Seamus Heaney, Dante and Asturias

Seamus Heaney, who was born Catholic in a predominantly Protestant Northern Ireland, never forgot the world where he came from. He was intensely aware of the often violent political and religious struggles that plagued his country and the unrest and oppression it entailed. At the same time, his roots and poetry lay deep and were grounded in that Irish rural countryside. 

The Little Canticles of Asturias is a beautiful tribute to a region he loved and used to visit because one of his sisters-in-law lived here. Besides, Asturian landscape lovingly evoked his homeland. This work is also a version of The Divine Comedy, the well-known 14th c. epic poem where Dante describes his journeys through Hell, Purgatory and Heaven, an allegory of the soul´s pilgrimage towards God. Like the Italian genius, Heaney looks into human experience trying to explain the mystery of our own identity. 

All along three stanzas, he renders a splendid account of a drive in Asturias. In the first one, it is midnight, they are driving through an industrial area among furnaces and hot refineries and they curse the hellish roads. (And then at midnight as we started to descend / into the burning valley of Gijón, / .../ for we almost panicked there in the epic blaze / of those furnaces and hot refineries / ... / and gathered speed and cursed the hellish roads.). 

In the second canticle, during the purgatorial next morning, the farmers who are working in the fields on both sides of the road wave at him. Their rural labour brings him memories of his childhood in Ireland. (Next morning on the way to Piedras Blancas / I felt like a soul being prayed for, / ...). In the third and last stanza, he arrives at a paradise of rivers under sunlight. (At San Juan de la Arena / it was a bright day of the body. / Two rivers flowed together under sunlight. / ...). The final words (of distant Compostela, stela, stela) emulate the Italian stelle which also finish the three canticles of Dante´s masterpiece.

Seamus Heaney, Nobel Prize in 1995, and one of the most productive, lauded and beloved of the living poets, has passed away. Ireland, Asturias and the whole world mourn his death. Life is ephemeral, we know,  but let's remember poetry is not. Cherished and celebrated, his verses will remain forever.

The Mousetrap at the Niemeyer Centre

Agatha Christie´s The Mousetrap has been on stage in London´s West End since 1952, being the longest running play in the world. Its brilliant intricate plot still keeps engaging the audience from start to finish. 

Agatha Christie belongs to the Golden Age of the detective novel, during the inter-war period. Heiress of Conan Doyle´s tradition, her books were meant to be pure entertainment, games where readers matched wits with the author. One of her breakthroughs was to move crime from the predominantly urban world where it had always been set to the quietness of the English village; Monkswell Manor is the guesthouse where this extremely clever puzzle is set. The spectators are kept on the edge of their seats due to an atmosphere of shuddering suspense, suspicious clues, double identities, secret passions, hatred... and they are surprised at a tricky and startling denouement.

It was not in London, but in Avilés, at the Oscar Niemeyer International Cultural Centre, where I could also be captivated by this classic whodunit a few days ago. The project of the futuristic and controversial Centre was a present from the Brazilian architect to the Principality to give thanks for his Prince of Asturias Award for Art in 1989. 

We have just been told the great Oscar Niemeyer has passed away. He would have been 105 in a week.