http://www.jrvelasco.com/breviloquia/2007/06/19/on-language-one-lustrum-at-berkeley/ Personal website and weblog of UC Berkeley professor, writer and photographer Jesús Rodríguez Velasco Fri, 21 Nov 2008 12:43:29 +0000 http://wordpress.org/ http://www.jrvelasco.com/breviloquia/2007/06/19/on-language-one-lustrum-at-berkeley/#comment-72 Juan-Carlos Conde Thu, 21 Jun 2007 09:06:31 +0000 http://www.jrvelasco.com/breviloquia/2007/06/19/on-language-one-lustrum-at-berkeley/#comment-72 Dear Jesús, I cannot help but, honoring your subject, write this in English. That way everybody will be able to notice that the command of the English language achieved by other Hispanic immigrants to Anglican (linguistically speaking, I mean) societies is not as good as yours happen to be. It's the first time we correspond in English, and it feels weird, weird de toda weirdedad. Here is a story, rather dormant in the nooks and crannies of my memory -or in the void which takes the place where it was supposed to be. Many years ago, perhaps in the early to mid nineties, one Thursday evening I happened to run into a very illustrious and dear maestro of mine in the library of the sinister institution where I used to work (?) then. Don't ask me about the particulars, but we ended up talking about Antonio G. Solalinde -one of our predecessors in testing the American academic waters. This old master knew Solalinde very well, because they both were a part of the glorious Centro de Estudios Históricos (he as a student, Solalinde already as a young researcher), and disciples of Menéndez Pidal. He told me that Solalinde was married to a woman called Jesusa Alfau de Solalinde, author of a much quoted book on the names of tissues in medieval Spanish. I asked him if this woman was also a student in the Centro, and he told me that she was not, that she was born in Spain, but moved to America with her family when she was very young, and finally settled in New York. Apparently she met Solalinde there. And this old philologist, with an almost unperceptible sparkle in his eyes, hardly visible behind the thick glass of his spectacles, added -please allow me the poetic license of using the oratio recta here-: "Who was interesting, though, was Jesusa's brother. He was a rather peculiar and eccentric man, who wrote a couple of novels in English, and who was an egregious supporter of Franco. I meet him a couple of times in the US, and once he showed me the original of one of these novels that he decided not to publish, and read me some parts of it, in which he reflected on the life and feelings of the Spanish people living in exile in the USA. I was very much interested in it, since at that time" -added the old professor- "I was almost sure that I would need to stay in the US in order to make my living, because of my situation in post-war Spain, and I could see myself as one of this exilees". He did not, of course, but that is a different story. Which means, of course, that this is a small world, that life is full of senderos que se bifurcan, as Borges said, but also of senderos que se unen, and that I was, as you may well imagine, stunned when I was slowly realizing -ah, the drowsiness caused by the allergy drugs!- that your Felipe Alfau was the same lad my old professor told me about maybe a dozen years ago, when Alfau (and my master, for that matter) were still alive. Obviously, I have already ordered a copy of <em>Chromos</em>. And as a gift (hopefully a poisonous one), here's some homework for you: why one of your predecessors in Berkeley, another of these philological emigrants, Erasmo Buceta, stopped writing academic books and articles in 1936. Apparently he was born in Pontevedra, 1892 (like, interestingly enough, Agapito Rey, another of our predecessors), and he settled in the USA in 1916 -the same year, interestingly enough again, Felipe Alfau did. Here, write a novel -in English, of course. Un abrazo fuerte. Dear Jesús, I cannot help but, honoring your subject, write this in English. That way everybody will be able to notice that the command of the English language achieved by other Hispanic immigrants to Anglican (linguistically speaking, I mean) societies is not as good as yours happen to be. It's the first time we correspond in English, and it feels weird, weird de toda weirdedad. Here is a story, rather dormant in the nooks and crannies of my memory -or in the void which takes the place where it was supposed to be. Many years ago, perhaps in the early to mid nineties, one Thursday evening I happened to run into a very illustrious and dear maestro of mine in the library of the sinister institution where I used to work (?) then. Don't ask me about the particulars, but we ended up talking about Antonio G. Solalinde -one of our predecessors in testing the American academic waters. This old master knew Solalinde very well, because they both were a part of the glorious Centro de Estudios Históricos (he as a student, Solalinde already as a young researcher), and disciples of Menéndez Pidal. He told me that Solalinde was married to a woman called Jesusa Alfau de Solalinde, author of a much quoted book on the names of tissues in medieval Spanish. I asked him if this woman was also a student in the Centro, and he told me that she was not, that she was born in Spain, but moved to America with her family when she was very young, and finally settled in New York. Apparently she met Solalinde there. And this old philologist, with an almost unperceptible sparkle in his eyes, hardly visible behind the thick glass of his spectacles, added -please allow me the poetic license of using the oratio recta here-: "Who was interesting, though, was Jesusa's brother. He was a rather peculiar and eccentric man, who wrote a couple of novels in English, and who was an egregious supporter of Franco. I meet him a couple of times in the US, and once he showed me the original of one of these novels that he decided not to publish, and read me some parts of it, in which he reflected on the life and feelings of the Spanish people living in exile in the USA. I was very much interested in it, since at that time" -added the old professor- "I was almost sure that I would need to stay in the US in order to make my living, because of my situation in post-war Spain, and I could see myself as one of this exilees". He did not, of course, but that is a different story. Which means, of course, that this is a small world, that life is full of senderos que se bifurcan, as Borges said, but also of senderos que se unen, and that I was, as you may well imagine, stunned when I was slowly realizing -ah, the drowsiness caused by the allergy drugs!- that your Felipe Alfau was the same lad my old professor told me about maybe a dozen years ago, when Alfau (and my master, for that matter) were still alive. Obviously, I have already ordered a copy of Chromos. And as a gift (hopefully a poisonous one), here's some homework for you: why one of your predecessors in Berkeley, another of these philological emigrants, Erasmo Buceta, stopped writing academic books and articles in 1936. Apparently he was born in Pontevedra, 1892 (like, interestingly enough, Agapito Rey, another of our predecessors), and he settled in the USA in 1916 -the same year, interestingly enough again, Felipe Alfau did. Here, write a novel -in English, of course. Un abrazo fuerte.

]]> http://www.jrvelasco.com/breviloquia/2007/06/19/on-language-one-lustrum-at-berkeley/#comment-70 Heather Bamford Wed, 20 Jun 2007 17:58:15 +0000 http://www.jrvelasco.com/breviloquia/2007/06/19/on-language-one-lustrum-at-berkeley/#comment-70 This is a beautiful and moving post. As I read it, I couldn’t help thinking of our conversation in Coquelet last week, in which I attempted to entertain you with an invented story about you learning a language such that I might try to explain my difficulties with Latin and other languages. Specifically, I had in mind my telling you that you had, in effect, ruined my story because despite my selection of a very difficult language and mentioning of a few others that in America are generally considered totally arcane or otherwise defunct, you already had studied it. Thank you for a real story and for the incredible Felipe Alfau passages, all tucked neatly in what I have always thought to be your wonderful English. All of these, story, citations, and English, gave me many thoughts to ponder about my English and Spanish, learning, and writing, and whether any of us is really a native speaker of any language. This is a beautiful and moving post. As I read it, I couldn’t help thinking of our conversation in Coquelet last week, in which I attempted to entertain you with an invented story about you learning a language such that I might try to explain my difficulties with Latin and other languages. Specifically, I had in mind my telling you that you had, in effect, ruined my story because despite my selection of a very difficult language and mentioning of a few others that in America are generally considered totally arcane or otherwise defunct, you already had studied it.
Thank you for a real story and for the incredible Felipe Alfau passages, all tucked neatly in what I have always thought to be your wonderful English. All of these, story, citations, and English, gave me many thoughts to ponder about my English and Spanish, learning, and writing, and whether any of us is really a native speaker of any language.

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