Read Online A Brief History of Portable Literature by Enrique Vila-Matas - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Enrique Vila-Matas
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dowry, which he used to set up the International Sanatorium. Although his love of lucre is considerable, he lets us stay at the Sanatorium for free. Occasionally, one of us will make an effort and tell him a story, or simply engage him in conversation to give him a chance to let loose his balderdash. That’s more than enough to keep Marienbad happy.
“He’s a perfect fool, but his hospitality comes in very handy. Walter Benjamin, for instance, has used the time to start designing a promising machine that will be able to detect any book that might be boring or bothersome, that, even in miniature, wouldn’t fit into a small suitcase.
“It is a very complex machine, complete with contraptions frankly unfamiliar to me: tibaida lenses, focal compartments, copper cuffs, oval cylinders, metal buttons, metal stoppers, magnetized needles, bolts, and iron jugulars.
“Walter Benjamin is sure the design will be complete in less than a month. Apparently, the method for weighing texts consists of putting a book in this cylindrical penitentiary and letting an immense, round lens look it over. Portable books will be immediately released through this black cylinder, heavy in appearance; positioned vertically on the ground, it will have a large spherical light bulb on top with the words CONTRA GRAND STYLE on it. A blue light emanating from the bulb will be visible even in bright sunlight. The book’s emotional-mechanical vibration will turn the light bulb off for a fraction of a second, showing that the glass is colorless and that the light itself is actually blue. In turn, this light will reveal the inscription VIVA VERMEER at the machine’s highest point—in twenty-seven different languages if possible—thus saluting effusively the recently liberated portable books.
“Otherwise, I’ve also managed to find out that Tristan Tzara has begun writing a brief history of portable literature: a kind of literature that, by his reckoning, is characterized by having no system to impose, only an art of living. In a sense, it’s more life than literature. For Tzara, his book contains the only literary construction possible; it is a transcription made by someone unconvinced by the authenticity of History and the metaphorical historicity of the Novel. Employing greater originality than most novels, the book will offer sketches of the Shandy customs and life. Tzara’s aim is to cultivate the imaginary portrait (a form of literary fantasia concealing a reflection in its capriciousness), to endeavor in the imaginary portrait’s ornamentation.
“You also ought to know that Berta Bocado—moved by a sudden ambitiousness—is attempting to construct a total book: a book of books encompassing all others, an object whose virtues the years will never diminish. As ever, Bocado is being very absentminded, seeing as her book will be anything but portable.
“In fact, we’re all making things. More than artists—which has a hollow, pompous ring to it—we are artisans, people who make things. An air of happy creativity pervades the rooms at the International Sanatorium. We barely see each other, since, being artisans, we take refuge in our individuality; but occasionally a polar wind blows through, bringing us all together in the central courtyard, where we smile in our thick overcoats and exchange complicit glances. A word will occasionally break the silence, and we feel ourselves straighten up like spears scaling the lofty heights and we inundate the shadows. Victory is not ours, but we fight on—silence against silence—because we know heaven never scorns ambition.
“So go the days. The occasional furtive courtyard exchange gives me an idea of how things are going with the others; this is how I found out, for example, that Scott Fitzgerald has completed a novel about a person named Gatsby, a man confronting his past as he moves inexorably into nothingness.
“George Antheil is working on his
Ballet Mécanique
, a Shandy musical par
“He’s a perfect fool, but his hospitality comes in very handy. Walter Benjamin, for instance, has used the time to start designing a promising machine that will be able to detect any book that might be boring or bothersome, that, even in miniature, wouldn’t fit into a small suitcase.
“It is a very complex machine, complete with contraptions frankly unfamiliar to me: tibaida lenses, focal compartments, copper cuffs, oval cylinders, metal buttons, metal stoppers, magnetized needles, bolts, and iron jugulars.
“Walter Benjamin is sure the design will be complete in less than a month. Apparently, the method for weighing texts consists of putting a book in this cylindrical penitentiary and letting an immense, round lens look it over. Portable books will be immediately released through this black cylinder, heavy in appearance; positioned vertically on the ground, it will have a large spherical light bulb on top with the words CONTRA GRAND STYLE on it. A blue light emanating from the bulb will be visible even in bright sunlight. The book’s emotional-mechanical vibration will turn the light bulb off for a fraction of a second, showing that the glass is colorless and that the light itself is actually blue. In turn, this light will reveal the inscription VIVA VERMEER at the machine’s highest point—in twenty-seven different languages if possible—thus saluting effusively the recently liberated portable books.
“Otherwise, I’ve also managed to find out that Tristan Tzara has begun writing a brief history of portable literature: a kind of literature that, by his reckoning, is characterized by having no system to impose, only an art of living. In a sense, it’s more life than literature. For Tzara, his book contains the only literary construction possible; it is a transcription made by someone unconvinced by the authenticity of History and the metaphorical historicity of the Novel. Employing greater originality than most novels, the book will offer sketches of the Shandy customs and life. Tzara’s aim is to cultivate the imaginary portrait (a form of literary fantasia concealing a reflection in its capriciousness), to endeavor in the imaginary portrait’s ornamentation.
“You also ought to know that Berta Bocado—moved by a sudden ambitiousness—is attempting to construct a total book: a book of books encompassing all others, an object whose virtues the years will never diminish. As ever, Bocado is being very absentminded, seeing as her book will be anything but portable.
“In fact, we’re all making things. More than artists—which has a hollow, pompous ring to it—we are artisans, people who make things. An air of happy creativity pervades the rooms at the International Sanatorium. We barely see each other, since, being artisans, we take refuge in our individuality; but occasionally a polar wind blows through, bringing us all together in the central courtyard, where we smile in our thick overcoats and exchange complicit glances. A word will occasionally break the silence, and we feel ourselves straighten up like spears scaling the lofty heights and we inundate the shadows. Victory is not ours, but we fight on—silence against silence—because we know heaven never scorns ambition.
“So go the days. The occasional furtive courtyard exchange gives me an idea of how things are going with the others; this is how I found out, for example, that Scott Fitzgerald has completed a novel about a person named Gatsby, a man confronting his past as he moves inexorably into nothingness.
“George Antheil is working on his
Ballet Mécanique
, a Shandy musical par
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