But look around you… Death and Light are everywhere,
always, and they begin, end, strive, attend, into and upon the Dream of the
Nameless that is the world, burning words within Samsara, perhaps to create a
thing of beauty.
(Roger
Zelazny, Lord of Light)
Roger Zelazny (1937-1995)
Cunoscut în SUA mai ales pentru The Chronicles of Amber – serie apărută şi în România la Editura Tritonic, în traducerea lui Eugen Cristea -, Roger Zelazny este, din păcate, un autor prea rar frecventat de europenii amatori sau nu de fantasy, gen în care Zelazny a excelat. Motivele? În primul rând, puţinele traduceri din opera sa. În al doilea rând, poveştile lui Roger Zelazny, deşi seducătoare, nu au fost ecranizate, în ciuda unor tentative (v. http://erasmen-erasmen.blogspot.ro/2013/03/roger-zelazny-si-ai-sai-zei.html). În prezent, indiferent de genul de ficţiune practicat, un scriitor devine popular datorită cinematografului sau televiziunii – afirmaţie cu iz de truism, a cărei valabilitate, însă, a fost dovedită cu asupra de măsură. Zelazny nu a avut această şansă. George R.R. Martin, ca să dau un exemplu, a devenit un star în urma ecranizării seriei A Song of Ice and Fire. Acelaşi George R.R. Martin este cel care îl evocă, într-un text din 1995, pe omul, pe prietenul, pe eruditul Roger Zelazny, „the last Renaissance Man”. Iată textul cu pricina:
In
Memoriam: Roger Zelazny
THE
LORD OF LIGHT
He was a poet, first, last, always. His words sang.
He was a storyteller without peer. He created worlds as
colorful and exotic and memorable as any our genre has ever seen.
But most of all, I will remember his people. Corwin of
Amber and his troublesome siblings. Charles Render, the dream master. The
Sleeper, Croyd Crenson, who never learned algebra. Fred Cassidy climbing on his
rooftops. Conrad. Dilvish the Damned. Francis Sandow. Billy Blackhorse Singer.
Jarry Dark. The Jack of Shadows. Hell Tanner. Snuff.
And Sam. Him especially. “His followers called him
Mahasamatman and said he was a god. He preferred to drop the Maha- and the
atman, however, and called himself Sam. He never claimed to be a god. But then,
he never claimed not to be a god.”
Lord of
Light was the first Zelazny
book I ever read. I was in college at the time, a long time reader who dreamed
of writing himself one day. I’d been weaned on Andre Norton, cut my teeth on
Heinlein juveniles, survived high school with the help of H.P. Lovecraft, Isaac
Asimov, “Doc” Smith, Theodore Sturgeon, and J.R.R. Tolkien. I read Ace doubles
and belonged to the Science Fiction Book Ciub, but I had not yet found the
magazines. I’d never heard of this Zelazny guy. But when I read those words for
the first time, a chill went through me, and I sensed that SF would never be
the same. Nor was it. Like only a few before him, Roger left his mark on the
genre.
He left his mark on my life as well. After Lord of Light, I read every word of his
I could get my hands on. He Who Shapes,
And Call Me Conrad . . ., A Rose for Ecclesiastes, Isle of the Dead, The Doors of His Face, the Lamps of His Mouth, Creatures of Light and Darkness, and all the rest. I knew I had
found one hell of a writer in this fellow with the odd, unforgettable name. I
never dreamed that, years later, I would also find in Roger one hell of a
friend.
I met Roger several times in the mid 70s; at a writer’s
workshop in Bloomington, Indiana, at cons in Wichita and El Paso, at Nebula
banquets. By then, I had made a few sales on my own. I was surprised and
thrilled when Roger knew my work. He was at first blush a shy man, always kind,
often funny, but quiet. I cannot say I knew him well … not until the end of
1979, when I moved to Santa Fe, fresh from a divorce, near broke, and utterly
alone.
Roger was the only person I knew in town, and him not
that well. We were colleagues and con acquaintances, no more, but from the way
he treated me, you would have thought we had been the closest of friends for
years. He saw me through the worst months. We shared dinners and breakfasts and
endless shoptalk. He drove me to Albuquerque for the monthly First Friday
writers’ lunch. When a local bookstore asked him to do a signing, he made sure
that I was invited as well. He took me with him to parties and wine tastings,
even asked me to share Thanksgiving and Christmas with his family. If I had to
fly to a con, he drove across town to pick up my mail and water my plant. And
when my money was running low at the end of my first year in Santa Fe, he
offered me a loan to tide me over until I could finish Fevre Dream.
It wasn’t just me. He did as much, and more, for others.
Roger was as kind and generous as any man I have ever known. He was the best
kind of company, often quiet, but always interesting. Sometimes it seemed he
had read every book ever printed. He knew something about everything and
everything about some things, but he never used his knowledge to impress or
intimidate. In an age when everyone is a specialist, Roger was the last
Renaissance Man, fascinated by the world and all that’s in it, capable of talking
about Doc Savage and Proust with equal expertise and enthusiasm.
Those who saw him only from a distance sometimes came
away with the impression that Roger was serious, grave, dignified, never
dreaming how funny the man could be. No one who heard the Chicken Effect Speech
at Bubonicon will ever forget it. Wild Cards fans still grin at the memory of
Croyd and the decomposing alien. During the last year of Roger’s life, Jane
Lindskold introduced him to roleplaying, and he took to it with the glee of a
small boy, mischievous and ever inventive. I will always cherish those people
too, although only a few of us were fortunate enough to meet them. His Chinese
poet warrior, declaiming thunderingly bad poems as he walked down an endless
muddy road. His spaceship chaplain solemnly explaining evolution and ethics to
an increasingly confused alien. And Oklahoma Crude, roughneck oilman, chewing
tobacco and swapping jokes with space pirates and musketeers alike.
A few months ago, when Howard Waldrop was passing through Santa Fe, I threw a party. Howard wound up sitting on the floor, while Roger read a musical comedy he’d just written, about Death and his godson. Roger sang all the parts, sort of chanting them, a little off-key maybe … well, okay, maybe more than a little. One by one the other guests interrupted their conversations and drifted over to hear him read and sing, until the whole party gathered around Roger’s feet. By the end, there was a smile on every face.
He was fighting Death himself then, though only Jane knew
it. And that was very like Roger too, to keep his pains private, to take fear
and shape it into art, to transform illness and death into a song, a story, and
a roomful of smiles.
“But look around you…” he wrote in Lord of Light. “Death and Light are everywhere, always, and they
begin, end, strive, attend, into and upon the Dream of the Nameless that is the
world, burning words within Samsara, perhaps to create a thing of beauty.”
— George R.R. Martin
June 1995
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