Month: July 2013

Interview With Patricio Pron At Words Without Borders – If you like Madrid Don’t Read It

~ bythefirelight ~ 2 Comments

Words Without Borders has a very funny and caustic interview with Patricio Pron a man who despises Madrid. One might think he was from a different province by the sound of his voice. A must read if you a Madrid fan boy.

Can you describe the mood of Madrid as you feel/see it?

Madrid is a singularly ugly city. Its most representative buildings are grotesque, its river is negligible and rotten, its parks are dusty and full of petty criminals and its squares are tiny and uncomfortable. In addition, the city is terribly cold in winter and unbearably hot in summer, and its people are the most ignorant and stupid I’ve met in my life (a good example of this, is their belief that speaking in English consists of shouting and making gestures, as any unfortunate person knows if he or she has ever had the unpleasant experience of coming to Madrid without speaking Spanish). It is not unusual for discussions in bars to escalate into exchanges of insults and that women and children are verbally abused by screaming men and alcoholics. In fact, only the dogs seem to have a good time in this city, as they can shit wherever they want (mostly in front of my house) and are very spoiled by their masters. None of these reasons explain why I still live here, though: sometimes I wonder, but the answer is so difficult to find as it is difficult to leave or forget this city once you’ve had the opportunity to live in it, which is great I think.

What is your most heartbreaking memory in this city?

Shortly after arriving in Madrid from Germany, where I was studying, a young local writer said to me: “Don’t feel embarrassed by your difficulties trying to be like us. The fact is, you can never be like us because unfortunately, you have a degree.”

Borges’ A Lecture on Johnson and Boswell Excerpted at NYRB

~ bythefirelight

The NYRB has an excerpt from one of Borges’ lectures given in 1966. It is a lecture on Johnson and Boswell, although it doesn’t stop him from writing about particularly Borgesian preoccupations. It will be published by New Directions on July 31.

….Now, in the same way that we have seen how Johnson is similar to Don Quixote, we have to think that just as Sancho is the companion Quixote sometimes treats badly, we see Boswell in that same relation to Dr. Johnson: a sometimes stupid and loyal companion. There are characters whose role is to bring out the hero’s personality. In other words, often authors need a character who serves as a framework for and a contrast to the deeds of his hero. This is Sancho, and that character in Boswell’s work is Boswell himself. That is, Boswell appears as a despicable character. But it seems impossible to me that Boswell didn’t realize this. And this shows that Boswell positioned himself in contrast to Johnson. The fact that Boswell himself tells anecdotes in which he appears ridiculous makes him not seem ridiculous at all, for if he wrote them down, he did it because he saw that the purpose of the anecdote was to make Johnson stand out.

There is a Hindu school of philosophy that says that we are not the actors in our lives, but rather the spectators, and this is illustrated using the metaphor of a dancer. These days, maybe it would be better to say an actor. A spectator sees a dancer or an actor, or, if you prefer, reads a novel, and ends up identifying with one of the characters who is there in front of him. This is what those Hindu thinkers before the fifth century said. And the same thing happens with us. I, for example, was born the same day as Jorge Luis Borges, exactly the same day. I have seen him be ridiculous in some situations, pathetic in others. And, as I have always had him in front of me, I have ended up identifying with him. According to this theory, in other words, the I would be double: there is a profound I, and this I is identified with—though separate from—the other. Now, I don’t know what experiences you might have had, but sometimes this happens to me: usually at two particular kinds of moments—at moments when something very good has happened, and, above all, at moments when something very bad has happened to me. And for a few seconds, I have felt: “But, what do I care about all this? It is as if all of this is happening to somebody else.” That is, I have felt that there is something deep down inside me that remains separate.

Short Story “Una partida” from Andrés Neuman at Ojo Seco

~ bythefirelight

Ojo Seco has an unpublished short story from Andrés Neuman (Spanish Only). It is short, but quite good.

Hacía casi diez años que mi amigo Riquelme y yo no nos veíamos. Nunca ha sido fácil coincidir. Él vive en Chile, yo en Andalucía. Él detesta los aviones, yo apenas tengo tiempo para viajes. Él es especialista en páncreas, a mí no me interesa la ciencia. Él tiene que hacer guardias todas las semanas, yo es raro el día que no tengo compromisos familiares. Él se mantiene soltero, yo tengo cuatro hijos. Pese a ser atractivo, o por culpa de serlo, a Riquelme le cuesta encontrar pareja estable. Yo (para qué engañarme a mi edad) soy tirando a feo, me gusta la vida casera y me intimida la selva del ocio nocturno. Él reaparece muy de vez en cuando en mi correo, yo no suelo llamar demasiado por teléfono…

Short Story “Proof of Innocence” by Andrés Neuman in English at Contemporary Argentine Writers

~ bythefirelight

Contemporary Argentine Writers has a translated short story from Andrés Neuman, Proof of Innocence. It is a funny story and shows a different style of writing for those of you who’ve only read his novel, The Traveler of the Century.

Yes. I like being interrogated by the police. We all need for them to verify our innocence, to confirm that we have paid our dues and can move along. That’s why I love feeling like I’m beyond reproach and demonstrating how well-mannered I am, convincing them that it wasn’t me.