On not reading (in English)
Alejandro Zambra and Alberto Prunetti (and Andrés Neuman's beard, among other things)
Back in Bligthy after a well deserved break from her and her discontents. I would be lying if I said I spent too much time reading the past couple of weeks but I still had time to go through Alejandro Zambra’s No leer1 and I advanced quite a lot with Alberto Prunetti’s 108 metri: The new working class hero2. (I also started Natalia Ginzburg’s Lessico famigliare, but I literally read just a couple of pages past the unnecessarily lengthy intro.)
These past two weeks were a well-deserved break from Anglophone literature. Not only for the obvious linguistic reasons but because Zambra and Prunetti introduced (reintroduced?) me to a whole host of fresh themes. Perhaps, then, the break was a break with Anglolit discourse. I tend to get too unnecessarily invested with what is being discussed in the book Anglosphere and this sometimes means I stop paying attention to work I should paying attention to.
I was first recommended Zambra by writer and editor Sylvia Warren. I think Sylvia recommended either Mis documentos or Poeta chileno, I can’t remember which one. I had Zambra on my radar but for some reason I had him mixed up with Andrés Neuman and because I don’t like Neuman’s beard I ended up not reading Zambra. Then I realised they’re not the same person and got copies of Bonsai, Mis documentos and Poeta chileno, to compensate3. In the end I ended up having a go at his non-fiction work first — everyone writes fiction in 20224, so I though I’d rather read a collection of literary essays.
No leer is exactly that: a collection of essays penned by Zambra from the early 2000s to the late 2010s. Many of these pieces take the form of literary “crónicas”, that most Latin American of genres; others are short reflections on this or that writer or book; towards the end we encounter longer pieces, dealing mainly with the work of heavyweights (like Bolaño, Parra, Pavese, or Ginzburg5); and closing the book are a series of short pieces discussing his own fiction writing — these certainly convinced me that I have to give his fiction work a try.
There are perhaps too many pieces in No leer to consume in one seating — the problem of collections and their incoherent totality. And some of the pieces — particularly the earlier ones — suffer from the-usual-suspectsness — that parade of male Latin American literary giants (with and without beards)6. But I think you’d be hard-pressed to find a more avid reader than Zambra. Importantly, I was also very impressed by his generosity as a critic: here is someone that even when he has a harsh criticism to deliver does it without snark or low punches. On the other hand I am not sure how interesting this book would be the average Anglophone reader. Many of the writers name-dropped by Zambra in No leer aren’t that available or well-known in English and many of his debates are heavily localised (geographically). Perhaps this is a prejudice on my part and the average Anglophone reader is more generous and curious than I suspect?
Over to 108 metri: the new working class hero. Prunetti’s is one of the funniest and most endearing books I’ve read in a long time. I had him in the radar since this 2019 interview. As I’ve been studying Italian for some years now I delayed reading him until I could do it in original language. I don’t regret this decision, even if it’s still quite demanding for me to read in the language of Dante and I need to resort to the dictionary here and there. Because language is central to 108 metri… and you can see that from the hybridity of its title onwards. There are parts in which Prunetti juggles Italian, Spanish, English, French, to paint the melting pot that is your regular British kitchen. I am curious to see how the English translator revolves this, when and how this hybridity is preserved or cancelled, what becomes English and what Italian and so on. I’ll read the translation when I’m done with the original.
I don’t know enough of the Italian literary scene to speculate about how normal is it to read a working class voice. Once more, I might be prejudicious and too influenced by Anglophone literature, but I doubt that you get to read a lot about working class people in Italian7. Especially those that don’t fit the stereotype and throw the history of literature at you at the same time that they eloquently and politically discuss the joys and sorrows of factory and kitchen work without resorting to melodrama or caricature. I still need to finish with 108 metri and I shall be writing about it properly soon.
For the time being, keep Zambra and Prunetti on your radar. And if you can read in a different language — consider that ability a potential line of flight away from the literary discourse produced in whichever language you read most. Every language and every scene entails its own bullshit. But sometimes it’s just nice to be oblivious to it all for a while, to just focus on the word on the page.
Published as Not to Read in the UK by Fitzcarraldo, with a translation by Megan McDowell.
Published in English by Scribe, in a translation by Elena Pala. The chosen title — Down and Out in England and Italy — departs considerably from the original and is unfortunately Orwellian, in my humble opinion.
Since I now don a beard too I will soon read Neuman. I also want to be clear: I don’t condone not reading writers because of their beard.
And worse, memoirs. Poetry isn’t anymore the refuge of the lazy writer.
I bought Lessico famigliare after Zambra’s essay. I bought it in a very nice library in central Lecce, together with a copy of Calvino’s Le città invisibili, which I am yet to read in Italian. My tastes in Italian are pretty obvious, as you can see. As an apology: I’m just giving my first steps in this literary scene. Lecce is great, by the way, and not only because mythical figure C.C. O’Hanlon lives nearby.
I still remember an Irish writer who suffered a pang of performative feminist outrage when I made the mistake of sharing Bolaño’s short story writing tips on Twitter. Who could have thought that a Latin American guy born in 1953 and dead in 2003 would have read only men? Still, I think some of his tips are bang on and it’d be your miss if you can’t juggle historical and cultural specificity with knowledge about craft, taking what’s useful while leaving the chuff. Also, kids, don’t ever share anything on Twitter as only bad things can happen.
We live in Diverse Times but class is still a pending matter isn’t it?
I was attracted to Andres Neuman by the beard, but didn’t like the book.