Subsòl

Subsòl, Unai Siset, Alzira, Bromera, 2010

Set relats de set autors tan dispars i interessants com els que amaga el pseudònim col·lectiu Unai Siset esdevenen un bon contrapunt per un lector curiós que se sent atrapat des de l’inici de la seua lectura. Set maneres de mirar una mateixa realitat, una visió polièdrica coincident al voltant d’una fotografia del metro de París del 1979, a partir de set personalitats marcades per la introspecció i el desig de concretar el punt de coincidència fortuït que representa la imatge captada. A la manera de Lawrence Durrell en el Quartet d’Alexandria, els sis escriptors i l’escriptora aborden de manera individual la realitat compartida pels personatges anònims (als quals ells els atorguen nom i existència) en un context marcat per una de les crisis polítiques més difícils de la República Francesa i per una societat marcada encara per les conseqüències, deu anys més tard, del maig francés.

Els relats estan majoritàriament escrits en tercera persona i contats en passat. Una excepció, no gratuïta, és el darrer d’aquests en el qual assistim al testimoni personal d’Aude, la dona dels cabells clars i ulleres dels anys setanta. Una declaració d’intencions situada en el present d’un personatge que atrapa el lector per la seua sinceritat. El conte inclou diverses disquisicions metaliteràries, iròniques, que aborden el procés de redacció i de construcció del llibre fet pel col·lectiu: “A qui li pot interessar aquesta història per fer-ne un conte?” (pàg. 181).

Subsòl, com no podia ser d’una altra manera, és un llibre heterogeni. Tot i la previsió comuna de repartiment de personatges i d’una documentació òbvia compartida —com també els comentaris creuats sobre el mateix personatge que sembla la reencarnació d’Abraham Lincoln—, és el resultat de set maneres d’abordar la paraula i la realitat derivada d’un bocí de la quotidianitat. Un retret tan sols: que els avanços tecnològics en el tractament de les imatges no hagen aconseguit millorar la qualitat de la fotografia en algun dels punts més poc clars, com són els personatges anomenats Andrea, Avram o Vítor. I un segon encara, el recurs excessiu en alguns capítols a l’atzar o a la casualitat —o “conjuncions còsmiques”, com s’anomena en un dels relats—, tot fomentant la inversemblança d’algunes anècdotes relatades. Un joc literari apassionant, el creuament d’històries sobre la mateixa realitat, que es converteix en Subsòl en una lectura sense pausa.

Quinx

Monsieur o El Príncipe de las Tinieblas (El quinteto de Avignon, V), Lawrence Durrell, Barcelona, Plaza & Janés, 1996 (1985)

Durrell tanca el cercle amb Quinx. Una nova recreació de les històries viscudes pels personatges del quintet a la Provença, enmig de les guerres que assolen Europa i el beatus ille de l’espai on es mouen amb la reaparició de personatges anteriors com Sabine que havia marxat amb els gitanos que es mouen per la Camarga francesa. Potser aquesta part és la més irònica i on Durrell es mostra més relaxat amb els seus personatges. Així és fàcil localitzar una defensa de la banalitat de la vida i dels seus plaers, amb afirmacions com aquesta: “cuando el orgasmo se comparte de esta manera se te admite en el reino que hay entre la muerte y el renacimiento, el taller donde se forjan por igual el pasado y el futuro. La clave está en captar esta simultaneidad.” (pàg. 18). Una explicació del clímax que es veu ampliada: “el orgasmo es una sombra chinesca de este estadio de crisálida” (pàg. 19). Això és, l’orgasme vist de manera paral·lela a la mort: “cada orgasmo es un ensayo general de algo más profundo, como por ejemplo la muerte, que se hace más y más explícita hasta que por fin sucede y revive todo el universo en nosotros con un mazazo.” (pàg. 20-21).

El trencament d’estructures narratives, amb la incorporació d’escenes dramàtiques, és una prova de l’increment de l’experimentació en el darrer llibre de Durrell. L’homogeneïtat dels cinc volums anteriors és trencat amb el joc entre personatges i la consecució dels fragments teatralitzats de les pàgines 28-35, entre altres. La referència al nouveau roman francés, en tant que representa un model innovador de trencament amb la novel·la tradicional, no és gratuïta:

• “les abats surgelés des écrivains qui refusent toute jouissance.” (pàg. 37)
• “el esquema de la antigua y querida novela lineal ha sido dejado a un lado en favor de un suave enfoque palimpséstico que permite a los actores convertirse uno en otro, fundirse en el espacio lineal del otro, si lo desean.” (pàg. 134)

L’interés per l’erotisme i el sexe de Durrell en aquest llibre l’acosta al seu estimat Henry Miller, amb unes exposicions dels personatges força suggerents:

• “el esperma no envejece como le pasa al hombre. Hasta un anciano puede hacer un niño.” (pàg. 38).
• “para aumentar el placer hay que intensificar el dolor” (pàg. 86)
• “la semilla de toda meditación está en el propio orgasmo” (pàg. 131)
• “con cada orgasmo te sumerges un poco en el futuro, gustas un pedacito de inmortalidad a pesar de ti mismo” (pàg. 226)

Paral·lelament, cal destacar les reflexions metaliteràries sobre la condició de l’escriptor i de l’artista: “el único imperativo del artista (todo hombre) es bricoler dans l’inmédiat, c’est tout! Reducir la sobrecarga del trabajo del corazón, el corazón turista.” (pàg. 51). Uns jocs entre personatges que desvetlen algun dels misteris de volums anteriors del quintet, com la referència a la condició d’alguns d’ells com a personatges literaris anteriors (pàg. 65). D’altres comentaris metaliteraris exposats, alguns dels quals sotmesos a una visió irònica, per Sutcliffe i Blanford són:

• “no es cierto que todos los grandes temas estén agotados. Cada época genera nuevos temas.” (pàg. 67)
• “cuando leí, no sé donde, que los campesinos chinos taponaban el culo a los cerdos con arcilla para que pesasen más a la hora de venderlos en el mercado, se me encendió la luz acerca de por qué tantos novelistas norteamericanos escriben lo que escriben: han sido taponados por sus implacables editores.” (pàg. 123)
• “la buena literatura debe pulular entre ambigüedades” (pàg. 182)

Hi ha també diverses reflexions sobre les bases filosòfiques de les religions:

• “el objetivo de los cristianos es ser buenos, el de los budistas es ser libre” (pàg. 71)
• “un judío no es más que un brahmán con prepucio” (pàg. 182)

Constance (The Avignon quintet)

Constance or Solitary Practices (The Avignon quintet), Lawrence Durrell, Barcelona, Ed. Versal, 1982 (1985)
The third reading of Durrell’s quintet has made me the more linear and narrative copy of all previously read. Perhaps the main body of the sequence is the focus of a series of subplots and characters that interact in the midst of the other volumes. The story presents the relationship of the protagonist like the book, Constance, with her brothers Livia (who will star, apparently one of the last volumes of the series) and Hilary. Constance is moved between the memory of her husband, the late Sam and Affad’s new love, the protagonist of Sebastian. The other leading character is the writer Aubrey Blanford, with a primary role in Monsieur. It is very suggestive intertextuality between novels, specifically the reference to the literary character invented by Blanford, his alter ego as a writer and Sutcliffe referred to on this occasion (p. 30), and the authorship of fiction that he maintains on Monsieur or the Prince of Darkness (p. 304).

However, the background of the novel, the German occupation of France, specifically the sociopolitical situation in Provence, and the uneasy coexistence among its people is the basis for fiction. The gang consists of Constance, Blanford, Livia, Hilary, Quatrefages Felix Chatto and represents the longing for the idyllic Provence unoccupied youth, and we all share. An image and referenced to the castle of Monsieur Verfeuille now defined as “the merry band of Tu Duc” (p. 23).
I find the reference at the beginning of the book, Durrell in the “Author’s Note”:

“This book is a novel, not a history book.”

The warning is not free and the distance of the reality take the author either, Durrell does not want to rewrite that history, the context in which the authors move and he himself lived. The use by the events of reality is only referential. Constance could be set in other places and at other times and not lose at all interested.
Following the precious tone of earlier texts, Constance provides the reader with many reflections of extra-literary references, as the French expression between chien et loup (p. 32), Like the realization of the end of the day (boqueta nit, in our Catalan ), which also served as a text in Irène Némirovsky’s novel  Les Chiens et les Loups (1940).

The approach of the hard reality of war brings patterns of interest for the modern reader as:
“The Jews extract every last drop of blood of our horror and regret. They are masters in the art of squeezing. We’ll have to bow his head in his presence for at least a century.” (P. 245)
“All of Europe was a suicide club.” (P. 306)
“Most of love expires because of satiety and indifference.” (P. 310)
Similarly, the relationship with Mr Constance doctor, Schwarz, will be extended to Sebastian, and Cade, the maid who accompanies him in Avignon, will become the core of a story with a lot of constructive force for growth and reader. Thus, it is fully advanced the concept of romantic partners of Affad and Constance, the Sebastian of the previous novel reveals that here which is also its name (p. 245), a relationship that is defined as the characteristic of a “new era of friendship sex “(p. 263).
This is the central novel of the quintet, not in vain there are references to all others, as are the cases mentioned, plus the final reference to Quinx (p. 311), one of five wives of Gampopa within the references metaliterary of Blanford in his books, additional  evidence of the thoroughness of the narrative structure of the last great project of Lawrence Durrell.

Sebastian

Sebastian or Ruling Passions (The Avignon Quintet, IV), Lawrence Durrell, Barcelona, Plaza & Janes, 1996 (1983)
The first book read, heeding the wrong words in Roman numeral of the publisher, not the first published last series of novels by Durrell. This is in order of appearance of the fourth. However, as indicated by all the criticism and reference notes, the quintet can be read independently of the others. We’ll see, it will contrast, after your reading. For now, the reader finds in Sebastian with several intersecting characters in a story halfway between Geneva and the end of World War II, surrounded by psychiatrists and psychologists who care for several characters who seem to have their role in other novels of the series. The bridge across the space is, could it be otherwise with Durrell, Alexandria  in Egypt, following the tracing of the Copts and so-called worshipers of death “, a sort of esoteric sect that permeates the essence and development of the two main characters, the wretched survivor Affad and Constance, who will star in the third installment of the author.
Another recurrent space, at the end of the history, is Provence and the city of Avignon, the city that will give rise to the first of the novels, Monsieur (or Le prince des Tenebres) I just started reading. Sebastian offers a substantial reflection on the difficulties of personal relationships, especially emotional in the changing world in crisis as the time of World War II. Durrell does not directly address any situation, but the sample, provides the intelligent reader to know that glimpse, to address, analyze and draw conclusions. There is a medical colleague Constance, Schwarz, a Jew who left his wife in Europe, in Vienna, and that by the end of the novel cannot resist the guilt to a wife who has survived the Nazi concentration camps in a very pitiful. Is Affad a fellow who seek to stop time through the fixation with death. There is the enigmatic and powerful state of being, that tries to control the will of Affad, the prince. It Mnemidis, the patient mad, tormented by religious pressure that destroys the happiness of Constance, his doctor tries to cure him.
It is the description of a changing world that disturbs the reader and motivates it to continue. Any challenge to follow the end of Durrell. A suggestive proposal, as had already been The Alexandria Quartet.

Monsieur or The Prince of Darkness (The Avignon Quintet, I)

Monsieur or The Prince of Darkness (The Avignon Quintet, I), Lawrence Durrell, Barcelona, Ed. Versal, 1986 (1974)
This is a disturbing history, within another history, with an endless tale where the reader needs to make interpretations to consider. All this, obviously, can hinder their intelligibility and divert attention. Eco inherent in other novels in the series, with Sylvie, Akkad, Livia …, to Avignon, Alexandria and the Mediterranean World in the background of the second book I read of the quintet. The last chapter, built with the intention of closing the story or at least create the last lines of interpretation, provides the nakedness of a fiction of Durrell writer’s alter-ego’s? -, Cited in The Blanford fiction within the fiction writer as Bloshford Rob Sutcliffe, referring to several links to other novels in the series.
It is often said that Durrell wanted the five books could be read independently and in no particular order, there is absolutely no correlation defined, either by himself or by critics. However, it is obvious that the reader finds the common ground, latent characters, stories dams. This is the game of the author: realize it is really a lie. This is the basis of literature, the novel as a genre, and Monsieur is no stranger to this, where here it is a novel in which several characters intersect living some time in a Templar castle home in Provence, in Verfeuille. An interaction marked by emotional ties of consanguinity and the brothers Bruce and Pia, married in turn to Sylvie and Rob Sutcliffe, respectively. Similarly, the character gains strength to kill himself and marks the evolution of the story, Piers, Sylvie’s brother, deeply marked by the Gnostic sect that has its center operations with the guide and becomes Akkad (p.. 142) – Macabru oasis in Alexandria: “He was a worshiper of the God of the Templars. He believed in the usurper of the throne, the Prince of Darkness.” (p. 31).

A few explicit references to the title are several qualifications later (p. 221).
The novel is rich in perspectives and narrative voices, of all kinds: it now focuses on the medical history of Bruce, now in the writer Sutcliffe, now in the Templars doctorate Toby Goddard … All this to be a history on human nature reflections and interrelationships of it with the forces of nature: “What dies is actually the collective image of the past, all temporal selves that have been present, in a row together now in a moment of perfect attendance, arrest as clear as crystal, which could last forever if you so wished. “(p. 17).
One of the most suggestive is that of Sutcliffe. So, before hearing his own voice in “Venetian Documents” in the third chapter, we know its degradation, aggravated by the flight of his wife, Pia, with her lover, black woman also pre-Trash-suicide, with the rugged description of its decision not to wash and enjoy origins crusts and other body fluids (p. 18). After leaving written notes, we find another pattern of reflection: “Identity is the delicate suggestion of consistency with which we dress. It is both illusory and very real and very necessary for happiness, if happiness is really necessary. “(p. 89-90).

In his notebooks we read sentences like the following:
* Today death is a limbo peopled by living. (p. 221)
* A critic is a worm in the liver of the literature. (p. 260)
* Noted with displeasure that the suicide was really too painful, and abandoned the idea for some time. Then, like a fruit blue, melancholy began to grow again. (p. 258)
Another interesting character is his wife, Pia, who kept for many years of marriage a secret box that obscures the husband. There are dolls and other stuff of childhood, when he discovers, the balance is upset: “I had desecrated the inner reality of his distant childhood.” (P. 224). Thus, it shows peculiar behavior as “never could spend all night in bed with a man, had to get up and go to another bed after making love.” (P. 225).

Trash with her lover, with whom she travels through the same places where he had been with her husband, there is suggestive descriptions like this: “The body of Trash smells like a wedding cake.” (P. 237).
In short, Durrell gives us a new chapter in his later work, his will to those who have wanted to meet again after The Alexandria Quartet, in a story that every character is hidden in. The multiplicity of perspectives and thoughts, as a whole, responds to an author’s personal debate that ended his emotional and intellectual baggage. This is the merit and talent of the writer and his work, and we are the witnesses and heirs of their hobby.