Valerie Miles, editor
Translated from the Spanish
by various translators
Open Letter, 2014, 721 pp.
Reading A Thousand Forests
in One Acorn: An Anthology of Spanish-language Fictionwas both wonderful and
frustrating. Wonderful, because of the opportunity to read selections by
authors both familiar and new, along with their thoughts on their writing and
their influences. Frustrating, because many of the works excerpted here have
not yet been translated into English in their entirety. Is Open Letter using
this collection as a litmus test to choose which Spanish-language authors to
introduce (or re-introduce) to English-language readership? If so, I definitely
have a few nominations—but I don't think they would go wrong with any of the
authors represented here.
The idea behind the
collection (which was inspired by a similar collection of English-language
authors, This is My Best: Over 150 Self-Chosen and Complete Masterpieces,
Together with Their Reasons for Their Selection, published in 1942) was to ask
several influential senior Spanish-language authors (the youngest was born in
1958) to select the works that they feel represent "their best creative
moment," or the work that best represents them. The selections are
accompanied by the authors' own words on why they chose the works in question.
For each author, there is also a section called "In Conversation with the
Dead," referring to a poem byFrancisco de Quevedo: "vivo en
conversación con los difuntos, / y escucho con mis ojos a los muertos"
("I live in conversation with the deceased, / and listen with my eyes to
the dead"—an allusion to reading), where the author discusses those
writers(and other people) who most influence their work.
This anthology doesn't
pretend to be comprehensive; it's a product of editor Valerie Miles' choices,
and of which authors had the time and interest to participate. A few authors
whom you might expect are missing: no Gabriel García Márquez, no Isabel Allende.
Even so, the selections cover a broad range of countries, topics, and literary
styles. It's impossible to summarize the style or sensibility of
"all" Spanish-language fiction (even just that part represented
here), any more than one could summarize the sensibility of all
English-language fiction. All the same, a collection invites you to search for
patterns and themes. There were a few in particular that jumped out at me.
First, Faulkner. It's
remarkable how many of the authors in this collection acknowledge the influence
of Faulkner—more than any other English language author, perhaps more than
anysingle Spanish language author (that's a subjective impression; I didn't
count). He was mentioned enough, at any rate, that I went back and re-read some
Faulkner after finishing this collection, seeing with new eyes the skill with
which Faulkner delineates his characters, links a story's environment and its
mood—to paraphraseMario Vargas Llosa's Nobel lecture, the way his writing and
structure elevate his subjects. I also saw quite a few nods to Uruguayan author
Juan Carlos Onetti (who himself cited Faulkner as an influence); I've not read
Onetti, but now I'll have to.
Second, I was struck
by how fluidly many authors—realists as
well as fantasists and magical realists—treat what we normally consider
immutable: time, space, person. (Faulkner often does this, too, come to think
of it). I'm thinking of the way Mario Vargas Llosa's two selections switch
continuously between second or first and third person; the ebb and flow between
past and present in Antonio Muñoz Molina's selection from Sepharad, or in
Rafael Chirbes' excerpt from Crematorio. Memory is also a common theme: the
complicated, ever-renegotiated relationship between memory, history, and truth,
expressed in different fantastical ways by Carlos Fuentes(excerpt from Terra
Nostra), Juan Goytisolo (excerpt from The Blind Rider) andJavier Marías (the
short story "When I was Mortal").
Exile and In-Betweenness
In his commentary,
Salvadoran author Horacio Castellanos Moya talks about "the condition of
exile" or "wandering foreigner" state so characteristic of Latin
American authors (and Spanish ones, too, at least during the period of time
covered in the anthology). It's easy to see why so many of these writers lived
in exile: the artistic and social repression of Franco's Spain and Latin
American dictatorships; the violence that accompanies regime change. Even those
who stayed in their native countries would constantly have to watch their
words, mute their criticisms. Perhaps these conditions contribute to the
attraction to in-betweenness and ambiguity present in so much of the work
represented here.
I enjoyed almost all the
selections in the collection, and I had a hard time limiting down to a few to
mention here. The anthology opens with an excerpt from Aurora Venturini's novel
Las primas (The Cousins), the first person account of Yuna, a cognitively
impaired 17-year-old girl who is also an art prodigy. Using Yuna's stilted
language and limited awareness, Venturini still manages to convey all the
subtle (and not so subtle) conflicts and troubles among her family members, and
her ambiguous relationship with her art professor, whom she has a crush on. It
appears that Venturini's work has never been translated to English; that's a
shame.
Mario Vargas Llosa's story
of a young girl who is bartered by her own father in his bid to regain
political favor, from La fiesta del chivo (The Feast of the Goat), had me
simultaneously sickened and enthralled—fascinated by the way they say snakes
fascinate their prey: you can’t help but know something awful is about to
happen, and yet the storytelling—like a snake’s gaze—is so beautiful, you can’t
tear yourself away. I loved Enrique Vila-Matas' hilarious blend of memoir and
fiction, "Because She Didn't Ask," based on a (non)-collaboration the
author had (or didn't have) with the French writer/photographer/installation
artist Sophie Calle. Also, the dark humor of Horacio Castellanos Moya's excerpt
from Insensatez (Senselessness), about a journalist's one-night stand gone
wrong. As Moya says in his commentary, he had fun writing it—and I had fun
reading it.
Pre-Hispanic America (1950) by Diego Rivera;
oil on canvas
Expecting the Expected
As one might expect, the
collection contained some excellent examples of magical realism and fantasy
(more in-betweenness and ambiguity). Cristina Fernández Cubas' "Angle of
Horror" and Elvio Gandolfo's "The Moment of Impact" are both
worth mentioning; my favorite was José María Merino's reality-jumping short
story "The House with Two Doors." Merino is also an enthusiast of
flash fiction (or as he calls it, microfiction) as a medium to explore the
ragged edges of perception and reality. I'd love to see more of all of these
authors' works translated.
Colombian author Evelio
Rosero's selection was the children's story "Lucia, or The Pigeons,"
which is not a piece I'd imagine reading to children here in the UnitedStates.
The little tale of everyday aspects of the world blinking out of existence is
incredibly unsettling for a children's story; it represents one of the major
themes of Rosero's work: the desaparicidos, the forced disappearances that have
occurred all too often in the author's country, and in many other Latin
American countries, as well. I also enjoyed the excerpt from Ana María Matute's
fairy tale novel Olvidado Rey Gudú (The Forgotten King Gudú), whose title
character has been magically deprived of the ability to love—and thus, of the
ability to weep. The story struck me as a sort of complement to Scottish
fantasist George MacDonald's The Light Princess;it would be fun to compare the
two (so—translation, please!).
An Anthology With More
Dimensions
The authors' commentaries
add an extra dimension to the reading, not just as complements to the excerpts,
but on their own, as portals into the minds of writers. I especially liked
Javier Marías' confession that sometimes, and perhaps not consciously, he's
written entire novels specifically for the sake of a few paragraphs, or even
just a few sentences, that wouldn't stand on their own. Ricardo Piglia's
anecdote about the Chinese writer Lin Shu, who knew no foreign languages, but
"translated" Don Quixote into Chinese based on an assistant's verbal
recounting of the novel, is worthy of Borges—especially when you add Piglia's
follow-up comment: suppose you re-translated Lin Shu's version (The Story of a
Crazy Knight) back into Spanish?
Each section also contains
the author's bibliography, a list of English translations, and a list of
awards. This is useful for tracking down more work by authors who catch your
interest, but there are a few gaps and errors in the bibliographies: for
example, Carlos Fuentes' translated collection of short stories Burnt Water is
mislabeled as a novel, and the 1990 translation Constancia and other stories
for Virgins is missing (the original short story collection, Constancia y otras
novelas para vírgenes, is also mislabeled as a novel). Since the authors'
commentaries generally refer to the Spanish titles of the books, it would be
nice to have a mapping between the Spanish titles and the titles of the English
translations, for readers not literate in Spanish (and also because
translations sometimes have their titles changed—I couldn't make the connection
between the translations and their originals in a few cases).
Overall, this was a
fascinating overview of contemporary Spanish language fiction and a good
introduction to many new authors. There is something here for readers of almost
every literary taste, and a lot of new works to add to my to-read list. I hope
that the reader reaction to this book spurs more translation of the writers who
are less known to English-language readers.
September 11, 2014
Nina Zumel examines aspects
of the supernatural in literature and in folk culture at her blog,
multoghost.wordpress.com. She writes about folklore, ghost stories, weird
fiction, or anything else that strikes her fancy. Follow her on
Fuente:
http://mantlethought.org/
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