Por ALEXANDRA ALTER

O novo romance de Peter Carey é uma espécie de conto de fadas, uma fábula sobre um pato que se transforma em cisne. O pato se baseia em uma curiosidade histórica real: o famoso “pato digestor”, do inventor francês do século XVIII Jacques de Vaucanson, uma maravilha mecânica que parecia comer e excretar grãos. No tratamento dado por Carey, o pato se torna uma metáfora da revolução industrial e da perigosa obsessão da humanidade pela tecnologia.

“The Chemistry of Tears,” (“A Química das Lágrimas” em tradução livre), a sair nos Estados Unidos na terça-feira, se passa em Londres, em 2010. Catherine Gehrig, curadora de museu cujo amante e colega de trabalho morreu, enterra sua dor e começa obsessivamente a reconstruir uma estranha ave mecânica do século 19. Juntamente com as peças e engrenagens, ela descobre os cadernos de Henry Brandling, um inglês que viajou para uma cidade de especialistas em relógios cuco na Alemanha, onde procurou um relojoeiro para construir uma réplica do pato de Vaucanson, querendo alegrar seu filho doente. O desonesto construtor entregou um cisne em seu lugar. Catherine suspeita que Henry foi levado à loucura pelo projeto, e também se preocupa com o que o projeto está fazendo com sua assistente, Amanda, cada vez mais instável.

Carey, romancista nascido na Austrália e duas vezes vencedor do prêmio literário Man Booker, costuma escrever sobre casais excêntricos, pessoas obsessivas e foras-da-lei. Um de seus livros, “30 Dias em Sydney”, foi publicado no Brasil pela editora Companhia das Letras. No seu apartamento em Nova York, ele falou sobre seu processo criativo. Seguem trechos editados.

Este romance, como muitos dos seus livros, parte de uma premissa estranha, que o sr. baseou em uma realidade histórica. Como lhe surgiu essa ideia?

Comecei obcecado com a ideia do motor de combustão interna. Minha família vendia carros — meu avô e meu bisavô eram totalmente devotos do motor de combustão. E também parece que é justamente isso que está destruindo totalmente nosso planeta. Pensei que poderia ser interessante examinar todas essas brilhantes invenções, e ver onde isso nos levou, pois somos uma espécie com muita inteligência, mas parece que também estamos nos matando devido a ela.

Comecei colocando a história na Austrália, em uma cidade chamada Gippsland, onde meu pai vendia Fords Modelo T para os produtores de leite. Daí voltei a atenção para Henry Ford. Continuei mexendo e virando, pesquisando coisas, e descobri o pato de Vaucanson, e pensei: eis aí uma máquina interessante. Pensei então: será que posso ter um pato como um cavalo de Tróia, que vai levar escondido a ideia do motor de combustão?

O sr. já disse que sempre tenta fazer algo novo em cada livro. De que modo este romance é original?

Fui um pouco convencido ao pensar que cada livro é diferente do anterior, o que decerto é uma tolice em termos comerciais. Este é o terceiro livro que escrevo com duas vozes. Sem dúvida tenho que parar um pouco de fazer isso. Hum, bem, creio que este talvez seja o livro mais emocionalmente envolvente que já escrevi.

O sr. costuma saber para onde está indo enquanto escreve, ou vai passeando e descobrindo a trama aos poucos?

Há momentos de pânico total em cada livro. Chega uma hora em que você cai de um penhasco e tem que sentar e lembrar o que é aquilo, e por que pode dar certo, e por que você está escrevendo o livro. E não valeria a pena se não fosse assim.

E essa abordagem resulta em manuscritos abandonados?

Não, eu não faço isso. Sempre acho que não há nada que não possa ser solucionado. Eu costumava sentar e escrever para mim mesmo: “Sobre o que é este livro?” “Este é um livro sobre isso, isso e isso”. “Será que alguém pode escrever este livro?” E eu respondia: “Sim”. “Então por que você não escreve?”

O sr. ainda lê as críticas do seu trabalho?

Tento não ler. É estúpido, algo movido apenas pela ambição, vaidade, insegurança.

Nada de bom vem da leitura das críticas. Tenho 69 anos, então estou quase no ponto de poder não ler as críticas. A gente só se lembra das negativas. Até hoje me lembro das palavras de uma crítica do meu primeiro livro, escrita por alguém que eu conhecia e julgava que era meu amigo. Depois disso já recebi milhares e milhares de palavras, críticas encantadoras, cheias de elogios, mas ainda me lembro daquela de 1974.

Por que o sr. não pára de ler as críticas?

É difícil. Nunca subestime até que ponto um escritor vive absorvido em si mesmo.

By DENNIS NISHI

Social networking can be a powerful tool for small businesses looking to grow. But for some start-ups, it’s more than that: Social networking is the basis for the business.

Take Brent Hieggelke and his wife. Three years ago, the couple decided to rent their vacation home in Mt. Hood, Ore., but worried about letting strangers on the property. That’s when Mr. Hieggelke decided to use social networking to screen tenants.

He created a Facebook app called Second Porch that keeps dealings between friends. Users post their property availability, and the listings stream in their friends’ news feeds. Friends can also make recommendations about prospective tenants and properties.

“Every person probably knows 10 people that have vacation homes and even more than that are interested in renting. That amounts to a lot of vetted choices,” says Mr. Hieggelke.

Within a year, Second Porch attracted more than $1 million in investment funding, which Mr. Hieggelke used to set up an independent website that worked with the app but offered more features. The site drew more than 16,000 listings—and caught the eye of another rental service, HomeAway, which acquired Second Porch five months ago.

Friends of Friends

Entrepreneurs who build their businesses and websites around social networking say it offers a big advantage: Customers get unusually engaged with the business, sharing favorite products and services with friends and often turning them into buyers, too. In the best cases, entrepreneurs say, customers see the business as a kind of social activity in itself, interacting with other customers and making recommendations that will stream on the Facebook news feeds of all of their friends.

James Yang

Yardsellr.com has built its entire business around its customers’ chats about products. The San Francisco start-up lets Facebook users sell products to people with similar interests. Members join groups, or “blocks,” representing their niche interests, from “Star Trek” collectibles to guitars to purses. When a member lists an item for sale, it shows up in the news feed of other people that have subscribed to those blocks and allows them to participate in ongoing conversations.

The comments on those listings “are where all the action happens,” says founder and Chief Executive Danny Leffel. “More than 100,000 followers regularly comment on products that they love, and that creates entertainment value that can also promote educated purchasing decisions.”

Members then follow links back to Yardsellr’s own site to make their purchases. The company makes money from a buyer’s fee and from optional marketing services available to sellers. The company is private, so Mr. Leffel won’t disclose any financials, but he does say that Yardsellr has 3.9 million members and is adding more than 20,000 new ones every day. Its parent, YellowDog Media Inc., recently launched a similar site called Style.ly that focuses on clothing.

Bringing It Back Home

Facebook won’t disclose how many companies are combining its core features with commerce. But a spokesperson says that more than 7 million apps and websites are integrated with the social network, allowing visitors to do things like share a site’s content with their Facebook friends. And most social-networking sites, including Linkedin, Twitter and even YouTube, offer similar abilities.

Small companies have never had this level of customer access or ability to track behavior, says Charlene Li, founder of Altimeter Group, an advisory firm in San Mateo, Calif. “You know their names, what they might like and so much more than you did before,” says Ms. Li. “That kind of knowledge can help you accelerate a new business because you understand what customers want and need.”

But companies need to tread carefully, she says. When businesses bring customers in so close, they need to forgo the hard sell—or else risk alienating those buyers and others in their networks. They also need to be extra responsive to requests and complaints across all social-media channels, especially if they are made in public forums.

That may mean having staff members dedicated to the job, Ms. Li says. Companies can’t simply hand the task off to “a junior person…who is snarky to customers.”

Mr. Nishi is a writer in Los Angeles. He can be reached at reports@wsj.com.

Por DAVID WESSEL

El oro brilla, por supuesto. Lleva haciéndolo desde hace siglos. La economía mundial oscila según las alzas y bajas de los precios del petróleo. La subida de los precios de los alimentos amenaza incluso a las dictaduras más inflexibles. Los precios de las materias primas importan y no sólo a los operadores de bolsa e inversionistas.

Durante décadas, los precios de las materias primas cayeron casi inexorablemente. Pero alrededor del año 2000 repuntaron, lo que desató plausibles predicciones acerca de la aparición de un “superciclo de los commodities”, un muy largo tramo de incrementos de precios inusualmente grandes y sostenidos. Remontándose a 1865, economistas como José Antonio Ocampo, ex ministro de Hacienda de Colombia y recientemente candidato a la presidencia del Banco Mundial, y Bilge Erten, de la ONU, identificaron tres de esos ciclos. Ahora declaran el nuestro como el cuarto.

Associated Press

La reciente crisis financiera mundial perturbó todos los mercados, pero luego los precios de las materias primas reanudaron su escalada. Eso reforzó el argumento de los superciclistas, así como el de que los precios de los commodities reflejan los temores de los mercados de que los bancos centrales imprimían tanto dinero que la inflación era inevitable. Pero últimamente, un descenso en los precios de algunas materias primas ha socavado la teoría del superciclo.

A los operadores e inversionistas les preocupa esto por razones obvias, pero también es importante para las economías que dependen en gran medida de la exportación o importación de materias primas, así como para las presiones inflacionarias en todo el mundo.

Para ayudar a distinguir las tendencias temporales de las de larga duración, economistas del Fondo Monetario Internacional (FMI) estudiaron recientemente los precios ajustados a la inflación de cuatro canastas de commodities —energía, metales, alimentos y materias primas agrícolas (tales como algodón, caucho, lana y otros)— desde la década de 1970. La conclusión del FMI: “El débil panorama económico mundial sugiere que es poco probable que los precios de las materias primas asciendan al mismo ritmo de la última década”.

Sin embargo, el estudio del FMI echa luz sobre varios temas importantes.

*Algo significativo ocurrió en la década de 2000: un cambio radical en lo que había sido un declive consistente en los precios de los commodities (excepto la energía) durante décadas. La explicación de consenso es que la demanda de China, India y otros mercados emergentes aumentó muy rápido al tiempo que éstas crecían. Al mismo tiempo, los inversionistas de todo el mundo decidieron que los commodities eran una gran apuesta. El mundo fue incapaz de aumentar la oferta rápidamente para satisfacer esta nueva demanda. Y los precios subieron.

*Los precios de la energía son muy diferentes. Por un lado, son mucho más volátiles que los precios de otros bienes básicos por todo tipo de razones, incluyendo los recurrentes riesgos geopolíticos. Por otro lado, son claramente alcistas (163% en las últimas cuatro décadas). La explicación de consenso de su excepcionalidad es que la subida de los precios del crudo deprime el crecimiento económico y eso hunde los precios de otros commodities.

Los metales se encarecieron significativamente en los últimos años. Eso refleja la fuerte demanda por parte de la industria y los inversionistas, quizá amplificada por una pérdida de confianza en las divisas y los gobiernos. Sin embargo, los precios de los metales están más o menos donde estaban en 1973, un claro contraste con el precio de la energía.

*Durante las últimas décadas, el precio de los alimentos bajó considerablemente, a pesar del crecimiento de la población mundial y el cambio en la dieta de los cada vez más prósperos chinos, e incluso después del repunte a finales de la década de 2000. Los precios de los alimentos están más o menos a la mitad de lo que costaban en 1973. Es probable que esa tendencia de larga duración continúe. De hecho, la investigación Ocampo-Erten halló que, con excepción del petróleo, el alza de cada superciclo se ha visto seguido por una mala racha que deja los precios por debajo del nivel del final de la década anterior.

Entonces, ¿dónde se supone que estamos en este superciclo? ¿Al final o simplemente en el medio?

Por el lado de la demanda, no hay otra China o India por entrar al mercado global, por lo que no habrá otro gran motor que impulse la demanda. Con las tasas de interés tan bajas, Jeffrey Christian, analista de CPM Group, sugiere que podría haber otra gran oleada de dinero de los inversionistas hacia los commodities.

Por el lado de la oferta, la reacción predecible está en marcha: un auge de la inversión en la capacidad para producir materias primas desde el cobre al gas natural que aumentará la oferta.

By SARAH TILTON

STATS: A 7,226-square-foot home with five bedrooms, and 5½ bathrooms, asking $5.5 million, or $761.12 a square foot. Property taxes in 2011 were $30,685. The house was previously listed for $5.9 million.

DETAILS: This Federal home in Old Town Alexandria dates back to 1803, says the owner, who takes pride in the restored moldings and the original woodwork. The formal dining room has Palladian windows at either end. The game room has a fireplace and arched bookcases. A curved staircase with the original mahogany banister leads to the second floor. The master bedroom includes his-and-hers bathrooms as well as his-and-hers walk-in closets. Don’t get attached to the garden furniture as it doesn’t come with the house; neither do the garden pots and statuary.

NEIGHBORHOOD: It’s about 15 minutes to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport and about 15 minutes to the White House. Drive 20 minutes to Mount Vernon or walk to the galleries at the Torpedo Factory Art Center.

SELLER:
Leslie Ariail, a partner in a company that manages properties and develops real estate.

WHAT WE PAID: Mrs. Ariail says that she and her late husband, John, paid $2 million for the house in 1994. She says they put more than $1 million into renovating it in 2006 and 2007, adding a summer house (which they also call a gazebo) with limestone columns and a fireplace, expanding the sunroom and taking out the wall between the kitchen and the sunroom.

WHY I’M SELLING: “I’m downsizing,” says Mrs. Ariail, 68. “It’s a big house and my kids all think I need something smaller.” She plans to stay in the neighborhood.

WHAT I’LL MISS: Mrs. Ariail says she will especially miss the library. “It’s a cozy evening room with a fireplace,” she says. She’ll also miss the garden and doubts she’ll have one of “this magnitude” at her next house.

WHAT I WON’T: The squirrels. Mrs. Ariail says they rip the blooms off the tulips and eat the bulbs. “They’re just fuzzy-tailed rodents,” she says. “The world is not perfect and they contribute to that fact.” Mrs. Ariail realizes that if she moves to somewhere else in the neighborhood there will still be squirrels, but notes that they won’t be the same squirrels.

COMPS: Nearby, a 5,192-square-foot home with four bedrooms and 5½ bathrooms is asking $5.9 million.

OTHERS SAY:
Babs Beckwith of McEnearney Associates says the house is well priced considering the size and the original features like the leaded glass windows. Carol Cleary, also of McEnearney Associates, has the listing and says the house is unique because of the quality of the restoration including the moldings and the garden. “The landscaping is perfection,” she says.

Write to Sarah Tilton at sarah.tilton@wsj.com

By KAREN WILKIN

Washington

The National Gallery of Art’s Dutch collection is among the glories of the nation. A steadily expanding, impressive group of Golden Age paintings—including more than a dozen splendid, securely attributed Rembrandts, four of the 30-odd surviving paintings by Johannes Vermeer and eight bravura efforts by Frans Hals—speaks to the discernment of the museum’s founding benefactors, especially Joseph E. Widener and Andrew W. Mellon, and to the acuity and indefatigable efforts of its current curator of northern baroque painting, Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. And we mustn’t forget all the wonderful works by artists such as Hendrick ter Brugghen, Hendrick Avercamp and Judith Leyster, plus a wealth of engaging genre scenes, still lifes, landscapes and marine pictures.

Yet rich as the collection is, two leading Amsterdam painters of the mid-17th century are not represented. There’s nothing by Govert Flinck (1615-1660), Rembrandt’s star pupil and later his competitor, nor by Bartholomeus van der Helst (1613-1670), Rembrandt’s rival for portrait commissions. Conspicuously absent, too, are the large group portraits commemorating the great and the good, so characteristic of the Dutch 17th century. Elsewhere in Europe, the church, the monarchy and the nobility were the leading patrons for art, but in mercantile, Protestant, Golden Age Holland that role was taken by civic and political leaders. Government types, officials of charitable organizations, guild administrators and members of militia companies regularly commissioned enormous paintings of themselves. Rembrandt’s celebrated “The Night Watch,” a deceptively casual depiction of a militia company on its rounds, is among the most innovative and powerful examples of the type; usually, the worthies are shown gathered around a table, as if at a meeting or taking part in some function. It’s not surprising, though, that no painting of this type can be seen in Washington. Of the hundreds of these commemorative works, almost all stayed in Holland, many still in the buildings for which they were originally commissioned.

Until now, that is. For the next five years, two spectacular group portraits, one by Flinck and one by van der Helst, both titled “Governors of the Kloveniersdoelen,” will be on view at the National Gallery, on loan from the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, and the Amsterdam Museum, respectively. Remarkably, the pair—the Flinck painted in 1642 and the van der Helst in 1655—both depict the governing board, at different periods, of the same institution: the headquarters of the Kloveniers—Harquebusiers—one of the military organizations, originally formed for defense, that functioned as an elite men’s club. The building had an adjacent shooting range, for target practice, but it was primarily a place for social gatherings. The Harquebusiers to whom it belonged held meetings and festivities there, civic officials rented the space for receptions and dinners, and, we learn, it also served as a public tavern. The governors—a lucrative, as well as an honorific position—were former officers in the Harquebusiers from Amsterdam’s best families; most of the distinguished gentlemen in the two paintings were members of the city council, three of them served as mayor, at various times, and many were related by what the accompanying brochure calls “strategic marriages over multiple generations.”

Both large, horizontal paintings show more or less life-size groups of soberly dressed men in broad-brimmed hats, seated at long tables covered with Turkish carpets. Both groups are shown in the midst of some sort of gathering, and in both pictures one governor turns to gaze at us. There the resemblance ends. Flinck gives us five grave men, four with silver beards and stern expressions; the fifth, no less stern but a little younger—someone’s son-in-law?—has only a dark mustache and a soul patch. Three wear old-style ruffs, while two sport up-to-date flat collars. It’s a serious occasion. The gavel rests on the table. The building’s administrator, hatless, presents the Kloveniers’ elaborately mounted ceremonial drinking horn. We are allowed to admire these dignitaries and note their measured gestures, but we are kept at a respectful distance. The steady rhythm of pale faces, paler linen and curving hands across the dark expanse adds to the solemn mood. Only the upward-reaching arc of the drinking horn and the deep red notes of the carpet and chairbacks provide counterpoint.

Van der Helst presents a lively quartet, with swooping black hats and stylish goatees. Far more convivial than their predecessors, they are shown in animated conversation, turning easily and gesturing energetically, fueled by food and drink. One squeezes lemon on an oyster; shells litter the floor; servants bring refills. The suavely painted protagonists fill the syncopated composition, pressing toward us. The hazily rendered servants—including a marvelous distant head of a boy—suggest transience, intensifying the sense of immediacy, while the glowing carpet and ruddy flesh tones, revealed by recent conservation, further animate the scene.

The differences between the two closely related pictures, painted about a decade apart, provoke interesting questions. Is the sobriety of Flinck’s subjects a response to the stress of the Thirty Years War? Does the informality of van der Helst’s group reflect a new sense of safety after the Dutch Republic finally achieved independence from Spain in 1648?

Perhaps the alteration in mood is a function of location. Flinck’s portrait was hung in the Great Hall of the Kloveniersdoelen, while van der Helst’s, for lack of space elsewhere, was installed in the dining room. Brought together at last, they both look wonderful at the National Gallery.

Ms. Wilkin writes about art for the Journal.

A version of this article appeared April 3, 2012, on page D7 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Washington Double Dutch.