Respiración artificial

Respiración artificial (Anagrama, 2008)
por Ricardo Piglia
Argentina, 1980

"¿Hay una historia?" (Respiración artificial, p. 13)

¡Qué librazo! Escrita y publicada en plena dictadura militar, Respiración artificial hace frente al problema de "cómo narrar los eventos reales" (19) por desafiar al lector a que lea entre líneas para comprender todo lo que pasa dentro de la novela. Aunque un resumen del argumento va a ser inadecuado en cuanto a la originalidad y la riqueza de la obra, lo esencial tiene que ver con la correspondencia a larga distancia entre un tal Emilio Renzi, un novelista apolítico de la capital, y su tío Marcelo Maggi, un historiador con simpatías izquierdistas que vive en provincias. Cuando éste desaparece sin motivo, la historia familiar se convierte en otra cosa enteramente: la búsqueda de respuestas en un mundo donde el libro en que trabajaba Maggi, una biografía sobre Enrique Ossorio (el controvertido "traidor" y "patriota" del siglo XIX argentino), parece sacar a luz a todos los males de la llamada "realidad nacional" del presente. Si este esboso mío te parece un poco seco o pesado, no te preocupes. La pura verdad es que Piglia te engancha con su audacidad narrativa (un texto que se revela como un híbrido de la novela epistolar, la novela policíaca, y una obra de crítica literaria que es sumamente provocadora), un estilo elíptico, y un reparto maravilloso que a veces parece anticipar a los personajes de Bolaño y Vila-Matas con sus debates desenfrenados sobre la literatura y la vida (Arlt contra Borges, Joyce contra Kafka, etc.). En resumen, ¡un libro de puta madre! (http://www.anagrama-ed.es/)
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Artificial Respiration (Duke University Press, 1994)

by Ricardo Piglia (translated from the Spanish by Daniel Balderston)

Argentina, 1980

"Is there a story?" (Artificial Respiration, p. 11)

Wow, what a book! Written and published during the middle of Argentina's military dictatorship, Artificial Respiration (Respiración artificial) bravely takes on the problem of "how to narrate real events" (17) by challenging the reader to read between the lines to understand all that's going on within the confines of the novel. Although any summary of the work will fail to do justice to its originality and richness, a skeletal outline of the plot has to do with the long-distance correspondence between Emilio Renzi, an apolitical novelist from Buenos Aires, and his uncle, Marcelo Maggi, a historian with leftist sympathies who lives out in the provinces. When the latter disappears for no apparent reason, the family drama morphs into something else entirely: the search for answers in a world where the book that Maggi has been working on, a biography of the controversial 19th-century Argentinean "traitor" and "patriot" Enrique Ossorio, may shed all too much light on the horrors of the so-called "national reality" of the present. If this sounds like dry and tedious reading, not to worry. Piglia hooks you in with his narrative audacity (a text that reads like an epistolary novel, a detective story, and a provocative piece of literary criticism all rolled into one), an elliptical style, and a marvelous cast of characters that sometimes seems to anticipate the creations of Bolaño and Vila-Matas with their delirious debates about literature and life (Arlt vs. Borges, Joyce vs. Kafka, etc.). In short, a great fucking book! (http://www.dukeupress.edu/)

Ricardo Piglia