Author: Miguel Angel Hernández
- Fiction
- Anagrama
- ISBN: 9788433998019
- Release Date: 04-30-2016
-Reviewed by: Lynn Leazer
Written as an extended letter to the narrator's ex-lover Sophie, this novel oscillates between precious intellectualism and graphic eroticism. Both ridiculous extremes are treated so earnestly that it suggests the author is pulling the reader's leg and poking fun at his characters. Between the extremes he tells a banal tale of love lost due to the infidelity and stupidity of the narrator, Martin Torres. While Martin has learned that his intellectual pretensions are just that, those same intellectual pretensions make him a remarkably slow learner when it comes to love. Perhaps readers will identify with some aspect of Martin's weak personality and ruinous personal and professional lives, but mainly they will want to slap some sense into him and exhort him to stop feeling sorry for himself and finally do something right.
Frustrating for the reader is Martin's artistic collaborator and eventual love interest, Anna Morelli. She is as pale and hard to decipher as the old photographs she spends hours privately and meticulously erasing--all in the name of the "art" she is creating from the "art" she found. Her work and Martin's writing are to be exhibited together at the end of a semester of collaboration at Clark Art institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts, where Martin had been a Research Fellow when he was younger and showed promise, but where he had ultimately failed in his scholarly endeavors. There is a lot of esoteric discussion of art among Martin, Anna and the other researchers. Martin purports to be a devotee of Walter Benjamin's theories of art, history and memory and interjects Benjamin's name frequently into the conversation, mainly as intellectual posturing in front of his peers. The title of the book comes directly from Benjamin's writing, and the title of Anna's exhibit, Fuisteis yo, is a reference to Benjamin's theory about the self vs. the masses. Anna's precious artistic bubble is burst when she learns the true (and inartistic) story behind the photographs and film she had found and which form the inspiration for her and Martin's work. In the wake of her shock, she does the right thing by returning what is left of the photos to their rightful owner, while still managing to create her exhibit and express her artistic vision. Thus, she also is redeemed somewhat at the end of the book.
As for the erotic parts, they stand in stark contrast to the rest of the story, and are extremely graphic. To what end, I am not sure, other than to create a mock instante de peligro for Martin, who experiences an epiphany (an awakening of his memory of Sophie, his wife Lara and all that he has lost) during a drug-induced three-way sexual encounter with Anna and Rick, one of the other research fellows. So, in the end, sex and drugs overcome all that intellectual posturing. Anna's sexual proclivities, which are described in great detail, are as weird as her art, and seem to suit Martin in his directionless state.
