What book ruined your ability to enjoy “light” literature forever?
It was probably Jean-Paul Sartre’s Nausea. I read it for the first time when I was 13, although at the time I knew nothing about the author or the text, let alone what existentialism was. I bought it because at that age I found the title appealing. I remember failing in my first attempt to read it. I gave up on the third or fourth page. The same thing happened during my second attempt a few weeks later, but since I didn’t have many books at the time, I had no choice but to read the ones I had bought, so I gave it a third chance a few months later, and this time “something” clicked. The novel ignited my synapses with the fury of a forest fire. I couldn’t put it down. I stayed up all night reading it and didn’t stop until I reached the last page. Only then did I understand that there was another kind of book that seemed to have been written for me, so different from the reading material that was part of the school curriculum.
Which author would you like to invite to dinner, just to argue with them for three hours?
If it’s just to argue with them, I’d probably choose Sigmund Freud. I find his theories on the subconscious, the meaning of dreams, and other topics very entertaining, but the academic rigor that underpins many of them is highly questionable. It’s no surprise that he has become a gold mine for many surrealists.
What book did you pretend to have read with the most conviction?
None. I’m not ashamed to admit that I haven’t read books that I probably should have read many years ago: Moby-Dick, The Brothers Karamazov, Finnegans Wake (I’ve read many pages of the latter, but I still haven’t mustered the courage to read it from cover to cover), War and Peace, East of Eden, La Regenta, etc.
Which literary character would you kill yourself?
Franz Kafka in Letters to Felice. You have to be not only a great admirer of his, but also adore him, to tolerate hundreds of pages of psychological abuse, constant manipulation, and passive-aggressive techniques to which he subjected Felice Bauer, his fiancée. I have never felt such revulsion for someone I admire so much.
What “classic” book do you consider a punishment to read, yet still defend in public?
The Making of Americans, by Gertrude Stein. Although I find its recursiveness brilliant, I understand why so many people hate it. It took me three months to read because I couldn’t get past ten pages a day (you risk ending up with your brain turned to mush). However, I defend it because it is one of the cornerstones of Modernism.
What is your guilty literary pleasure, the one you hide behind a fake copy of Proust?
Some books by David Sedaris, I guess. They’ve made me laugh a lot, particularly Me Talk Pretty One Day and Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim. I don’t consider them “guilty pleasures,” but they are certainly a lighter type of literature, one that doesn’t demand too much from the reader, although Sedaris’ voice has unquestionable literary merit.
What book do you treat as a sacred object, but whose first page remains more pristine than your new Kindle?
Bottom’s Dream [Zettel’s Traum], by Arno Schmidt. Its writing is much more esoteric than Joyce’s Finnegans Wake. Schmidt created his own version of German, almost impenetrable due to its syntax and phonetic games, a peculiarity that admits very few followers. And that’s not all, because the novel weighs 6 kilos, is the size of an atlas, and has 1,496 pages, not ideal for taking to bed or reading in a waiting room, but rather hunched over a table or desk. The fact that John E. Woods has managed to translate it into English goes beyond literary prowess. That triumph belongs in the realm of miracles.
Which author would you trade places with, even if only to have a scholarship at the Sorbonne?
Henry Miller best encapsulates that bohemian and adventurous vision of the writer. No one compares to him. He is so far removed from that romantic-humanist notion of the creator who “suffers” for his work, which I detest so much. He made his life a sexual coven, which seems to me an ideal way to negotiate the passing of time.
Which bookstore has stolen the most money from you with your consent?
The Iliad Bookshop, a used bookstore in Los Angeles that I’ve been frequenting for almost two decades. The selection is extraordinary. And two cats live there: Apollo and Zeus. They often sleep on my lap while I read sitting on the floor. Sometimes Zeus climbs onto one of my shoulders and I walk around the aisles with him on my back. It’s a little uncomfortable, but I find it impossible to turn him away, so I put up with it.
Which books have you started more than three times without getting past page 40?
That hasn’t happened to me with any book, but I gave up on Bleak House by Charles Dickens somewhere between pages 150 and 200 (my edition is over 1,000 pages long). I admire Dickens, but it wasn’t the right time to read that novel. The same thing happened to me with The Recognitions by William Gaddis. I gave up on it on page 500 (another 1,000-page novel), but it’s my fault, not Gaddis’s, whom I also admire: I highly recommend his novels Carpenter’s Gothic and Agapē Agape.
What Latin phrase do you use to sound profound, even though you don’t really know what it means?
Deus ex machina.
Which literary character would you like to have as a therapist, knowing that they would ruin you emotionally?
Greta Samsa. I don’t understand why she isn’t recognized as one of the greatest and most cruel villains in literary history. I’m sure she would make me pay without the slightest compassion.
What is the most absurd edition you bought just for its aesthetics?
A collector’s edition of Mr. Bridge/Mrs. Bridge by Evan S. Connell. The edition is truly absurd. The books are designed to “mate” with each other, which is not at all comfortable to read.
What literary genre do you pretend to despise because your intellectual friends do?
It’s not that I despise the genre, but I’ve never been able to “connect” with science fiction. I probably haven’t read the books I should have read. I get tremendous enjoyment from films on this subject, and I don’t know why I haven’t been able to develop the same interest in its literary counterpart.
Which contemporary author do you pretend to be uninterested in but secretly wish you had written their books?
I don’t pretend to be uninterested in her work, quite the opposite: I will never tire of recommending it. I’m referring to the Spanish author Menchu Gutiérrez. She has several books that I would have loved to have written. She’s very talented.
How many books do you have waiting to be read and how many do you continue to buy each month?
I’ll be brief because this is a sensitive subject: thousands and, lately, few (I don’t have any more space).
What literary scene made you close the book and stare at the ceiling as if you had experienced something?
The delirious monologues that Empress Carlota of Habsburg delivers from Bouchout Castle, which Fernando del Paso intersperses between the chapters of his novel Noticias del Imperio.
What book would you give as a gift just to test whether someone is worthy of you?
If someone appreciates Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, then I automatically consider them my friend.
What is the most heinous literary crime? Dog-earing pages, underlining books, or not reading?
I am one of those who believe that reading is the last bastion we have left to preserve our sanity in an increasingly unpleasant world, so anything goes. I am not even shocked when someone tells me that they “cut” a thousand-page tome in two to read it more comfortably on public transport. Not reading is fine with me too. Let’s move away from that famous assumption that reading makes us better people, or at least more cultured. American filmmaker John Waters once said, “If you go to someone’s house and they don’t have any books, don’t sleep with them.” This is a serious mistake: sleep with whoever you want, even if they read Hello!
Do you read the author’s blurb before starting a book, or do you prefer to ruin the experience afterwards?
Countless unspeakable atrocities have been committed on the blurbs of so many books that I now prefer to avoid them.
Which fictional library do you deserve according to your level of literary neurosis?
The one frequented by Antoine Roquentin and the Autodidact in La Nausée. I like its atmosphere. I’ve had it in mind for decades. Maybe it’s not as great as I remember it, and I only prefer it because it’s a kind of “first love.”
Have you ever stolen a book? Which one(s)?
Never.
What is your greatest achievement as a reader: surviving Ulysses or finishing Don Quixote?
I survived Don Quixote once and finished Ulysses three times, but those are not my greatest literary achievements. For the past six years, I have been reading the complete works of various authors in chronological order: Thomas Bernhard, Ann Quin, Anne Sexton, Marie Redonnet (what has been translated into Spanish and English), Sylvia Legris, W. G. Sebald, Hubert Selby Jr., Don DeLillo, Nathalie Sarraute, Helen Simpson, Paul Metcalf, Camilo José Cela (only his novels and short stories), Donald Antrim, Claire Keegan, José Saramago (only his fiction), and Seamus Heaney. It wasn’t easy to have Thomas Bernhard stuck in my head for six months. I feel like he took years off my life, but it was a pleasure. Currently, my attention is focused on Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Jane Austen, and Guy Davenport, but I’m progressing very slowly due to research required by other projects.
What book would you have liked to write just so you could sign it and show it off?
Cosmopolis, by Don DeLillo: the perfect novel.
At what age did you realize that reading didn’t make you a better person, just more unbearable?
I guess when I was 11, when I bought my first translation of the Divine Comedy, although at the time it wasn’t out of intellectual curiosity. I saw the book in a branch of a supermarket chain that no longer exists called Gigante. When I discovered that part of the book was dedicated to Hell, I decided to ask my parents to buy it for me. In those years, for reasons I won’t mention, I believed I was destined to end up there, so I needed to know everything about the place I feared so much and that would become my final resting place. Now, several decades later, Hell is the only place I aspire to go.
Which secondary character deserved more prominence than the main character?
One I already mentioned. I doubt she deserves more prominence than the main character, but I would have been happy if Kafka had given her a more meaty role: Greta Samsa.
How many bookmarks do you own, and how many do you actually use (besides the lottery ticket that you didn’t win, of course)?
I always have half a dozen handy, on my nightstand, but I lose them constantly; I still don’t know where they end up. Bookmarks are like socks.
Which author do you think is brilliant, but would rather not have around at a dinner party?
Thomas Bernhard, a literary genius with an unbearable level of egotism. Mean and envious like few others, incapable of tolerating the success of others.
What phrase do you use to justify not finishing the books you start?
It wasn’t the right time.
If your life were a book, on which shelf in the bookstore would we find it: “unnecessary drama,” “pretentious fiction,” or “essay on disappointment”?
Wherever censored books find a home.
