What book ruined your ability to enjoy “light” literature forever?
For me, the list is long. I confess, at the risk of being canceled, that I read Isabel Allende’s The House of the Spirits when I was very young. And I didn’t think it was that bad. While studying literature at Chile (as the University of Chile is colloquially known), I began to read other things from which I would never recover. But I would say it was a mixture of Eliot and Pound, the Four Quartets before The Waste Land, the Cantos before the short poems, which prevented me from ever reading in the same way again. There is also the poison of Enrique Lihn, an author who is fundamental to me and without whom I would never have become the person I am today. To return to what I was saying at the beginning: I have never been able to read Isabel Allende again. And I don’t regret it.
Which author would you like to invite to dinner, just to argue with them for three hours?
That’s a tough one; I would have liked to talk to Fredric Jameson, but contradicting Jameson is too big a task for me, I think. I would contradict Alfredo Jocelyn-Holt, a liberal Chilean historian, for quite a while, if only to annoy him, with his air of a well-bred child who happened to be born in Chile. I know this is totally lame, but I would invite Annie McClanahan, one of the most interesting literary critics in Yanquilandia today, to dinner. The other would be Sarah Brouillette, who for me is the very definition of sharp literary criticism, capable of combining economic dynamics with the best of the literature we have left today.
What book did you pretend to have read with the most conviction?
Phew, hundreds. Once, when I was fifteen, a friend made up an author and a book to test me, and of course I had read that book. She laughed a lot that time. But those sins of youth are just that: I no longer need anyone to make up books for me, I make them up myself.
Which literary character would you kill yourself?
Some of Houellebecq’s protagonists: they’re too much like me. Schnier, the protagonist of Opinions of a Clown, also seems detestable to me, but I identify with him completely. And, while we’re at it, Professor Unrat, from The Blue Angel, makes me feel deeply tender.
Which “classic” book do you consider a punishment to read, yet still defend in public?
There are no classics that can be considered punishment. But I will say that, for example, Nada, by Carmen Laforet, I found unreadable. And what kind of heartless person do you think I am? I would never defend that kind of reading. Having taught in secondary schools, I can’t get my head around the fact that anyone wouldn’t be entertained by Don Quixote, El Mío Cid or any other title supposedly abhorrent according to teenagers who have earned themselves that adjective.
What is your guilty literary pleasure, the one you hide behind a fake copy of Proust?
I’m a devotee of Charles Bukowski. There, I said it. And it’s very visible on my office bookshelf, not even hidden in my home, but in my workplace.
What book do you treat as a sacred object, but whose first page remains more pristine than your new Kindle?
Ulysses. I should clarify that its first page is not pristine at all, but I do treat it as a sacred object. Someone even tore my copy to pieces, but I put the whole thing back together, and there it remains, in a privileged place in my library.
Which author would you trade lives with, even if only to have a scholarship at the Sorbonne?
John Dos Passos? The life of a traitor never ceases to be interesting.
Which bookstore has stolen the most money from you with your consent?
It would have to be, without a doubt, La Mímesis, a glorious bookstore located in the Torres de San Borja, a Chilean and capital city landmark, run by David Wallace and Miguel Vélez, where I bought everything I could and they let me run a tab with money I never had.
What books have you started more than three times without getting past page 40?
The Passion According to G.H., by Clarice Lispector. There, crucify me.
What Latin phrase do you use to sound profound, even though you don’t really know what it means?
Quidquid latine dictum sit altum viditur, literally “Everything said in Latin seems profound.” They had a sense of humor back then.
Which literary character would you like to have as a therapist, knowing that they would ruin you emotionally?
Heredia, the detective in Ramón Díaz Eterovic’s novels. He’s a good guy, and I think that while he’s solving some of his cases, we could have some worthwhile conversations, although I don’t really see him as a therapist.
What is the most absurd edition you bought just for its aesthetics?
There was a time in my life when I had all the first editions of Juan Luis Martínez. ALL of them. I gave La poesía chilenato a poet and editor who no longer speaks to me. La Nueva Novela, El poeta anónimo, and other titles were burned along with three thousand other books when my library caught fire.
What literary genre do you pretend to despise because your intellectual friends do?
I’m quite fond of what used to be called minor genres, so I don’t really understand the concept of despising literature. There are some very prestigious authors who leave me completely indifferent, and there are others I know I’ll never read, because I’ve basically come to terms with the fact that I’ll never get around to reading everything. I’d like to, but it seems I’ll never manage it.
Which contemporary author do you pretend to be uninterested in but secretly wish you had written their books?
Ginsberg? I still find Howl and Kaddish to be enviable, powerful, enduring texts.
How many books do you have left to read and how many do you still buy each month?
Since I stopped buying books, I get about five or six, with a high sense of guilt. When I was buying in peace, ten or twenty. I must have about forty pending, easily. My good friend [the poet Marcelo] Pellegrini and I swear every so often that we’re not going to buy any more books, but so far neither self-help groups nor offerings to the Virgin have helped.
What literary scene made you close the book and stare at the ceiling as if you had experienced something?
If This Is a Man, by Primo Levi. The only book that has ever made me cry. I was in the Student Union, one of those pseudo-corporate buildings that American universities name after the millionaire who donated the most money, surrounded by girls and boys from the American Midwest, waiting to grab their lunch and head off to their next class.
What book would you give away just to test whether someone is worthy of you?
I can’t assume that someone is worthy or unworthy of me. I tend to think the opposite.
What is the most heinous literary crime? Dog-earing pages, underlining books, or not reading?
I would say, in some cases, that the worst of all is writing.
Do you read the author’s blurb before starting a book, or do you prefer to ruin the experience later?
Before. I read the blurb, the year of publication, the name of the typesetter if it appears, where the book was published, and if it has a long and detailed prologue, of course I read that too. And sometimes I save myself the whole book.
What fictional library do you deserve according to your level of literary neurosis?
It’s not fictional, but the library at El Escorial, which I’ve visited twice, keeps me awake at night.
Have you ever stolen a book? Which one(s)?
Let’s just say I’ve kept a lot of borrowed books, to put it elegantly. The list is long and I don’t want to get into trouble.
What is your greatest achievement as a reader: surviving Ulysses or finishing Don Quixote?
Finishing Don Quixote. TWICE. And I’m on my third, hopefully soon.
What book would you have liked to write just so you could sign it and show it off?
The Apocryphal Quixote, by Alonso Fernández de Avellaneda. The Empty Book, by Josefina Vicens, also has a lot of merit and is a novel that deserves better luck outside Mexico.
At what age did you realize that reading didn’t make you a better person, just more unbearable?
Quite late, after I turned forty. I clung to hope until the very last moment. Too much Cioran, too much Marcus Aurelius, and that sort of people.
Which supporting character deserved more prominence than the main character?
Fermín Zavala, Santiago’s father, the protagonist of Conversation in the Cathedral. I would have liked to know what the novel would have been like from the father’s point of view and all the secrets he kept.
How many bookmarks do you have, and how many do you actually use (apart from the lottery ticket that you didn’t win, of course)?
I have a real collection, but I use about five percent of them. Many bookmarks are useless. Either they are much longer than the books and are impractical, or they come with a kind of ponytail that not only makes them difficult to use but also makes them aesthetically unpresentable. Others are too thick, others are for causes I don’t want to advertise or follow. I like the bookmarks that some publishers make from their own books, such as Ferrán Fernández, from Luces de Gálibo, in Spain. Some handmade ones, very carefully crafted, also have a special value.
Which author do you think is brilliant, but you’d rather not have around at a dinner party?
Cioran, of course. Can anyone imagine the digestion after dinner with Cioran?
What phrase do you use to justify not finishing the books you start?
“I’m busy” is the one I blurt out the fastest and almost without thinking. But there are no such things as unfinished books, they are just books that are pending.
If your life were a book, on which shelf in the bookstore would we find it: “unnecessary drama,” “pretentious fiction,” or “essay on disappointment”?
Existentialist manga.
