One of the good things about living in the world then, in 2023, is the correspondence with Martín Caparrós (Buenos Aires, 1967) and his articles, essays and novels. This does not appear – of course – in the new episode of the Argentine journalist and writer, which is nothing other than the compilation in a single volume of the episodes written in 2120, which the historian Agadi Bedu sent to this newspaper week after week, with Martín Caparrós of intermediaries. It was about looking, analyzing, thinking and finding out what the world looks like today, without the perspective that distance supposedly grants. Look at what you have in front of your nose and really see it, see it.
Martín Caparrós has had a long career as a journalist in Argentina and Spain, as well as in international media, which earned him recognition, first in 2017 with the National Journalism Award and later in 2022 with the Ortega y Gasset Award for his entire career. He has also distinguished himself and received awards both as an essayist (including the Cálamo Extraordinario Award for El Hambre) and as a novelist (Herralde Award with Los Living in 2011). The current publisher is trying to consolidate its titles as the Martín Caparrós Library. This year it is the turn of The World Then, a kind of guide to understanding the present from the aforementioned perspective and work of a 21st century historian. In its 25 chapters it seeks to summarize and intertwine the vectors, conduits and threads of conduction and organization of our civilization in this historian's call to “end the Age of Fire and the Western Age.” With this in mind, we would do well to take a critical look at both ceramic hobs and TikTok.
In perspective, both Ñamérica, that sentimental, social and imaginary map of an entire continent with which this book shares paths and forms, and The World are nothing more than stars born from the implosion of this oceanic novel by Caparrós: The Story. In this book, written and published in Argentina in 1999 and recovered by Anagrama in 2017, Caparrós writes in a thousand pages about a time and place that did not exist, about an invented civilization and the signs left over time by what remains is our history. In his last two essays the mirror is reversed. What you see exists, is real, but the image is almost fictional, extraordinary (Ñamérica) or unequal and sometimes absurd (The World Then).
Caparrós selects the topics and approaches them in a way that is as rigorous as it is entertaining. Don't use numbers and statistics as dead and telltale substances, but quite the opposite: as signs, insights, “look at this” signs.
Throughout the book, the way the mirror is placed and seen is an example of the talent and use of ingredients of the chef who is the author. Sometimes you can judge a project by how Manichean, elephantine, or boring the nonsense it might be in other hands. Caparrós selects the topics and approaches them in a way that is as rigorous as it is entertaining. Don't use numbers and statistics as dead and telltale substances, but quite the opposite: as signs, insights, “look at this” signs. He explains to us, he explains himself, he sometimes gives priority to intuition, sometimes to information, he uses the brush. It entertains, ironizes, blames, points out and exposes on a map that could well represent the world you find yourself in. It points out inequality and aberrations without dominating or moralizing, it moves away from the apocalypse and the fashions of the moment or two days ago, and everything, absolutely everything is used to tell the truth and fiction to you to entertain and inform, to make you think and at the same time stop time and dedicate yourself to looking around and forward, with the cards of people that, like icebreakers, give names, faces and biographies to the protagonists of this book : us.
Martin Caparros
Random House, 2023
432 pages. 21.75 euros
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