As the title suggests, and the script makes clear, this short novel is a Borgesian endeavour, which uses multiple narrators to construct a picture of the life of Eusebio, a poet who fled Spain in the wake of the Civil War, ending up in Marrakesh. The conceit is that a group of readers/ writers assemble in a garden and each one relates a brief chapter in the poet’s life. Some of these chapters are purely tangential. It’s up to the reader to assemble and construct a viable biography from the fragments on offer.
The novel reminds us of the barbarity of the Spanish Civil War, as well as reflecting both the closeness and distance of North Africa from Europe, a connection which centuries of distance have kept at illusory bay. Culturally and geographically there’s no reason that the Iberian peninsula, or Southern Italy, should feel themselves to be closer to Sweden or the UK or Hungary, than North Africa, even if, politically, that has been the case for several centuries. This is the kind of false historical narrative that Enard’s Zone also alluded to.
Goytisolo’s playfulness, (up to and including speculating about the author’s own name at the conclusion of the book), almost demands a personal response from the reader. Given the multiple voices and strands employed, it’s easy to drift in and out of the tenuous narrative, but all the same, the book ended up beguiling. It’s indicative of a kind of informal, slightly anarchic, playful approach to literature, whose echoes are found in the work of Vila-Matas and, por supuesto, Bolaño. (Not to mention Cortazar and his ilk). The way in which the Hispanic world creates a self-aware inter-textuality adds a constant fascination to the process of discovering this culture. Goytisolo reaffirms this with a list of little-known writers under the rubric “Appropriations and Borrowings by Co-readers”, a list which includes the name of my friend’s grandfather, the poet, Rafael Duyos.
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