A COSMOPOLITAN LAWYER: JUST SOME READINGS I HAVE ENJOYED LATELY

First, this blog replaces my previous blog, thecosmoplitanlawyerblogspot.com . Second, unlike that earlier blog, the present one is primarily meant as a record of my readings. It is not meant to suggest that others will be or should be interested in what I read. And third, in a sense, it is a public diary of one who is an alien in his own American culture. A person who feels at home just about anywhere, except in his birthplace . . . America.

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

FATE TWISTS US ALL CROOKED

Jorge Amado, The Violent Land, translated from Portuguese by Samuel Putnam (New York; Avon, 1943, 1988) ("It's fate, woman, that decodes what is going to happen to folks. No one is born good or bad; it' fate that twists us all crooked." Id. at 14. "Today there was more stir and bustle than usual. Every morning workers would set out for the groves to gather cacao, while others trod the vats or the dried product in the troughs; and as they laboured they would sing their mournful songs: A Negro's life is a hard one/ Hard as hard can be. Laments that the wind carried away, the moanings of those who, form morning to night, beneath the blazing sun, had to toil in the grove: This night I want to die, / Far away in some hidden place; / Lashed by the hem of your garment, / I would die for your sweet face. The workers sang their mournful songs as they went to their labours, songs of servitude and of unrequited love." Id. at 188-189.).