예전 엡티 모아둔 파일을 보다가 내가 사랑하는 Slow Lane 칼럼의 첫 연재 소개 기사를 발견했다.
무려 2003년 1월달 신문.
나의 주말은 이 칼럼을 토요일에 정독한 주말과 아닌 경우의 질이 확연히 다를 정도로 내게는 소중한 칼럼인데,
그 출발점과 칼럼의 성격을 필자 자신의 언어로 분명히 밝혀두는 기사를 다시 보게 되어 감회가 새로웠다.
(참고로 오늘 칼럼http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/f314bf06-06f7-11e2-92b5-00144feabdc0.html#axzz29oDuwRfZ도 좋지만,
지난 주와 지지난 주 칼럼이 진짜 좋았다.
지난 주 칼럼은 러시아의 유로지비 전통에 대한 것으로, 마리아 유지나와 쇼옹 얘기가 나와서 반가웠고,http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/ef9b6884-06f7-11e2-92b5-00144feabdc0.html
지지난 주 칼럼은 스토파드 각색의 안나 카레니나 새 영화에 대한 평http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/ecd8880c-06f7-11e2-92b5-00144feabdc0.html#axzz29oDuwRfZ이라 줄 쳐가며 열심히 읽었다. )
예전 칼럼들도 인터넷으로 다 볼 수 있으면 좋겠지만, 2003년은 아예 업로드가 되어 있지 않아서 아쉬운 마음에 부분부분 타이핑을 해둘까 한다.
예이츠의 시를 인용하며 시작해서 빅토르 에리쎄를 자기 칼럼의 '수호신'으로 꼽으며(역시!!!) 끝을 맺는, 이 사람 특유의 그 리듬감과 절묘한 압축과 섬세한 묘사의 조화는 글 전체를 봐야 만끽할 수 있지만, 다 타이핑할 수는 없으니, 중요 문장들을 몇 부분 옮겨 놓는다. 에리쎄 언급 부분은 전부 옮겨 놓았다. 에리쎄에 대한 간결하면서도 적확한 상찬! 그가 얼마나 '드문' 위대한 예술가인지... 에리쎄에 대해 내가 경외감을 갖는 부분이 정확하게 지적되었다.
Víctor Erice_ El Espíritu de la colmena (1973)
"The Peace comes with the slowing down, which brings heartfelt appreciation of all things and times, the purple glow of noon, the glimmering midnight, the linnet-haunted evening.
So this column is not advocating romantic escapism, the idea of getting away from it all, or even downsizing. Over-strenuous efforts to get away from it all tend to defeat their object: you ecounter the same problems on arrival. The point is to find and enjoy the oases of peace that are freely - and I mean often freely - available in the interstices of the daily round : those easily forgotten or ignored oases, the familiar painting(which you could make a date to spend an hour with) or the poem you half-remember (which you could learn by heart), the pair of bustling blue-tits in the garden laburnum you have hardly noticed for years, the conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter in the night sky, a mode of transport which facilitates richness of experience rather than bullet-like translation from A to B. One of the rules of the column is never to go directly from A to B. In the game of Monopoly, the place you go directly to is jail.
Back to bee-keeping for a moment. Another of this column's patron saints is the Spanish film director Victor Erice, the reclusive Basque who made one of the most beautiful films of all time, The Spirit of the Beehive. It's not really a flim about bee-keeping, but about how the world appears to a child of seven or eight, in all its mystery and strangeness and horror and beauty.
The way Erice conveys this is itself something of a mystery but it has to do with letting things breathe. His camera lingers over things, doesn't rush on or pass them by, pays them proper attention(which is so rare that it seems odd) and so allows them to give themselves to the viewer. Things as well as people need to be granted the proper time in order to give of their best. They also need to be regarded in a certain way, which is free of worries about whether they can be pressed into service.
Giving the right amount of time to things and people represents a kind of courtesy. In my experience people and things respond to that courtesy. Birds and fish come not to the anxious birdwatcher or angler, but to the one who tunes into the rhythm of the trees and the sound of the lake lapping by the shore."
