A last minute trip that turned out to be a great experience. It all started when Roderic (my rather easy-going boss) asked me to replace another colleague (Tyler) in a meeting to be held in Lyon. And he did it on such a short notice that even I (the ever-organized-travel-freak) had no time not even to check the exact address of my hotel.I arrived in Lyon after an 8 hour train journey, only to realize that I had crossed multiple borders in space and time. Because apart from being in France and not in Catalunya anymore, I also found myself in the middle of the winter instead of the mild Barcelonian autumn. Still, adoring the view from the hill of La Fourviere was totally worth it.
What is the main reason for this post though is not Lyon, its two beautiful hills, its two marvelous rivers and the extra-heave local food specialties (try getting the full menu in a typical "bouchon lyonnais" and then sleeping...). Apart from admiring all that, I had a lot of time to spend with francophone people, practicing my otherwise poor french and realizing the beauty that lies hidden not in the differences of idioms but in the profound depths of our universal language itself. Meaning this ability for superposing multiple layers of meaning on an apparently simple structure.
It was on the train to Lyon from Montpellier while browsing last week's Courrier International, when I read this incredibly surrealistic piece of news. The Brazilian Minister of Interior Affaires had just banned the use of the gerund among the civil servants of the state! Clerks, secretaries and even directors were no more allowed to use everyday phrases like "I am working on it", or "we are looking into your problem" so that they do not give the false impression of escaping work by pretending to be doing it! It came as the first clue. Words have a meaning and the language is meaning.
But then, as I kept browsing a bit more, I came across an article about my hometown, Athens and one of its greatest problems, pollution. It was then, in the french translation of a greek article that the sound of my own mother tongue struck me. The Athenian smog, with all its carbon monoxide and ozon was left un-translated and referred to in its original greek term "νέφος" (in the text "nefos"). Suddenly I felt like the article was no more talking about the common smog, a polluting-meteorological phenomenon, but rather about a mythological monster attempting to devour a city cursed by its ancient god-protectors. It is in such cases that language apart from meaning something obvious, is at the same time inflicting a feeling.
Two days later, while spending my time at a bookstore in the center of Lyon, waiting for dinner, I bought "Feux", a collection of short stories and poems by my favourite Marguerite Yourcenar. Since it was still early I started reading it a bit but stopped only at the first phrase. "Je veux que ce livre ne soit jamais lu" (I want this book to be never read). This contradiction, so straight-forward and naive that sounds almost childish reminded me of the opposite declaration, once stated by Borges, according fact that he chose never to write a big novel because he thought the worlds is more in need of readers than writers. I sat back seeping my espresso and could not help but smile at the way the masters of verse use the language beyond both meanings and impositions, achieving an even higher meta-level, whose main inhabitants are ironies, metaphors, allusions and references.
And then I thought that compared to understanding all this, french should be a piece of cake.
Cool pic.
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