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/)
*

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

The Twelve Caesars

De vita Caesarum (Penguin Classics, 2007)

by Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus (translated from the Latin by Robert Graves and James B. Rives)

c. 125

"Gaius made parents attend their sons' executions, and when one father excused himself on the ground of ill health he provided a litter for him. Having invited another father to dinner just after the son's execution, he overflowed with good fellowship in an attempt to make him laugh and joke. He watched the manager of his gladiatorial and wild-beast shows being flogged with chains for several days running, and had him killed only when the smell of suppurating brains became insupportable. A writer of Atellan farces was burned alive in the amphitheatre, because of a single line which had an amusing double entendre. One eques, on the point of being thrown to the wild beasts, shouted that he was innocent; Gaius brought him back, removed his tongue, and then ordered the sentence to be carried out." (The Twelve Caesars, p. 160)

Although I don't have much to say about Suetonius (c. 70 AD-c. 130 AD) that hasn't already been said before, I've got to give the guy at least a qualified thumbs-up for his "classic" status after finally getting around to reading The Twelve Caesars in its juicy entirety. While lacking Plutarch's psychological insights and Tacitus' biting way with words, these lurid imperial biographies of the Roman emperors from Julius Caesar on down to Domitian aren't without a certain scandalmongering charm. But what can you, the typical 21st-century book blogger with an inexplicable fondness for cheesy vampire novels, expect to derive from such a work? For one thing, this is as good a place as any to savor the anecdotal flavor of ancient biography in its raw and unrefined form (from a letter that Mark Antony sent to Augustus: "What has come over you? Do you object to my screwing Cleopatra? She's my wife, and it's not even as though this were anything new--the affair started nine years ago. And what about you? Is Livia Drusilla the only woman you screw? My congratulations if, when this letter arrives, you haven't screwed Tertulla or Terentilla or Rufilla or Salvia Titisenia or all of them. Does it really matter so much where or with whom you get off?" [83]). For that matter, the personal and political dirt dug up on all these masters of depravity provides plenty of lively reading moments in and of itself (i.e. the Caligula excerpt above, while extreme, is entirely typical). If Suetonius' attempts to balance the good and evil of his subjects' resumes sometimes seem a little formulaic, his persistent cataloging of an unforgettable series of "follies and crimes" (216) still casts a powerful spotlight on the Roman genius for the abuse of power at the highest levels. Too bad that other works of his such as On Abusive Words or Insults and Their Derivations and one titled On Notable Prostitutes no longer exist! (http://www.penguinclassics.com/)

Bartleby y compañía

Bartleby y compañía (Anagrama, 2001)
por Enrique Vila-Matas
España, 2000

"Nunca tuve suerte con las mujeres, soporto con resignación una penosa joroba, todos mis familiares más cercanos han muerto, soy un pobre solitario que trabaja en una oficina pavorosa. Por lo demás, soy feliz. Hoy más que nunca porque empiezo --8 de julio de 1999-- este diario que va a ser al mismo tiempo un cuaderno de notas a pie de página que comentarán un texto invisible y que espero que demuestren mi solvencia como rastreador de bartlebys". (Bartleby y compañía, 11)

Bartleby y compañía, llamado así por el personaje de Melville cuyo mantra de "preferiría no hacerlo" es la razón de ser de este libro, ofrece una divertida indagación de un tema bastante raro: el sinnúmero de autores que han dado la espalda a la literatura por renunciar a la escritura. Aunque todos los sospechosos de siempre (Rimbaud, Rulfo, Salinger) tienen sus momentos bajo el microscopio de metaficción del narrador jorobado, hay sorpresas agradables en abundancia en cuanto a los que, como Jacques Vaché, no son autores ("Vaché, paradigma del artista sin obras; está en todas las enciclopedias habiendo escrito tan sólo unas pocas cartas a André Breton y nada más" [74]) y a los que, como Paranoico Pérez, son entes ficticios de otros autores ("Paranoico Pérez no ha conseguido escribir nunca ningún libro, porque cada vez que tenía una idea para uno y se disponía a hacerlo, Saramago lo escribía antes que él. Paranoico Pérez ha acabo trastornado. Su caso es una variante interesante del síndrome de Bartleby" [135]). Mientras que pienso que Vila-Matas podría haber eligido escribir esta obra como una recopilación de ensayos literarios en vez de esta especie de antinovela al estilo de Borges y J. Rodolfo Wilcock, me imagino que su elección del género le dió la libertad máxima para parodiar el único territorio desconocido de la novela al amanecer del milenio nuevo: lo que su narrador clasifica como "la literatura del No" [12]. ¡Qué bien!

"'El arte es una estupidez', dijo Jacques Vaché, y se mató, eligió la vía rápida para convertirse en artista del silencio. En este libro no va a haber mucho espacio para bartlebys suicidas, no me interesan demasiado, pues pienso que en la muerte por propia mano faltan los matices, las sutiles invenciones de otros artistas --el juego, a fin de cuentas, siempre más imaginativo que el disparo en la sien-- cuando les llega la hora de justificar su silencio" (74). (http://www.anagrama-ed.es/)

Vila-Matas #1

*
Bartleby & Co. (New Directions, 2004)
by Enrique Vila-Matas (translated from the Spanish by Jonathan Dunne)
Spain, 2000

"I never had much luck with women. I have a pitiful hump, which I am resigned to. All my closest relatives are dead. I am a poor recluse working in a ghastly office. Apart from that, I am happy. Today most of all because, on this day 8 July 1999, I have begun this diary that is also going to be a book of footnotes commenting on an invisible text, which I hope will prove my reliability as a tracker of Bartlebys." (Bartleby & Co., 1)

Taking its name from the Melville character whose "I would prefer not to" mantra provides this book's reason for being and nothingness, Bartleby & Co. offers up a sly, endlessly entertaining look at the astonishing number of authors who have turned their backs on literature by giving up writing. While all the usual suspects (Rimbaud, Rulfo, Salinger) have their moment in the hunchbacked narrator's arch metafictional sun, surprises abound to the extent that you're just as likely to encounter a reference to a non-writer like Jacques Vaché ("Vaché, paradigm of the artist without works; he is listed in all the encyclopedias, though he wrote only a few letters to André Breton and nothing else" [68]) as you are to come across a story about a story about the fictional character who dreamed that Saramago was stealing all his ideas telepathically ["Paranoid Pérez never managed to write a single book because, each time he had an idea for one and resolved to do something about it, Saramago would write it before him. Paranoid Pérez ended up going round the bend. His case is an interesting variant of Bartleby's syndrome" [131]). Although I suspect that Vila-Matas could have just as easily chosen to write this Jorge Luis Borges and J. Rodolfo Wilcock-inspired "anti-novel" as a series of literary essays instead, his selection of this particular format prob. allowed him maximum freedom to spoof the medium's only uncharted road at the dawn of the new milennium: what his narrator refers to as "the literature of the No" [2]. Too funny!

"'Art is a stupidity,' said Jacques Vaché, and then he killed himself, choosing the quick way to become an artist of silence. There won't be much room in this book for suicide Bartlebys, I'm not too interested in them, since I think taking one's own life lacks the nuances, the subtle inventions of other artists--the game, in short, which is always more imaginative than a shot in the head--when called on to justify their silence" (68). (http://www.ndpublishing.com/)

"Vila-Matas" #1

Historia personal del "boom"

Historia personal del "boom" (Alfaguara, 2007)
por José Donoso
España, 1972 y 1987

Este libro es tan bueno que no hay palabras para describirlo. Aunque es mucho más que un anecdotario sobre aquella década de los años sesenta cuando Latinoamérica se convertió en uno de los epicentros del universo literario gracias a los éxitos de los autores del boom (Cortázar, Fuentes, García Márquez, Vargas Llosa, etcétera), la Historia personal de Donoso está llena de golosinas riquisímas sobre todas las figuras más destacadas de la época: la sesión de espiritimiso a la casa de las sobrinas de José Hernández, donde Jorge Luis Borges recitó estrofas de Martín Fierro durante un intento de "comunicar" con el muerto poeta gauchesco (43-44); las indignidades de la pobreza sufrió por Mario Vargas Llosa en Londres, donde el novelista lo pasó el tiempo escribiendo Conversación en La Catedral y "cazando las ratas que infestaban el piso" (70-71); una fiesta a la casa de Carlos Fuentes en México donde, entre los otros invitados, Gabriel García Márquez y Juan Rulfo mezclaron con varios extranjeros y starlets "del cine azteca" (112-114), etcétera, etc. Aunque Donoso naturalmente hace un esfuerzo por definir el "boom" en cuanto a sus límites temporales y en cuanto a los nombres que pudieran pertenecer a una lista de "miembros" del grupo, él insiste que lo que más le interesa es el acto de presentar su óptica personal acerca de todo lo que pasó durante aquellos años emocionantes. Por consiguiente, su libro tiene que ver con lo que significa ser escritor y con el amor de la literatura más que nada. Dos apéndices, uno escrito por la mujer de Donoso ("El 'boom' domestico") y otro escrito por Donoso mismo ("Diez años después") más tarde, ofrecen perspectivas distintas pero igualmente valiosas sobre las vidas hogareñas de todas las figuras mencionadas. En otras palabras, ¡una lectura interesantísima! (http://www.alfaguara.com/)
*
I can't say enough good things about this book. While it's more than just a collection of anecdotes about that decade in the '60s when Latin America became one of the epicenters of the literary universe thanks to the successes of the so-called "Boom" writers (i.e. Cortázar, Fuentes, García Márquez, Vargas Llosa, etc.), Donoso's Personal History is still full of all kinds of juicy tidbits about the Boom era's stars: the séance at the house of José Hernández' nieces where Jorge Luis Borges recited lines from the poem Martín Fierro during an attempt to "communicate with" the dead gaucho poet (43-44); the indignities of poverty suffered by Mario Vargas Llosa in London that saw the young novelist "hunting rats that infested the apartment" while trying to put the finishing touches on Conversation in the Cathedral (70-71); a party at Carlos Fuentes' house in Mexico City where Gabriel García Márquez and Juan Rulfo, among the other invited guests, mingled with various foreigners and starlets "of Mexican cinema" (112-114), etc., etc. Although Donoso naturally makes some efforts to provide a framework for the Boom both in time and with a list of authors that might be said to belong to the group, he insists that he's more interested in presenting his personal views on all the exciting things that transpired at that time rather than arriving at a clinical definition per se. Because of this, his book is much more about talking shop about the writing life and celebrating the love of literature than anything else. Two appendices, one written by Donoso's wife ("The Domestic Boom") and the other written by Donoso himself ("10 Years Later") later on, offer different but equally worthwhile perspectives on the family lives of all the writers mentioned. In other words, an incredibly interesting read! (http://www.alfaguara.com/)

José Donoso

Biografía (desde la cubierta)/Biography (from the inside cover)

Nació en Santiago, Chile, en 1924. Estudió en la Universidad de Chile y luego en Princeton, Estados Unidos. Entre 1967 y 1981 vivió en España, donde escribió algunas de sus novelas más importantes y se consolidó como una figura central del boom latinoamericano. Tras su regreso a Chile en 1981, dirigió por varios años un taller literario que jugó un rol fundamental en la gestación de la "nueva narrativa chilena". Entre otras distinciones, obtuvo el Premio de la Crítica en España, el Premio Mondello en Italia y el Premio Roger Caillois en Francia. En 1995 fue condecorado con la Gran Cruz del Mérito Civil, otorgada por el Consejo de Ministros de España. José Donoso murió en Santiago de Chile, en diciembre de 1996.//José Donoso was born in Santiago, Chile, in 1924. He studied at the University of Chile and then at Princeton University in the United States. He lived in Spain between 1967 and 1981, where he wrote some of his most important novels and consolidated himself as a central figure in the Latin American "Boom." After his return to Chile in 1981, he conducted a literary workshop for several years that played a fundamental role in the birth of the "new Chilean narrative." Among other distinctions, he received the Critics' Prize in Spain, the Mondello Prize in Italy and the Roger Caillois Prize in France. In 1995 he was decorated with the Great Cross of Civil Merit awarded by Spain's cabinet. José Donoso died in Santiago de Chile in December of 1996 [my translation].

Note: I haven't seen the U.S. version of it myself, but apparently there's a 1977 translation of Historia personal del "boom" available under the title The Boom in Spanish American Literature: A Personal History (translated by Gregory Kolovakos for Columbia University Press). It'd be worth checking out for sure, but you wouldn't want to miss the two "epilogues" from the Spanish edition either.

I Am NOT a Magic Realist!

Alberto Fuguet (1964-)

Magical realism, a style beloved by some and loathed by others, continues to dominate many people's perception of what Latin American literature is all about. For an interesting response to this situation from the perspective of a non-magic realist Lat Am writer, make sure you check out Alberto Fuguet's amusing "I am not a magic realist!" (written in good old-fashioned English) here. P.S. While this post saves me the trouble of writing up an actual review of it tonight, I'll be scribbling something about José Donoso's entertaining Historia personal del "boom" sometime soon. Great book!

Amuleto

Amuleto (Anagrama, 2007)
por Roberto Bolaño
España, 1999

"Yo soy la amiga de todos los mexicanos. Podría decir: soy la madre de la poesía mexicana, pero mejor no lo digo. Yo conozco a todos los poetas y todos los poetas me conocen a mí. Así que podría decirlo. Podría decir: soy la madre y corre un céfiro de la chingada desde hace siglos, pero mejor no lo digo. Podría decir, por ejemplo: yo conocí a Arturito Belano cuando él tenía diecesiete años y era un niño tímido que escribía obras de teatro y poesía y no sabía beber, pero sería de algún modo una redundancia y a mí me enseñaron (con un látigo me enseñaron, con una vara de fierro) que las redundancias sobran y que sólo debe bastar con el argumento.

Lo que sí puedo decir es mi nombre". --Amuleto, p. 11

No sé donde empezar con esta novelita corta, pero supongo que debo notar que el personaje que habla arriba se llama Auxilio Lacouture y es uruguaya de nacimiento. Al mencionar el hecho de que Auxilio es la narradora uruguaya de una obra ambientada en México y escrita por un chileno que vivía en España, sólo quiero subrayar la idea de que Amuleto tiene que ver con asuntos latinoamericanos tanto con asuntos mexicanos. O sea, que el agujero negro de su desesperación es de alcance internacional. Construida como una obra testimonial en primera persona, la narración ofrece una visión traumatizada de los trece días que Auxilio pasó "encerrada en el lavabo de mujeres de la cuarta planta de la Facultad de Filosofía y Letras en septiembre de 1968" (51): en otras palabras, los recuerdos de una testiga a los días sangrientos de '68 cuando centenares de personas perdieron las vidas a las manos de los granaderos y tanques del gobierno de México. Aunque no voy a decirles lo que la pobrecita vi durante ese período, Bolaño lo logra con su don de diálogo (Auxilio sobre un joven escritor: "la novela era mala, pero él era bueno" [39]), sus sorpresitas cuentísticas (el capítulo donde la narradora, sufriendo de escalofríos, hace pronósticos raros sobre el futuro de varios autores es divertidísimo), y una protagonista tan "fidedigna" en cuanto a sus fragilidades humanas que casi salta de las páginas del libro. Aunque uno nunca está seguro si Auxilio es un poco loquita o borracha además de ser aterrorizada por sus experiencias a UNAM, esta incertidumbre no disminuye el horror de una historia en la cual México, DF parece convertirse en la boca del infierno de una generación entera. En resumen, otra obra maestra total por parte de Bolaño. (http://www.anagrama-ed.es/)
*
Amulet (New Directions hardcover, 2006)
by Roberto Bolaño (translated from the Spanish by Chris Andrews)
Spain, 1999

"I am a friend to all Mexicans. I could say I am the mother of Mexican poetry, but I better not. I know all the poets and all the poets know me. So I could say it. I could say one mother of a zephyr is blowing down the centuries, but I better not. For example, I could say I knew Arturito Belano when he was a shy seventeen-year-old who wrote plays and poems and couldn't hold his liquor, but in a sense it would be superfluous and I was taught (they taught me with a lash and with a rod of iron) to spurn all superfluities and tell a straightforward story.

What I can say is my name." Amulet, pp. 1-2

I'm not sure where to begin with this short little novel, but I guess I should note that the name of the character speaking above is Auxilio Lacouture and that she's an Uruguayan by birth. On mentioning the fact that Auxilio is the Uruguayan narrator of a work set in Mexico that was written by a Chilean who was then living in Spain, I only wish to draw your attention to the idea that Amulet has to do with Latin American matters as much as Mexican ones. Or rather, that the black hole of its despair is international in scope. Constructed as a work of first-person testimonial literature, the narrative offers up a traumatized vision of the thirteen days that Auxilio spent "shut up in the women's bathroom on the fourth floor of the faculty of Philosophy and Literature in September 1968" (54)--in other words, the memories of a witness to those bloody days in '68 when hundreds of people lost their lives at the hands of the Mexican government's tanks and riot police. Although I'm not going to spell out just what the poor creature saw during that time period, Bolaño pulls it off with his gift for dialogue (Auxilio on a young writer: "The novel was bad, but he was good" [38]), his little storytelling surprises (the chapter where the narrator, suffering from feverish chills, makes weird predictions about the future of various authors is totally entertaining), and a protagonist so "lifelike" in regards to her human frailties that she almost leaps out of the pages of the book. Although one's never sure if Auxilio's character is a little crazy or drunk in addition to just being terrorized from her experiences at UNAM, this uncertainty doesn't lessen the horror of a story in which Mexico City seems to transform itself into the mouth of hell for an entire generation. In short, another complete masterpiece from Bolaño. (http://www.ndpublishing.com/)

Bolaño

Note: This review is based on the original Spanish version of the novel. Although I've only read selected chapters from Chris Andrews' New Directions translation, I've borrowed his translations here to give non-Spanish speakers a taste of Bolaño in English.

The Taking of Power by Louis XIV

La prise de pouvoir par Louis XIV (Criterion DVD, 2008)
Directed by Roberto Rossellini
France, 1966
In French with English subtitles

For an altogether different take on the accumulation of power and wealth from an Italian filmmaker, you could do a whole lot worse than to sit down with this Roberto Rossellini-directed period piece originally produced for French TV in 1966. While Louis XIV has all the bad hair and gaudy finery of a generic costume drama, Rossellini's approach is anything but pedestrian. Drawing a Machiavelli-like bead on the 17th-century king's gradual transformation from a fun-loving mama's boy into the monarch who really stuck it to the French aristocracy, the director craftily constructs a meditation on both the nature and the trappings of power that's way more interesting than the silly looking photo below might lead you to believe. Since pudgy, non-professional actor Jean-Marie Patte is something of a revelation as the Sun King, an unexpected bonus from the extra features on this disc is learning how Rossellini channeled Patte's on-camera jitters and inability to remember his lines into a performance that's something special--how funny to think that what looks like supremely regal indifference on Louis XIV's part might be largely due to stage fright from the actor playing him! A minor gem. (http://www.criterion.com/)

Clothes make the man: Louis XIV at Versailles