the other day I read this passage, which gives its title to the Memoirs of Claude Lanzmann . I reproduce the lines in question, who will say better than some abstract sense that I wonder. "This was our first trip abroad, I was in great excitement, meeting places and names, names of stations in fleeting glimpses night, Brig, Simplon, Domodossola, Stresa, attested to the truth of the world, sealed the identities of words and reality, unveiling the truth of the most poignant way. I say today that our youth and the youth of the world would combine and then it is certain that the first time has a unique flavor. But sometimes I still feel now at full strength that I felt at twenty years, on reflection it has nothing to do with the young or the elderly. Back only if there is no long, from Rio Gallegos, on the borders of Tierra del Fuego and driving a rental car, the vast plain of Patagonia Argentina near the border with Chile and the glacier Perito Moreno fabulous, I repeated to myself, happy as in that first train to Milan: "I am in Patagonia, I am in Patagonia." But this was not true , though I have saw some herds of white llamas, Patagonia is not embodied in me. She suddenly became incarnate in the twilight on the last stretch of unpaved road past the village of El Calafate, in the swipe of my headlights when a hare-legged leaps like an arrow, and crossed the road before me . I had seen a hare Patagonian, magical animal, and the entire Patagonia me suddenly pierced the heart of certainty Our joint presence. I am neither bored nor tired of the world, a hundred lives, I know, do not get tired. "
(Claude Lanzmann - Patagonian Hare)
--- This episode I remembered a similar story that happened to me several years ago. G. drove, we were returning from a stroll in the Kakadu Park, east of Darwin in Australia. Night had fallen quickly. It was the season dry but with caution, we were still insured with the park staff in this route we would not cross the river impassable for our 4x4. The night seemed blacker than ever. A few minutes earlier, a kangaroo had hopped unexpectedly in front of our headlights, we had narrowly avoided. As I began to doze, G. braked suddenly. Before us lay a stretch of water that night prevented us to estimate the depth. And in the middle of the dark water, we laying off its yellow reflection, the eye of a crocodile drifting slowly.
I remember the excitement that we seized this moment and the liveliness with which we continued the journey. Until this moment I do not like repeating Lanzamnn: "I am Australia, I am in Australia. "The country gave me enough opportunity to immerse myself in its particular beauty, I had been aware of having left everything of what looks to Europe. We had observed amount of crocodiles in the day, one more or less did not add nor detracted nothing factual. On a highway at night, you can also expect to see emerge at any time such an animal in the headlights, hare, kangaroo, a mammoth as well. This minor detail has just rung in our heads as a reminder of the resounding assurance that we were alive.
I would not make things like Lanzmann, I'm not sure our feelings converge absolutely. On the one hand the first time (the common place annoys me) do not take me for a "unique flavor", in any case I do not feel as strong and deep as the following. That seems true of every possible subject - but slip on this passage that the author's tone immediately. The idea of incarnation of reality in a spirit grieves me, and if the stories are similar I can not convince me that we have experienced alike. Lanzmann describes a centripetal movement, I speak from a feeling of extreme externalizing. What to do Patagonia as Australia incarnated in anyone? These lands are there, we do not know is that demonstrate a singular ego to hope that they reach us. These episodes do not help us enter the world, they help us through so many loopholes, to enter a world that draws us to the highest degree of existence. So I get up in the morning, there is the bed sheets, floorboards, the noise of the train on the tracks behind the house, other things ahead of me. I'm not sure but there can never be an affront to the world to doubt its existence. Ah! Descartes the ugly!
By what miracle we touch there, this world? He is satisfied with little. For example passersby, hideous in the street yesterday, not assail you as much of their ugliness. Or the light will have changed. Or the wind carries a smell suggestive, a little will do. Sometimes just that things are arranged as they are, such a tree here, as part of the wall, the inclination of the ground, the curvature of a line in the landscape. This always happens unexpectedly, and usually so incomprehensible. Particularly acute awakens us. In the excitement of the moment, if you think about it, look at the ground. We won a few inches! Then you go down the avenue like a gorilla. It dissolves better in space.
