I am sure that we have already talked here, in previous editions of our newsletter, about the coincidences or the communicating vessels that one can suddenly find when reading. I mean, I mean those like threads whose tips or ends seem to connect certain books or certain authors in a more or less obvious or more or less unexpected way.
Of course, these coincidences can happen not only between authors and between books, but also between literature and, for example, the cinema. I say this because a few days ago, while reading the novel “Mambo” by the Chilean writer Alejandra Moffat, I saw the film “The Count” by Pablo Larraín, that black and brilliant fable with ruthless and caustic humor in which Augusto Pinochet He is a vampire who disrobes through his own voice, and whose family also disrobes through the chorus of their voices, that is, through what they think and, above all, what they seem to feel, which are like uncontrollable impulses from their mouths comes as blenders make heart shakes and nuns fall in love with money and guns.
The Vampire’s Other Flight
But I said that “The Count” of Larraín – the end of one of his many storylines, but which is his main one, as it runs through the entire film – reaches up to, or coincides with, or borders on Moffat’s novel – by the way, if we Saying that When we talk about Chilean novels in which there are capes and men in love with bats, we should never forget the equally brilliant, equally hilarious and no less risky and experimental Batman in Chile, that is, the first novel by Enrique Lihn, which is best known for being an incredible poet in which the famous superhero, instigated by the CIA, travels to Chile to overthrow a left-wing government that could well have been that of Salvador Allende – as the protagonist and narrator of Mambo claims: “Pinocchio was superior to bats” and vampires. “He could fly, walk through tunnels, climb mountains and could devour you in a single bite.”
However, in Moffat’s novel, in which the narrator is a girl who lives in secret with her sister and parents, this girl’s voice is the real protagonist of the book, making it difficult to put down Mambo, which is the same for us into the story how she allows us into herself and the life, feeling and discovery of this girl, Anaconda – that’s what she calls herself, in order to avoid the conflict that the possession of a name creates. Familiar and one who must be used in front of strangers – he lives, feels and discovers that the vampire is only like that for a brief moment, because then he is an eagle or a cougar or an uncertain danger, but almost always with traits that taken from a hunting animal. That is, from a ruthless hunter: “The salamander was turned on and I could see that, in addition to firewood, some notebooks and books were burning.” As I spoke, they simultaneously silenced me and Julia ran to hug me. He whispered in my ear that the eagle was near. I cried because I was so scared. My father asked me to take a deep breath and explained that they didn’t wake me up because they knew I wasn’t feeling well.”
Another voice, at the other end of time
Coincidences sometimes occur – I think we have already said this – in pairs: after reading Mambo, a novel in which, I insist, the narrator’s voice seems to speak in the reader’s ear and with it the narrative of the first Day one, that is, we sat down and listened to what someone else had to say to us, whether by the fire, at a table where dinner was being served, or near a playground, i read “If things were the way they are” by the Uruguayan writer Gabriela Escobar Dobrzalovski, in which the main character is once again the voice of a narrator who knows how to captivate the reader with language: “I am running away from my mother like before an infection. When he’s near me, my body tenses and I walk with my fingers tucked in, as if the ground is frozen or sticky. I want to unbutton his shirt, peel away his skin, open his tendons until I find a gentle chord between his organs, a crumb of beauty and happiness.”
The coincidence in this case is that both novels, Mambo and If Things Were As They Are, are sustained and, in reality, for the reader it is like sitting down to listen to the power, liveliness and subtlety of the voices that subjugating time and diluting anything that is not the story they are telling. The difference is of course also obvious: while Mambo is told to us by a voice that discovers her world, “If everything were as it is”, in which the protagonist is forced to return to the family home after a breakup, It is told to us by a voice that is already coming back, a voice disillusioned with almost everything, wounded and hurt, sometimes crazy, at other times beautiful and brilliant. It is therefore the tips or ends of this other thread that constitutes life. This other thread is actually the experience that life leaves us.
A voice that begins to take the world into its mouth – that of Mambo – and another that begins to take it out – that of If Things Were As They Are: “The deaf have their mouths in their hands. They draw the words in the air; Each word has its own gesture. My uncles were allowed to use sign language in their house. Their parents had forbidden them to go outside. They were left on the streets with no contact with the outside world. Shame. The Germans had already marked and decimated us. The war was supposed to be over, but in this family, invisibility remained an outdated salvation strategy,” writes Escobar Dobrzalovski.
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Mambo was published by Montacerdos Publishing House, while If Things Were as They Are can be found in editions by Criatura Editora, Overol and H&O Editores. The latest edition of Batman in Chile is that of Bordura.
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