Hombre de la Esquina Rosada

"Hombre de la Esquina Rosada"
por Jorge Luis Borges
Argentina, 1935

En el principio: "A mí, tan luego, hablarme del finado Francisco Real".
Temas: El honor, el orgullo, la valentía, la violencia.

A pesar del hecho de que hay otros cuentos de Borges que parecen ser más, ¿cómo se dice?, borgesianos que "Hombre de la Esquina Rosada", ya tengo una debilidad por esta obra suya atípica. Con una hermosa unión de lo oral y lo visual, el joven Borges logró crear un retrato histórico-mítico de la ciudad de Buenos Ayres en los días de los compadritos a principios del siglo XX. A diferencia de otros relatos de Borges, el lenguaje empleado por el narrador está marcado por su tono prostibulario y por su uso del lunfardo: un intento de reflejar el habla de los porteños en el caló de aquel entonces. Además de este proyecto oral, Borges también consigue obtenir algunos efectos que sugiere la pintura por medio de una extensa utilización de colores dentro de la narración. Aunque el argumento tiene que ver con un misterio manchado de sangre (¿Quién mató a Francisco Real?), no se preocupen por la violencia. En lugar de eso, ¡que se diviertan mucho en el color local y lo sabroso de un relato donde Borges se introduce sí mismo como un personaje importante!

Fuente: Historia universal de la infamia. Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 2008, 89-103.
*
"Man on Pink Corner"
by Jorge Luis Borges
Argentina, 1935

In the beginning: "Imagine you bringing up Francisco Real that way, out of the clear blue sky, him dead and gone and all." (translated by Andrew Hurley)
Themes: Honor, pride, bravery, violence.

In spite of the fact that there are other short stories by Borges that are probably more, dare I say, Borgesian than "Hombre de la Esquina Rosada" ("Man on Pink Corner"), I still have a weakness for this somewhat atypical tale of his. With a beautiful marriage of orality and a keen visual sensibility, the young Borges managed to create a mythical-historical portrait of the city of old Buenos Ayres in the days of the compadritos (neighborhood hoodlums often celebrated in early tango songs) somewhere around the beginning of the 20th century. Unlike other works by Borges, the language employed by the narrator is notable for its brothel-like vocabulary and insistent use of lunfardo (Buenos Aires slang)--an intent to reflect the speech of the porteños in the vernacular of the time. In addition to the work's oral emphasis, Borges also manages to bring about effects reminiscent of painting by means of an extensive use of colors within the narrative. While the plot has to do with a rather bloodstained mystery (Who killed Francisco Real?), don't worry about the violence. Instead, sit back and enjoy the regional color and juiciness of a story in which Borges himself makes a surprise appearance as an important character!

Source: A Universal History of Iniquity (Jorge Luis Borges, translated by Andrew Hurley). New York: Penguin Classics, 2001, 55-64.

2666: La parte de Fate

Nota #3 sobre el read-along de 2666, con todas las malas traducciones mías.

(Note #3 on the 2666 read-along with all awkward translations mine.)

"El futuro es nuestro, por prepotencia de trabajo. Crearemos nuestra literatura, no conversando continuamente de literatura, sino escribiendo en orgullosa soledad libros que encierran la violencia de un 'cross' a la mandíbula". (Roberto Arlt, introducción a Los lanzallamas, 1931)

"Y entonces pactaron una pelea contra Arthur Ashley, en Los Ángeles, no sé si alguno vio esa pelea, yo sí, a Arthur Ashley lo llamaban Art el Sádico. El mote se lo ganó en esa pelea. Del pobre Hércules Carreño no quedó nada. Ya desde el primer round se vio que aquello iba a ser una carnecería. Art el Sádico boxeaba tomándose todo el tiempo del mundo, sin ninguna prisa, buscando el sitio exacto donde colocar sus ganchos, haciendo rounds monográficos, el tercero dedicado únicamente al rostro, el cuarto dedicado únicamente al hígado". (Roberto Bolaño, 2666, p. 366)
*
"The future is ours by dint of hard work. We'll create our own literature not by speaking of literature ad nauseam but by writing books in proud solitude that harness all the violence of a cross to the jaw." (Roberto Arlt, introduction to The Flamethrowers, 1931)

"And then they made a deal for a fight against Arthur Ashley, in Los Angeles. I don't know if anybody saw that fight, I did, but they used to call Arthur Ashley 'Art the Sadist.' He got the nickname in that fight. There was nothing left of poor old Hércules Carreño. Even in the first round, you could see it was going to be a slaughter. Art the Sadist boxed taking all the time in the world, in no hurry, searching for the exact spot where to land his hooks, making rounds that were like monographs, the third dedicated entirely to the face, the fourth dedicated entirely to the liver." (Roberto Bolaño, 2666, p. 366)

PANTERAS NEGRAS. Me encanta este libro. Guiñando el ojo al lector, Bolaño se distancia de los estilos narrativos de La parte de los críticos y La parte de Amalfitano para dedicar un round "monográfico" a una especie de hiperperiodismo acerca de un tal Oscar Fate: periodista norteamericano de Harlem que viaja a Santa Teresa para hacer un reportaje sobre una partido de boxeo entre el americano Count Pickett y el mexicano Merolino Fernández. Aunque no quiero entrar en los detalles en este momento, el hecho de que Fate (una palabra que significa el destino en inglés) es un personaje afroamericano hace alusión a la creciente dimensión multinacional de algunos de los temas secundarios de 2666: la injusticia social, la liberación, la esclavitud, etcétera. Y dado que Fate escribe para la revista neoyorquina Amanacer Negro, su periodismo nos introduce a un personaje que me fascinó por completo: Barry Seaman, uno de los dos miembros fundadores del partido Panteras Negras.

BLACK PANTHERS. I love this book. With a little wink at the reader, Bolaño distances himself from the narrative styles of The Part About the Critics and The Part About Amalfitano by dedicating a "monograph study" of a round of a sort of hyper-journalism to one Oscar Fate: a journalist from Harlem who travels to Santa Teresa to report on a boxing match between the American Count Pickett and the Mexican Merolino Fernández. Although I don't want to go into the details at this time, the fact that Fate (a name that doesn't have any symbolic meaning for Spanish speakers when not translated into its Spanish equivalent of destino) is an African-American character has at least something to do with the increasingly multinational nature of some of 2666's secondary themes: social injustice, liberation, slavery, etc. And since Fate writes for a New York review called Black Dawn, his journalistic career introduces us to a character who completely fascinated me: Barry Seaman, one of the two founding members of the Black Panther Party.

BALLENAS BLANCAS. El personaje de Seaman, por supuesto, está modelado sobre Bobby Seale, cofundador con Huey Newton de los Negras Panteras en 1966. Pero en La parte de Fate, el doble ficticio del Pantera histórico pronuncia un gran discurso que me parece una proeza por parte de Bolaño. Corriendo alrededor de 15 páginas, el discurso de Seaman funciona como un primer plano del cine con el personaje hablando sobre su vida en una toma larga. Tratando de cinco temas (PELIGRO, DINERO, COMIDA, ESTRELLAS, UTILIDAD), Seaman habla de todos de manera bastante inesperada. Aunque sospecho que esta escena tendrá sus detractores, me gustó el desarrollo de los temas por el personaje (un poco disparatado a veces) tanto como el hecho de que la oración pasó en tiempo "real" (la versión director's cut en vez de la versión abreviada usual). También me gustó la genialidad de Bolaño. En una escena extendida que le permite al lector ser un escuchador escondido --o sea, en un pasaje que hace el alarde de ser "realista" en extremo grado en cuanto a la escritura-- al mismo tiempo el autor reconoce los límites de su oficio. Escondido dentro del tema de PELIGRO, hay un hermoso retrato de los Panteras al mar en el flor de su juventud donde un amigo de Seaman no puede hablar porque está estupefacto con felicidad: "Entonces yo me acerco a Marius y le digo vámonos de aquí ahora mismo. Y en ese momento Marius se da la vuelta y me mira. Está sonriendo. Está más alla. Y me indica el mar con una mano, porque es incapaz de expresar con palabras lo que siente. Y entonces yo me asusto, aunque es mi hermano a quien tengo a mi lado, y pienso: el mar es el peligro" (316). También me gustó cómo la escena mezcló la aparencia de realidad con un paralelo literario. No soy el primer decirlo, por supuesto, pero la larga oración de Seaman tiene un antecedente en la novela Moby-Dick de Herman Melville (foto, arriba) donde un capítulo entero está dedicado a un sermón dado por un tal Father Mapple. Aunque Seaman (lo que significa la palabra marinero en inglés) no habla de los mismos asuntos del fraile de Melville, parece claro que su mensaje funciona como el mismo tipo de bendición para Fate que la de Father Mapple hace para los marineros del libro de Melville (no es sorprendente que Bolaño haya sido un aficcionado al clásico de la literatura norteamericana). ¿Que va a pasar a Fate en su viaje a Santa Teresa? ¿Y que significa cuando Seaman le dice a su audiencia en la iglesia, "El mar es el peligro"? ¿Que lo que nos atrae es peligroso?

WHITE WHALES. Seaman's character, of course, is patterned after Bobby Seale, a cofounder of the Black Panthers with Huey Newton in 1966. But in The Part About Fate, the fictitious double of the real life Panther makes this great speech that's nothing short of a tour de force on Bolaño's part. Running about 15 pages in my copy of the book, Seaman's speech is like a movie's close-up of the guy talking on and on about his life in one long take. Dealing with five themes (DANGER, MONEY, FOOD, STARS, USEFULNESS), Seaman goes off on all sorts of unexpected tangents. Although I suspect the scene will have its fair share of detractors, I loved the character's exposition of his themes (a little wacky at times) as much as the fact that the speech seemed to take place in real time (i.e. the director's cut of the scene rather than the usual compressed version). I also thought Bolaño did something really inspired here. In an extended scene that permits the reader to feel like a bit of an eavesdropper to an actual speech (that is, a passage where attention to detail seems to boast of the utmost in "realism"), the author actually acknowledges the shortcomings of his métier. Hidden within the discourse on DANGER, there's a beautiful word portrait of the Panthers at the beach in the prime of their youth where a friend of Seaman's can't talk at all because he's overcome with joy: "Then I go up to Marius, and I tell him let's get out of here right now. And at that moment, Marius turns around and looks at me. He's smiling. He's in another world. And he shows me the sea with his hand because he can't express how he feels with words. And then I got scared, even though he's my brother and I had him at my side, and I think: the sea is the danger." I also liked how this scene mixed apparent reality with a literary parallel. I'm not the first one to point this out, of course, but Seaman's long speech has a sort of spiritual ancestor in Herman Melville's Moby-Dick (photo of Melville, above), where an entire chapter is dedicated to a speech given by a chaplain named Father Mapple. Although Seaman (the mariner link in the name is lost in the original Spanish) doesn't exactly talk about the same things as Father Mapple, it seems clear that his message performs the same sort of benediction-like function for Fate as Father Mapple's does for Melville's sailors (then again, maybe this shouldn't be surprising given Bolaño's appreciation for the American classic). What's going to happen to Fate on his journey to Santa Teresa? And what does it mean when Seaman tells his church audience that the danger is the sea? That that which attracts us is what's dangerous?

JAZZ DE SONORA. Volviendo a lo que mencioné acerca del hiperperiodismo de La parte de Fate, debo aclarar que no quiero simplificar demasiado. Mientras que esta parte del mamotreto que es 2666 parece más "periodística" que o la primera parte (juguetona) o la segunda parte (¡geométrica!), ya queda el vaivén entre la realidad y la irrealidad (o la realidad y otra realidad: ¿alguien ha notado esa escena espectacular donde Fate sueña con el tipo Scottsboro Boy y un reportero habla sobre "la larga lista de mujeres asesinadas en Santa Teresa" (328) al mismo tiempo en la televisión?). No voy a hablar del nexo entre la literatura y el cine en esta sección, por ejemplo, aunque me parece un tema fascinante. Ni voy a hablar de los reflejos exactos (las dos Oscar, las dos Rosa) que están multiplicando en frecuencia: aunque mi favorito de las "coincidencias" cuentísticas es el momento cuando, antes de la pelea, Fate ve algunos carteles apegados al Pabellón Arena del Norte "que anunciaban conciertos de música, bailes populares, incluso el cartel de un circo que se hacía llamar Circo Internacional" (384)...el mismo circo donde los críticos y Amalfitano buscaban a Archimboldi anteriormente). En lugar de eso, me gustaría brindar por la inventiva de un autor que escribió con su propio ritmo y estilo, la escritura de que se lee cómo un "cross" a la mandíbula.

PD: Tengo muchas ganas de continuar con La parte de los crímenes en agosto. Por eso, les recomendo el excelente trabajo de Sergio Gónzalez Rodríguez, Huesos en el desierto, a los que están interesados en una obra de no-ficción sobre el asunto de los asesinatos en Ciudad Juárez.

SONORAN JAZZ. Returning to what I mentioned earlier about The Part About Fate's hyper-journalism, I probably should clarify that I don't mean to oversimplify things here. While this section of the doorstopper that is 2666 seems more "journalistic" than either the first part (which was more playful) or the second part (which was more geometrical!), the oscillation between reality and unreality still remains (or reality and another reality: did anybody else notice that spectacular scene where Fate dreams about the guy known as Scottsboro Boy at the same time as a reporter delivers a piece on "the long list of women murdered in Santa Teresa" [328] on the television in the background?). I'm not going to speak about the links between literature and film here, for example, although it certainly would make for a fascinating theme. Nor am I going to speak of the increasing amount of mirror images (the two Oscars, the two Rosas) to be found: although my favorite storytelling "coincidence" is the one where, before the fight, Fate notices some posters pasted on the Pabellón Arena del Norte "that were announcing music concerts, dances, even the poster of a circus that was calling itself the International Circus" (384)...the same circus where the critics and Amalfitano were looking for Archimboldi in part one. Instead, I'd like to toast the inventiveness of a writer who wrote with his own rhythm and style--the result of which was writing that reads like a cross to the jaw.

P.S. I'm very eager to continue on with The Part About the Crimes in August. Because of that, I'd like to recommend Sergio González Rodríguez' excellent study, Bones in the Desert [Huesos en el desierto], to any of you Spanish-readers out there interested in a nonfiction work on the Ciudad Juárez killings.

Jakob von Gunten

Jakob von Gunten (NYRB Classics, 1999)
by Robert Walser (translated from the German by Christopher Middleton)
Germany, 1909

"One learns very little here, there is a shortage of teachers, and none of us boys of the Benjamenta Institute will come to anything, that is to say, we shall all be something very small and subordinate later in life. The instruction that we enjoy consists mainly in impressing patience and obedience upon ourselves, two qualities that promise little success, or none at all. Inward successes, yes. But what does one get from such as these? Do inward acquisitions give one food to eat? I would like to be rich, to ride in coaches and squander money. I have discussed this with Kraus, my school-friend, but he only shrugged his shoulders in scorn and did not honor me with a single word of reply. Kraus has principles, he sits firmly in the saddle, he rides satisfaction, and that is a horse which people should not mount if they want to do some galloping." (Jakob von Gunten, 3-4)

I don't think I'd even heard of the Swiss Walser up until about a year or so ago, but Vila-Matas' championing of him in Bartleby & Co. and his Bolaño-like status in some of my favorite blogs* finally got my attention. While the exceptional Jakob von Gunten certainly lives up to all the hype, it's an odd book to get a handle on--how does one explain the merits of a work purporting to be the diary entries of a student in a boarding school for servants? Part of the answer has to do with Walser's spare, utilitarian prose (eminently believable), but a larger part has to do with the title character himself (a teenaged dreamer who shares Rimbaud's disdain for European culture and capacity for being out of sync with his own self). If Jakob's experiences at the Benjamenta Institute seem to drift between reality and unreality with unsettling ease, his narrative voice is so convincing that I frequently worried about what was going to happen next. Of course, what often happened is that some transcendent dream sequence would appear that was completely startling or lovely or both. Walser himself later gave up writing and spent the last years of his life in various mental institutions; when asked why he didn't write anymore, he famously told one visitor, "I am not here to write, but to be mad." This novel does justice to that same level of disconcerting honesty and self-awareness. (http://www.nyrb.com/)
*
Jakob von Gunten (NYRB Classics, 1999)
por Robert Walser (traducido del alemán por Christopher Middleton)
Alemania, 1909

No creo que había oído del suizo Walser hasta más o menos un año atrás, pero él por fin me llamó la atención después de que yo leí el elogio por Vilas-Matas en Bartleby y compañía y otros comentarios parecidos por algunos de mis blogueros preferidos.* Aunque es verdad que Jakob von Gunten merece su fama como un libro excepcional, ya es un poco difícil describirlo: ¿cómo explicar los méritos de una obra que pretende ser el diario de un estudiante de un internado para criados? Una parte de la respuesta tiene que ver con la prosa de Walser que es sencilla, utilitaria, y creíble al mismo tiempo. No obstante, la mejor parte del libro tiene que ver con el protagonista, un soñador adolescente que comparte el desprecio de Rimbaud por la cultura europea (y, a veces, por sí mismo: es un poco "desincronizado" con su época). Si las experiencias de Jakob al Instituto Benjamenta parecen fluir entre la realidad y la irrealidad con una facilidad inquietante, la voz narrativa del personaje fue tan convincente que yo frecuentamente tenía miedo de lo que iba a pasar. Por supuesto, lo que pasó con frecuencia es que una secuencia onírica transcendente aparecería para sorprenderme con su calidad asombrosa y/o lírica. Walser más tarde le dio la espalda a la escritura, y pasó los últimos años de su vida en varios manicomios; cuando un visitante le preguntó por qué había dejado escribir, Walser le dijo: "No estoy acá para escribir sino para estar loco". Esta novela está a la altura del mismo nivel de desconcertante franqueza. (http://www.nyrb.com/)

"Since I have been at the Benjamenta Institute I have already contrived to become a mystery to myself. Even I have been infected by a quite remarkable feeling of satisfaction, which I never knew before. I obey tolerably well, not so well as Kraus, who has a masterly understanding of how to rush forward helterskelter for commands to obey. In one thing we pupils are all similar, Kraus, Schacht, Schilinski, Fuchs, Beanpole Peter, and me, all of us--and that is in our complete poverty and dependence. We are small, small all the way down the scale to utter worthlessness. If anyone owns a single mark in pocket money, he is regarded as a privileged prince. If anyone smokes cigarettes, as I do, he arouses concern about the wastefulness in which he is indulging. We wear uniforms. Now, the wearing of uniforms simultaneously humiliates and exalts us. We look like unfree people, and that is possibly a disgrace, but we also look nice in our uniforms, and that sets us apart from the deep disgrace of those people who walk around in their very own clothes but in torn and dirty ones. To me, for instance, wearing a uniform is very pleasant because I never did know, before, what clothes to put on. But in this, too, I am a mystery to myself for the time being. Perhaps there is a very commonplace person inside me. But perhaps I have aristocratic blood in my veins. I don't know. But one thing I do know for certain: in later life I shall be a charming, utterly spherical zero. As an old man I shall have to serve young and confident and badly educated ruffians, or I shall be a beggar, or I shall perish." (Jakob von Gunten, 4-5)

Robert Walser, 1905

*Gracias a Ever, Katrina y Mariano (entre otros) por introducirme a Walser. Se puede encontrar la reseña de Katrina sobre Jakob von Gunten aquí.

Las fieras

"Las fieras"
por Roberto Arlt
Argentina, 1933

Cómo empieza la cosa: "No te diré nunca cómo fui hundiéndome, día tras día, entre los hombres perdidos, ladrones y asesinos y mujeres que tienen la piel del rostro más áspera que cal agrietada. A veces, cuando reconsidero la latitud a que he llegado, siento que en mi cerebro se mueven grandes lienzos de sombra, camino cómo un sonámbulo y el proceso de mi descomposición me parece engastado en la arquitectura de un sueño que nunca occurrió" (19).
Temas: El crimen, la venalidad, el castigo, la traición, la ferocidad.

No he leído mucho de Arlt hasta ahora (algunas aguafuertes porteñas y el principio delirante de Los siete locos), pero estoy empezando a creer que el tipo va a convertirse en uno de mis verdaderas obsesiones. A ver si puedo explicarlo. Aunque "Las fieras" falta el salvaje sentido de humor de otras obras del escritor, es una sumamente interesante especie de milonga sentimental en prosa narrada por un cafishio a su ex-mujer. ¿Costumbrismo? ¡A otro perro con ese hueco! Arlt es uno de esos autores que escribe con un lanzallama, y en este relato sobre el crimen y el autoengaño él nos lleva de la mano al infierno de los rufianes con evocaciones gráficas de la prostitución de menores, la violación homosexual, y la violencia de las pistolas automáticas. No, nada de costumbrismo por acá, boludo. Al mismo tiempo, la confesión sentimental del narrador, un hombre que siempre ha vivido de la explotación de las mujeres pero que se cree superior a las otras fieras enjauladas en la misma vida de bazofía humana de los demás, llama la atención a la frontera "transparente" entre la sociedad de los honrados y la sociedad de los bajos fondos por medio de un truco genial: las escenas retrospectivas, provocadas por la memoria de un amor "imposible" y ahora perdido, están narradas desde el otro lado de la vidriera de un café que se llama Ambos Mundos. Una rara pero impresionante mezcla de sentimentalidad, sordidez, y desilusión que se destaca por la vitalidad de su prosa y la inexorable angustia de su cosmovisión.

"Por Tacuara conocí los prostíbulos más espantosos de provincias. Aquellos en que la pieza no tiene cama, sino un jergón de chala tirado en el suelo de ladrillos, y mujeres con labios perforados de chancros sifilíticos. He comido sopa de locro y he bailado tangos más siniestros que agonías en las salas tan inmensas como cuadras de un cuartel. Había allí bancos de madera sin cepillar y en los rincones negras sosteniendo con un brazo a un recién nacido a quien amamantaban con un pecho, mientras que para no perder tiempo con la mano libre le desprendían los pantalones a un ebrio rijoso" (22).

Fuente: Las fieras: Antología del género policial en la Argentina (selección y prólogo de Ricardo Piglia). Buenos Aires: Alfaguara, 1999, 17-32. O véase el cuento en línea aquí.

Camilleri vs. Gadda, Damn It!

The Shape of Water [La forma dell'acqua] (Viking Penguin, 2002)
by Andrea Camilleri (translated from the Italian by Stephen Sartarelli)
Italy, 1994

That Awful Mess on the Via Merulana [Quer pasticciaccio brutto de via Merulana] (NYRB Classics, 2007)
by Carlo Emilio Gadda (translated from the Italian by William Weaver)
Italy, 1946 & 1957

Whilst the Jane Austen-and-Brontë sisters wing of the US blog mafia might lead you to believe that no new literature of note has been published outside of the United Kingdom since about the middle of the 19th-century, I'd like to spend a few moments on a pair of 20th-century Italian novels anyway. Please bear with me. After a long wait to sample one of his highly-touted Inspector Montalbano mysteries, I finally read Andrea Camilleri's surprisingly gritty The Shape of Water (the first in the Montalbano series) in a couple of sittings recently. It was a good taut weekend read, well-written, with appropriate nods to fellow Sicilian scribes Giuseppe di Lampedusa and Leonardo Sciascia, but it seemed like more of a high-octane genre workout to me than anything special. I mean, I'd read another work of his in a minute if I needed something to while away the time while traveling, but for right now the most impressive thing about Mr. Camilleri as an author is his undeniable resemblance to cable TV icon Junior Soprano! I finished Carlo Emilio Gadda's That Awful Mess on the Via Merulana a day later, a bit of misleading symmetry on the book-finishing front since I'd started the novel a month or so prior to The Shape of Water and I can't think of any actors that Gadda even remotely resembles. Although the Milanese Gadda's halting, deliberately digressionary style made it a lot more slow-going a reading experience than Camilleri's bullet train of a crime caper, the narrative difficulties were way more than worth the extra effort required as this brooding, metaphysical tale of a burglary and a subsequent murder in an upscale 1927 Roman apartment building gradually revealed itself to be the literary equivalent of a stunning panorama of the Eternal City at the moment when the fascists were coming into power. While Gadda didn't finish the novel in a way that any fans of old-fashioned literature would ever appreciate, his arresting way with words ("History, past-mistress of life" [299]), his mischievous interior dialogues, and the infamously abrupt ending evoke a sense of modern malaise that feels real enough for me. An underrated classic: that is, if any work can be considered as such when praised by both Italo Calvino and Pier Paolo Pasolini. (http://www.nyrb.com/)

Camilleri

Gadda

"He didn't think, he didn't believe it opportune to think of asking anything, either about the new niece or the new maid. He tried to repress the admiration that Assunta aroused in him: a little like the strange fascination of the dazzling niece of the previous visit: a fascination, an authority wholly Latin and Sabellian, which made her well-suited to the ancient names, of ancient Latin warrior virgins or of not-reluctant wives once stolen by force at the Lupercal, with the suggestion of hills and vineyards and harsh palaces, and with rites and the Pope in his coach, with the fine torches of Sant'Agnese in Agone and Santa Maria Portae Paradisi on Candlemas Day, and the blessing of the candles: a sense of the air of serene and distant days in Frascati or the valley of the Tiber, taken from the girls drawn by Pinelli among Piranesi's ruins, when the ephemerides were heeded and the Church's calendars, and, in their vivid purple, all its high Princes. Like stupendous lobsters. The Princes of Holy Roman Apostolic Church. And in the center those eyes of Assunta's, that pride: as if she were denigrated by serving them at table. In the center...of the whole...Ptolemaic system; yes, Ptolemaic. In the center, meaning no offense, that terrific behind." (That Awful Mess on the Via Merulana, 10-11)

La pesquisa

La pesquisa (Seix Barral, 2007)
por Juan José Saer
Francia, 1994

Cuatro años después de su muerte en 2005, Juan José Saer se está convertiendo en uno de mis autores argentinos preferidos. Con La pesquisa (dedicada a Ricardo Piglia y subtítulada "novela policial"), Saer ha escrito una especie de novela policial falsa que satisface en muchos niveles. El hilo narrativo principal, por ejemplo, se trata de un asesino en serie que especializa en asesinar y torturar a las ancianas de dos arrondissements parisienses. Aunque el tema es bastante malsano, lo que te engancha es que la violencia de la historia funciona como el punto de partida de una estupenda reflexión sobre el crimen y el castigo, la locura y la salud mental, y la amistad y la traición.

Interesantemente, la pesquisa del comisario Morvan ambientada en Francia llama la atención a otra aún más llamativa ambientada en Argentina. En el segundo de los tres capítulos, el lector sabe que el relato sobre los crímenes en París se narra por un tal Pichón Garay a dos comensales suyos. Pichón, un argentino que ha vivido en Europa durante los últimos veinte años, ha regresado a su región natal (una ciudad cerca del río Colastiné en la provincia de Santa Fe) para vender la casa de familia después de la muerte de su madre y para ponerse en contacto con los dos o tres amigos de su juventud que todavía quedan en la ciudad. Sin querer anticiparme demasiado, digamos que la estadía de Pichón nos ofrece dos ramos narrativos adicionales: uno sobre la identidad del autor de un manuscrito encontrado entre los papeles de un poeta muerto y otro sobre el destino trágico del hermano gemelo de Pichón, apodado el Gato.

Aunque el misterio literario (¿quién escribió el dactilograma que se llama En las tiendas griegas?) parecería ser el asunto menos interesante de todos dentro del esquema del libro, está vínculado a la otra materia por razónes políticas tanto por razónes filosóficas. Resulta que el Gato, su amante Elisa, y el poeta muerto Washington todos desaparecieron sin dejar rastro hace ocho años en los tiempos "de terror y de violencia" en Argentina (77). Mientras que Pichón no habla del asunto durante la cena con sus amigos, la sombra de aquellos tiempos anteriores y el evitar de una conversación sobre el tema aquí hacen hincapié en una pesquisa que no será realizada. Un libro impresionante, escrito con una prosa nítida y un pesimismo profundo sino lírico. (http://www.editorialplaneta.com/)

"Alzando la cabeza, Pichón ha podido ver, en un cielo todavía claro, donde los últimos vestigios violetas habían cedido bajo el azul generalizado, las primeras estrellas. En un fulgor instantáneo --el rumor del agua, más nítido que durante el trayecto porque el motor se había detenido revelando la tranquilidad de la noche, contribuyó sin duda a su clarividencia repentina-- ha entendido por qué, a pesar de su buena voluntad, de sus esfuerzos incluso, desde que llegó de París después de tantos años de ausencia, su lugar natal no le ha producido ninguna emoción: porque ahora es al fin un adulto, y ser adulto significa justamente haber llegado a entender que no es en la tierra natal donde se ha nacido, sino en un lugar más grande, más neutro, ni amigo ni enemigo, desconocido, al que nadié podría llamar suyo y que no estimula el afecto sino la extrañeza, un hogar que no es ni espacial ni geográfico, ni siquiera verbal, sino más bien, y hasta donde esas palabras puedan seguir significando algo, físico, químico, biológico, cósmico, y del lo que lo invisible y lo visible, desde las yemas de los dedos hasta el universo estrellado, o lo que puede llegar a saberse sobre lo invisible y lo visible, forman parte, y que ese conjunto que incluye hasta los bordes mismos de lo inconcebible, no es en realidad su patria sino su prisión, abandonada y cerrada ella misma desde el exterior --la oscuridad desmesurada que errabundea, ígnea y gélida a la vez, al abrigo no únicamente de los sentidos, sino también de la emoción, de la nostalgia y del pensamiento". (La pesquisa, 84-85)
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The Investigation (Serpent's Tail, 1999)

by Juan José Saer (translated by Helen Lane)

France, 1994

Four years after his death in 2005, Juan José Saer is rapidly becoming one of my favorite Argentinean authors. With The Investigation (a novel dedicated to Ricardo Piglia and subtitled "a detective story" in the Spanish language edition), Saer has written a sort of fake detective story that's satisfying on multiple levels. The main narrative, for example, concerns a serial killer who specializes in torturing and killing little old ladies in two Parisian arrondissements. Although the subject matter is undeniably morbid, what's arresting here is that the story's violence serves as a point of departure for a stupendous meditation on crime and punishment, madness and mental health, and friendship and betrayal.

Interestingly, Commissioner Morvan's investigation set in France calls attention to an even more compelling investigation set in Argentina. In the second of the three chapters, the reader learns that the story about the crimes in Paris is being narrated by one Pichón Garay to two dinner guests of his. Pichón, an Argentinean who has lived in Paris for the last twenty years, has returned to the region where he grew up (a city close to the Colastiné River in Argentina's Santa Fe province) to sell his family's house after the death of his mother and to restablish contact with the two or three friends from his youth that still remain in the city. Without wanting to jump ahead of myself too much, suffice it to say that Pichon's stay in the area causes the narrative to branch off into two additional directions: one having to do with the authorship of a manuscript found among a dead poet's papers, the other one having to do with the tragic fate of Pichón's twin brother, nicknamed "el Gato."

Although the literary mystery (who wrote the dactylogram called In the Greek Tents?) would seem to be the least interesting aspect of all within the scheme of the work, it's linked to the other subject matter as much for political as philosophical reasons. It turns out that el Gato, his lover Elisa, and the dead poet Washington all disappeared without a trace eight years earlier during Argentina's "times of terror and violence" (68). While Pichón doesn't speak of the matter during the dinner with his friends, the shadow of the earlier times and his avoidance of a discussion on the subject here emphasize an investigation that won't be pursued. An impressive book, noteworthy both for its spotless prose and its profound but lyrical pessimism. (http://www.serpentstail.com/)

"Raising his head, [Pichón] has been able to see, in a sky still bright, where the last violet traces had given way beneath the generalized blue, the first stars. In an instantaneous flash--the sound of the water, more distinct than during the boat trip because the motor had stopped, revealing the quiet of the night, no doubt contributed to his sudden clairvoyance--he has understood why, despite his good will, his efforts even, since his arrival from Paris after so many years of absence, his birthplace has produced no emotion in him: because he is at last an adult, and to be an adult means, precisely, having reached the point of understanding that it is not in one's native land that one has been born, but in a larger, more neutral place, neither friend nor enemy, unknown, which no one could call his own and which does not give rise to affection but, rather, to strangeness, a home that is not spatial or geographical, or even verbal, but rather, and insofar as those words can continue to mean something, physical, chemical, biological, cosmic, and of which the invisible and the visible, from one's fingertips to the starry universe, or what can ultimately be known about the invisible and the visible, form a part, and that that whole which includes even the very limits of the inconceivable, is not in reality his homeland but his prison, itself abandoned and locked from the outside--the boundless darkness that wanders, at once glacial and igneous, beyond the reach not only of the senses, but also of emotion, of nostalgia and of thought." (The Investigation, 76-77 [translated by Helen Lane])

Juan José Saer y el río Paraná

Gombrowicz

I see that he is fobbing me off with Cashes, and not just cashes but Small Coins! At such an Insult to me the blood rushes to my head, but naught say I. Presently I do say: "I see that for you, Your Excellency, very small I must be since you, Your Excellency, thus fob me off with Small Coins and belike number me with Ten Thousand Writers and I am not just a writer but Gombrowicz!"

--Witold Gombrowicz, Trans-Atlantyk, translated by Carolyn French and Nina Karsov (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994, 12-13).