as he finally managed to swallow.

“It’s the same with everything, why do or not do something, why say ‘yes’ or ‘no’, why worry yourself with a ‘perhaps’ or a ‘maybe’, why speak, why remain silent, why refuse, why know anything if nothing of what happens happens, because nothing happens without interruption, nothing lasts or endures or is ceaselessly remembered, what takes place is identical to what doesn’t take place, what we dismiss or allow to slip by us is identical to what we accept and seize, what we experience identical to what we never try; we pour all our intelligence and our feelings and our enthusiasm into the task of discriminating between things that will all be made equal, if they haven’t already been, and that’s why we’re so full of regrets and lost opportunities, of confirmations and reaffirmations and opportunities grasped, when the truth is that nothing is affirmed and everything is constantly in the process of being lost. Or perhaps there never was anything.”

E ceva cu cartea asta. Mi-a luat remarcabil de mult timp să o termin (aproape o lună încheiată), deşi are doar 278 de pagini. Not because it was bad or dull or overly difficult, but because I kept getting caught in rereading loops that propelled me back to the beginning. Ceva neobişnuit pentru mine, avand în vedere că-s genul de cititor liniar, care reciteşte abia apoi, dacă simte că nu a digerat cum trebuie totul. Să fi fost calitatea prozei, labirintică prin excelenţă, and hauntingly so, sau pur şi simplu cvasi-terifianta auto-identificare cu naratorul, habar n-am. But I loved it. This is the type of reading experience that doesn’t happen to me every so often as an adult and any book that manages to provide it is immediately propelled into an exalted category.

Deşi cartea îşi ia titlul dintr-un vers din Macbeth – „My hands are of your colour, but I shame to wear a heart so white”, sentimentele de vină şi implicit complicitate fiind două dintre temele majore ale lui Marias – personajul principal îmi aminteşte mai mult de Hamlet în indecizia, pasivitatea şi propensitatea sa de a reacţiona în faţa fiecărei situaţii printr-o retragere grăbită în solilocvii şi o stare generală de anxietate paralizantă. Despite his self-description as pathologically eager to absorb every piece of information (he is a translator and interpreter), Juan’s constant avowal that he does „not want to know” is a more apt description of his existence throughout the book; much of the tension comes from his unwillingness to say or do anything at all. Pasivitatea lui e mai mult decât o trăsătură de personalitate, mind you, e mai degrabă un soi de frantic existential angst: he is tormented by the dialectic between wanting to understand and the futility of communication; the desire to record and to remember, to create a coherent narrative of a life, juxtaposed against the pointless repetition and subjectivity of existence; the inherent instability of both personality and reality.

E o carte despre trasul cu urechea şi voyeurism, despre conversaţii auzite prin ziduri, comentarii rătăcite care sunt sau nu destinate persoanei care le prinde din zbor, uneori fără să vrea, despre corespondenţe consumate de alte persoane decât cele cărora le erau destinate. M-am tot gândit la Bakhtin, teoreticianul cu care mi-am petrecut cea mai mare parte din timp în facultate, şi la teoriile lui despre dialog şi alteritate: if ever a book is highly dialogic this one is; it’s a book to make me long for academia. The mystery unfolds through these layers of dialogism with a sharp interpersonal voice. Există foarte multe pasaje care se repetă, dar care îţi dau sentimentul de accentuare narativă necesară, în nici un caz plictisitoare, obositoare sau enervantă. It’s a symphonic, polyphonic buildup, utterly accurate if I’m to compare it to my own experience of this kind of ongoing obsessive anxiety.

E, to say the least, o carte teribil de intensă, dark and fretful. Care mărturiseşte prin intermediul personajelor atent construite adevăruri incomode, pe care poate nu ţi le-ai recunoscut în totalitate, dar care sunt acolo, lurking beneath your layers of social and emotional obligations. De exemplu ce se întâmplă cu doi oameni, în intimitatea gândurilor lor cele mai sincere, odată ce relaţia lor trece de bariera căsătoriei. E genul acela de carte pe care, atunci când o închizi, nu poţi să zici decât, „oh, you know, I don’t know, you know?”