.
Someday I hope to sit in a chair in another
country, looking out the window at fields of sugarcane
or Mohammedan cemeteries.
I don’t complain about the work so much as about
the sluggishness of swampy time. The office hours
cannot be divided up! I feel the pressure
of the full eight or nine hours even in the last
half hour of the day. It’s like a train ride
lasting night and day. In the end you’re totally
crushed. You no longer think about the straining
of the engine, or about the hills or
flat country, but ascribe all that’s happening
to your watch alone. The watch which you continually hold
in the palm of your hand. Then shake. And bring slowly
to your ear in disbelief.

KAFKA’S WATCH
by Raymond Carver
Originally Published October 1985
New Yorker; 10/21/85, Vol. 61 Issue 35, p117

Audio | David Bauman | USA
– text | Raymond Carver.

Tic Tac | Atibaia | Jaime Scatena sobre V. Moraes & Paulo Soledade

Una confusión cotidiana

Franz Kafka [traducido por Luis López Nieves]

Un incidente cotidiano, del que resulta una confusión cotidiana. A tiene que cerrar un negocio con B en H. Se traslada a H para una entrevista preliminar, pone diez minutos en ir y diez en volver, y se jacta en su casa de esa velocidad. Al otro día vuelve a H, esta vez para cerrar el negocio. Como probablemente eso le exigirá muchas horas, A sale muy temprano. Aunque las circunstancias (al menos en opinión de A) son precisamente las de la víspera, tarda diez horas esta vez en llegar a H. Llega al atardecer, rendido. Le comunican que B, inquieto por su demora, ha partido hace poco para el pueblo de A y que deben haberse cruzado en el camino. Le aconsejan que espere. A, sin embargo, impaciente por el negocio, se va inmediatamente y vuelve a su casa.

Esta vez, sin poner mayor atención, hace el viaje en un momento. En su casa le dicen que B llegó muy temprano, inmediatamente después de la salida de A, y que hasta se cruzó con A en el umbral y quiso recordarle el negocio, pero que A le respondió que no tenía tiempo y que debía salir en seguida.

A pesar de esa incomprensible conducta, B entró en la casa a esperar su vuelta. Y ya había preguntado muchas veces si no había regresado aún, pero seguía esperándolo siempre en el cuarto de A. Feliz de hablar con B y de explicarle todo lo sucedido, A corre escaleras arriba. Casi al llegar tropieza, se tuerce un tendón y a punto de perder el sentido, incapaz de gritar, gimiendo en la oscuridad, oye a B -tal vez muy lejos ya, tal vez a su lado- que baja la escalera furioso y que se pierde para siempre.

Una confusión cotidiana | Porto Alegre | Juliana Ben sobre López sobre Kafka

A report to an academy by Frank Kafka (excerpt) | Piraju | Cassiano Motta

No, no. It’s quite all right. I can tell you what it was. Sometimes I’m overcome with such an aversion to human beings that I can barely refrain from retching. This, of course, has nothing to do with the individual human being, least of all with your charming presence. It concerns all human beings. There’s nothing extraordinary about this. Suppose, for instance, that you were to live continuously with apes, you’d probably have similar attacks, however great your self-control. Actually, it’s not the smell of human beings that repels me so much, it’s the human smell which I have contracted and which mingles with the smell from my native land. Smell for yourself! Here on my chest! Put your nose deeper into the fur! Deeper, I say!

***

Considerações a respeito do tempo | por Rodrigo Moraes

Esses dias eu estava andando pela rua com meu relógio Montblanc falsificado, coisa de vinte contos no Mika Presentes, prateado, reluzente, um belo truque pra quem observa à distância, e me ocorreu que relógio é um troço muito inquietante, veja só, um relógio mede as horas, e o que são horas?, ora, horas são momentos, é disso que um relógio trata, dos momentos que vêm e vão, dos que vivemos ou vamos viver, das pessoas que temos e das que queremos, mesmo que elas estejam em um lugar cujas horas não batam com as nossas, por exemplo, imagine um terráqueo em Marte, todo nostálgico, desejando estar em sua casa na hora do almoço, ou o incauto que diz “Que horas serão em Saturno?”, um mistério até para os astrofísicos pois Saturno é uma bola de hidrogênio e hélio e ninguém sabe quantas horas tem o dia lá, mas mesmo assim a ideia é válida, pois alguma hora Saturno deve ter, nem que seja um momento sem número, que não deixa de ser uma hora, como aquela em que eu andava pela rua com meu relógio semi-original e pensei: “Meu irmão deve estar na estrada neste instante”; talvez ele não estivesse, e nem sei que horas eram, mas de certo modo olhar para o relógio me lembrou do meu irmão, e aquilo foi um momento terno, entende?, e me veio este pensamento bobo de que o ar é tão fresco e gostoso de se respirar quando a gente pensa em alguém, sabe?, e nem sei se foi o relógio, pode ter sido uma placa de trânsito, uma folha no vento, qualquer coisa irrisória, mas em todo caso um relógio também provoca situações curiosas, como quando você pergunta as horas e recebe de volta um “Agora?”, e aí só há uma resposta cabível: “Não. Pode falar a hora de uma hora atrás e eu calculo”

Texto | Piracicaba | Rodrigo Moraes

shut it and zipped |London | R.Cambusano

text | The Knock at the manor gate | Franz Kafka | reading Ygor Raduy

The Knock at the manor gate

It was summer, a hot day. With my sister I was passing the gate of a great house on our way home. I cannot now tell whether she knocked on the gate out of mischief or out of absence of mind, or merely threatened it with her hand and did not knock at all. A hundred paces further on along the road, which here turned to the left, began the village. We did not know it very well, but no sooner had we passed the first house when people appeared and made friendly or warning signs to us; they were themselves apparently terrified, bowed down with terror. They pointed towards the manor house that we had passed and reminded us of the knock on the gate. The proprietor of the manor would charge us with it, the interrogation would begin immediately. I remained quite calm and also tried to calm my sister’s fears. Probably she had not struck the door at all, and if she had it could never be proved. I tried to make this clear to the people round us; they listened to me but refrained from passing any opinion. Later they told me that not only my sister, but I too, as her brother, would be charged. I nodded and smiled. We all gazed back at the manor, as one watches a distant smoke cloud and waits for the flames to appear. And right enough we presently saw horsemen riding in through the wide-open gate. Dust rose, concealing everything, only the tops of the tall spears glittered. And hardly had the troop vanished into the manor courtyard they seemed to have turned their horses again, for they were already on their way to us. I urged my sister to leave me, I myself would set everything right. She refused to leave me. I told her that she should at least change, so as to appear in better clothes before these gentlemen. At last she obeyed and set out on the long road to our home. Already the horsemen were beside us, and even before dismounting they enquired after my sister. She wasn’t here at the moment, was the apprehensive reply, but she would come later. The answer was received with indifference; the important thing seemed their having found me. The chief  members of the party appeared to be a young lively fellow, who was a judge, and his silent assistant, who was called Assmann. I was asked to enter the farm house. Shaking my head and hitching up my trousers, I slowly began to move, while the sharp eyes of the party scrutinized me. I still half-believed that a word would be enough to free me, a city man, and with honor too, from this peasant folk. But when I had stepped over the threshold of the parlor the judge, who had hastened in front and was already  awaiting me, said:”I’m really sorry for this man.” And it was beyond all possibility of doubt that by this he did not mean my present state, but something that was to happen to me. The room looked more like a prison cell than the parlor of a farm house. Great stone flags on the floor, dark, quite bare walls, into one of which an iron ring was fixed, in the middle something that looked half a pallet, half an operation table.

 Could I still endure any other air than prison air?  That is the great question, or rather it would be if I still had any prospect of  release.