Budapeste

This book has a story behind it. It started when my adoptive mother lent me a book called "The Five People You Meet In Heaven" and then my adoptive father handed me this book - Budapeste - as well. 

My adoptive mother mentioned that she had read it but thought it extremely boring. She was just the first one to start with complaints towards this book. At least four other students told me they had started reading the book and were never able to finish it. Another student of mine told me she disliked Chico Buarque's style of writing and wouldn't even go through the trouble of starting a book of his. Well, after all the negative recommendations and commentaries towards the book I was just about to put it in the "read someday far off in the future" list when one of my students - a journalist - which knows my passion for books asked me: "Hey teacher, what's the latest book you have been reading?"

I pulled the mustard colored book out of my handbag and looked sheepishly his way. I was already getting ready to hear another negative book review when he exclaimed: "Oh this book is great! I bet you'll love it!"

 - Humph! That's not what my other students have been telling me lately. I answered him back.

 - Oh, what have they been telling you?

 - Well, more than half of them never even finished the book and my adoptive mother who did told me it was excruciatingly boring. 

 - That's just the thing. Chico Buarque is one of the most expressible writers in all of Brazil - a man that knows the Brazilian language down to a "T" and he uses a lot of difficult and unusual words in his books and that makes it hard for most readers. You need to savor this book as you read it. Take in the new words, expressions; drink it up like a piping hot drink: a sip at a time. 

 - Yeah, I'm still not so sure yet. I have so many great books lying right by my bedside table that have been screaming out "read me!" that it's just made me all the more uninspired to read this book. If I had nothing else to read then it wouldn't be a problem, but this time that's not the case. 

 - You like that famous psychotherapist and writer, Irvin D. Yalom don't you? 

 - GOD! I LOVE him!!! He is just the BEST! I read "Love's Executioner" and "Lying On the Couch" and am now on my third book of his authorship. The one book though that I am crazy to read and which is also his most well-known book is "When Nietzsche Wept". I want to read that book Soooo bad! 

 - What would you say if I told you that I have that book?

 - OMG! Are you serious???!!!!

 - Dead serious!

 - Ahhhh!!! Would you lend it to me? Pleaseeeeeeee???

 - With one condition only.

 - And that would be...?

 - You read Budapest before. If at our next class you have finished reading Budapeste then I will lend you your so desired book. Do we have a deal?

 I grimaced, looked at him angry and then finally gave in: - Okay deal! Have my book ready and waiting next class, eh?

And so I started on the oh-so-dreaded book. Until I discovered I wasn't dreading reading it at all but actually became completely enthralled with Chico's words, rhythm, form of expression, difficult words, and as a whole his style of writing.

This novel is all about a man that goes to Budapest and becomes enamored with the Hungarian language going crazy to learn it no matter what the cost or humiliation he might have to endure to achieve his goal. The main character's job is the lonely, hidden and unappreciated work of a ghost writer that makes others famous through his superb writing skills. These two factors are what connected me to him. How I, Christy McHale, dream of being a writer but for now, just writing my blogs without any recognition or appreciation made me understand the mixed feelings José Costa pours out in this narrative. The other factor was how I, Christy McHale am a language teacher (English to be exact!) and reading the hardships and effort Jose has to put into learning Hungarian made me sympathize with all my many students that go through the huge language barrier they must have in their heads.

All in all, I familiarized myself with the main character and was sucked into this book entering with my full body force into its pages, enraptured by the flow of Chico Buarque's Words in this fantastic book: BUDAPESTE!!! 

Budapeste (livro)

Origem: Wikipédia, a enciclopédia livre.

Budapeste é o terceiro romance de Chico Buarque, lançado em 2003 pela editora Companhia das Letras.

Enredo

Em Budapeste o narrador José Costa é um ghost-writer, pessoa especialista em escrever cartas, artigos, discursos ou livros para terceiros, sob a condição de permanecer anônimo. Costa escreve os textos na Cunha & Costa Agência Cultural, firma em que é sócio com o seu amigo de faculdade Álvaro Cunha, este especializado em promover o trabalho de José Costa.

Na volta de um congresso de autores anônimos, Costa é obrigado a fazer uma escala imprevista na cidade título do romance, o que desencadeia uma série de eventos que constituem o centro da trama: casado com a apresentadora de telejornais Vanda, Costa conhece Kriska na Hungria, que o apelida de Zsoze Kósta e com quem aprende húngaro - segundo o narrador, "a única língua do mundo que, segundo as más línguas, o diabo respeita". Entre as diversas idas e vindas entre Budapeste e o Rio de Janeiro, a trama se alterna entre o seu enfeitiçamento pela língua húngara e o seu fascínio em ver seus escritos publicados por outros, bem como o seu envolvimento amoroso com Vanda e Kriska.

Sobre Budapeste

"Budapeste, no exato momento em que termina, transforma-se em poesia." — José Miguel Wisnik

"Chico Buarque ousou muito, escreveu cruzando um abismo sobre um arame e chegou ao outro lado. Ao lado onde se encontram os trabalhos executados com mestria, a da linguagem, a da construção narrativa, a do simples fazer. Não creio enganar-me dizendo que algo novo aconteceu no Brasil com este livro." — José Saramago, Folha de S.Paulo

"Talvez o mais belo dos três livros da maturidade de Chico, Budapeste é um labirinto de espelhos que afinal se resolve, não na trama, mas nas palavras, como poemas." — Caetano Veloso, O Globo

"O livro de Chico é uma vertigem. Você é sugado pela primeira linha e levado ao estilo falso-leve, a prosa depurada e a construção engenhosa até sair no fim lamentando que não haja mais, assombrado pelo sortilégio deste mestre de juntar palavras. Literalmente assombrado." — Luis Fernando Verissimo, O Globo

"Tecnicamente, Budapeste é um romance do duplo, tema clássico na literatura ocidental desde que a identidade do sujeito tornou-se problema e enigma. A questão desfila nas narrativas do século XIX, através dos motivos da sombra, do sósia, da máscara, do espelho, e evolui para a indagação dessa esfinge impenetrável e desencantada que é a própria pessoa como persona e ninguém." — José Miguel Wisnik

Recepção da crítica

Budapeste foi bem recebido por escritores, críticos, jornalistas e pelo público; resposta diferente da dos romances anteriores de Chico Buarque, Estorvo (1991) e Benjamim (1995), que provocou reações mistas junto à crítica especializada.^[1]

Prêmios

O livro recebeu o Prêmio Passo Fundo Zaffari & Bourbon de Literatura de melhor romance em língua portuguesa publicado entre 2003 e 2004,^[2] na 11a. Jornada Nacional de Literatura, bem como oPrêmio Jabuti de melhor Livro de Ficção de 2004. ^[3]

Love's Executioner and Other Tales of Psychotherapy

Life is a learning process and by reading this book I have learnt a whole bunch of new lessons - like a child that has missed out on his first week of class because he was on vacations and so now he has to run to catch up with all the new material that the teacher had previously passed to the other students but a week ago. Well, that's how I am feeling now. "Love's Executioner and Other Tales of Psychotherapy" has been a major journey I've embarked on the moment I opened it's first page. It has made me open my eyes to many aspects of my life and a desire to re-discover myself until my inner core has been completely awakened. The feelings, emotions and experiences I've been going through these past three days have been so overwhelming that it's hard to even bring it down to words and paper because feelings are something very hard to describe. Anyways, after reading this book I have felt the need and desire to liberate myself from certain things I have kept close and almost "sacred" or have just clung to so firmly that I don't let it go and let myself live to the full as I could be doing. Each story completely suited me. Irvin Yalom's thoughts, observations and explanations of how us human beings react when faced with loss are so right on that it's amazing on how well he hits the nail by explaining our crazy human nature.


Book Review:

What do you want?

This simple question generates some of the most intimate answers, even between perfect strangers. 

I want my to see my dead mother again.  I want to be loved.  I want to live forever.  I want to know, Dad, that you are proud of me.  I want to be young again.  I want the childhood I never had...

And between patient and psychotherapist, answers reflect a deeper anxiety, a fear, a restless longing, that Yalom terms "existence anxiety" or "existence pain".  Existence pain is the kind of pain that is "always there, whirring continuously just beneath the membrane of life. Pain that is all too easily accessible" (p. 3). Existence pain is the organizing principle behind Yalom's approach to existential psychotherapy, and typifies what he calls the "givens" of existence. Yalom identifies these four "givens" as follows.

First, there is the anxiety that is generated by the inevitability of death (for each of us as well as for those we love).  The reality of death haunts many; most of us avoid the topic altogether (we do so by inventing convenient myths and comforting euphemisms).  Existential psychotherapy aims to penetrate, identify, and re-assess these layers of concealment and these multiple defenses that attempt to shut out the reality and finality of death that are so often destructive and unhelpful.

Second, existence pain occurs when we realize the ultimate freedom with which we live our lives. The realization that we are free to choose how our lives will unfold leads many to deny this responsibility.  Ultimately, accepting responsibility for our lives and our ways of relating to others will empower us and put us in control.

Third, great effort is often spent to avoid the pain of being alone.  The fear of failing to achieve close and personal relationships often sabotages the very attempt to connect with others. Coupled with the nagging sense that each of us will face death alone, aloneness generates so much grief that many people, paradoxically, fail generate significant relationships. Identifying these self-defeating tendencies is the first step at removing the obstacles that hinder the generation of significant relationships.

Finally, existence pain occurs when we come to realize that life is devoid of any obvious meaning.  Our attempt to cling to artificial meaning structures (leading to behaviors such as collecting dolls and stamps in ritualistic fashion), ultimately unravels our ability to cope with a world of existence and death. 

Each of these sources of existence pain (death, freedom, aloneness, meaninglessness) have a synergistic effect with each other: often we employ arguably unhealthy strategies to avoid one source of pain, which then exacerbates the pain and anxiety experienced in other areas. 

For example, people often fear the finality of death that ultimately awaits a loved one.  This leads us to place distance between ourselves and others (as a kind of defense mechanism to avoid the pain of loss).  But in so doing, we place barriers between ourselves and others, thereby undermining our ability to relate to each other authentically. This, in turn, reinforces the anxiety that, ultimately, each of us is alone and will die alone.  Avoiding the pain of death places us directly in the path of existence pain that results from being alone.  And the diversity of examples are as endless as there are people in the world.

 For a more detailed and scholarly examination of this existential approach to psychotherapy, see Yalom's Existential Psychotherapy, New York: Basic Books, 1980.

Love's Executioner is the story of ten patients who turned to psychotherapy to deal with existence pain. 

 There is the woman who yearns for her dead daughter, visiting her grave daily, while at the same time neglecting her two living sons. 

 There is the 60-year-old woman who clings to a fantasy relationship with a man 35 years younger, all in the attempt to avoid the uncomfortable reality of aging and death.

There is the man who has the mentality of a sexual predator, even though lymphatic cancer is slowly eating away his body. 

Still another man who, in an attempt to deny his own mortality, cannot throw away love letters three decades old. 

 And then there's the "Fat Lady" who manages to lose 100 pounds, despite longing to understand her father's death. 

All in all, Yalom presents an excellent account of how psychotherapy might unfold for both patient and clinician.  Yalom provides an uncharacteristically personal account of the therapist's own challenges and illuminates some of the fundamental challenges associated with providing therapy.  After all, the therapist, too, is dealing with existence pain just as much as the patient.  This proves to make therapy sessions particularly intriguing, and Yalom pulls no punches when providing introspective accounts of his own frailty.

Yalom's prose is both accessible and penetrating as he leads the reader into the depths of the human condition in ten unique accounts of existentialist psychotherapy.  I highly recommend this book (as well as others by Yalom) to anyone, on either side of the couch, who is remotely interested in psychotherapy.  Yalom is a delight to read, and offers penetrating insights that apply to each of us who is caught, inescapably and firmly, in the grips of the human condition.