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Conquista De Lo Inútil (2008)

by Werner Herzog(Favorite Author)

4.19 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

9872479712 (ISBN13: 9789872479718)

languge

English

genre

Horror

publisher

Entropía

review 1: I loved reading this book. It probably helped that I saw Fitzcarraldo a few years ago, but I think it worth reading for the sheer volume of ridiculous detail and interesting tone -- there is a necessary detachment in the writing so as to report the basic goings on of making a film that involves pulling a huge ship up the side of a large hill or small mountain in the Peruvian jungle to get it from one river to another, but there is clearly a near-insane devotion to the necessity of doing so that renders the detachment a tactical surface, and a wobbly one plenty of times. I read the last third or so with a fever, & that was interesting, though I wouldn't recommend going for that.
review 2: I didn't pick this book up because I wanted a simple account on the making... more of Fitzcarraldo. That would be boring. (Plus, I did some pre-purchase research and knew I wouldn’t find that here.) I read it to see what this director—an astute observer of his environment and its inhabitants, whether two-or eight-legged, winged, horned, or beaked—saw during his two-and-a-half years in the Peruvian jungle. I also read to get closer to the spirit of this useless conquest—this act of hauling a ship over a mountain to serve the director's operatic vision.Despite this singular quest, film production slowed and stopped (sometimes peacefully, sometimes violently, often due to the weather) frequently enough for observations, musings, and dreams to interfere and leave their mark. The result is this book of collected journal entries. Conquest of the Useless is a magnetically poetic and irresistible journey. It reveals moments of brotherly love, sacrifice, and determination along with a fair share of death, misery, decay, dispassionate calm, and absurdity.A few characters appear and disappear mysteriously, and occasionally Herzog’s brisk judgments (regarding, say, an actor’s overall character) left me wanting for further explanation. Sometimes eyewitness account blends into daydream. But I found all of this admissible, and even desirable in the case of the latter. Especially since I got to read passages like this:“I thought it [boa constrictor] must be thirsty and carefully poured water on its mouth and head, but it merely stared at me from the depths of a loneliness that had little connection left with earthly things. So we decided to release the boa. Walter and I shook it out of the cage, because it did not want to budge. The women watched from a safe distance, not looking happy. The snake crawled right back into its enclosure, yet when I checked later, it was gone, and there was a clear trail in the sand leading toward the jungle. At night the place where the snake had disappeared was thronged with twinkling fireflies, and overhead a clear, starry night sky."And this:"At the other end of the camp, someone is hammering a board, and the sound comes back in a hollow echo from the forest. The forest does not accept these sounds. Last night there were thousands of winged creatures hovering around the lamps, raging in wild swarms like spherical catastrophes around the light bulbs. One could eat only with the light switched off. In the morning, by the boat landing, where a more powerful lamp has been installed, there were piles of wings on the ground, like a snowdrift. Everywhere spiders have spun their webs under the roof, near the electric light, and with such a surfeit of prey they cannot attend to every captured gift; they have taut bellies, as plump as cherries."And this:"An enormous insect, searching for a favorable angle of attack, is buzzing around; the feverish oppressiveness in my somnolent state makes it seem as large as a helicopter, and though I am watching it the whole time as if through billows of fog and know that it wants to destroy me, I cannot summon the energy to get up and murder it with a dull blow." less

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