Инстинкт за Инес

by Carlos Fuentes, Екатерина Делева (Translator)

Gabriel-Atlan Ferrara è un grande direttore d'orchestra che si innamora di Inez Prada, affascinante cantante lirica. Simile a un eterno inseguimento, la loro storia d'amore si articola in vari modi e momenti storici: Londra sotto le bombe tedesche nel 1940, Città del Messico nel 1949, di nuovo Londra nel 1967 e Vienna alla fine del millennio. Una trama che sembra intersecarsi con un'era primigenia, alle origini del mondo.

Genres: Fiction, Latin American, Spanish Literature, Literature, Music, Novels, Literary Fiction

159 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

Carlos Fuentes Macías was a Mexican writer and one of the best-known novelists and essayists of the 20th century in the Spanish-speaking world. Fuentes influenced contemporary Latin American literature, and his works have been widely translated into English and other languages.

Fuentes was born in Panama City, Panama; his parents were Mexican. Due to his father being a diplomat, during his childhood he lived in Montevideo, Rio de Janeiro, Washington, Santiago, and Buenos Aires. In his adolescence, he returned to Mexico, where he lived until 1965. He was married to film star Rita Macedo from 1959 till 1973, although he was an habitual philanderer and allegedly, his affairs - which he claimed include film actresses such as Jeanne Moreau and Jean Seberg - brought her to despair. The couple ended their relationship amid scandal when Fuentes eloped with a very pregnant and then-unknown journalist named Silvia Lemus. They were eventually married.

Following in the footsteps of his parents, he also became a diplomat in 1965 and served in London, Paris (as ambassador), and other capitals. In 1978 he resigned as ambassador to France in protest over the appointment of Gustavo Diaz Ordaz, former president of Mexico, as ambassador to Spain. He also taught courses at Brown, Princeton, Harvard, Penn, George Mason, Columbia and Cambridge.

---
کارلوس فوئنتس در ۱۱ نوامبر ۱۹۲۸ در پاناماسیتی به دنیا آمد. مادرش برتا ماسیاس ریواس و پدرش رافائل فوئنتس بوئه‌تیگر است. پدر وی از دیپلمات‌های مشهور مکزیک است. وی سفیر مکزیک در هلند، پاناما، پرتغال و ایتالیا بود.

دوران کودکی‌اش در واشنتگتن دی.سی. و سانتیاگوی شیلی گذشت. فوئنتس در دانشگاه مکزیک و ژنو در رشتهٔ حقوق تحصیل کرد. او به زبان‌های انگلیسی و فرانسه تسلط کامل دارد.

آثار
* مرگ آرتمیوکروز، ۱۹۶۲
* آئورا، ۱۹۶۲
* زمین ما،‌ ۱۹۷۵
* گرینگوی پیر، ۱۹۸۵
* ملکهٔ عروسک‌ها
* آسوده خاصر، ترجمهٔ محمدامین لاهیجی.
* مرگ آرتمیو کروز، ترجمهٔ مهدی سحابی.
* آئورا، ترجمهٔ عبدالله کوثری.
* سرهیدا.
* خودم با دیگران (به تازگی با نام از چشم فوئنتس) ترجمهٔ عبدالله کوثری.


---
Carlos Fuentes Macías fue un escritor mexicano y uno de los novelistas y ensayistas más conocidos en el mundo de habla española. Fuentes influyó en la literatura contemporánea de América Latina, y sus obras han sido ampliamente traducidas al inglés y otros idiomas.

Fuentes nació en la ciudad de Panamá, Panamá, sus padres eran mexicanos. Debido a su padre era un diplomático, durante su infancia vivió en Montevideo, Río de Janeiro, Washington, Santiago y Buenos Aires. En su adolescencia regresó a México, donde vivió hasta 1965. Estuvo casado con la estrella de cine Rita Macedo de 1959 hasta 1973, aunque era un mujeriego habitual y, al parecer, sus asuntos - que se ha cobrado incluyen actrices como Jeanne Moreau y Jean Seberg, su llevados a la desesperación. La pareja terminó su relación en medio del escándalo, cuando Fuentes se fugó con un periodista muy embarazada y entonces desconocido de nombre Silvia Lemus. Se casaron finalmente.

Siguiendo los pasos de sus padres, también se convirtió en un diplomático en 1965 y sirvió en Londres, París (como embajador), y otras capitales. En 1978 renunció al cargo de embajador en Francia en protesta por el nombramiento de Gustavo Díaz Ordaz, ex presidente de México, como embajador en España.

Reviews

[Fabian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Why is the intangible so easily definable for Carlos Fuentes-- magnetic Mexican maestro of our times-- but the concrete stuff (i.e. the physical elements, characters, PLOT) not so much? He leaves all that pretty nebulous.

A director de orquesta meets & becomes infatuated/intoxicated by eponymous Mexican diva singer. It happens thrice. They are older each time. A musical piece plays through it all...

Por ejemplo: I can picture the prism made by the crystal seal (see also: Madeleine by Marcel Proust), though NEVER what that enigmatic object may look like. (Like feeling the music, but not feeling the consequences of a repressed LIFE, for... are there any other types for these elitist bastards?!)

Reminiscent of Sound and the Fury, this misstep by the otherwise ingenious Fuentes, it also borrows from City of God by Doctorow, Fury by Salman Rushdie, and pretty much everything that's not Atonement by Ian McEwan--basically all the pretentious stuff that I'm NOT in love with.

[Argos · Rating 5 out of 5]

Latin Amerikalı yazarlar arasında romanda “büyülü gerçekçilik” denilince benim için Carlos Fuentes bir numaradadır. Kolaya kaçmadan yazar, metaforları, tarihte zıplamaları ve geriye dönüşleri çok sık, fantastik temaları ise biraz daha az kullanır. Bu kitabında hatırlamak, unutmak, anılara dönmek, düşüncelere dalmakve sevmek üzerine hikayesini kurgulamış.

Bu kitabında da kibirli ve hırslı bir orkestra şefi ile Meksikalı genç ve sakin bir soprano arasındaki tutkulu ama imkansız bir aşkı ele almış Fuentes. Aslında iç içe geçmiş iki hikaye ile, bu aşkı ilkel iki insanın (mağara resimlerinden bildiğimiz neanderteller olabilir mi?) yaşama başlayış ve sürdürüşlerinin hikayesi ile harmanlamış.

Okuması zor, zorlayıcı bir roman, tıpkı diğer Fuentes romanları gibi. Bu yazarın ilk okunacak kitabı değil. Ayrıca iyi bir klasik müzik özellikle Berliotz bilgisi istiyor ki internetten faydalandım. Bu yaz günleri için zorlayıcı da olsa güzel bir romandı.

[robin friedman · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Damnation Of Faust Thrice Told

I read this short, enigmatic novel, "Inez" by the Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes because it draws heavily upon one of my most beloved works of music, Hector Berlioz' "The Damnation of Faust". Berlioz called this work a "legende dramatique". It is usually performed as a concert opera. It is based upon Goethe's Faust, with a text by Berlioz himself. It tells the story of an aging scholar who sells his soul to Mephistopheles to win the love of the beautiful Marguerite. At the climax of Berlioz' opera, Faust is driven off on horseback to hell to the sound of a furious "hup-hup" while Marguerite is saved and goes to heaven. In his book, Fuentes makes a great deal of the "hup-hup" of Faust's fateful journey.

Fuentes's novel tells the story of a 93 year old conductor Gabriel Atlan-Ferrara, who has spent much of a long career conducting this masterwork of Berlioz. The opera is intertwined for Ferrara with his love for a great Mexican singer, Inez Rosenzweig who adopts the stage name Inez Prada. Ferrara and Prada see each other at three widely-spaced times in their lives, the first in London during WW II, (when Inez is a fledgling but strong-willed singer, only 20 and a virgin) the second in the early 1950s (when Inez dismisses a lover from her apartment to receive Ferrara) in Mexico and the third in London in 1967. During the first meeting Prada rejects Ferrara as a lover but becomes infatuated by a young male friend who appears in a photograph with Ferrara. Ferrara walks away from her, and the picture of the young man mysteriously disappears from the photo. During the second meeting Ferrara and Prado consummate their love but do not otherwise pursue their relationship. Prada marries briefly. During the third meeting the couple reminisces while Ferrara conducts a version of Faust with Marguerite in the nude. The two never see each other again. Ferrara has a mysterious crystal he received from Prada and, he believes, it allows him access to the past and the future. As an aged man of 93 conducting Faust for the last time, his thoughts are on Prada.

The Prada-Ferrara story is juxtaposed against an even more enigmatic tale involving a man named Neh-el and a woman named Ah-nel. This story is set in primordial time as the first love between a man and a woman as they separate themselves from the other animals. Their story involves tenderness, lust, incest, and the change from a matriarchal, egalitarian society to one based upon patriarchy.

The Faust-Marguerite, Ferrara-Prada, Nehel-Ah-nel relationships all involve the mysterious nature of love and sexuality between a man and a woman. They also involve the ability of music to capture this relationship and to transcend it. (The Nehel -- Ah-nel relationship involves the tale of a primitive silver flute which plays music never since heard.) The strongest scenes in this novel are those that are closest to Berlioz' music, that capture its romantic passion, and that illustrate Ferrara's life-long obsession with the score. The book includes extended discussions of the power of music and difficult reflections on the nature of male-female relationships. There is also a great deal of fantasy in the book as it concerns the mysterious crystal and the early relationship of Neh-el and Ah-nel.

This is a moving but obscure novel. Those fascinated with the book should explore for themselves Berlioz' flamboyant and passionate setting of "The Damnation of Faust". Berlioz' "legende dramatique" is readily available in many recordings.

Robin Friedman

[Elina · Rating 2 out of 5]

Οχι...οχι...οχι...δεν μου αρέσει ο μαγικός ρεαλισμός!! Δεν ξέρω αν το συγκεκριμένο βιβλίο του Φουέντες είναι το καλύτερο δείγμα, αλλά πραγματικά δεν μπορώ να ταυτιστώ με αυτό το παραμυθένιο και παράλογο που μπλέκεται με την πραγματικότητα. Ίσως κάποια άλλη στιγμή, με κάποιο άλλο βιβλίο αν έχετε να μου προτείνετε...

[iva° · Rating 3 out of 5]

zahtjevna i kompleksna.
priču započinje gabriel atlan-ferrara, 92godišnji dirigent, koji kroz jedan predmet (stakleni žig) oživljava sjećanja na svoju životnu ljubav, opernu pjevačicu inés rosenzweig i vodi nas kroz njihova tri susreta koji su se periodično dogodila tijekom tridesetak godina.

roman je kratak, ali vrvi simbolizmom i fantazijom, zahtjeva potpunu pozornost. rečenice su kompleksne i bogato strukturirane, a tekst je ispresijecan scenama prethistorijskog odnosa između muškarca ne-ela i žene a-nel za koje nisam sigurna kako se uklapaju u cijelu priču... mnogo toga ostalo mi je nepoznato. neuhvatljivo.

fuentes je izvrstan pisac, ali ovo je jedna od onih knjiga kod kojih mi je izmaknulo potpuno shvaćanje.

evo jedne rečenice:

"osjećaš to svim svojim bićem: zaneseno se prisjećaš svega što ti se dogodilo - sjećaš se kako majmun ubija zmiju, a dikobraz je proždire, sjećaš se kako silaziš sa stabla i prelaziš preko rijeke, toneš u san od iscrpljenosti da bi te probudio topot dlakavih, divljih goveda koja jure po ravnici i rika bikova koji se bore za svoj teritorij i opće sa ženkama, onda se prisjećaš kako se ponovno budiš pokraj mora i promatraš ribe koje se veselo igraju nakon što su u borbi ubile svoju djecu - ili možda započinješ neki novi neobični gromki pjev poput ptice, koja nikada nećeš postati, pjevaš kako bi svijetu objavila da si sama, da ti nije dovoljan ples, da pokreti tvoga tijela imaju dublje značenje, da ples nije samo izvijanje tijela pokraj morske obale, da želiš strastveno zavikati i zapjevati kako bi svima obznanila da postojiš, da želiš živjeti i da si sretna takva kakva jesi..."

[Eylül Görmüş · Rating 5 out of 5]

Elimden bırakamadım, bitiverdi. Benim bu Fuentes aşkım ne olacak hiç bilmiyorum, durulacağına alevleniyor yıllar geçtikçe. Fuentes her zamanki destansı diliyle şiddeti, tutkusu, lezzeti çok yerinde bir şey yazıp kucağımıza bırakmış. Zamanla ve mekanla oynayan bir aşk hikayesi ama aşk hikayesi demek yetersiz kalır, insanlığın bitmek bilmeyen oyunlarının, çözümsüzlüklerinin, oynaşlarının da hikayesi. Bunu yine “tarif etmesi güç nefis kitaplar” kategorisine koyuyorum. Bininci kez tekrarlayayım: Fuentes seni çok seviyorum. “Görüyorsun ki hatırlamak her zaman iyi değil, bellek çok kötü olabilir; içinde yaşadığımız unutuşa şükretmeli ve onu özlemeliyiz çünkü bu unutuş sayesinde biz bir aradayız, ayrıca -bunu ben söylüyorum sana- yeniden karşılaşan bir kadının ve erkeğin anıları eşit değildir, birinin anımsadığını öteki unutmuş olabilir ya da tam tersi; bazen de unutulur çünkü anımsamak acı verir, olmuş olanın hiçbir zaman olmadığına inanmak gerekir, en önemli anı unutulur çünkü bu aynı zamanda en ıstıraplı anı olabilir. Bana, benim unuttuğumun ne olduğunu söyle.”

[Konserve Ruhlar · Rating 3 out of 5]

Okumakta zorlandığım bir kitap oldu. Müzik ve aşk, tutku ve gurur bir opera eserinin ekseninde işleniyor. Karakterler çok güçlü. Konu çok güzel. Ama anlatım beni zorladı.

[miaaa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm stunned!

I don't read poetry, I knew nothing about poems and poets. Yet I can identify poetic lines in every pages of this piece. Nope, not just regarding Inez herself, but Fuentes wrote everything from the language, the symphony, the war, even to the Nazi, poetically.

Most condemned Hitler, but Fuentes condemned the Fuhrer with a style, at least for me, '... Your horror is true horror, it lacks grandeur, it's niggardly horror, because you don't understand , you will never be capable of understanding, that immortality, life, death, and sin are mirrors of our universal, internal soul, not your transitory and cruel external power...Faust places an unfamiliar mask on the man who doesn't recognise it but ends up adopting it. That is his triumph.'

Ahh Inez, who are you actually? I always relates you to Marguerite. It's easy to know who is she -- 'I sinned, I pleasured, I suffered, I was forgiven, but I will not renounce the glory of my pleasure, the integrity of my freedom as a woman to enjoy sex, I have not sinned, you angels know it, you may be carrying me to paradise grudgingly but you have no choise but to accept the sexual joy I found in the arms of my lover..'

That's when I remember Coelho's four classic archtype of women .. but no, Inez/Marguerite is not one of them. She's the Bitch type which defined by a friend of mine, Lamya, as: her search comes from her independence and aggression in pursuing her spiritual path. She fights for her cause with no care about the common opinion and lives off people's resentment and jealousy. She ridicules the Virgin, Saint, and Martyr, because she does NOT sacrifice herself; she expressed herself freely but sacrifices those who condemn and judge her.

And who is Gabriel? He's a maestro, a conductor, an eminent one. He was a legend, yet arrogant as most famous artist did. He refused to record his pieces so there were only live performances. But is that really him? Or the boy who played the rough-made, ivory flute? .. 'A woman knows more about life, an sooner, than a man, who is slow to give up his childhood. Perpetual adolescent or, worse, age child. There are few immature women, but many children disguised as men.'

***

Sungguh membaca karya ini membuatku tertegun, antara kagum dan kebingungan bagaimana untuk bereaksi. Belum pernah aku membaca kutukan atas Hitler sepuitis yang dituliskan Fuentes, '..Horor yang kau ciptakan adalah kengerian sebenarnya, namun tanpa kebesaran, hanya sebatas horor karena kau tidak paham dan tidak akan pernah mampu untuk memahami bahwa keabadian, hidup, kematian, dan dosa adalah cermin dari keberadaan jiwa internal kita secara keseluruhan, bukan kekuasaan eksternalmu yang sementara dan kejam ... Faus menempatkan topeng yang tidak awam pada seorang pria yang tidak mengenalinya namun malah berakhir mengadopsinya. Itulah kemenangan utamanya.'

Kebingunganku berlanjut saat Inez muncul, yang mana Inez yang mana Marguerite? Keduanya berbeda tapi terkadang mereka sama. Pribadi yang mengingatkanku pada empat tipe perempuan yang disebutkan Coelho dalam buku The Witch of Portobello .. tapi bukan salah satu dari empat itu, namun tipe kelima The Bitch yang menurut temanku Lamya, pencariannya datang dari kemerdekaan dan keagresifannya dalam mencari jalan spiritual. Dia memperjuangkan apa yang dia percaya tanpa mempedulikan opini umum dan hidup dengan kebencian dan iri dengki orang-orang di sekitarnya. Dia menertawakan tipe Virgin, Saint, dan Martyr, karena dia TIDAK mengorbankan dirinya sendiri; dia berani mengekspresikan diri dan mengorbankan mereka yang mengutuk dan menghakimi dirinya.

Mungkin tepat bila menyebut buku ini tentang musik, kehidupan, kematian, cinta, yang disampaikan dengan cara membingungkan!

[Jasminka · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ovaj roman, mali po obimu, ali veliki po ljepoti stila me je odveo u dvije različite epohe čovječanstva... Znači put u Londonu, Meksiko Sitiju i Salzburgu, ali i put kroz vrijeme. Prvo je tu početak, a ujedno i sam kraj priče i životnog doba velikog dirigenta koji se sa svojih 93 godina u Salzburgu uoči oproštajnog konceta prisjeća jedine žene koju je volio, ali je zbog ponosa i meni još nekih drugih neshvaćenih razloga ostao sam... Divna žena vatrene kose, veliki mecosopran Inez Prada je ostala u njegovom sjećanju i njegovom srcu zauvijek. Njjihovi su susreti i mimoilaženja protkani tonovima opere Faustovo prokletstvo od Berlioza koja ih spaja i razdvaja. Vidimo ih prvo u ratnom Londonu 1940, dok bombe padaju na sve strane, ona sa 20 godina i još uvijek djevica, on opsjednut njenim glasom i njenom pojavom, onda 1949 u Mexiko Siti kad napokon po prvi put postaju ljubavnici i njihov poslednji susret 1967 u Londonu, koji završava senzacionalnom izvedbom Fausta koja spaja prahistorijske likove ne-ela i a-nela i njihov grijeh, kada se spajaju moderna Margareta i ona a-nel iz davnih vremena uz zvuke srebrne flaute... Baršunasti Inezin glas i maestralno vođstvo Gabrijela se susreću tek povrijemeno da bi se opet rastali zbog ambicija, straha i autoriteta. Žaljenje i kajanje se pretvore u melanholiju koja ih prati u usamljenim životima, isto kao i poklonjeni kristalni pečat (ili prapovijesnaa figurica koja je svjedok davnih vrijemena matrijarhata, jer kada su žene vladale, svi su bili jednaki!). Maestro se nada, posmatrajući kristalni pečat, posle toliko godina, da će pronaći Inezin odraz, pobjediti vrijeme, udaljenost i prostor kroz tu veliku ljubav i strast koju je osjećao. Stil je čista poezija, uživala sam u svakom retku, u svakoj riječi, predivno napisano! S razlogom je Carlos Fuentes jedan od najboljih meksičkih pripovjedača i nekoliko puta kandidat za Nobelovu nagradu.

[Giuseppe Sirugo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ciertamente no es una de las novelas más recurrentes o contemporáneas de Carlos Fuentes. La narración comenzaría al final de la última guerra mundial: a pesar de esto, el mismo tema presenta al menos tres diferentes facetas. Obviamente la habilidad del escritor logró combinar tres párrafo para convertirla en una novela única.
Si se desea, la historia se puede dividir en tres párrafos:

- Un primer capítulo precede el final de la guerra: largo ese período de tiempo, se podría dejar espacio a la sòla imaginación que el autor encontró ya que escribió cosas al respecto.

- El segundo párrafo tiene un contexto musical: el texto se mueve sobre los entornos líricos

- Por fin se puede intuir un tercer capítulo. De opinión propria ésto tercer párrafo o división del libro es el más interesante: declaro que no entiendo nada de obras musicales líricas, pero lo que me gustó fue la idea del amor de sí mismo o el amor que una persona hace para vivir.
Esta parte el texto es conectado al lado sentimental de la novela y tiene un trasfondo narcisista: a partir de una descomposición imaginaria del libro, el concepto narcisista presente en la historia es referido a la protagonista. Una cierta Inés. [...] Es el sujeto femenino que de verdad puede y sabe escuchar su interior. Ella es capaz de amar lo que realmente sabe expresar verbalmente. Es siempre Inés que se enamora de su propia voz.

[Vassili · Rating 4 out of 5]

El último gran libro de Carlos Fuentes, escrito hace ocho años durante los cuales ha seguido publicando pero sin que ninguno de estos últimos sea digno de figurar entre sus grandes obras de juventud. Este novela, una revisión personalísima del tema de Fausto, mezcla además un relato sobre una pareja prehistórica que, a mi parecer, es lo mejor de la obra, sin que por esto desmerezca el relato de Gabriel Atlan-Ferrara, nuevo Fausto cuyo pacto no es con el demonio, sino con la memoria y la música.
El único pero que le pondría a la novela es la artificialidad de los diálogos; imposible creer que todos y cada uno de los personajes (desde Inez y Atlan-Ferrara hasta la vieja sirvienta de éste) hablen como unos verdaderos eruditos sobre cualquier tema.
Novela que de la mano del Fausto de Berlioz nos lleva y trae del presente al pasado que puede ser también nuestro futuro - en un guiño magistral al Eterno Retorno, Fuentes narra la prehistoria utilizando un futuro imperativo - Fuentes demuestra una vez más - y, hasta el momento, por última vez - por qué es uno de los escritores imprecindibles de las letras mexicanas.

[Chloe · Rating 1 out of 5]

The beginnings of the first and second chapters were good. But they quickly dived after that and the rest of the book never recovered.

If I had to describe this book in one word it would be: masturbation.

It is obvious that the author is really enjoy himself writing out how passionate/obsessed the main character is about Inez and the opera, but it I am not having fun.

Yeah, I get it. The main character was obsessed with the crystal seal, but that doesn't mean that the narrator also needs to be obsessed with the seal. One can write about how obsessed a character is without being obsessed one's self.

Also at times it seems like the main character was a caricature of the passionate Latino. So much FIRE! and PASSION! and a lot of DESIRE! but it just never was directed in any real coherent way, rambling about a non-existent person in a picture and don't get me started on that weird Adam and Eve narrative done in second person.

I just don't understand what he was going for. It seems like the author just got some ideas in his head and ran with it without ever thinking if it made sense or if it would ever translate to the reader. So that is why I call it masturbation since this novella seemed to be for the benefit of the author, not necessarily for the reader.

This is my second attempt at enjoying a Carlos Fuentes novel, and both times he has let me down. Sure I have heard that The Years with Laura Diaz was good, maybe his earlier work is much better since I have only read his more recent work, but I don't know if I want to waste any more time with this guy.

[Gilda Bonelli · Rating 4 out of 5]

Certamente non è uno dei romanzi più ricorrenti o contemporanei di Carlos Fuentes perché la narrazione inizierebbe a cavallo dell’ultima guerra mondiale. Nonostante ciò la stessa tematica presenta almeno tre differenti divergenze, che ovviamente l’abilità dello scrittore riuscì a unire per farne un unico romanzo.
Il racconto volendo si potrebbe dividere benissimo in tre paragrafi: un primo capitolo, che come accennato precede la fine della guerra e potrebbe lasciare spazio alla fantasia che l‘autore di quel periodo trovò. Il secondo paragrafo ha un contesto musicale, poiché la stesura scritta tratta ambienti lirici. Infine come ultimo paragrafo e congiunto al lato sentimentale del romanzo un retroscena narcisistico: da un’immaginaria scomposizione del libro il concetto narcisistico presente nella storia e riferito alla protagonista. È Ines, il soggetto femminile, che riesce a udire dal profondo quello che realmente esprime verbalmente. Ed è sempre lei che ne è innamorata della voce propria.

[Fardokht Sn · Rating 3 out of 5]

من مرد بدوی را برگزیدم
مردی که عذاب فاوست را با چهره بربرش رهبری میکرد
میخواستم آن خشونت صورت بربرش را با شمایل زنانه ام تعدیل بخشم
اما رویای بیهوده ای بود
من خود از تعدیل به دور‌ بودم
مرد بربر را سرانجام روزی ، چنان چون موسی ای در سبد بر رود ، به امواج میسپارم
من دیگر مرد بربر را به یاد نمی آورم!

[Inderjit Sanghera · Rating 5 out of 5]

The russet-hued tones of the book reflect the vermilion hair of Inez, who acts the tinder which sets the soul of the protagonist Gabriel ablaze,  her flame slowly dissipating only to flare up again in the heart of Gabriel. 

"Ines shook her head no, and the movement highlighted the cherry tones in her hair. She rubbed her burned fingers discreetly on her skirt. Just at the thigh. The rising sun seemed pale with envy as it struck the girl's fiery aureole"

The whole book revolves around the relationship between Gabriel and Inez. From their first meeting in London where Inez's independence, her reluctance to allow her voice to be tempered by the fiery indignation of the composer Gabriel, to the languorous days in Mexico of their middle ages, where the passion of their youth is transformed into something even more dangerous and deeper as the dissonances caused by their emotional interplay lead to their final break-up.

Finally an aged Gabriel reflects wanly on his life, a life dominated by his passion for Inez, a passion which was for so long unconsummated but, once acted on causes his soul to brim over under the emotional cacophony which Inez's crimson hair unleashes in Gabriel's soul.  

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

Had mixed feelings about the book. I loved the tale of the famed ohchestra conductor and the Mexican diva...it played on the Mestopheles tale (the Central opera is the Damnation of Faust by Berlioz). However when it came to blending the tale of the first natives, I found that tale rather odd and the blending of the main story felt almost too disjointed, or at best a real stretch to unite. His characters, like all of Fuentes' characters are very strong, almost operatic in tone so it was an enjoyable read despite the oddity of the twin stories.

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was great reading this book while I was in Mexico where recently deceased Carlos Fuentes lived and was revered. What a confusing and mysterious book. I'm not sure I understood any of it but his writing is superb. You feel coated with myth and mystery and passion like a dream that you struggle to understand when you wake up. I had only read The Old Gringo which I enjoyed.

[Farhan Khalid · Rating 4 out of 5]

We shall have nothing to say in regard to our own death

For a long time, this sentence had been going around and around in the aged maestro’s head

He did not dare write it down. He was afraid that consigning it to paper would make it real, with fateful consequences

He had dedicated his life to music — the least annoying of noises

He spent hours concentrating on one object. He liked to imagine that by touching something, his morbid thoughts would dissipate

Holding on to an object would give him earthly gravity, specific weight

It was a seal

A seal of crystal. Perfectly circular and perfectly whole

We are all both victims and executioners of the short-term memory

Long-term memory is like a castle built of great blocks of stone

Could this round seal be the key to his own personal dwelling? Not the physical house where he was living in Salzburg

Could it be the original space, the intimate, inviolable, irreplaceable circle that contains us all but at the price of exchanging sequential memory for an initial memory that is complete in itself and has no need to consider the future?

Inez. He repeated the woman’s name. Inez

In the crystal, seal the maestro hoped to find the impossible reflection of both: Inez and a return to a time before the years prohibiting his love

Light in silence. Lyrics without voice

Seal, create thyself! And the seal was

Music of the seal, music of the spheres, the celestial symphony that regulates the movement of all times and all spaces, never-ending, simultaneous

I betrayed my art, I deceived everyone who depends on me, the audience, the orchestra, and most of all, the composer

The architect of Salzburg had invented a tangible nature for a city filled with the intangible sculpture of music

Between the city and him, between the world and him, existed this object from the past, which did not vacillate before the course of time but resisted and reflected it

Was it dangerous, a crystal seal that perhaps contained all the memories of life yet was as fragile as they?

The crystal seal would be his living past

It would survive him

Almost hoping to transform life into an inanimate object: a thing

Beyond death

Memory was something that was distilled, transformed, with each new experience

The temptation to love the crystal seal so much that he would destroy it forever with the power of his fist

He looked at himself in the mirror and searched in vain for some trace of the young French orchestra conductor renowned throughout Europe, who when the war began broke with the fascist seductions of his occupied country and left to conduct in London

To love Inez, to love her to death

Growing old is a crime. You can end up with no identity and no dignity, sitting around in a nursing home with other old people as stupid and disinherited as you

What are they playing in my honor?

The Damnation of Faust by Hector Berlioz

Black horses racing through the skies

Tonight in London we are rehearsing during a blackout

Chorus of voices that will silence the bombs

Cry out like animals lost in the forest

The best way to hide something is to leave it out in the open. If they come after us, thinking we’ve disappeared, they would never look for us in the most obvious place

The sign of a good musician is to know how to listen to many things at the same time, and to pay attention to them all

The war changed the times of everything

Music is the image of the incorporeal world

Sound box of a place without time

Calendars are superfluous

A musician collects too many things

Piles of scores, notes, sketches, costume drawings, reference books

What happens on that coast is a battle

The land defends itself against the sea with its ancient stone

For me you have no name or nationality

Who crossed my path one night. A woman without age

The simplicity of the house, the rough whitewashed brick. The few books in the living room — most of them French classics, some Italian literature, several editions of Leopardi, of Central European poets. A broken-down sofa. A rocking chair. A fireplace

Voices flourish, if we know how to listen

He always liked long, mysterious disappearances

Envy is poisonous

Jealousy is generous — we want the other person to be ours

He lived through me and I through him

The universe was alive in every moment and in every object. From a stone to a star

Does time appear and reappear the way the tide rises and falls so punctually at two opposite points on the earth? Is history replicated and reflected in the opposing mirror of time, only to disappear and reappear by chance?

Listen to the sea, listen with the ear of the music I conduct and you sing

Music is the midpoint between nature and God

Don’t gaze off into the distance like that. There’s nothing there

There’s an island hidden in the fog. There’s nothing

When you don’t have any information about someone you love you imagine him in every possible situation

The important thing about him wasn’t the name, but his instinct. Do you understand? I have transformed my instinct into art. I want music to speak for me

The freedom he wanted was the search for freedom

There is no destiny without instinct?

Where does inspiration come from, energy, the unexpected vision you need for singing, composing, conducting

He chose the cage himself and has confused it with freedom

It’s possible to imagine anything

I wonder whether men really love us; what they want is to compete with other men and beat them

Pictures sometimes lie

A photo doesn’t live and die

Our memory of most things lasts no longer than seven seconds or seven words

To me the past is the other place

Everything seems primed for the farewell. Road, sea, memory

The face of the beautiful blond youth was his heritage. A lost country. A forbidden country

Forget and remember, facing the sea, there will be two moments in your head difficult to tell apart

He had always loved people who were open to surprise. Nothing bored him more than predictable behavior

In contrast, a spider and its web: doing the same thing but never repeating… It was like a repertoire

Berlioz possessed a boundless power to astonish

Maybe he could compare Inez’s body to opera itself. Making visible what the absence of the body — body we remember and body we desire — gives us visibly

The music would fulfill its eternal mission of hiding certain objects from view in order to deliver them to the imagination. Would music steal words as well, not merely vision? Was music the great mask of paradise, the true fig leaf of our shames, the final sublimation — beyond death — of our mortal visibility: body, words, literature painting? Was only music abstract, free of visible ties, the purification and illusions of our mortal bodily misery?

Music is an artificial portrait of human passions

Music is artificial. But human passions aren’t

The passions we keep inside can kill us, blow up inside us. Song liberates them, and finds the voice that characterizes them. Music would be a kind of energy uniting the primitive, latent emotions you would never display. The melodic tone of the voice, the movement of the body in dance, liberates us. Pleasure and desire come together. Nature dictates tones and cries: these are our oldest words, and that is why our first language is an impassioned song

Imagine music as an inversion of time

Emotionally naked. Slave to a memory. The memory of another youth

The boy who had disappeared from the photograph

Singing beside the celestial spirits

The postponement of pleasure is a principle of true eroticism, at once practical and sacred

There are so many possibilities in an unknown future

Tt was because of forgetting that you and I came together, the memories of a man and a woman who meet again are not the same, one remembers some things the other has forgotten, and the other way around, and at times we forget, because the memory is painful, and we must believe that what happened never happened, we forget what is most important because it may be the most painful

Tell me what I have forgotten

Maybe it’s only the body that ages, imprisoning youth forever within that impatient specter we call soul

They knew about the professional careers, both brilliant, both independent of each other. Now, like Einstein’s parallel lines, they would finally meet at the juncture of the inevitable curve

Love might bind her to a fate that wasn’t hers and, maybe, selfishly, not his either

Who knows exactly if the words in a memory were really said or only thought, imagined, spoken under the breath

We’re fading away like ghosts

There is never a story without its ghost

A failed love affair must immediately be put out of mind

This affair wasn’t over — however often they both might say not only that it had ended but maybe in the deepest sense that it had never begun?

What was it between them that thwarted the continuation of what had been and prevented the occurrence of what never was?

The first passion is never recaptured. On the other hand, regret stays with us forever. Remorse. Lament. It turns to melancholy and lives in us like a frustrated ghost. We know how to silence death. We do not know how to quiet sorrow

Passion is gone

Don’t worry. Everything is in order

The second story is a different life

Whose existence you’re denying?

I wanted to make her my eternal, my one thought

Now there is no warning, there are no fears. Now there is the fullness of love in the instant

Now whatever may happen in the future must await, patient and respectful, the next hour of the reunited lovers

CARTAGENA, COLOMBIA, JANUARY 2000

[Biblibio · Rating 3 out of 5]

From a technical perspective, I don't think this is a particularly good book. It's got a pretty odd balance between its different stories and ideas, and ultimately the story veers off-track to a lot of navel-gazing and self-centered blathering, but in parts the writing is so sharp that I found myself rather enjoying the book as a weird concept. The entire early people concept was bizarre in the context of the rest of the novel (novella?), but it works as a separate story and it works bitingly at times, with a perspective and writing that just made me laugh out loud. It's so different, and unlike the rest of the book, it doesn't feel like it's trying too hard. It just is. And while the musical themes ultimately bored me (which is surprising, given that I myself am/was a musician), I think there are enough flashes of good here to justify it. This is a short enough book that you can just read it for the occasional bits of brilliance, while largely letting the rest fade into the fog of your memory...

[ZaRi]

دلش می خواست دنیای آزاد و طبیعی داشته باشیم که در ان از نیروها و قوانین سرکوب گر خبری نباشد. به او گفتم که چنین چیزی هیچ وقت وجود نداشته. آزادی که او به دنبال ان بود، جست و جوی آزادی بود، چیزی که هرگز به دست نمی آوریم، اما همان مبارزه برای کسب ان ما را رها می کند...!

[Natalie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not everything worked, but I don't necessarily care about that. The parts that did were beautiful.

[gamzereadsbooks · Rating 3 out of 5]

Çok zor ve açıkçası çok keyif almadığım bir okuma oldu benim için.

[Frabe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Il direttore d’orchestra Gabriel Atlan-Ferrara e la cantante Inez Prada vivono in età diverse alcuni incontri ravvicinati, intensi e importanti per entrambi. A partire da qui, il romanzo si dilata e medita sui temi di fondo, dunque principalmente sul rapporto uomo-donna e sull’arte musicale: alcuni spunti sono certamente interessanti, ma spesso l’autore finisce col perdersi in elucubrazioni assai ardue, se non decisamente farraginose. Così, ad esempio, in un raffronto tra sesso e musica si può leggere: “L’unione sessuale è passeggera ma anche permanente, per quanto fugace possa apparire. Invece l’arte musicale è permanente, ma risulta passeggera davanti alla permanenza di quanto è veramente istantaneo.” Mah! Oppure, in uno degli estenuanti dialoghi tra i protagonisti, ci si può imbattere - essendone abbattuti - in una domanda di lei così formulata: “Non temi che quello che temi sia già capitato e che quello che è capitato, Gabriel, sia quello che non è capitato?” Doppio mah!
(P.S.: Beato il Fuentes de “Gli anni con Laura Diaz”!)

[Diego Palomino · Rating 4 out of 5]

Existentialist is the word that comes to mind to define this book. The love story is of a Classical Music Composer and a leading lady of opera who's relationship is a lifelong process. The main character travels in time to visit and revisit passages of this unrequited love saga through a crystal seal owned . The soundtrack for this story is Bizet's Carmen which is the conductor's best work in his repertoire. It is through this work that he first makes contact with the heroine of the story and although the story does not run parallel to the opera it certainly influences the way the story plays out. Themes of the story are growing old, solitude and impossible love. Beautifully written in a very poetic prose. Worth reading and a good introduction to Carlos Fuentes.

[George · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. A short engaging novel that briefly follows the lives of Gabriel Allan-Ferrara, a French symphony conductor, and Inez Prada, a Mexican diva. They first meet when Inez, a confident young teenager, disrupts Gabriel’s preparations for a London concert appearance. Over the years they meet infrequently, initially as two people in love, mostly when they are performing together on the concert stage. Gabriel is thirteen years older than Inez. Gabriel remembers his lost brother…due to the horrors of the Holocaust.

An enjoyable read that feels a little incomplete. Readers new to Fuentes should begin with his deservedly famous novels, ‘The Old Gringo’ or ‘The Death of Artemio Cruz’.

This book was first published in 2003.

[Jen · Rating 1 out of 5]

"Farther along you and he will look at one another as you rest, and both of you will know that now you will be together because you will listen to each other and you will feel and see yourselves united forever, you will recognize yourselves as two who will think as one because one will be the image of the other, like those deer that he will paint on the wall while you sing, moving from him to sketch with your hand on the other wall the shadow of the man trying to tell you with the new words of your song that this will be you because this will be me because this we shall be together and because only you and I will be able to do what we are going to do."

Maybe it's just a bad translation.

[Andres Borbon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Como todas las obras de Carlos Fuentes, uno de mis escritores favoritos, Instinto de Inez es una obra redonda, con pocos hilos sueltos. También, como casi todos los libros de Fuentes, es un terreno de experimentación. El gran escritor mexicano jamás dejó de probar nuevos terrenos, por resbalosos que fueran. Incursionó en todas las áreas donde la palabra escrita tiene cabida, y sus obras se caracterizan por una madurez que, sin embargo, no implica rigidez.

En Instinto de Inez hay dos historias, paralelas y complementarias que dan vueltas, coquetean y se entrelazan para crear un torbellino que sólo la poderosa prosa de Fuentes pudo domar.

[Rand]

Double narrative of Berlioz's Faust + primeval taboo love incest. Because thematic overtones are apparently sufficient for melding two half-stories together.

Some interesting comments on music (playing vs composition vs conducting vs recording) and sex (having and not having) in pretty/purple prose. The sort of book which bedevils one with boredom for a page or two and then floors the reader with an out of sight insight. Kind of like life, I guess.

[Annette · Rating 4 out of 5]

More like a series of dramatised philosophical and emotional arguments/discussions and should be read as such rather than as a traditional plot driven narrative.

Fuentes is such an interesting writer and in this novella he engages the intellect with so many ideas in such a short space of time that it will take a while to read.

It's about love, creativity, time and memory, sexual attraction and loneliness.

A lot of people won't get it though.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't understand all of it but I still really liked it:)
To see my thoughts about the remarkable novella please visit http://anzlitlovers.com/2015/12/19/in...