Read Online How I Became A Nun by César Aira - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: César Aira
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little giant. The Messiah was the gang leader, and in
each episode he performed a mini-miracle, as if he was in training for later life. He
wasn’t infallible yet and used to get into all sorts of trouble in his efforts to
help the poor and the wayward of Nazareth; but things always worked out and, at the end,
the deep, resonant voice of God the Father pronounced the moral, if there was one, or
some words of wise advice. Those boys became my best friends. I loved their adventures
and pranks so much that my imagination worked at top speed, coming up with variations
and alternative outcomes; but in the end I always found the scriptwriters’
solutions more satisfying. For me it was a kind of reality. A reality that
couldn’t be seen, only heard, that existed as voices and sounds. It was up to me
to provide the images. But within this reality there came a moment—my
favorite—when the Father spoke, and at that point everyone, not just me, had to
provide an image. God was the radio within the radio.
The second soap opera was historical too, but secular and Argentinean. Entitled
Tell
me, Grandma,
it was invariably introduced by a sort of prologue, in which the
venerable Mariquita Sánchez de Thompson was questioned by her grandchildren, each
time about a different event in national history to which she had been an eye witness.
One day it would be the first English invasion, another day the second, or some episode
during one or the other, or the May revolution, a party during the Viceroyalty or the
tyranny of Rosas, an incident in the life of Belgrano or San Martín … I
loved the way time was haphazard, the lottery of the years. I knew nothing about
history, of course, but the preliminary dialogues and the old lady’s adorably
hesitant voice made me imagine it as a broad expanse of time, a spread from which to
choose … And Grandma’s memory seemed to be tenuous, hanging from a thread
about to snap … but once she got going, her shaky voice faded, making way for the
actors of the past … This substitution was my favorite part: the voice hesitating
among memories and the mist dissolving to reveal the ultra-real clarity of the scene as
it had happened …
Tell me, Grandma
was not really aimed at children or at adults, and yet it was
meant for both. It bridged the gap, reminding adults of what they had learned at school
and acquainting children with things they would remember when they learned about them.
Doña Mariquita and her grandchildren were as one: she was the eternal little girl
… Her failing, aged memory was in fact prodigious: scenes remote in time came to
life not as the past usually does, in the form of mute images, but images endowed with
sound, every inflection intact, down to the faintest sigh or the sound of chair legs
scraping on a sitting-room floor as a viceregal official dead seventy years before stood
up suddenly to greet a lady who had lain in her grave for more than half as long, and
with whom he was, naturally, in love.
The third soap opera, which started at eight (they were all half an hour long) was
definitely for adults. It was about love and featured all the stars of the day. In a
sense, this serial connected with reality itself, while the others skirted around it.
One proof of this—I saw it as a proof in any case—was the complication of
the story. The reality that I knew, my reality, wasn’t complicated. On the
contrary, it was simplicity itself. It was too simple. I can’t summarize the Lux
serial as I did with the other two. It didn’t have an underlying mechanism; it was
pure, free-floating complication. There was a given that guaranteed its perpetual
complication: everyone was in love. There were no secondary characters playing
supporting roles. Love was the theme of the serial and everyone was in love. They were
like molecules with love valencies reaching out into space, into the sonorous
each episode he performed a mini-miracle, as if he was in training for later life. He
wasn’t infallible yet and used to get into all sorts of trouble in his efforts to
help the poor and the wayward of Nazareth; but things always worked out and, at the end,
the deep, resonant voice of God the Father pronounced the moral, if there was one, or
some words of wise advice. Those boys became my best friends. I loved their adventures
and pranks so much that my imagination worked at top speed, coming up with variations
and alternative outcomes; but in the end I always found the scriptwriters’
solutions more satisfying. For me it was a kind of reality. A reality that
couldn’t be seen, only heard, that existed as voices and sounds. It was up to me
to provide the images. But within this reality there came a moment—my
favorite—when the Father spoke, and at that point everyone, not just me, had to
provide an image. God was the radio within the radio.
The second soap opera was historical too, but secular and Argentinean. Entitled
Tell
me, Grandma,
it was invariably introduced by a sort of prologue, in which the
venerable Mariquita Sánchez de Thompson was questioned by her grandchildren, each
time about a different event in national history to which she had been an eye witness.
One day it would be the first English invasion, another day the second, or some episode
during one or the other, or the May revolution, a party during the Viceroyalty or the
tyranny of Rosas, an incident in the life of Belgrano or San Martín … I
loved the way time was haphazard, the lottery of the years. I knew nothing about
history, of course, but the preliminary dialogues and the old lady’s adorably
hesitant voice made me imagine it as a broad expanse of time, a spread from which to
choose … And Grandma’s memory seemed to be tenuous, hanging from a thread
about to snap … but once she got going, her shaky voice faded, making way for the
actors of the past … This substitution was my favorite part: the voice hesitating
among memories and the mist dissolving to reveal the ultra-real clarity of the scene as
it had happened …
Tell me, Grandma
was not really aimed at children or at adults, and yet it was
meant for both. It bridged the gap, reminding adults of what they had learned at school
and acquainting children with things they would remember when they learned about them.
Doña Mariquita and her grandchildren were as one: she was the eternal little girl
… Her failing, aged memory was in fact prodigious: scenes remote in time came to
life not as the past usually does, in the form of mute images, but images endowed with
sound, every inflection intact, down to the faintest sigh or the sound of chair legs
scraping on a sitting-room floor as a viceregal official dead seventy years before stood
up suddenly to greet a lady who had lain in her grave for more than half as long, and
with whom he was, naturally, in love.
The third soap opera, which started at eight (they were all half an hour long) was
definitely for adults. It was about love and featured all the stars of the day. In a
sense, this serial connected with reality itself, while the others skirted around it.
One proof of this—I saw it as a proof in any case—was the complication of
the story. The reality that I knew, my reality, wasn’t complicated. On the
contrary, it was simplicity itself. It was too simple. I can’t summarize the Lux
serial as I did with the other two. It didn’t have an underlying mechanism; it was
pure, free-floating complication. There was a given that guaranteed its perpetual
complication: everyone was in love. There were no secondary characters playing
supporting roles. Love was the theme of the serial and everyone was in love. They were
like molecules with love valencies reaching out into space, into the sonorous
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