Happy Friday! Today is also the third and last day of the quotes challenge, for which Ami at Ami im Schwabenland nominated me.

The rules:

1. Thank the person who nominated you – Danke schön, Ami!
2. Post a different quote for three consecutive days.
3. Nominate three bloggers each day.

Well, I was going to opt for my favorite David Bowie quote:

I re-invented my image so many times that I’m in denial that I was originally an overweight Korean woman

While that would have been a hilarious quote for today…..I decided to up my game and have a quote that’s even WORDIER than yesterday….also in Spanish:

This quote is from a play I read in high school (and still absolutely love) called En la Ardiente Oscuridad (In the Burning Darkness) by Spanish author Antonio Buero Vallejo. I copied the synopsis from Wikipedia (it’s not a well known play in the slightest and quite controversal):

The play centers around Ignacio, who is admitted to an institute for the blind, managed by Don Pablo. Everything there is so perfectly arranged that the students do not mind the fact that they cannot see. Ignacio, however, always refuses to accept his blindness and struggles to find his way around. He meets a group of blind people there who appear to be happy, but his sense of dissatisfaction at losing the most marvelous of the senses is contagious and spreads through the group. Carlos, one of the students at the institute, attempts to ease his depression but does not succeed. Carlos is rightfully suspicious of the friendship between his girlfriend Juana and Ignacio, who ends up seducing her. (Juana feels more compassion for Ignacio than anyone else.) One fateful night, Ignacio and Carlos are arguing. Ignacio tries to convey to Carlos what a blind person who longs to see feels. The idea disturbs Carlos profoundly. Don Pablo and Doña Pepita walk in. Ignacio goes outside to the playground. The remaining three talk for a while and reaffirm the sentiment that Ignacio has to leave. Carlos then also goes out to the playground. Pepita idly stands by the window when she sees something that horrifies her. Suddenly, Ignacio is brought in by other boys, who lay him on the sofa. He is dead – murdered by Carlos because Carlos could not stand Ignacio’s forcing him to face reality. The immediate assumption is that Ignacio committed suicide. However, Doña Pepita admits to Carlos that she knows that he, Carlos, murdered him but can’t confirm it. She says, “It occurred to me to get up and go to the windowsill. I didn’t do it. But if I had, I would have seen someone climb the stairs of the slide with the body of Ignacio, unconscious or dead. Later, from above, the body would fall, without thinking about the eyes of others… But I didn’t see anything, because I didn’t get up.” The uncertainty is never solved because the students at the school seem content with the accidental ruling. It is only then that Carlos realizes he is more affected by being blind than he was willing to admit, and the play ends with this realization.

The play is an allegory to those who blindly followed Franco’s dictatorship of Spain. Ignacio represents the people who have lived outside of this bubble and know that things can be different. I thought given America’s overall political climate – this was a fitting quote. What do I mean by that? Well, it’s literature….decide for yourself which group you fall under: the blind or the seeing. I can assure you, each and every one of you will think you’re the only ones who truly see. But honestly, I think we’re all blind…

But what does it mean? I know my non-Spanish speaking readers are asking – so I’ll give you my translation:

Because you are all too pacifisctic, too insincere, too cold. But I am burning inside; burning with a terrible fire that doesn’t let me live and can burn everything…Burning in what the seeing call the darkness, and it is horrifying….because we don’t know what that is.

This takes place in the beginning, during a conversation between Juana and Ignacio. She is begging him to say, to go as far as to tell him that she’s willing to go down on her knees to beg. His response?

Why on your knees? They say this gesture is impressive to the seeing…but we don’t see it. Don’t be stupid; don’t speak of things that you don’t know, don’t imitate those who truly live…

Ignacio was such charmer with the ladies (*insert sarcasm font*).

Anyway, it’s a play I would absolutely looooooove to see performed one day, but I know that won’t be in a States (not cause it’s controversial….Antonio Buero Vallejo is just unknown). But it is performed in Spain (which is why the photo I chose is from the Plaza de España in Sevilla).

So what did you guys think? I meant to go light with my quotes, but I decided to go for the ones that have stuck around for well over a decade.

Hopefully, I will be able to get that Milford Sound post up next week….but alas, my novel calls!

Bis nächste Woche!