Two unmissable, Baricco’s new novel, and Borges by Piglia

If “the style is the man himself,” as the count of Buffon, In the pages of “Borges by Piglia” It has been reproduced, with surprising precision, the style, the precise brand, of the author of “Artificial respiration” (Work that Enrique Pezzoni considered “the best Argentine novel after “Hopscotch”). A style that unites knowledge with cordiality, the enjoyable data that calculates seems accidental, the fun comment, with deep reflection.

Four years before he died, because of ELA, Piglia He offered on public television, in collaboration with the National Library, a second cycle of talks. If the first, in 2012, tried “Scenes of the Argentine novel”the next, was inevitable, dedicated it to Borges. Inevitable because of Borges And his work, which he considered a miracle in our literature and in universal literature, Piglia I had not stopped talking and thinking again, since the time of his first stories of “The invasion” And his initial critical reflections, at twenty -three years, to the classes he dictated in Princenton, Harvard and the University of Buenos Aires. Although the course he offered on television, which can still be seen on YouTube, has the university classes tone, where he opens the dialogue with the attendees, as he did with his students, many times the comments move to be able to share their ideas as in a talk of friends.

For Piglia The extraordinary of Borges It is having achieved a narrative procedure that did not exist before and that, from it, others can use, and what Piglia calls conceptual literature or speculative fiction, no matter how much Borges Consider his work within fantastic literature. In your classes Piglia goes to the way the Borges writer earned a living as in his texts the voice of the margins appears or in his imaginary the two family lines, that of the stagnant and that of the intellectuals, that of the warrior military and that of the English with their traditions act with their traditions. European

Each stage that makes Borges It turns Borgeson “a world icon” (as proposed in one of the intermediates of talks of Piglia With writers and critics), they are warned, indicated and commented. And if the author’s style is fully “Burned Silver”also appears Borgesin an interview he did Pigliain his classic ironies and his admirable answers, where he does not accept narrative links with ARLT that awarded and grants fun with that your book about Carriego Be your only novel.

*Ricardo Piglia “Borges by Piglia” (Bs.AS., Eternal Editor Cadence, 2024, 226 pages)

Baricco

If a good story adds a life to our life, the new novel of Alessandro Bariccoafter eight years of silence, a group of unforgettable lives gives us in a history of cowboys in a border territory where everything is provisional, where outburst is easy, immediate discharge, rumiar the existence.

It is the story of Abel Crow, gunman, then Sheriff, told by himself, starting at age 27, with comings and turns, making stops in which they surround him. To start in his five brothers, whom he must lead after his father is dead and his mother leaves with two horses. They are: Isaac, the one who dies young. David who becomes a shepherd. Samuel who, dedicated to mining exploitation, becomes rich. Joshua the madman of so conscious. And Lilith, the seer. All with biblical names, in the tradition of southern Gothic, which has Faulkner at the head.

Abel gets carried away by a floating memory, where the memory can be what is happening. Says: “Of all life that one has lived and will live- if one knows how to wait before everything he fades- one finds the story in his own way. It is a mistake to expect something linear, as we feel inclined to do. ” “There is not a before and after.” “The intention owns our destiny.”

After the brothers leave each on their way, Abel’s expands. In the Puzzle of temporary jumps, of songs for its poetic flavor, Abel crosses with endearing characters. They are accidents, substances of life, as the teacher explains. The teacher is a boy who defended a town governed by women, and the attackers who were left alone were encouraged to tear off their eyes, and from there they asked to be read, and became the teacher, who advises A Abel and others, and quotes Spinoza, Plato, Hume either Hegel.

Existential philosophy travels a scenario what due to the tension of latent violence in the middle of a flat and dry pampas, saloons and brothels, it looks like a movie Sergio Leone, John Ford either Fred Zimmermann. There are wise judges, Sheriff attendees who cite Voltairewitches that cure, magicians return to alienates. And there is Hallelujah, the captivating girl Dakota, Abel’s great love, who, like the story he tells he spends and coming, while still being captured. Suddenly the scattered brothers must gather to save the mother of the gallows, the Western epic reaches its crucial moment.

Baricconarrator, essayist, playwright, graduate in philosophy, his novels (“Silk”, “Mar Ocean”among others) they gave it worldwide fame, with “Abel” He takes the pulp to high literature, giving his best novel case.

*Alessandro Baricco “Abel” (Bs.As., Anagrama, 2024, 172 pp.)