Arenas movedizas
Henning Mankell
Publicado: 2014 | 298 páginas
Ensayo Filosofía Memorias

Una historia personal de insólita humanidad. Un Henning Mankell de carne y hueso. Arenas movedizas es, en cierta manera, un libro de memorias, pero muy peculiar. No hay sucesión temporal y el arranque es la enfermedad actual del autor y lo que su diagnóstico desencadenó en él: recuerdos distanciados en el tiempo y no necesariamente consecutivos, que Mankell relaciona de un modo u otro con las grandes preguntas del hombre: ¿qué somos?, ¿cómo nos enfrentamos a la muerte?, ¿de qué tenemos miedo?, ¿qué mundo dejaremos en herencia?, ¿en qué creemos, y por qué? Para responder a ellas, Mankell recurre a sucesos del pasado: un día en el colegio cuando era pequeño, una visita al Museo Británico, una lectura sobre la Isla de Pascua, la verdadera naturaleza de las arenas movedizas o el poder del hielo, la muerte de un niño mozambiqueño, visitas a Salamanca, a Mantua, a Buenos Aires, a Malta y a las ruinas de Hagar Qim... Con estas incursiones en el pasado surge un retrato, desde la infancia y la adolescencia hasta la madurez, del Mankell de carne y hueso, que examina su vida y, con ella, cuestiones que afectan a toda la humanidad.

Essays on what it means to be human, written by Swedish detective author Henning Mankell, written after he was given a diagnosis of lung cancer. "Surely one of the most moving and intriguing farewell notes ever written. .Intensely beautiful in its spirit." Alexander McCall Smith

Saai en boeiend tegelijk. In korte hoofstukken filosofeerr Mankell over van alles en nog wat nadat hij de diagnose kanker heeft gekregen. Sommige observaties raken enorm of zijn afschuwelijk. Het boek gaat nergens heen maar dat is ook wel het aantrekkelijke ervan. ( )

Nothing concentrates the mind, it is said, like the prospect of being hung in the morning.
For Henning Mankell, the sentence was neither conclusive nor immediate, but nearly so. This book contains ruminations that begin with a cancer diagnosis and continue through the months of his treatment, uncertain of the verdict he will receive when it ends. The result is more than sixty short chapters that don’t pursue a narrative thread, but range freely, yet in an interconnected way, over a lifetime of experiences. Many of them are poignantly haunting, like a young woman he visited a week before she died of AIDS in Mozambique, or a young person on a bus ahead of the author on the Autobahn whose high spirits led him to lift himself through the sun roof to wave, unaware of a low viaduct approaching.
Even more: he casts his mind far back to the time shortly after the last great ice age when early cave dwellers first produced art. Then, far forward in time, when waste from our power plants buried deep in caves remains radioactive long after the next ice age has buried his homeland miles beneath a glacier, more than likely crushing these caverns and their deposits in the process.
Rather than concentrate the mind, Mankell’s illness seems to have set it loose.
Not long after the book appeared, his illness proved terminal, so in a sense, this turned out to be Mankell’s testament. The shadow of death hangs over it, but can’t obscure the fact that this book brims with life. Written by an author who never ceased asking about the meaning of life, it probes deeply into what it means to be human. Occasionally, he makes this explicit, as on p. 195:
“Our ability to wonder and ask questions is what makes us human beings. In a way that starry night sky is a mirror in which we see our own faces. It seems to me that my face is most accurately reflected when it is filled with wonder.”
Even when not explicitly stated, this sense of wonder, this solemn joy over being alive, pervades the entire book. In the course of it, the author comes across as a profoundly humane person ready to confess his shortcomings and driven by a deeply-felt sense of social justice. I think I would have enjoyed sharing a cup of coffee or a glass of wine with him. Reading this book was the next best thing.
A note to the translator or editor: "Stephansdom cathedral" is redundant, as is the reference to a "Termini station" in Rome and other cities. ( )

Interesting, thoughtful memoir consisting of vignettes from the author's experiences, philosophical musings on them and digressions onto subjects of the author's interest and relating everything to what makes us human and sets us apart from the animals. He discusses Easter Island; ancient cave art, mentioning the possible first identifiable artist--from handprints with a crooked finger, motion as represented by an eight-legged buffalo; paintings and photos with some personal meaning to him; Ice Ages alternating with periods of warmth in the earth's history. He discusses hope; sorrow, happiness, curiosity, risk with caution, thinking, creativity; human capability after telling us of a circus that came to his small home town when he was a boy. He also discusses jealousy and brutality as part of the human condition. He sees relief in the face of a small boy who has lost his parents at a soccer game then finding them again, also the relief of Edward Jenner when his first smallpox vaccination was successful. He also talks about the transience of life. He uses quicksand as a metaphor for his fear, terror, and dread when he received a cancer diagnosis. He overcomes that and accepts his condition.
After all his treatments, the doctor deciares him in a "breathing space."

Readable and relatable to everyone. Highly recommended. ( )