Peccato che Chatwin non abbia mai saputo del ritorno "in circolazione" della collezione Meissen di Just, il tesoro che sembrava svanito nel nulla... Avevo sentito accennare a Bruce Chatwin e l'avevo collegato mentalmente ad uno scrittore di viaggi e avventure. Incuriosita, ho voluto assaggiare... e ho scelto, non so per quali motivi inspiegabili, "Utz". E mi sono ritrovata non in luoghi di possibili mete, né in posti esotici, né a conoscere gente per il mondo, ma, inaspettatamente, a percorrere un viaggio a ritroso per alcuni anni dell'ultimo secolo, tramite le porcellane Meissen. The bearers- employees of a rubber factory who worked night-shift and doubled for the undertaker by day- had shouldered the coffin and were advancing up the main aisle: to music that reminded Orlik of the tramp of soldiers on parade. I have problems with these mytho/pyscho/ortho-meta-para-geographers. Their own arguments seem to suggest and build on the idea that if a story is worth telling then it is worth enhancing. More than that, some even suggest that it is better than walking. Personally I would counter that this is what one naturally does when walking anyway, and that the myth alone is commonly better than the spurious enhancements made by these performance artistes, so what is their great fuss about? For these solipsistic charlatans, what is true and what is made up seem to coalesce into some frenzied mind-trip of cross-connections with a limited set of poetic concatenation allegedly offering a greater and deeper meaning at least in the mind of the mythographers. For that reason I find it hard to accept even the beautifully written works of W.G. Sebald, the ephemerata of Claudio Magris let alone the facile un-readable-ness of the faintly risible Cecile Oak /Phil Smith (Dr, Professor .... who cares) . Chatwin comes into this group, far far closer to Sebald than the others.

No. He was not a spy. As he explained to me in the course of our afternoon stroll, Czechoslovakia was a pleasant place to live, providing one had the possibility of leaving. At the same time he admitted, with a self-deprecating smile, that his severe case of Porzellankheit prevented him from leaving for good. The collection held him prisoner. They set down the coffin with a show of reverence. Then, attracted by the smell of hot bread from a bakery along the street, they strolled off to get breakfast leaving Orlik and the faithful Marta as the only mourners. The leading bearer asked the woman, most politely, to allow the coffin to pass. She scowled and went on scrubbing. How can one best deal with the reality of power, particllarly power which is obviously arbitrary and tasteless as well as unjust? This is an especially relevant issue during the regime of Trump and his vulgarising influence in world affairs. Utz is wonderful comedic farce about how to deal with power - at a personal as well as a political level - not by confronting it but by treating it with utter disdain. Knyga apie ekscentriką estetą ribotame tarybiniame pasaulyje. Šioje knygoje ekscentriškumas labai šviežias, leidžiantis vis naujus žavius švelnius daigelius. Tu matai žmones po ta ekscentrikų išore. Kartais tiesiog negali būti kitaip.

Chatwin, tramite Utz che dedica la sua vita a collezionare cose belle ma fragili e inutili, ci suggerisce che nella vita non dobbiamo solo lavorare e guadagnare, ma dedicarci anche al culto della cultura e del bello. Curiosamente, le relazioni non sono prese in considerazione... Ak, koks atpažįstamas leidėjo braižas, skonis - ko tikėjaus, tą ir perskaičiau. Trumpa, kupina tikslių detalių, bet sugebanti išlikti lakoniška, švelniai ironiška, estetiška visomis prasmėmis. Ich weiß zwar nicht, ob Bruce Chatwin jemals Ernst Jünger gelesen hat. Aber an dieser Stelle musste ich sofort an den passionierten Entomologen denken. Der sprach einmal davon, dass sich in jedem echten Sammler ein Don Juan verberge. Ein Sammler sei ein Liebhaber in Potenz, oder zumindest sei er in Gefahr einer zu werden. Denn die Sammelleidenschaft sei nichts anderes als die Freude des Liebhabers, nur in gewandelter Form. Seine durch keine Menge zu befriedigende Leidenschaft, deute freilich an, dass ihn Unerschöpfliches im Hintergrund bewegt.

Utz is impeccably written and descriptive. The scene in the apartment with Utz and those scenes secretly discussing art in the shadows of St Vitus Cathedral are so vivid. The priest mumbled the service at the speed of a patter number and, from time to time, lifted his eyes towards a fresco of the Heavenly Heights. After commending the dead man's soul, they had to wait at least ten minutes before the bearers condescended to return, at 8.26." The bearers had no alternative but to take a left turn between two pews, a right turn up the side aisle, and another right to pass the pulpit. Eventually, they arrived before the altar where a youngish priest, his surplice stained with sacramental wine, was anxiously biting his fingernails. The narrator first came to Prague to research a book about the psychology of collectors - which drew him to Utz, a Jewish man possibly descended from some minor Saxon nobility, and his passion for collecting porcelain. His devotion to Meissen porcelains is without parallel - during the war, he gave away all his other earthly belongings to secure a Czechoslovak passport and residence in Prague. The narrator meets with Utz, who talks with him about porcelain, alchemy and golems; much of the book is satire on the absurdity of totalitarian regimes of the 20th century, one of which Utz had to live in. This is best seen in the opening scene of the book - which, by the nature of being a funeral, should have been sad; but because the funeral takes place in 1974 in Czechoslovakia, it's darkly humorous. A man asks the narrator if he can play the organ, and upon hearing a negation he admits that he can't either, and resignedly goes to do exactly that. A cleaning woman refuses to move for the coffin bearers, and they have to go around her - and they have to hurry, as the state has ruled that all Christian rituals have to be done by 8.30 AM. There are many more such examples in the book, but I'll leave the fun of discovering to prospective readers. Going a little further here, pointing out the individually realized Grecian Urns of Utz's massive, world-spanning collection:

Become a Member

Sakyčiau itin nišinė knyga, kuri patiks sofistikuotam skaitytojui. Maloniai jaučiasi Mariaus Buroko braižas. Juntamas britiškas lakoniškumas ir tam tikras savotiškas humoras (scena restorane su neteisingai parašytu žodžiu privertė kvatotis balsu). Keistai nustebino brito autoriaus puikus išmanymas ir pajautimas Rytų Europos realybės. Puikiai pavyko atskleisti atsmosferą ir to laikotarpio išskirtinumus.

Even more, the pieces act much as the Golem in the Jewish legends of Prague - to protect, if not one’s body, at least one’s mind from the threats of power which abound in life. So, for Utz, “this world of little figures was the real world.” And like the Golem, and for that matter Adam himself, isn’t porcelain created from clay and water? These precisely crafted fragments of clay are our links to the supernatural which permit us to ignore the minor irritations of bureaucrats and customs officials no matter how expertly applied. “‘So you see,' said Utz, 'not only was Adam the first human person. He was also the first ceramic sculpture’.” Porcelain is a philosophy of primal mankind, of freedom. The eponymous Utz is Kaspar Utz, a man of forgettable face but unforgettable passion - for porcelain figurines. Utz devoted his life to collecting his porcelain treasures, and ensuring their safety throughout the years and wars. He keeps all thousand pieces in his small, two-room apartment in Prague, permitted by the Czechoslovak regime to do so on the grounds that he will bequeath the entire collection to the state after his death. Although Utz is the main protagonist, he is not the narrator - the story begins with his funeral, and is narrated by a man who spent a little more than 9 hours with Utz when he was alive, and collected the rest from his few friends. Utz is no avaricious materialist. Collecting is a spiritual endeavour that involves treating individual pieces as if they were icons that promote entry into another world. Such appreciation is impossible in a museum or public gallery where the pieces “must suffer the de-natured existence of an animal in the zoo. In any museum the object dies —of suffocation and the public gaze -whereas private ownership confers on the owner the right and the need to touch.” His obsession with porcelain is a quest “to find the substance of immortality.” But a collection of such objects is also a constant reminder of one’s own mortality: “These things are the changeless mirror in which we watch ourselves disintegrate. Nothing is more ageing than a collection of works of art.” The collection presents both concrete reality and existential hope for the one oppressed by power.. I simply loved this book. I read it in two enraptured sittings and was tempted to start over again from the beginning. Chatwin’s eccentricities are all there (the story includes memorable discursions on Renaissance alchemists, the origin of central European porcelain manufactures, and the true nature and powers of the Prague golem) but they’re given fresh shape and breath in the memorable characters of Utz himself, his friend Orlik, and his housekeeper Marta. Le cose, riflettei, sono meno fragili delle persone. Le cose sono lo specchio immutabile in cui osserviamo la nostra disgregazione. Nulla ci invecchia più di una collezione di opere d'arte"The real life Utz was Dr. Rudolph Just who Chatwin met in 1967. Chatwin worked for Sotheby's and traveled across Europe meeting collectors and was intrigued by Just's life story. After Just's death in 1973, Chatwin wanted to know what happened to the collection. This turns out to be the great mystery of the novel of which there are many.

The eponymous Utz is a Czech survivor - of two world wars and a subsequent communist regime. What sustains him is an aesthetic, specifically his appreciation for Meissen porcelain. “Wars, pogroms and revolutions', he used to say, 'offer excellent opportunities for the collector.” He is savvy enough to understand that power is never permanently held and that its machinations need not impede the life of the true aesthete. “Tyranny sets up its own echo-chamber; a void where confused signals buzz about at random; where a murmur or innuendo causes panic: so, in the end, the machinery of repression is more likely to vanish, not with war or revolution, but with a puff, or the voice of falling leaves.” Power is its own worst enemy; if we can just leave it alone, it dissipates.

I have said that Utz's face was 'waxy in texture', but now in the candlelight its texture seemed like melted wax. I looked at the ageless complexion of the Dresden ladies. Things, I reflected, are tougher than people. Things are the changeless mirror in which we watch ourselves disintegrate. Nothing is more age-ing than a collection of works of art. Utz had chosen each item to reflect the moods and facets of the 'Porcelain Century': the wit, the charm, the gallantry, the love of the exotic, the heartlessness and light-hearted gaiety- before they were swept away by revolution and the tramp of armies." Utzas bjaurėjosi smurtu, tačiau džiaugėsi visais kataklizmais, dėl kurių į rinką plūstelėdavo naujų meno kūrinių." (23p.) Utz is a skinny book. Not much more than a short story. Set in Prague it concerns the obsession with Meissen porcelain that grips Utz, our eponymous hero(?) and how his collection drives and directs his life. It is full of the ploys of all mythogeographers - overloading us, the readers, with obscure factettes, little-known locations, procedures and rituals that may-or-may-not be real (and that, of course, this is their cue for them to pipe up "Who are you to say what is real and what is not"). At least Chatwin had the good grace to call it a novel rather than a DEEP work of social anthropology! Utz too is full of this ephemerata. Do we care? Well.... maybe its just me. I actually do care enough to google some of the bollix set down as substantive fact. Quite often there are elements of truth, commonly misconstrued or disported in a way to suggest an alternative. Who IS or WAS the Emperor Rudolf? What IS a tazza? This is the stuff that makes Google money and sets the wheels of the search engines in frenzied motion - 'More coal in the furnace, Mr Google, We need more steam here!' 'My friend,' he said, 'you know many things. But you have many things to know'.Chatwin loves his mittel-Europe history. He also knew a shitload about art from his years as an art-whore with Sothebys. So he knows his subject. But as the tale proceeds and the coal wagon empties you just get tired of following all the references. Borges it is not. Despite all the charm that Chatwin has, in my honest opinion, it is NOT great prose. Borges it is not, I say again!! And once you take away all the ephemerata, what you are left with is the bones of an interesting but consomme-thin tale on the mania of collection (something that Chatwin had observed well from Sotheby's), some politically naive statements on the Prague Spring and the USSR, and the outline of a book on mannerism and behaviours that were rapidly disappearing. Stating this I begin to feel like the child in 'The Emperor's New Clothes'. Perché come Utz sosteneva, un oggetto chiuso nella teca di un museo deve patire l'innaturale esistenza di un animale in uno zoo. In ogni museo l'oggetto muore - di soffocamento e degli sguardi del pubblico -, mentre il possesso privato conferisce al proprietario il bisogno di toccare. Come un bimbo allunga la mano per toccare ciò di cui pronuncia il nome, così il collezionista appassionato restituisce all'oggetto, gli occhi in armonia con la mano, il tocco vivificante del suo artefice. Il nemico del collezionista è il conservatore del museo. In teoria, i musei dovrebbero essere saccheggiati ogni cinquant'anni e le loro collezioni dovrebbero tornare in circolazione...