Parfin ou loder - Étaé

Parfin ou loder is a very special album for me: this is the last cd I bought in Mauritius, after a period of my life I spent most of my time travelling around Africa, Europe, and the Middle East. My thoughts about Some of the music I heard during this period is scattered through the blog. Now that my life is becoming more sedentary and traditional, the posts will talk more about common stuff, like Radiohead, Thom Yorke (coming up soon...) and Héroes del Silencio.  I promise I will try to make the posts interesting for everybody.

Like most of the albums of this period of my life, Parfin ou loder is a great production. But, contrary to most of them, there is information about this album online. The website of Étaé, the artist of the album presents plenty of videos and material that are totally worth looking at. Unfortunately, it looks like there hasn't been a lot of movement on the site since mid-2012... Mauritian blues is, according to some locals, dying: people just prefer to listen to stuff from abroad. I guess that's just how things are: some forms of culture die while others are born.

One of the curious features of this album is that it presents the translation of the lyrics to French -the songs are interpreted in Mauritian creole, which is becoming a language of its own right. The album is permeated by a strong East-African identity. Like all the countries I visited, Mauritius will continue as an ongoing entity, its people will discover and re-invent their identities. Life will go on...

Viajes, fábulas y otras travesías - Manuel Vicent

Manuel Vicent es un columnista habitual de El País. Como su título lo sugiere, Viajes, fábulas y otras travesías es un libro que recoge sus memorias y crónicas de viajes. El libro está dividido en tres secciones. En la primera, titulada "En búsqueda del Corazón de Europa", se recogen las impresiones de un viaje que Vicent hizo en 10 de los 12 países de la entonces Comunidad Europea en 1985 (los países faltantes son España, de donde viene Vicent, y Austria). La segunda parte tiene por nombre "Ciudades de la memoria. 1990" y presenta crónicas de diferentes ciudades en 4 continentes del mundo; en muchos casos las crónicas se mezclan con ficción. La última sección, "De Siracusa a Olimpia. 2004", describe Siracusa y acontecimientos históricos o legendarios que hayan tenido lugar en ella en el contexto de los Juegos Olímpicos de Atenas en 2004.

Como todo buen libro de viajes, Viajes, fábulas y otras travesías tiene referencias cuya comprensión es difícil para los que no hayan estado ahí. El estilo del libro es repetitivo y cansino, sobre todo en la segunda parte, en la que las descripciones de las ciudades se ven siempre interrumpidas por diálogos aleatorios que pretenden ser profundos. En resumen, Vicent funciona muy bien como columnista, pero no tanto como escritor de libros (o, para ser más exacto: las compilaciones de sus textos periodísticos no funcionan bien).

Quizá lo único rescatable del libro sean las crónicas de los 10 paises europeos de la primera parte, sobre todo en el contexto actual del colapso de la Unión Europea. Si acaso, lo que este libro refleja es el optimismo europeísta que permeó el continente de inicios de los años 80, cuando se integró a los países mediterráneos, hasta 2010, cuando esos mismos países comenzaron a ser acusados (injustamente y sin ningún fundamento económico sólido) de holgazanes y ladrones que lastran el progreso de la Unión. Todavía no sabemos quién es el Manuel Vicent de esta generación, pero cuando saque su libro, dentro de 20 años, dudo que se refiera en términos tan favorables a los alemanes como lo hace el Manuel Vicent original.

The Travels of Marco Polo

From fiction to fiction. That's the path followed by The Travels of Marco Polo over the last 700-ish years. 

When Marco Polo published his book, presumably as a guide for merchants, most people thought he was exaggerating. At one point, the Catholic Church included it in its Index despite Polo's praises to the Christianity and his comparisons between Kublai Khan's deeds and manners and an "ideal" Christian ruler. (arguing that a pagan was as good as a Catholic in order to get the approval of the Vatican was not uncommon: Comentarios Reales de los Incas, Inca Garcilaso de la Vega presented Incas as monotheist worshipers of the Sun as a way to "legitimize" his book and his Inca parents before his Catholic and Spanish audience). Polo also mentions that Kurds, Muslims, and Tibetans are brute and mostly thieves.

Today, we obviously know what parts of Polo's accounts are historic facts and what are myths. And the book is written in such a business-like style that it's hardly an engaging reading. The value of the book lies in the sensation it leaves to the reader's mind. Marco Polo was one of the first Europeans to make the trip, so everything for him was brand new. At a time when it is possible to travel from one side of the planet to the other in 36 hours at most, reading a book where getting from Italy to China takes 3 years makes the reader wonder what it would be like to be in Polo's shoes. 

Only two documents written by Marco Polo have survived until today. One is obviously his Travels (Il Milione, in Italian); the other is his will, where he frees a Chinese slave, which he probably brought from there. Polo had a good heart for the standards of the time.

I found this documentary on Marco Polo. The most interesting part is the comparison between Marco Polo and Christopher Columbus, which starts around minute 38.