We will never cease to be surprised by the powerful emotional and creative links that are so often established between some of the most notable writers of our international literary scene and their beloved quadrupeds of the animal universe.
A delightful anecdote from the famous Nobel Prize winner in Literature, Ernest Hemingway, seems almost the result of a “writer's fantasy”, but it is something that happened in real life. The brilliant and grumpy Hemingway was passionate about the feline kingdom. We know that one of his kittens came into his life as a gift from Captain Stanley Dexter, but the fact is that little “Snow Flake” had no more and no less than six fingers on each of her limbs.
Well, something so uncommon came to generate an entire litter and, much further, a true feline offspring of six-toed kittens, until it ended up constituting a truly new breed, called (as it could not be otherwise), Hemingway. Cat. Good old Ernest used to venerate his felines, saying, on one occasion, one of his brilliant aphorisms: “There is no animal freer than a cat: they are the best anarchists I have ever met.”
One of our great literary authors of all time, the devious and fragile Virginia Woolf, used to take long walks in silence, through dreamlike landscapes that inspired her, accompanied only by her faithful “Pinka”, a sparkling and sparkling cocker spaniel. vivacious
And Woolf, in that symbiosis and connection so close to the dogs that inhabited her solitude, wrote in her book Flush some pages dedicated to the poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning's dog: “You may think that I am sentimental, but I am convinced that dogs, in some way, symbolize the most private thing in our lives, that constant need that we all have to play.”
The charismatic and influential American writer Jack Kerouac, the greatest exponent of the one adored by so many eternally young generations, the Beat Generation, came to share his life with a veritable legion of cats. But the truth is that, without a doubt, the most special feline that he had by his side for many years was Tyke, a Persian kitten to whom he dedicates memorable and emotional pages in his book Big Sur.
Kerouac confesses in his work that he loved Tyke with all his heart, and even states things as delicate and beautiful as these: “He was my tiny baby, he fell asleep in the palm of my hand, with his little head hanging down, purring non-stop.”
Writing is imagining and feeling, first by yourself, alone, and then it is about translating those intimate emotions into an exercise to share certain of your own experiences with others.
The very original Argentine author Julio Cortázar, one of the most fanatic writers about cats (in fact his face and the intensity of his gaze were clearly “feline”), wrote a lot of pages about them.
In one of his most popular and recognized works, Hopscotch, Cortázar creates these unusual phrases: “And the cats, always inevitably the minouche morrongos meow kitten kat chat cat cat gray and white and black and sewage, owners of time and the tiles lukewarm, invariable friends of the Maga who knew how to tickle their bellies and spoke to them in a language that was somewhere between silly and mysterious, with fixed-term appointments, advice and warnings.
What beauty of moments transmitted through literature like yours, unusual, unpublished, so absolutely personal and non-transferable. Two of the great Buenos Aires writer's favorite cats, the delicate felines Flanelle and Teodoro, starred in the pages of one of his stories published in the volume Último Round.
And to close this article with a flourish, there is no better way to do it than by letting ourselves be guided by the hand of another Argentine writer of universal prestige, the always enigmatic Jorge Luis Borges.
Apparently, he was unable to do anything without separating for a moment from his two soul kittens, Odin and Beppo. Borges wrote so much and so accurately about cats that it is difficult for me to choose a specific piece of literature.
But I feel that right now I feel like sharing with all of you, faithful readers of this 'Peludos', one of his wonderful “cat” poems.
There it goes!:
