Papeles del desierto, by Juan José Delaney. Torres Agüero Editor,
Buenos Aires
A
practitioner of the modern short story in the tradition so brilliantly
inaugurated by Edgar Allan Poe, Juan José Delaney adds to it a
further dimension in his concern for man’s –and woman’s-
condition in this world. Their dreams, their inner loneliness, the
passing of time and death itself are seen under a new light allowed by
the possibilities of the fantastic narrative, deftly handled by the
author.
Thus
in the story entitled “El aviso”, for instance, a man wants to
measure the extent of affection he evoked among his fellow-beings by
putting an ad announcing his own death; in “El sueño del
bachiller” the protagonist returns to his high school building after
many years, only to find his former teachers being punished for the
lies or misconceptions instilled in their young students; in one of
the most moving stories, “Fijman”, the poet of that name, confined
in an asylum, leaves briefly in order to attend a lecture about his
own work by one of his exegetes –and teaches us a lesson on the gap
between the substance of poetry itself, and the rambling
interpretations of critics. Loneliness and lack of communication in
contemporary man are revealingly illustrated in such stories as “Ars
communicandi”, “Pianola” and the one lending its title to the
book, “Papeles del desierto”. And a concern for the feminine
condition –woman as sinner or as a victim of man?- is clearly
visible in “La condenada” and most particularly in a story with
truly feminist undertones, “Las mujeres del sur”.
Special
mention should be made of a satire with comic characteristics,
“Examen de la obra de Carlos Argentino Daneri”, where the
imaginary writer under that name, achieving eternity in Borges’
“El Aleph” as a pompous figure of fun, is again revived and
explored in all its ludicrous possibilities with a surprising twist at
the end.
As
could only be expected from the editor of El
Gato Negro mystery magazine, Juan José Delaney introduces
elements of the fantastic and the thriller to good effects. In
“Audacias de la cinematografía”, he explores the possibilities of
life on the screen actually invading real life, a subject to which he
gives a new twist in a thrilling story close to perfection, ironically
titled “La vida real”. And in “Titanic” he recalls the tragic
sinking of the big ocean liner to investigate the life and work of
Jacques Frutelle, an American Detective story writer counting among
its victims.
With
obvious influences of the great Anglo-Saxon masters of the short
story, Delaney also acknowledges, among local influences, those of
Jorge Luis Borges and Marco Denevi, and this book proves him a
brilliant disciple, bringing a new originality to a time-honoured
genre.
Inés
Pardal
(Buenos Aires Herald, February 2, 1992)
Irish-American memories from BA
by
Inés
Pardal
For the Herald
Moira
Sullivan, by Juan José Delaney. Published by Corregidor, Buenos
Aires.
From
an asylum for old people in Buenos Aires, an Irish-American woman,
Moira Sullivan, reminisces her past life. Silence is a key element
enshrouding her memories: the silent movies in which she performed as
a child actress in the US, the scripts she later wrote for them are
part of it. Silence, also, is part of her linguistic isolation:
originally surmounted by her first love for a yong German musician in
New York (music first drawing them together over the language
barrier), then Spanish rises as a new barrier when Moira Sullivan
arrives in Argentina married to an Irish-American businessman. Subtly
told, this moving first novel by Juan José Delaney (the author of
four previous volumes of short stories) gives ample evidence of the
author’s insight to enter a woman’s soul.
The
novel also brings memories of two periods and two countries (perhaps
one should say three, the US with Ireland in the background, and Argentina). Irish-descended Moira,
brought up by nuns harking on sin an hell, can only rid herself of her
fears when falling in love with Konrad, the foreign musician, an
agnostic “outsider”. (There seems to be in the novel a loving but
at times critical approach to “Irishness”, in which religion
appears to be identified with ethnic identity). The period of silent
movies in the US is evoked with accuracy, with (mostly) real names
mixed with imaginary characters. Moira’s first script for a feature
film, too, seems telling: this is a Western in which, as against
Hollywood’s often racist bias, a native American (he, too, forever
an outsider to the core of “Western” civilization) plays a
generous role.
Moira’s
memories from Argentina are initially more blurred by her lack of
Spanish. But again small touches (for readers to grasp) are evidence
of both a loving and critical view of things. Moira wonders about the
excessive role the military play in this country (something unheard of
in her previous US life, with Uriburu’s coup imminent here at the
time, anticipating a long string of them which marred Argentine life
for some fifty years). There is also some hint of criticism at the
excessive role of the Church in lay matters (as if the clergy were
afraid of losing their influence in a country with a Spanish-Italian
majority that, unlike the Irish, do not need of religion to assert
their identity).
There
are, finally, some ironical notes about discrimination: while the
Irish like to think of themselves as being fully integrated in
Argentine life, their clubs, pubs and schools seem to protect them as
a bulwark against outsiders. Also, marriages across ethnic barriers
were less common in Moira’s time, even among Catholics from
different European backgrounds. So within the main plot, author Juan
José Delaney introduces a moving touch with the story of a
gaucho-like character called Abraham Mullins (the son of a Jewish
mother and Irish father), rising new hopes for a country (and a
continent) where ancestral racial barriers inherited from the Old
World need not and should not remain as part of our heritage.
(Buenos Aires Herald, April 9, 2000)
