Just Sara

Blankness

I recently finished watching the BBC Wallander series n.2. I am a big fan of The Kurt Wallander Series, I read all the books last Summer before I moved to the UK. My mother had them all in the family library and she said they were really well written and thoroughly enjoyed them. I was looking for something new to read, so there it all started… I instantly got hooked on Kurt’s story. The Italian TV back then aired part of the Swedish series and it was very interesting, seeing the adaptation of quite a long series of books. I read 9 books of the series and I can’t wait to read the latest one, The Troubled Man. By the way, I also read “Italian Shoes” by the same author, Henning Mankell, and I loved it. I don’t know what is it with these Swedish authors and their sad stories. I really like them.

This afternoon, after I watched the latest Branagh’s Wallander, I was brought back to my last year at high-school. You’ll wonder why is that? Well… First funny thing is, I owe my high-school diploma distinction in Italian literature to Kenneth Branagh and his Henry V. Of course I later chose to become a veterinarian, but that’s another story. Back to Shakespeare, at the literature exam I had the brilliant idea to talk about Shakespeare in comparison with another Italian author and some of his tragedies. Long story short… Shakespeare was not in the program, but thank to Mr Branagh’s accurate films, I almost knew the Henry V by heart, haha! And I aced the exam. This memory made me giggle this afternoon. Maybe some day I’ll meet the man and thank him. I mean Kenneth Branagh, not Shakespeare, of course.

Then, Wallander also made me think of something else. Kurt finds out that his daughter writes poetry and she never told him, but preferred to share it with her grandfather, Kurt’s father. Wallander is a complex character, yet quite simple. It depends on your point of view. I like to think of him as a very sensitive man that struggles with his most intimate emotions and strives for perfection in his work, but he’s not infallible. A sad man. One of those deep characters that make you realise how difficult it is to handle feelings, relationships, insecurities. Fears.

All this reminded me of an assignment we once had at high-school, same class, Italian literature: “Do we write in sadness?” We were supposed to discuss Leopardi‘s thought that poets and writers in general are driven by sadness, torment and pain. It is somewhat true, not all poems or songs talk about funny, cheerful experiences. Going back to the initial Wallander theme, Emily Barker comes to mind, and her Nostalgia. Then, why do we like them so much? Yes, we. Take a random song in your .mp3 player and listen to the lyrics. The chances are, the lyrics are sad or mention regret, distance, loss, solitude etc etc. Yet, we love the song. I think this happens because there are some things that we cannot easily express with words. Poetry comes to the rescue, it’s a sort of visual writing, because we can toss words on the paper and mix emotions and memories, hopes and wishes, in just a few lines. It all makes perfect sense to us. It’s complete, a condensed summary of how we feel and it tells a lot more than a thousand pages. Add the right minor keys to the music and you have one of those songs that recurrently pop in your mind whenever you feel a bit sad.

However, we can write when we are happy too. I’m sure some people only write when they are happy. I write when I have a lot to say and not enough will to explain it, so I sum it all up in a poem. It’s cryptic and crystal clear at the same time. I guess I’m a lazy writer. The eyes are my ink, my sight will read all the words that are not written on the paper or on what surrounds me.