Dear list members, 

For those who could not see the attachment with the text regarding Sanskrit, its useless, and García Márquez, here it is. The Sanskrit primer symbolises the uselessness of the bookshop and the spirit of the bookseller:

"The bookstore is the place where Aureliano Babilonia finds his Sanskrit primer, and it is owned by a wise Catalan, or a Catalan sage, 'un sabio catalán', who arrived in Latin America as a refugee from what the narrator laconically calls 'one of so many wars' [345: 367]. He is a former Classics teacher and an instigator of learning which is both arcane and occasionally functional, like José Arcadio Buendía´s curiosity. For the Catalan, 'wisdom was worth nothing if it could not be used to invent a new way of preparing chickpeas' [337: 357]. This is both a pose and a credo. The Catalan, like José Arcadio Buendía, loves useless wisdom but likes to think of wisdom as useful too. When Aureliano Babilonia first meets the Catalan he has two drawers full of scribbled pages 'that in some way made ont think of Melquíades' parchments' [345-346: 368]."

Best wishes,
Aleix


On Thu, 26 Mar 2020 at 18:59, Aleix Ruiz Falqués <arfalques@cantab.net> wrote:
This excellent thread reminded me of a passage from Hundred Years of Solitude. This is from M. Wood, Gabriel García Márquez: One Hundred Years of Solitude, (CUP 1990).

image.png

Best wishes,
Aleix

On Thu, 26 Mar 2020 at 15:03, Christoph Emmrich via INDOLOGY <indology@list.indology.info> wrote:

MARCELLO   Steiner! Che fa qui?

STEINER   E tu? Io sono di casa... Padre Franz mi ha dato un libro...


E mentre mostra un libro che ha sotto il braccio, accenna anche al giovane e piccolo prete, che è rimasto dove stava e segue la scena sorridendo lievemente.


STEINER   ...che avevo cercato per tutta Roma. Una grammatica sanscrita.


E Steiner ride, come di uno scherzo.


From the script of La dolce vita (Italy, 1960), in: Federico Fellini, Ennio Flaiano e Tullio Pinelli. Quattro film. I vitelloni. La dolce vita. Otto e mezzo. Giulietta degli spiriti. Torino: Einaudi, 1975, p. 188.


[MARCELLO   Steiner! What are you doing here?

STEINER   What about you? I am at home here... Father Franz gave me a book...

And, while displaying a book he is holding under his arm, he also points at the young and short priest who has remained where he was and who has been observing the scene with a faint smile.

STEINER   ...which I had been looking for all across Rome. A Sanskrit grammar.

And Steiner laughs, as if about a joke.]


With warm regards,
Christoph


----

 

Christoph Emmrich

Associate Professor, Buddhist Studies
General Secretary, IABS

Director, Centre for South Asian Studies

at the Asian Institute, Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy

Chair, Numata Program UofT/McMaster

University of Toronto



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--
Aleix Ruiz-Falqués
Pali Lecturer
Head of the Department of Pali and Languages
Shan State Buddhist University
Phaya Phyu, Taunggyi, Myanmar 140101
(+95) 09428757648


--
Aleix Ruiz-Falqués
Pali Lecturer
Head of the Department of Pali and Languages
Shan State Buddhist University
Phaya Phyu, Taunggyi, Myanmar 140101
(+95) 09428757648