-Analysis-
BUENOS AIRES — Running to the landline so as not to miss a call from Michel, a controlling and jealous boyfriend who’s away on a trip, is one of the recurring actions for Valentine Dussaut (Irène Jacob), the protagonist of the 1994 film Rouge. The film closes Polish director Krzysztof Kieslowski’s trilogy “Three Colors,” which refers to the colors of the French flag and is a reinterpretation of the values that governed the 1789 revolution: liberty, equality, and fraternity.
The gesture, rushing to answer because otherwise the caller would be lost, sums up an experience of desire and the possibility of encounter that was typical of the 20th century. Today, it looks anachronistic and almost elusive in the era of the smartphone as an around-the-clock companion.
Part of our notion of suspense evaporated when technology made us reachable in real time, thus banishing the sleepless nights and delights of waiting. If Julio Cortázar were writing today, the opening question of his novel Hopscotch (“Rayuela”) — “Would he find La Maga?” — would lose much of its tension. La Maga, the enigmatic, free-spirited woman at the heart of the story, drives the protagonist Horacio Oliveira’s obsessive search. These days, we would probably give him the girl’s Instagram and move on.
Alluding to the reader’s imagination and triggering senses that allow them to use their imagination is one possible way to rediscover bits and pieces of lost mystery. “The Earth and its satellite seemed more suggestive to me than naming the Moon, because the title implies movement: it draws an orbit, it suggests a relationship,” explained Swiss writer Matteo Terzaghi, who has just presented his book in Madrid, published by Pretextos and carefully translated from Italian by Argentine poet Pablo Ingberg.
Childhood whimsy
His unclassifiable narrative — a free-spirited essay in the best Montaigne tradition, blending life and experience — returns to childhood and school essays as a way of repositioning himself in the spirit of exploration. Strangeness appears naturally, because for an attentive child nothing is superfluous; everything sparks curiosity and invites inquiry.
Inspiration from everyday life and the “infraordinary,” finding a universe of luminous minutiae in the mundane.
“In the book, there are glimpses of childhoods from the last century, before the digital age, in which I recognize myself: the eagerness to know what happens if you cut a worm in two (does it really regenerate?), curiosity about the elements — rain, snow — and a love of words,” said writer Mercedes Cebrián at the book presentation.
Tsar’s sister
Her words echo an author who draws inspiration from everyday life and the “infraordinary,” finding a universe of luminous minutiae in the mundane.
Certain texts encourage a literature that unfolds through conversation. That afternoon, the author of Estimada clientela recounted keeping a newspaper clipping about a 118-year-old chocolate discovered by a restorer in the sleeve of a dress belonging to the sister of the last tsar of Russia.
One hypothesis put forward by researchers is that the lady had taken a bite, was forced to pause for some reason, and hid it there rather than throw it away. Cebrián said she thought: “Terzaghi would be interested in this story.” At her side, the Swiss writer smiled, perhaps imagining the taste of that more-than-century-old sweet.