It is strangely strange, not to say obviously pathetic, that at this point in literature, after several millennia of history, there are still critics and, even worse, writers who continue to argue about what should be done and what should not be written, that is, what literature should and should not be about.
As if the space of books and fiction were territories to be demarcated and not collective property and as if reality, the present and the binomial memory and imagination – more than in a binomial form, the body that forms the imagination and my memory, were always created I think of the androgynes that Zeus divided with his lightning and created two beings from one – they were not the inoculators of the topics you write about and the forms you write with, they are the ones who identify as neo-landowners dress and present them to the audience with their standards, their stakes and their mallets.
“This shouldn’t be done…please no more literature about violence…no, no…seriously…why another fragmentary novel…Stop drug trafficking, organ trafficking and especially child trafficking…no, no, no, really, no. You need another one autobiographical story…no…not another queer book…how did you come up with the idea that a novel could be told about a forest…please…so, another novel against the patriarchy. .. seriously, no more”: Deep down, the neo-landowners would like to be Zeus themselves, to convince us that literature is their Olympus, a mountain that they must protect and from whose siege they must survive the use of lightning protects the one who must divide the intruders; Especially when they write dystopias, they seem to be the fashionable enemy of the neo-landlords.
Three stories against the neo-landowners
Last year saw Jorge Comensal – who debuted not long ago with the excellent Las Mutations -, Michel Nieva – who wrote the novels Rise and Apogee of the Argentine Empire and Do the Gauchoids Dream of Electric Rheas? had published – and Héctor Celis – whose The novel is their first work – three of those authors who could well be described as supposed invaders of the non-existent Olympus – in case it is still not clear, he is recommended for those who are dealing with a powerful deity or identify with a recently resurrected Neo. The boastful quality of their steed, preferably sweaty, big and stubborn, don’t read any further in this episode of our newsletter – we’ve published three really interesting dystopias, all starting from a common point: the climate crisis and the changes it brings with it will continue to bring to the world and the present, namely the rise in temperature, the double problem of water – the end of fresh water and the surplus of salt water -, the destruction of ecosystems and territories, the coexistence of humans with other species and the emergence of new forms economic, political and social violence, but also physical, emotional and intimate violence.
It is evident that each of these three books – “This Boiling Void”, “The Childhood of the World” and “Sea is the Earth” – distances itself from the common starting point and examines both the world and the present of their stories through the sieve of duality, which consists of the imagination and memory of its authors – duality which, I insist, does not stop looking for a way to become a single being again: therefore every memory longs for an invention, as does every one Invention longs for a memory – they move away from each other to carry out their own metamorphosis or their particular mutation, creating in each case scenarios that are as unique as they are surprising, captivating and extraordinary: be it the forest, the zoo and the burning pantheon In this boiling Void, be it that of the world made up of islands governed by multinational corporations that concentrate the exploitation of real or virtual resources and the health of those who remain in the infancy of the world, or that of these devastated areas where human flesh is made to live tasted, an oasis is sought, the oil spill is expected or pacts are made to die, the land is embraced in the sea.
Three strange singularities
I said at the beginning of this text that neolandowners like to say what should be done, but also how it should be written: well, here they will also be frustrated, because another problem that makes Este vaccum que boile “, from Commensal, La Childhood of the World, by Nieva, and Mar es Tierra, by Celis, are three excellent dystopias, for they are excellent not only because they tell, but also because they tell: especially The Fall of Celis’s book , in which language seems to be the last bastion of what was once the spark that shone in the heart of man, is paradigmatic in this sense, since language is almost a living being that walks, crawls and faces the destruction of matter and the destruction of life, as if words were somehow the glue with which we should bind our past and our possible future.
In a similar way, but from his own uniqueness, Nieva, in The Childhood of the World, while making us follow the misfortune, loneliness, anger and search for revenge of the dengue child, half born as a result of a strange virus has human and half mosquito, which will gradually transform into the mother of everything, presents us with the same journey, from language: that of misfortune, loneliness, anger and the search for revenge – real and virtual – at the same time with the The word transforms from something tiny into the mother of everything, with a clear and precise metaphor: the appearance of stones after the last thaw, preserving the original knowledge.
For its part, “Commensal” takes us through the inner emptiness of its protagonists and through the emptiness left by the Great Fire – a metaphor for the emptiness left by the environmental crisis – and takes us through the emptiness created by the secrets they leave open between the different generations of a family, starting from the fact that this void is above all a silence, a silence from which the language of This Boiling Void is built, a novel that confirms its author as one of the stylists of his generation.
coordinates
“This Boiling Void” was published by Alfaguara, while “Las Mutaciones” can be found in editions of Antelope and Seix Barral. The Childhood of the World was published by Anagrama, while Do Gauchoids Dream of Electric Rheas? and the rise and climax of the Argentine Empire can be found in the editions of Santiago Arcos Editor and Colmena Ediciones. “Sea is the Earth” was published by Alfaguara.
All the culture that goes with it awaits you here.
Subscribe to
Babelia
The literary news analyzed by the best critics in our weekly newsletter
GET IT