Said Oscar Tulio Lizcano, upon escape after 8 years of captivity in the jungle.
He did at least have something to read: Homer's "Odyssey." 8 years with no one to talk to. The difference between having "The Odyssey" and not having "The Odyssey" is profound.
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24 comments:
I thought it was a followup to your MTP post.
I had to read the Odyssey in school, and it felt like captivity to me too.
Good point, stever. Incoherence is an accidental theme today.
Paavo, you should have thought: What if I had absolutely nothing to do and I had the option to read this book? That would have improved your mood.
Coming soon to a country near you.
Homer is an ideal companion if all one had was imagination to set one free from such bleak circumstances.
I took a classics elective in college and had a hard time getting engaged. I liked the histories (such as Tacitus) more than the poetry.
The problem, I think, was in the musty translations that were popular back then. Now there are marvelous new translations of almost all the old great works.
In fact, while contemporary poetry seems frivolous, I think we're in a golden age of translation of classic works, from Homer to Beowulf to Dante.
In this vein, I recommend Robert Fagles recent translation of The Odyssey. I haven't read his Iliad.
The Odyssey was always my favorite Greek myth as a kid. (And I was a big fan of Greek mythology.) I grew to appreciate The Iliad later.
Hmm, in Columbia they fight communists and their murdering and kidnapping ways.
Here, we elect them to power.
That seems something like the perfect book for a person in that situation.
I tried speaking like Homer's translation when I read the Illiad and the Odyssey in 7th grade. I couldn't understand myself, but people thought I was extremely smart, or as garage mahal would put it, a socialist.
Alas, since I did live in a socialist country, I could not be elected to office.
"The Silence"
Annoyed by a club member's constant chatter, a man bets him he cannot remain silent for a year, living in a glass enclosure in the club basement.
Twilight Zone episode, starring Franchot Tone
More on topic, I would really like to hear him speak in Spanish. Colombian Spanish is famously flourished, mostly from the central regions (paisa) as compared to the other two main regional dialects (cachaco from Bogotá, and costeño from the Pacific and Atlantic coastal regions).
I can only imagine the sheer amount of epithets that he must be using after having read The Odyssey for 8 years, and probably in a very disorganized manner (Spanish allows you to put the adjetives before or after a noun, although doing the latter is the most common way, the former is used in literary, and mostly poetic ways)
I wonder if they have a recording of his first statements somewhere.
Ulysses was always a hero of mine - a man who, if he couldn't outfight, could outwit his opponent. I saw in him the archetype for Heinlein's supremely competent heroes. Then a pal pointed out to my blinded eye that Ulysses lost every single man under his command.
Still, a man held captive for 8 years starving in a jungle surely must have found common cause with Ulysses, held captive as Calypso's lover for 7 years. Or NOT.
Wow; I bet he'll have many interesting stories to tell about living among gorillas in the jungle for 8 years.
Great book for such conditions.
I'm more interested in Oscar's captors. FARC. Sounds familiar. Oh, yeah! The same FARC that Carl Lindner, Jr., then-CEO-of-Chiquita-brands and now-fundraiser-for-John-McCain pled guilty to donating more than a million bucks to!
I'm more interested in Oscar's captors. FARC. Sounds familiar. Oh, yeah! The same FARC that Carl Lindner, Jr., then-CEO-of-Chiquita-brands and now-fundraiser-for-John-McCain pled guilty to donating more than a million bucks to!
Did he kill the suitors when he got back home?
Lori V. said...
I'm more interested in Oscar's captors. FARC. Sounds familiar. Oh, yeah! The same FARC that Carl Lindner, Jr., then-CEO-of-Chiquita-brands and now-fundraiser-for-John-McCain pled guilty to donating more than a million bucks to!
4:54 PM
You need to get your history classes back in schedule quickly! The Chiquita Banana scandal was about "los Para" (from Paramilitares or Paramilitary)which were a "counter-insurgent insurgency", i.e. anti-guerrilla guerrillas that existed in Colombia and opposed the FARC. The FARC are marxist guerrillas, the other ones opposed them. Los para don't exist anymore.
FARC have had decades of self-support from drug trafficking, kidnappings, extortion, Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez and speaking engagements at US universities. Not to mention visits and solidarity useful idiots like those Mexicans killed during the raid in Ecuador. But, do you even know what I'm talking about?
Oh, yeah, Lori, and do you understand the concepts of "protection money" and "extortion"?
Any truth to the rumor that his family said "Oh brother, where were thou?" upon his arrival home?
The Shining Path guerrillas in Peru killed 25,000. Pinochet killed 2000 in his coup. The Pinochet martyrs have inspired any number of novels and movies. I don't begrudge Isabel Allende her rage. Perhaps it will inhibit right wing atrocities in the future. But please note that the victims of Guzman or Che will not be memorialized in any movie or novel. The unwillingness of the left to examine the methods of their flawed heroes more or less guarantees the continuation of the endless barbarity....Compare and contrast the treatment of FARC prisoners vs the treatment of Gitmo prisoners. Those who would convict Bush of war crimes for Gitmo are silent concerning the FARC atrocities. Perhaps Richard Dreyfus should organize a cocaine boycott to protest the FARC abuses. Hollywood celebrities should wear a white ribbon thru their noses to publicize their refusal to use cocaine until FARC cleans up its act.
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