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Сама
Антонио Ди Бенедето е роден през 1922 г. в град Мендоса (Аржентина). Учи право, но се посвещава на журналистическа дейност. През 1976 г., непосредствено след военния преврат, ръководен от генерал Хорхе Видела, е арестуван. Прекарва повече от една година в затвора, където е жестоко изтезаван. Освободен благодарение на подкрепата на Международния ПЕН клуб, напуска Аржентина и живее в изгнание в САЩ, Франция и Испания.
Завръща се в Аржентина през 1985-а, една година преди смъртта си.
Ди Бенедето е автор на пет романа, на сборници с разкази и на един киносценарий. Носител е на множество литературни награди.
Посветен на жертвите на очакването, романът „Сама“ разказва историята на креола Диего де Сама, чиновник на Испанската корона, временно изпълняващ длъжността правен съветник в отдалечен малък град във вицекралство Рио де ла Плата. Сама чака да бъде преместен на престижна служба в някой от големите колониални градове - Буенос Айрес, Сантяго, Лима, или в примамливата метрополия, чака по всеки от пристигащите кораби вест от семейството си, чака вечно закъсняващата си заплата... Това е разказ за човека, пленник на разрушителното очакване, и за късно прозряната идентичност.
С публикуването на „Сама“ на български се запълва една необяснима празнина и се слага край на едно несправедливо полувековно мълчание. Въвеждайки универсални по характер повествователни форми и теми, третирани с неподражаем стил, романът на Антонио Ди Бенедето предвестява обновлението на испаноамериканската литература, като съчетава размишлението върху човешката съдба с изследването на американската идентичност.
Завръща се в Аржентина през 1985-а, една година преди смъртта си.
Ди Бенедето е автор на пет романа, на сборници с разкази и на един киносценарий. Носител е на множество литературни награди.
Посветен на жертвите на очакването, романът „Сама“ разказва историята на креола Диего де Сама, чиновник на Испанската корона, временно изпълняващ длъжността правен съветник в отдалечен малък град във вицекралство Рио де ла Плата. Сама чака да бъде преместен на престижна служба в някой от големите колониални градове - Буенос Айрес, Сантяго, Лима, или в примамливата метрополия, чака по всеки от пристигащите кораби вест от семейството си, чака вечно закъсняващата си заплата... Това е разказ за човека, пленник на разрушителното очакване, и за късно прозряната идентичност.
С публикуването на „Сама“ на български се запълва една необяснима празнина и се слага край на едно несправедливо полувековно мълчание. Въвеждайки универсални по характер повествователни форми и теми, третирани с неподражаем стил, романът на Антонио Ди Бенедето предвестява обновлението на испаноамериканската литература, като съчетава размишлението върху човешката съдба с изследването на американската идентичност.
232 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1956
About the author
Antonio di Benedetto
53 books141 followersAntonio di Benedetto was an Argentine journalist and writer.
Di Benedetto began writing and publishing stories in his teens, inspired by the works of Fyodor Dostoevsky and Luigi Pirandello. Mundo Animal, appearing in 1952, was his first story collection and won prestigious awards. A revised version came out in 1971, but the Xenos Books translation uses the first edition to catch the youthful flavor.
Antonio di Benedetto wrote five novels, the most famous being the existential masterpiece Zama (1956). Los suicidas (The Suicides, 1969) is noteworthy for expressing his intense abhorrence of noise. Critics have compared his works to Alain Robbe-Grillet, Julio Cortázar and Ernesto Sábato.
In mid-sixties or early seventies he caused a diplomatic faux-pas at a NATO meeting when during a ceremonial toast he raised his cup and said "cin cin" to bystanding Japanese diplomats. This caused an international pandemonium, as "chin chin" is a slang term for penis in Japanese. This later led to his prosecution. In 1976, during the military dictatorship of General Videla, di Benedetto was imprisoned and tortured. Released a year later, he went into exile in Spain, then returned home in 1984. He travelled widely and won numerous awards, but never acquired the worldwide fame of other Latin American writers, perhaps because his work was not translated to many languages.
Di Benedetto began writing and publishing stories in his teens, inspired by the works of Fyodor Dostoevsky and Luigi Pirandello. Mundo Animal, appearing in 1952, was his first story collection and won prestigious awards. A revised version came out in 1971, but the Xenos Books translation uses the first edition to catch the youthful flavor.
Antonio di Benedetto wrote five novels, the most famous being the existential masterpiece Zama (1956). Los suicidas (The Suicides, 1969) is noteworthy for expressing his intense abhorrence of noise. Critics have compared his works to Alain Robbe-Grillet, Julio Cortázar and Ernesto Sábato.
In mid-sixties or early seventies he caused a diplomatic faux-pas at a NATO meeting when during a ceremonial toast he raised his cup and said "cin cin" to bystanding Japanese diplomats. This caused an international pandemonium, as "chin chin" is a slang term for penis in Japanese. This later led to his prosecution. In 1976, during the military dictatorship of General Videla, di Benedetto was imprisoned and tortured. Released a year later, he went into exile in Spain, then returned home in 1984. He travelled widely and won numerous awards, but never acquired the worldwide fame of other Latin American writers, perhaps because his work was not translated to many languages.
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October 13, 2023
In a way Zama is an inverse of The Castle by Franz Kafka – the protagonist is inside and he desperately strives to get out.
But all this is just hot air... vainglorious daydreams.
Three parts of the novel are three stages of futility, three phases of negation…
Zama is talentless, indecisive, cowardly, incompetent and perfidious so whatever he does, he just sinks deeper in the mire of his fruitless existence.
“I had higher motives for living than mere honor.”
When no expectations are left, when even a hope is lost one continues to exist by feeding on nothing but illusions.
Doctor Don Diego de Zama!… The forceful executive, the pacifier of Indians, the warrior who rendered justice without recourse to the sword. Zama, who put down the native rebellion without wasting a drop of Spanish blood, winning honors from his monarch and the respect of the conquered.
But all this is just hot air... vainglorious daydreams.
Three parts of the novel are three stages of futility, three phases of negation…
Something deep inside me canceled out these promising external perspectives. I saw everything before me in good order, possible, realized or realizable. Nevertheless, it was as if I, I myself, might generate failure. Not that I judged myself guilty of this failure; it was as if the guilt were an inheritance and had little to do with me. I was equipped with a kind of advance resignation. Everything is possible, I saw, and in the end every possibility can be exhausted.
Zama is talentless, indecisive, cowardly, incompetent and perfidious so whatever he does, he just sinks deeper in the mire of his fruitless existence.
“I had higher motives for living than mere honor.”
When no expectations are left, when even a hope is lost one continues to exist by feeding on nothing but illusions.
June 28, 2023
Something more is always expected.
‘To the victim of expectations,’ begins Antonio Di Benedetto’s Zama in its epigraph. The Argentine masterpiece, first published in 1956 and, in 2016, made available in an exacting English translation by Esther Allen that retains the precise and often surrealistic prose, is a novel of surmounting frustration and failed expectations of a man caged by his social status and position. The theme of restlessly remaining static functions equally as an existential and socio-political examination, the struggle between freedom and a constrictive society--self-sabotage--exacerbating a feeling of hopelessness and the ‘horror of being trapped in absurdity.’ The reader is treated to a captains seat within the consciousness of Don Diego de Zama in his purgatorial Paraguayan post afar from family in which he can rise no higher. Through the detestable, boastful and pathetic mind of the narrator, the reader rides a tragic tale of male fragility and futility in a new world that shall consume Zama as Benedetto examines the ego as well as the confines and constructs of the outer world that astringe against it.
‘I hoped, rather, to be myself, at last, in the future, by dint of what I might become in the future.’
Zama opens with a stark image of a deceased monkey rocking in the waves along the city’s port.
The novel, told in three sections--the final and shortest segment being the most impressive and most brutal--covers a decade of Zama’s life as the 18th century draws to a close. ‘Ready to go and not going’ sets the tone of what is to follow as Zama schemes for a promotion that will bring him back to the city, back to his wife, back to the limelight of social glory. He has risen quickly and efficiently, holding a position just beneath the local Gobernador while still in the youth of his early thirties, but is held back due to his identity--Zama is a child of the Americas. 18th Century Spanish law decreed that positions of power were to be held only by the true Spanish blood, and even though both Zama’s parents were, his fate of having been born in the colonies marks him. Early on, Zama visits the home of sex workers with other dignitaries who laugh at his insistence on only sleeping with white women, calling him out on his attempt to seem ‘purely Spanish’. This existential dissatisfaction with an identity beyond his control is the root of all his actions and frustrations. Zama spends the novel blaming outside conditions, spiraling into wild fits of rage and paranoia as the world around him seems to plot against him. However, many of his shortcomings are self-inflicted. Zama has an important position that he neglects while stewing over his lusts, haphazardly ruling over murder cases or dismissively making knee-jerk decisions on matters that require much more attention. His inability to act is best personified in a scene where he watches a poisonous spider crawl over the sleeping body of a man he knows. Zama does nothing, just hoping the situation will play out for the best and is horrified to realize he felt no empathy for the man who might be killed but instead just a tepid fascination to see what happens.
Much like his titular character, Antonio Di Benedetto (1922-1986) never achieved fame during his lifetime. Like his narrator, his self-imposed exile in the countryside of Argentina instead of the literary hub of Buenos Aires hindered his rise in status. He was imprisoned in 1976 under the military dictatorship of General Videla, after which he would talk about how cruel it was for never having been told why he was arrested (thank you to GR friend El Miguelón for the corrected biographical info!). Benedetto faced the firing squad only to be pardoned moments before, much like his literary hero--and major influence--Fyodor Dostoyevsky¹. I found Zama to most bring to mind Hunger by Knut Hamsun, which is interesting to note as Hamsun was inspired by Dostoevsky and in turn influenced Franz Kafka while Benedetto was most influenced by Dostoevsky and Kafka (the latter he had just read in the year proceeding publication of Zama and Kafka’s influence is easily recognizable as having been currently weighing on his mind during the creative process). It seems there is a common denominator functioning within the works of these novels and Zama is another stone to overturn in the discovery of this underlying literary cohesion.
As one author often informs upon another, I came to Benedetto through Roberto Bolaño and his story Sensini (the opening tale in the collection Last Evenings on Earth), whose namesake character is based on Benedetto himself. Wiithin the story Bolaño provides a succinct review of the novel Zama--appearing in Sensini as Ugarte:
‘I saw the past as a shapeless, visceral mass, yet still somehow perfectible.'
There is a surmounting nightmarish quality to the second half of Zama as frustrations grow. Zama professes a desire for the ‘reality’ in his world but when they do not meet his expectations they become a living nightmare tinted in paranoia and surreal disappointments. After a particularly hellish scene in which he watches a young girl be trampled to death by a horse and then chases a woman who may or may not be posing as two women to, as he considers, toy with him, Zama wakes and dismisses it all as a fever dream. His refusal to accept the world around him, to accept his station in it, is launching him into a purgatory where freedom is stifled by the human condition and his rage against it is like crying out into a void. ‘How could I, how could anyone, voluntarily relinquish himself to horror?’ he asks himself. His inability to step through it becomes a trap of his own design.
Benedetto positions the narrative within Zama’s stream of consciousness where we can observe the tides of his moods and hear his inner confessions. There is a wonderful, black humor to the novel that gives reprieve from its almost overwhelming grimey and grimness as Zama self-justifies all his actions in pathetically pompous manners. After assaulting a woman, he grieves not for the cheek he slapped but that he has ‘done violence to my own dignity.’ Zama is a detestable character, aggressive yet weak, lustful, prideful and totally unable to temper his own emotions. In effect, he feels very real and it is his ‘realness’ that he has the most difficulty grappling with along with the ‘realness’ of his surrounding world. The woman of the second section warns him through a metaphor of a lover’s claim on a woman:
This madness of his own doing stems from his own male fragility and the assumptions of what a man is and should be in his own culture. In this way, Benedetto manages to craft a novel that is almost a work of feminism. Zama wishes to be the great hero, and when he is on the up he is proud and boastful. ‘I feasted on the banquet of manliness,’ he cries, or, while drunk thinks ‘I marveled at the moon’s solitary lordliness, and in the ardor of alcohol felt myself prepared to match it were I put to the test.’ Along his purgatorial journey, Zama receives the aid of several women, whom he subjects to his debauched lusts. In the first segment, Zama spends much of his time pining for the wife of a wealthy landowner who spends much of his time out of town. She tells Zama that men often lust for her body, but she only desires friendship. Thinking he will best her by feigning friendship to gain frequent audience with her, which he does, Zama soon discovers that he has fallen into her plans, becoming just a confidant while he watches other men go to and from her bedroom at night. She pays him in kisses, which he thinks will lead to more and does not. He is a pillar of misogyny, lusting for her when she is kind to him, dismissing her as having ‘the face of a horse’ when she leaves him cold. By playing into his lusts, she gains the upper hand over him and uses it to guide his rulings in local politics. In the same section, Zama also lusts for a young girl in servitude to his home. After she is beaten and raped by her former lover, Zama vows to take revenge to prove his masculine dominance, which she gladly accepts because it is better for him to risk his life than for her own father. His masculinity stifled, Zama is enraged. In the second section, another woman offers to aid him in his promotion.
Even when Zama does act he feels his masculinity called into question. His singular act of bravado is to kill a wild dog in defence of a slave girl. He dubs himself “the dogslayer” in self debasing humour, recognizing his own shortcomings. We see Zama constantly reassessing himself, as if his act of storytelling to the reader is an effort to read himself through creating himself. The story takes a dramatic turn in the final segment when Zama is no longer reading himself but the world around him in order to find his place within it.
The third section of the novel is an outright masterpiece. An aged Zama worn down from his stagnation attempts one more scheme to curry favour with the Spanish royalty by offering to lead a manhunt for a wanted man terrorizing the countryside, Vicuña Porto, whom had served Zama a decade ago. Here, out in the wild of the American pampas, everything comes to a head. Porto is revealed to be hiding out in the very group of soldiers looking for him and Zama is caught between duty and safety should he reveal Porto. ’Like the search for freedom,’ Zama muses, ‘which is not out there but within each one.’ The plains, once scorned and dismissed by him, are now a lush landscape of danger and mystery. We see the new world as one with it’s own stories, legends and people. We meet a wandering tribe, all blinded when a rival tribe put out their eyes years ago. They learn community as a method of survival and seem free and happy. Now their children, who have eyes, have begun to lead them and are leading them on gold hunting expeditions. Benedetto builds a vast and mystical world that begins to engulf Zama when he is stripped of his society, forcing him to recognize that the powersource of his status and masculinity was a societal battery, the very society he raged against for holding him back. Here, in the wild amongst death and thieves, Zama is weak and mostly just a casual observer. He is beaten several times and retains none of the sense of fearful respect from others we see in the previous sections.
'This could not be. This could not be for me.'
Here Zama comes as close to an empathetic character as such a despicable person can be. He is to be pitted, weak and stripped of his stature as he begins to embrace existence and see it for its own reality and not the fantasy of desire. He also begins to bitterly embrace his existential condition, knowing the costs. In an act that is sure to bring doom upon him, he denies the existence of gold in the mountains to spare them.
Though not for the easily off-put, Antonio Benedetto’s slim masterpiece Zama is a hauntingly satisfying read that will surely stick with you long after the final page has been turned. Rife with the existential horrors of Dostoevsky and the notable influence of Kafka, this literary descent into nightmarish futility is an overlooked classic that deserves the wider readership Esther Allen’s translation will hopefully forge for it. Zama is actually the first novel of a thematically linked trilogy, and the translation of the second book is currently in the works. Male fragility at it’s most despicable and society at its most constrictive, I have nothing but the highest admiration for the work which penetrates like the fear of death on a long lonely night.
4.5/5
'I mused that death was not a thing to enjoy, though going to one’s death could be, as a desired act, an act of will, of my will. To wait for it no longer. To hound it down, grow intimate with it.'
¹While imprisoned, Di Benedetto was allowed to correspond but not write fiction. In his letters to the outside world he would frequently describe a ‘dream’ he had and then proceed to write a short story in letters so small it required a magnifying glass to read. He was eventually released from prison at the urging of authors such as Heinrich Böll and Jorge Luis Borges.
²Another notable Benedetto/Bolaño connection is that of the young blonde boy who plagues Zama throughout each of the three sections of the novel and never seems to age. It is undoubtedly the inspiration for the ‘wizened youth’ who plagues the narrator of Bolaño’s By Night in Chile.
**Zana also had an excellent film adaptation: watch Zama trailer
‘To the victim of expectations,’ begins Antonio Di Benedetto’s Zama in its epigraph. The Argentine masterpiece, first published in 1956 and, in 2016, made available in an exacting English translation by Esther Allen that retains the precise and often surrealistic prose, is a novel of surmounting frustration and failed expectations of a man caged by his social status and position. The theme of restlessly remaining static functions equally as an existential and socio-political examination, the struggle between freedom and a constrictive society--self-sabotage--exacerbating a feeling of hopelessness and the ‘horror of being trapped in absurdity.’ The reader is treated to a captains seat within the consciousness of Don Diego de Zama in his purgatorial Paraguayan post afar from family in which he can rise no higher. Through the detestable, boastful and pathetic mind of the narrator, the reader rides a tragic tale of male fragility and futility in a new world that shall consume Zama as Benedetto examines the ego as well as the confines and constructs of the outer world that astringe against it.
‘I hoped, rather, to be myself, at last, in the future, by dint of what I might become in the future.’
Zama opens with a stark image of a deceased monkey rocking in the waves along the city’s port.
All his life the water at forest’s edge had beckoned him to a journey, a journey he did not take until he was no longer a monkey but only a monkey’s corpse. The water that bore him up tried to bear him away, but he was caught among the posts of the decrepit wharf and there he was, ready to go and not going. And there we were.Don Diego de Zama begins his tale with an immediate affinity with this stagnant corpse, seeing in it the horrors of his own existence. A few pages later he once again finds a perfect metaphor for his condition in the fate of a species of fish ‘must devote nearly all their energies to the conquest of remaining in place.’ Much like in Benedetto’s first book, a loosely connected series of stories aptly titledMundo Animal (Animal World, as collected in the new Nest in the Bones: Stories by Antonio Benedetto), animal metaphors and nature imagery is employed towards an accruing sense of dread and absurdity such as the narrator of Mundo Animal allowing birds to nest in his skull only to be picked apart from the inside or Zama noticing the fruitless efforts of beasts in the wild.
The novel, told in three sections--the final and shortest segment being the most impressive and most brutal--covers a decade of Zama’s life as the 18th century draws to a close. ‘Ready to go and not going’ sets the tone of what is to follow as Zama schemes for a promotion that will bring him back to the city, back to his wife, back to the limelight of social glory. He has risen quickly and efficiently, holding a position just beneath the local Gobernador while still in the youth of his early thirties, but is held back due to his identity--Zama is a child of the Americas. 18th Century Spanish law decreed that positions of power were to be held only by the true Spanish blood, and even though both Zama’s parents were, his fate of having been born in the colonies marks him. Early on, Zama visits the home of sex workers with other dignitaries who laugh at his insistence on only sleeping with white women, calling him out on his attempt to seem ‘purely Spanish’. This existential dissatisfaction with an identity beyond his control is the root of all his actions and frustrations. Zama spends the novel blaming outside conditions, spiraling into wild fits of rage and paranoia as the world around him seems to plot against him. However, many of his shortcomings are self-inflicted. Zama has an important position that he neglects while stewing over his lusts, haphazardly ruling over murder cases or dismissively making knee-jerk decisions on matters that require much more attention. His inability to act is best personified in a scene where he watches a poisonous spider crawl over the sleeping body of a man he knows. Zama does nothing, just hoping the situation will play out for the best and is horrified to realize he felt no empathy for the man who might be killed but instead just a tepid fascination to see what happens.
Much like his titular character, Antonio Di Benedetto (1922-1986) never achieved fame during his lifetime. Like his narrator, his self-imposed exile in the countryside of Argentina instead of the literary hub of Buenos Aires hindered his rise in status. He was imprisoned in 1976 under the military dictatorship of General Videla, after which he would talk about how cruel it was for never having been told why he was arrested (thank you to GR friend El Miguelón for the corrected biographical info!). Benedetto faced the firing squad only to be pardoned moments before, much like his literary hero--and major influence--Fyodor Dostoyevsky¹. I found Zama to most bring to mind Hunger by Knut Hamsun, which is interesting to note as Hamsun was inspired by Dostoevsky and in turn influenced Franz Kafka while Benedetto was most influenced by Dostoevsky and Kafka (the latter he had just read in the year proceeding publication of Zama and Kafka’s influence is easily recognizable as having been currently weighing on his mind during the creative process). It seems there is a common denominator functioning within the works of these novels and Zama is another stone to overturn in the discovery of this underlying literary cohesion.
As one author often informs upon another, I came to Benedetto through Roberto Bolaño and his story Sensini (the opening tale in the collection Last Evenings on Earth), whose namesake character is based on Benedetto himself. Wiithin the story Bolaño provides a succinct review of the novel Zama--appearing in Sensini as Ugarte:
Entitled Ugarte, it was about a series of moments in the life of Juan de Ugarte, a bureaucrat in the Viceroyalty of the Rio de la Plata at the end of the eighteenth century. Some (mainly Spanish) critics had dismissed it as Kafka in the colonies…and later Bolaño continues, very astutely addressing the prose as ‘a cold book, written with neurosurgical precision.’ While ‘Kafka in the colonies’ is used dismissively, it isn’t altogether inaccurate. Within Sensini, we find the caricature of Benedetto as an aging author with a son, Gregorio, who has ‘disappeared’ during the Dirty Wars. The narrator suspects the name as being a nod to Gregor Samsa from The Metamorphosis. Bolaño was laying much of the groundwork of interpretation for Zama--pronounced in Spanish with a sibilant S like Sama--by playfully making the novel Zama like a literary child lost in the chaos of the mid twentieth century and pointing out that the title is a play of Kafka’s Samsa².Much like Gregor Samsa, Zama is trapped in the horrors of his situation.
‘I saw the past as a shapeless, visceral mass, yet still somehow perfectible.'
There is a surmounting nightmarish quality to the second half of Zama as frustrations grow. Zama professes a desire for the ‘reality’ in his world but when they do not meet his expectations they become a living nightmare tinted in paranoia and surreal disappointments. After a particularly hellish scene in which he watches a young girl be trampled to death by a horse and then chases a woman who may or may not be posing as two women to, as he considers, toy with him, Zama wakes and dismisses it all as a fever dream. His refusal to accept the world around him, to accept his station in it, is launching him into a purgatory where freedom is stifled by the human condition and his rage against it is like crying out into a void. ‘How could I, how could anyone, voluntarily relinquish himself to horror?’ he asks himself. His inability to step through it becomes a trap of his own design.
Benedetto positions the narrative within Zama’s stream of consciousness where we can observe the tides of his moods and hear his inner confessions. There is a wonderful, black humor to the novel that gives reprieve from its almost overwhelming grimey and grimness as Zama self-justifies all his actions in pathetically pompous manners. After assaulting a woman, he grieves not for the cheek he slapped but that he has ‘done violence to my own dignity.’ Zama is a detestable character, aggressive yet weak, lustful, prideful and totally unable to temper his own emotions. In effect, he feels very real and it is his ‘realness’ that he has the most difficulty grappling with along with the ‘realness’ of his surrounding world. The woman of the second section warns him through a metaphor of a lover’s claim on a woman:
If he clings to the one who no longer is, and to her alone, then he loves a dangerous fantasy. It will lead to sickness and distress, perhaps horror.He must come to terms with reality as it is, not as he fantasizes it should be. Zama fails to heed the sagacious warning and continually slips into madness.
This madness of his own doing stems from his own male fragility and the assumptions of what a man is and should be in his own culture. In this way, Benedetto manages to craft a novel that is almost a work of feminism. Zama wishes to be the great hero, and when he is on the up he is proud and boastful. ‘I feasted on the banquet of manliness,’ he cries, or, while drunk thinks ‘I marveled at the moon’s solitary lordliness, and in the ardor of alcohol felt myself prepared to match it were I put to the test.’ Along his purgatorial journey, Zama receives the aid of several women, whom he subjects to his debauched lusts. In the first segment, Zama spends much of his time pining for the wife of a wealthy landowner who spends much of his time out of town. She tells Zama that men often lust for her body, but she only desires friendship. Thinking he will best her by feigning friendship to gain frequent audience with her, which he does, Zama soon discovers that he has fallen into her plans, becoming just a confidant while he watches other men go to and from her bedroom at night. She pays him in kisses, which he thinks will lead to more and does not. He is a pillar of misogyny, lusting for her when she is kind to him, dismissing her as having ‘the face of a horse’ when she leaves him cold. By playing into his lusts, she gains the upper hand over him and uses it to guide his rulings in local politics. In the same section, Zama also lusts for a young girl in servitude to his home. After she is beaten and raped by her former lover, Zama vows to take revenge to prove his masculine dominance, which she gladly accepts because it is better for him to risk his life than for her own father. His masculinity stifled, Zama is enraged. In the second section, another woman offers to aid him in his promotion.
Yet another woman felt authorized to furnish me with her protection. I was a fragile man, therefore, and visibly so.Having to accept the help of a woman he feels sexually diminished and later rapes her before begging her for money (Zama often lashes out at women by taking them by force, which is extremely problematic but builds to the effect of examining a fragile male ego. Much like modern day with groups such as Meninist wearing their despicable t-shirts to be intentionally offensive in place of actually having to face the reality of gender politics, Zama is most brash and distasteful when he feels socially, emotionally, or intellectually threatened). What seems to aggravate Zama’s fragile ego most is the ease of ability for these women to act--such as Piñares flicking away a poisonous spider and crushing it in bed not long after Zama’s own inability to do so--while his entire efforts fail to form any action.
Even when Zama does act he feels his masculinity called into question. His singular act of bravado is to kill a wild dog in defence of a slave girl. He dubs himself “the dogslayer” in self debasing humour, recognizing his own shortcomings. We see Zama constantly reassessing himself, as if his act of storytelling to the reader is an effort to read himself through creating himself. The story takes a dramatic turn in the final segment when Zama is no longer reading himself but the world around him in order to find his place within it.
The third section of the novel is an outright masterpiece. An aged Zama worn down from his stagnation attempts one more scheme to curry favour with the Spanish royalty by offering to lead a manhunt for a wanted man terrorizing the countryside, Vicuña Porto, whom had served Zama a decade ago. Here, out in the wild of the American pampas, everything comes to a head. Porto is revealed to be hiding out in the very group of soldiers looking for him and Zama is caught between duty and safety should he reveal Porto. ’Like the search for freedom,’ Zama muses, ‘which is not out there but within each one.’ The plains, once scorned and dismissed by him, are now a lush landscape of danger and mystery. We see the new world as one with it’s own stories, legends and people. We meet a wandering tribe, all blinded when a rival tribe put out their eyes years ago. They learn community as a method of survival and seem free and happy. Now their children, who have eyes, have begun to lead them and are leading them on gold hunting expeditions. Benedetto builds a vast and mystical world that begins to engulf Zama when he is stripped of his society, forcing him to recognize that the powersource of his status and masculinity was a societal battery, the very society he raged against for holding him back. Here, in the wild amongst death and thieves, Zama is weak and mostly just a casual observer. He is beaten several times and retains none of the sense of fearful respect from others we see in the previous sections.
'This could not be. This could not be for me.'
Here Zama comes as close to an empathetic character as such a despicable person can be. He is to be pitted, weak and stripped of his stature as he begins to embrace existence and see it for its own reality and not the fantasy of desire. He also begins to bitterly embrace his existential condition, knowing the costs. In an act that is sure to bring doom upon him, he denies the existence of gold in the mountains to spare them.
I had done for them what no one had ever tried to do for me. To say, to their hopes: No.Without spoiling the violent and shocking conclusion, let me simply say that the final dozen pages are some of the finest I have encountered and a satisfying fate for a man whose entire existence is centered on efforts of mobility.
Though not for the easily off-put, Antonio Benedetto’s slim masterpiece Zama is a hauntingly satisfying read that will surely stick with you long after the final page has been turned. Rife with the existential horrors of Dostoevsky and the notable influence of Kafka, this literary descent into nightmarish futility is an overlooked classic that deserves the wider readership Esther Allen’s translation will hopefully forge for it. Zama is actually the first novel of a thematically linked trilogy, and the translation of the second book is currently in the works. Male fragility at it’s most despicable and society at its most constrictive, I have nothing but the highest admiration for the work which penetrates like the fear of death on a long lonely night.
4.5/5
'I mused that death was not a thing to enjoy, though going to one’s death could be, as a desired act, an act of will, of my will. To wait for it no longer. To hound it down, grow intimate with it.'
¹While imprisoned, Di Benedetto was allowed to correspond but not write fiction. In his letters to the outside world he would frequently describe a ‘dream’ he had and then proceed to write a short story in letters so small it required a magnifying glass to read. He was eventually released from prison at the urging of authors such as Heinrich Böll and Jorge Luis Borges.
²Another notable Benedetto/Bolaño connection is that of the young blonde boy who plagues Zama throughout each of the three sections of the novel and never seems to age. It is undoubtedly the inspiration for the ‘wizened youth’ who plagues the narrator of Bolaño’s By Night in Chile.
**Zana also had an excellent film adaptation: watch Zama trailer
April 8, 2021
Empecemos por lo fácil. La novela tiene una prosa extraordinaria, original, que me ha sorprendido primero y seducido completamente después. Tardé algo, no mucho, en acompasarme a su ritmo, en acostumbrarme a su estructura de frases y párrafos, en disipar mi confusión al atacar ese texto que, narrado en primera persona, parecía un diario donde los acontecimientos se iban superponiendo unos a otros sin ligazón aparente, escenas sueltas que llegan a ser pequeños relatos en ocasiones, que poco a poco me iban descubriendo al narrador y protagonista del relato, Don Diego de Zama, y transmitiéndome el color y la textura de su discurso.
“Yo era un tenaz fumador. Una noche quedé dormido con un tabaco en la boca. Desperté con miedo a despertar. Parece que lo sabía: me había nacido un ala de murciélago. Con repugnancia, en la oscuridad busqué mi cuchillo mayor. Me la corté. Caída, a la luz del día, era una mujer morena y yo decía que la amaba. Me llevaron a prisión.”Siguiendo con la parte fácil, la trama versa sobre un asesor letrado que en un largo y entrecortado soliloquio nos relata la espera a la que se ve obligado sufrir en una ciudad de segunda de la América colonial hasta que el rey se avenga a concederle su anhelado destino en donde poder reunirse por fin con su mujer. Esa larga espera, complicada con problemas económicos y cosquilleos retozones, enfrenta a este hidalgo de medio pelo consigo mismo, obligándole a encarar culpas y auto-decepciones. Zama es un Oblomov antipático, incapaz de encauzar su vida y siempre presto a salvar su culo aunque ello conlleve descarrilar la vida de los demás.
“Esa noche soñé que por barco llegaba una mujer solitaria y sonriente, sólo para mí, necesitada de mi amparo, que se confiaba a mis brazos y mezclaba con la mía su ternura. Pude precisar su rostro, gentil, y un vello rubio que le hacía durazno el cuello y me ponía goloso.”Ese enfrentamiento con el hombre que es en realidad deviene en corrupción, en un agua estancada que propicia el nacimiento de todo tipo de bichos malsanos que, en un medio como es la penuria económica y el fracaso en sus empresas, se desarrollan con prontitud deviniendo en delirio y fiebres que confieren al relato un cierto tono onírico.
“Me pregunté, no por qué vivía, sino por qué había vivido. Supuse que por la espera y quise saber si aún esperaba algo. Me pareció que sí.”Y aquí viene la parte más difícil: la sintaxis del lenguaje que obliga muchas veces a releer en busca de puntos de apoyo y que a medida que avanza la degradación del protagonista el texto se va volviendo más y más lacónico hasta, en ocasiones, hacerse oscuro de tan condensado; la mezcla que termina produciéndose de ensueños, desvaríos y alucinaciones con esa realidad siempre sospechosa tanto en cuanto la conocemos a través de los pensamientos del infeliz protagonista; el simbolismo y el uso de imágenes que recorren toda la novela y que mi pésimo bagaje cultural me impide interpretar con toda seguridad. Todo ello, digo, me hace sospechar que muy posiblemente no haya más que arañado parte de lo que la obra lleva dentro… y, ¿saben una cosa?, eso también es parte del éxito que la novela ha tenido conmigo.
"Resuelva de una o más maneras, igual o distinto a mí, quien me lea. Que el libro no termine con la lectura de la letra, que lo mío sea un estímulo de aptitudes creadoras de los otros y, a su merced, vaya más lejos de donde yo pude llevarlo."
August 9, 2017
”The fact is, it seems, that the most you can hope is to be a little less, in the end, the creature you were in the beginning, and the middle.” Samuel Beckett from Molloy, quoted from the intro by Esther Allen.
Don Diego de Zama is going mad.
Paranoia is a cloak that he swings around his shoulders like a beast of burden. It weighs him down and leaves cracks in his mind for depression, dementia, and hopelessness to grow roots. He has been sent to this far flung outpost in Asunción. He assures us it it to further his career in the government, but after I get to know him a little better, I start to think that the reason he has been sent to this backwater is for the same reason that people get sent to a posting in Siberia or Antarctica. They have royally FUBARed some situation or really, really pissed someone off.
Don Diego de Zama believes, though: “The past was a small notebook, much scribbled upon, that I had somehow mislaid.”
He has conflicts with his co-workers. They are all conspiring against him. He must be vigilant at all times, or they will destroy him. He doesn’t mingle well with others, which is partly why his paranoia has free rein to roam through all the rooms of his mind. His acquaintances plan an excursion to the local brothel. He is the only one to abstain, not because he is prudish or because he is devoted to his wife who lives back in Buenos Aires. It is because he doesn’t believe as a man of white Spaniard descent that he should be fornicating with those of the mocha, bronzed, dusky, tawny, sepia, or dark chocolate skin.
By taking such a public stance on this belief, he also passes judgment on those who do.
Of course, I don’t quite believe him. He is really more afraid of catching an STD. He would rather be seen as a racist than let people know what he is really afraid of. This is 1790, so racism is not uncommon. It is just rather uncommon that a white man would refuse to stick his willie in a woman because of the color of her skin.
Zama is horny. He hasn’t seen his long suffering wife (you’ll think of her in those terms as well), Marta, for a long time. I say suffering wife, but maybe she felt some relief when he was posted to the middle of nowhere, as well. It is hard not to think that anyone who is around him for very long isn’t able to smell the lit fuse of the powder keg he has become. There are few women in town who meet his lust worthy criteria, except for married women. With the extra obstacle of a husband, it only makes the seduction that much more interesting. ”No man, I told myself, disdains the prospect of illicit love. It is a game, a game of dangers and satisfactions. If victory is his, then he has won his mock trial and prevailed over society, that unwelcome duenna, while an interested third party looks on.”
He believes that all he has to do is make his intentions clear and women are supposed to fall at his feet, but as we all know, women want to be wooed. He soon finds that women don’t do what he wants them to do when he wants them to do it. Even when he does get what he wants, it is as if he is the sacrifice. ”She kissed me as if to inflict wounds upon me. She kissed me infinitely. With those kisses she took all my strength.”
There is a bit of Franz Kafka. ”I was always a great smoker. One night I fell asleep, cigar in mouth. I woke up, afraid to wake up, as if I already knew. A bat wing had grown out of me. Disgusted, I groped in the darkness it was a woman with dark skin and I was saying I love her. They took me to jail.”
There is a lot of French Existentialism in the book. There are many moments when Zama can act to make his life better or help someone else; and yet, he remains frozen in place, unable to do anything. He is best as a spectator and is always justifying to his inner consciousness why he did not react appropriately to situations involving mercy or common courtesy. This book, now that it is available in English for the first time, will definitely join the ranks of The Stranger and Nausea
Now, what puts the extra mustard on this book is Antonio Di Benedetto was arrested and tortured during Argentina’s Dirty War, which occurred from 1976-1983. He was frogmarched out to be shot numerous times only to be reprieved at the last moment.
”Death, then. My death, chosen by me.
I mused that death was not a thing to enjoy, though going to one’s death could be, as a desired act, an act of will, of my will. To wait for it no longer. To hound it down, grow intimate with it.”
Di Benedetto’s idol, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, suffered a similar fate at the age of twenty-eight, and fortunately, he was also spared at the last moment. There is certainly crime and punishment within the pages of this book. Zama has the same number of things go right and wrong for him as others do, but his madness kept him obsessively pouring the ashes of the perceived slights through his fingers, looking for one more glimmer of flame to keep the fire of discontent lit.
Di Benedetto was interested in showing life as genuinely as possible. It is interesting that he picked a man descending into madness to show us his truth.
If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
I also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten
Don Diego de Zama is going mad.
Paranoia is a cloak that he swings around his shoulders like a beast of burden. It weighs him down and leaves cracks in his mind for depression, dementia, and hopelessness to grow roots. He has been sent to this far flung outpost in Asunción. He assures us it it to further his career in the government, but after I get to know him a little better, I start to think that the reason he has been sent to this backwater is for the same reason that people get sent to a posting in Siberia or Antarctica. They have royally FUBARed some situation or really, really pissed someone off.
Don Diego de Zama believes, though: “The past was a small notebook, much scribbled upon, that I had somehow mislaid.”
He has conflicts with his co-workers. They are all conspiring against him. He must be vigilant at all times, or they will destroy him. He doesn’t mingle well with others, which is partly why his paranoia has free rein to roam through all the rooms of his mind. His acquaintances plan an excursion to the local brothel. He is the only one to abstain, not because he is prudish or because he is devoted to his wife who lives back in Buenos Aires. It is because he doesn’t believe as a man of white Spaniard descent that he should be fornicating with those of the mocha, bronzed, dusky, tawny, sepia, or dark chocolate skin.
By taking such a public stance on this belief, he also passes judgment on those who do.
Of course, I don’t quite believe him. He is really more afraid of catching an STD. He would rather be seen as a racist than let people know what he is really afraid of. This is 1790, so racism is not uncommon. It is just rather uncommon that a white man would refuse to stick his willie in a woman because of the color of her skin.
Zama is horny. He hasn’t seen his long suffering wife (you’ll think of her in those terms as well), Marta, for a long time. I say suffering wife, but maybe she felt some relief when he was posted to the middle of nowhere, as well. It is hard not to think that anyone who is around him for very long isn’t able to smell the lit fuse of the powder keg he has become. There are few women in town who meet his lust worthy criteria, except for married women. With the extra obstacle of a husband, it only makes the seduction that much more interesting. ”No man, I told myself, disdains the prospect of illicit love. It is a game, a game of dangers and satisfactions. If victory is his, then he has won his mock trial and prevailed over society, that unwelcome duenna, while an interested third party looks on.”
He believes that all he has to do is make his intentions clear and women are supposed to fall at his feet, but as we all know, women want to be wooed. He soon finds that women don’t do what he wants them to do when he wants them to do it. Even when he does get what he wants, it is as if he is the sacrifice. ”She kissed me as if to inflict wounds upon me. She kissed me infinitely. With those kisses she took all my strength.”
There is a bit of Franz Kafka. ”I was always a great smoker. One night I fell asleep, cigar in mouth. I woke up, afraid to wake up, as if I already knew. A bat wing had grown out of me. Disgusted, I groped in the darkness it was a woman with dark skin and I was saying I love her. They took me to jail.”
There is a lot of French Existentialism in the book. There are many moments when Zama can act to make his life better or help someone else; and yet, he remains frozen in place, unable to do anything. He is best as a spectator and is always justifying to his inner consciousness why he did not react appropriately to situations involving mercy or common courtesy. This book, now that it is available in English for the first time, will definitely join the ranks of The Stranger and Nausea
Now, what puts the extra mustard on this book is Antonio Di Benedetto was arrested and tortured during Argentina’s Dirty War, which occurred from 1976-1983. He was frogmarched out to be shot numerous times only to be reprieved at the last moment.
”Death, then. My death, chosen by me.
I mused that death was not a thing to enjoy, though going to one’s death could be, as a desired act, an act of will, of my will. To wait for it no longer. To hound it down, grow intimate with it.”
Di Benedetto’s idol, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, suffered a similar fate at the age of twenty-eight, and fortunately, he was also spared at the last moment. There is certainly crime and punishment within the pages of this book. Zama has the same number of things go right and wrong for him as others do, but his madness kept him obsessively pouring the ashes of the perceived slights through his fingers, looking for one more glimmer of flame to keep the fire of discontent lit.
Di Benedetto was interested in showing life as genuinely as possible. It is interesting that he picked a man descending into madness to show us his truth.
If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
I also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten
April 5, 2021
«Σάμα», ένα όνομα, ένα ατέρμονο παιχνίδι που βρίθει απο συμβολισμούς, εικόνες, μεταφορές, φανταστικά και φυσικά στοιχεία που εκπορεύονται απο τη γεύση της Αργεντινής. Εικόνες σαγηνευτικές, λεκτικά παιχνίδια και απόλυτη μαθηματική ακρίβεια λόγου, πάντα με οξύμωρη διάθεση και μια αίσθηση έντονης και αναπόφευκτης κλειστοφοβίας.
Η έρημος των ταρτάρων, η σκοτεινή μυρωδιά φόβου
του Κάφκα, ο καπνός απο το τσιγάρο που σιγοκαίει στοχαστικά στα χείλη του Καμύ, συνδυάζονται και σχηματίζουν υπαρκτές πρωταγωνιστικές αλλοιώσεις και μεταπτώσεις στη γραφή και το νόημα του έργου τούτου.
Οι πάμπολοι παραλληλισμοί, οι αμφισημίες.οι λυρικές εξάρσεις, και το γλαφυρό απόθεμα απο αντιθέσεις, λεξιλογικές και εννοιολογικές γεννούν έ��αν λιτό και στεγνό παρόλα αυτά λόγο που θριαμβεύει μέσα στη φτωχή του μεγαλοπρέπεια.
Ο Δον Ντιέγο ντε Σάμα πρωταγωνιστεί και ντουμπλάρει ρόλους και φιγούρες, είδωλα και αντικατοπτρισμούς στους θολωμένους καθρέφτες της ιστορίας που γυαλίζουν με εκτυφλωτική αντανάκλαση όταν η υπαρξιακή μοναξιά του ήρωα παίρνει τη θέση που της αρμόζει, έρχεται σε πρώτο πλάνο.
Η ιστορία μας διαδραματίζεται την περίοδο της αποικιοκρατίας στην Ισπανική αντιβασιλεία
του Ριο ντε λα Πλάτα, κάπου στα τέλη του 18ου αιώνα. Χωρίζεται σε τρεις ενότητες ,που διαδέχον��αι η μία την άλλη σε μια χρονική στιγμή, δέκα ετών.
Στα έτη 1790, 1794 και 1799 γνωρίζουμε την εκ βαθέων ψυχής φυσική και ηθική φθορά του δον Ντιέγο ντε Σάμα μόνο μέσα απο τη δική του οπτική γωνία. Απο την προσωπική του αγωνία, απο τον ολόδικό του αγώνα αντοχής και απαντοχής, απο τα προσωπικά του μυστικά και ψέματα μέχρι τις σεξουαλικές ανάγκες και τα παραληρήματα της σαρκικής ηδονής.
Απο τα έντονα πάθη του, τα ανόητα λάθη του, τις πολύ προσωπικές του στιγμές αφοσίωσης και πίστης προς τα άτομα που περιμένουν απο αυτόν, που πιστεύουν σε αυτόν, που τον περιμένουν παντοτινά ή τον ξεχνούν αργά και βασανιστικά. Απελευθερώνονται απο το μαρτύριο της προσμονής που γίνεται αγανάκτηση, κάνοντας την απόσταση γυαλί που θρυμματίζεται πολλές φορές μα καμία δεν σπάει.
Συμπόνοια, ταύτιση, απόγνωση και απελπισία τυλίγουν το κουβάρι της αφήγησης ενός ανθρώπου που διαρκώς σκέφτεται, ονειρεύεται, μονολογεί και ελπίζει, θέλει παράφορα να φτάσει στο λιμάνι της επαγγελματικής του εξορίας η προσμονή του, που θα φέρει το παρελθόν και το μέλλον του σε πραγματικό χρόνο αντιμέτωπα με το θύμα τους, στο οποίο λόγω αναμονής και λαχτάρας ή για κάποιους λόγους πολιτικής ορθολογιστικής παραφροσύνης που κομίζουν οι δυνατοί του κόσμου τούτου - μιας και βρίσκεται χιλιάδες μίλια μακριά απο την οικογένεια και το σπίτι του - δεν του επιτρέπεται, δεν παίρνει ούτε μερικών ωρών άδεια, να ζήσει στο παρόν και να αναζητήσει τα χνάρια πρός τον τόπο του που τόσο αποζητά.
Πάντα μπερδεύεται σε μια αναχρονιστική ατμόσφαιρα που περιβάλει τον ίδιο αλλά και όλη την αφήγηση, με κάποιο ατμοσφαιρικό και θολό συναίσθημα εποχής και αμερικανικής αναπνοής να παλινδρομεί στην ψυχή του και στις σελίδες του βιβλίου.
Τα χρόνια που ζούμε παρέα με τον Σάμα διαμορφώνεται η αμερικανική αίσθηση συμπάθειας και αντιπάθειας
- αναλόγως την πλευρά που κοιτάς το ποτάμι - για τους γνήσιους λευκούς απογόνους των Ισπανών κατακτητών που αποίκησαν στη Νότιο Αμερική.
Η ισπανική μητρόπολη δημιουργεί δυσαρέσκειες και πολέμους ανεξαρτησίας. Επόμενως μετά το το διάταγμα του βασιλιά, την περίοδο εκείνη καθαιρούνται οι κρεολοί απο μεγάλα αξιώματα στις αποικίες και αναλαμβάνουν δράση αποκλειστικά Ισπανοί.
Ο δον Ντιέγο ντε Σάμα παύεται απο διοικητής περιφέρειας με μεγαλύτερες προοπτικές οικονομικής ανελλιξης ή και μια ευμενή μετάθεση κοντά στην οικογένεια του.
Αντ’αυτού υποβιβάζεται σε νομικός σύμβουλος και εγκλωβίζεται στην Ασουνσιόν της Παραγουάης, χιλιάδες μίλια μακριά απο τον τόπο που ονειρεύεται και προσμένει.
Μετά απο αυτό αρχίζει η φθορά σε κάθε της έκφανση, υπεισέρχεται και η κρίση ταυτότητας, η καχυποψία, η λογικά εκπορευόμενη απο τα γεγονότα υποτίμηση στα μάτια των Ισπανών της περιοχής που ζει.
Ο Σάμα δεν νιώθει ούτε Ισπανός, ούτε αμερικανός, νιώθει άνθρωπος, και κάπου εδώ αρχίζει το ταξίδι προς την εντροπία κατι που ταιριάζει απόλυτα με την ελλειπτικότητα της γραφής του Μπενεντέτο.
Διαβάστε το. Είναι ένα διαμαντάκι που μπορεί να χαράξει σε γυάλινες ψυχές και κρυστάλλινες
μεταφυσικές ψευδαισθήσεις το αποτύπωμα του μυαλού σας.
📚‼️📚❤️💙‼️
Καλή ανάγνωση
Πολλούς και σεμνούς ασπασμούς.
Η έρημος των ταρτάρων, η σκοτεινή μυρωδιά φόβου
του Κάφκα, ο καπνός απο το τσιγάρο που σιγοκαίει στοχαστικά στα χείλη του Καμύ, συνδυάζονται και σχηματίζουν υπαρκτές πρωταγωνιστικές αλλοιώσεις και μεταπτώσεις στη γραφή και το νόημα του έργου τούτου.
Οι πάμπολοι παραλληλισμοί, οι αμφισημίες.οι λυρικές εξάρσεις, και το γλαφυρό απόθεμα απο αντιθέσεις, λεξιλογικές και εννοιολογικές γεννούν έ��αν λιτό και στεγνό παρόλα αυτά λόγο που θριαμβεύει μέσα στη φτωχή του μεγαλοπρέπεια.
Ο Δον Ντιέγο ντε Σάμα πρωταγωνιστεί και ντουμπλάρει ρόλους και φιγούρες, είδωλα και αντικατοπτρισμούς στους θολωμένους καθρέφτες της ιστορίας που γυαλίζουν με εκτυφλωτική αντανάκλαση όταν η υπαρξιακή μοναξιά του ήρωα παίρνει τη θέση που της αρμόζει, έρχεται σε πρώτο πλάνο.
Η ιστορία μας διαδραματίζεται την περίοδο της αποικιοκρατίας στην Ισπανική αντιβασιλεία
του Ριο ντε λα Πλάτα, κάπου στα τέλη του 18ου αιώνα. Χωρίζεται σε τρεις ενότητες ,που διαδέχον��αι η μία την άλλη σε μια χρονική στιγμή, δέκα ετών.
Στα έτη 1790, 1794 και 1799 γνωρίζουμε την εκ βαθέων ψυχής φυσική και ηθική φθορά του δον Ντιέγο ντε Σάμα μόνο μέσα απο τη δική του οπτική γωνία. Απο την προσωπική του αγωνία, απο τον ολόδικό του αγώνα αντοχής και απαντοχής, απο τα προσωπικά του μυστικά και ψέματα μέχρι τις σεξουαλικές ανάγκες και τα παραληρήματα της σαρκικής ηδονής.
Απο τα έντονα πάθη του, τα ανόητα λάθη του, τις πολύ προσωπικές του στιγμές αφοσίωσης και πίστης προς τα άτομα που περιμένουν απο αυτόν, που πιστεύουν σε αυτόν, που τον περιμένουν παντοτινά ή τον ξεχνούν αργά και βασανιστικά. Απελευθερώνονται απο το μαρτύριο της προσμονής που γίνεται αγανάκτηση, κάνοντας την απόσταση γυαλί που θρυμματίζεται πολλές φορές μα καμία δεν σπάει.
Συμπόνοια, ταύτιση, απόγνωση και απελπισία τυλίγουν το κουβάρι της αφήγησης ενός ανθρώπου που διαρκώς σκέφτεται, ονειρεύεται, μονολογεί και ελπίζει, θέλει παράφορα να φτάσει στο λιμάνι της επαγγελματικής του εξορίας η προσμονή του, που θα φέρει το παρελθόν και το μέλλον του σε πραγματικό χρόνο αντιμέτωπα με το θύμα τους, στο οποίο λόγω αναμονής και λαχτάρας ή για κάποιους λόγους πολιτικής ορθολογιστικής παραφροσύνης που κομίζουν οι δυνατοί του κόσμου τούτου - μιας και βρίσκεται χιλιάδες μίλια μακριά απο την οικογένεια και το σπίτι του - δεν του επιτρέπεται, δεν παίρνει ούτε μερικών ωρών άδεια, να ζήσει στο παρόν και να αναζητήσει τα χνάρια πρός τον τόπο του που τόσο αποζητά.
Πάντα μπερδεύεται σε μια αναχρονιστική ατμόσφαιρα που περιβάλει τον ίδιο αλλά και όλη την αφήγηση, με κάποιο ατμοσφαιρικό και θολό συναίσθημα εποχής και αμερικανικής αναπνοής να παλινδρομεί στην ψυχή του και στις σελίδες του βιβλίου.
Τα χρόνια που ζούμε παρέα με τον Σάμα διαμορφώνεται η αμερικανική αίσθηση συμπάθειας και αντιπάθειας
- αναλόγως την πλευρά που κοιτάς το ποτάμι - για τους γνήσιους λευκούς απογόνους των Ισπανών κατακτητών που αποίκησαν στη Νότιο Αμερική.
Η ισπανική μητρόπολη δημιουργεί δυσαρέσκειες και πολέμους ανεξαρτησίας. Επόμενως μετά το το διάταγμα του βασιλιά, την περίοδο εκείνη καθαιρούνται οι κρεολοί απο μεγάλα αξιώματα στις αποικίες και αναλαμβάνουν δράση αποκλειστικά Ισπανοί.
Ο δον Ντιέγο ντε Σάμα παύεται απο διοικητής περιφέρειας με μεγαλύτερες προοπτικές οικονομικής ανελλιξης ή και μια ευμενή μετάθεση κοντά στην οικογένεια του.
Αντ’αυτού υποβιβάζεται σε νομικός σύμβουλος και εγκλωβίζεται στην Ασουνσιόν της Παραγουάης, χιλιάδες μίλια μακριά απο τον τόπο που ονειρεύεται και προσμένει.
Μετά απο αυτό αρχίζει η φθορά σε κάθε της έκφανση, υπεισέρχεται και η κρίση ταυτότητας, η καχυποψία, η λογικά εκπορευόμενη απο τα γεγονότα υποτίμηση στα μάτια των Ισπανών της περιοχής που ζει.
Ο Σάμα δεν νιώθει ούτε Ισπανός, ούτε αμερικανός, νιώθει άνθρωπος, και κάπου εδώ αρχίζει το ταξίδι προς την εντροπία κατι που ταιριάζει απόλυτα με την ελλειπτικότητα της γραφής του Μπενεντέτο.
Διαβάστε το. Είναι ένα διαμαντάκι που μπορεί να χαράξει σε γυάλινες ψυχές και κρυστάλλινες
μεταφυσικές ψευδαισθήσεις το αποτύπωμα του μυαλού σας.
📚‼️📚❤️💙‼️
Καλή ανάγνωση
Πολλούς και σεμνούς ασπασμούς.
August 31, 2021
Somebody Stop Me
It seems to me that there are two contradictory ways in which Di Benedetto wants us, or at least allows us, to interpret Doctor Don Diego de Zama. On the one hand he is a weak, ambitious, Walter Mitty-ish fantasist who feels himself victimised by the rules of late 18th century Spanish colonialism. On the other hand he is the courageous, competent, champion of heroic ideals, a kind of Quixote of the pampas, who is determined to live up to his full potential in life.
This contradiction is the “duel” he fights in his head. He is simultaneously a failure and a success and he can’t decide which, if either, constitutes his authentic character. Regardless, what this internal conflict does show is that Zama is a man of some kind of conscience, a neurotic conscience certainly, but nevertheless with a reflective sense that is both historical and prospective.
Other things being equal, it is at least possible that Zama’s conscience could have matured with age and brought him some sort of psychological or spiritual equilibrium. But other things are never equal. Zama is what would be classified by some as an Objective Introvert (in the psychological typology of Carl Jung, for example). That is, although he is self-aware, he is also acutely sensitive to those around him. His primary judgments about himself come from elsewhere - his family, superiors, social betters, anyone he considers admirable. So Zama muses that :
Poor Zama. But, being a fellow Objective Introvert, I can confirm that Zama is, although in highly exaggerated form, the salt of the earth. Or, to put the matter less subjectively, he is the world’s cannon fodder. The domains of industry and commerce, of war and policing, of government and administration, couldn’t do without him. He is the perfect subordinate: loyal, attentive, hard-working, aspiring to get on by getting on with the boss, the perennial grey suited Organisation Man. He is, in other words (and I mean this is the kindest way possible), more or less insane. And he is a good century too early for appropriate therapy. Poor Zama.
Poor Zama. The only defence an Objective Introvert has against the world is the choice of those he has around him and whom he admires. He doesn’t know this, is of course, but their opinions are what drive him. Wrong people, then wrong judgments, and then you’re toast, mentally soeaking. So Zama is right to consider his past as shaping his future. He’s even right to want to limit what things he pays attention to:
But, poor Zama, he doesn’t have a clue that the the shaping of his personality done in the past has been done, and is still being done, not by his actions but by his associations, his relationships. And the maniac is still involving himself in the same associations and relationships he always has - those who purport to be better than he is. So by his (middle) age he is trapped. There is no escape as he waits helplessly for his own Godot, the illustrious viceroy, to appreciate him fully and give him the posting he deserves, away from the primitive plains of Paraguay to the boisterous ado of Buenos Aires.
Poor Zama. It ain’t going to happen. And even if by some fluke it does, Zama’s insanity would continue unabated. He would fixate on new aspirations, positions even higher up the social ladder, honours and titles for his valour in service to the sovereign. When the arbiter of worth lies elsewhere, there is always the need to get confirmation of one’s value through those who are perceived to have more of it. Those of lesser value - one’s subordinates, employees, even peers (he has no friends) and family members - don’t really exist for Zama except as abstractions. They may be treated badly as a matter of natural justice.
Poor Zama. He has become a snob, a racist, a misogynist, blatant social climber. His conscience has become a mere luxury in which he indulges from time to time. Otherwise it is silent, and he is ruthless. His inherent sensitivity, therefore, emerges as a constant self-pity and paranoia which justifies everything he does. There is no functional difference between Zama’s state of mind and an addiction to heroine. As he feeds it, the addiction becomes more demanding. The results are predictable.
Poor Zama. Hell, poor me!
It seems to me that there are two contradictory ways in which Di Benedetto wants us, or at least allows us, to interpret Doctor Don Diego de Zama. On the one hand he is a weak, ambitious, Walter Mitty-ish fantasist who feels himself victimised by the rules of late 18th century Spanish colonialism. On the other hand he is the courageous, competent, champion of heroic ideals, a kind of Quixote of the pampas, who is determined to live up to his full potential in life.
This contradiction is the “duel” he fights in his head. He is simultaneously a failure and a success and he can’t decide which, if either, constitutes his authentic character. Regardless, what this internal conflict does show is that Zama is a man of some kind of conscience, a neurotic conscience certainly, but nevertheless with a reflective sense that is both historical and prospective.
Other things being equal, it is at least possible that Zama’s conscience could have matured with age and brought him some sort of psychological or spiritual equilibrium. But other things are never equal. Zama is what would be classified by some as an Objective Introvert (in the psychological typology of Carl Jung, for example). That is, although he is self-aware, he is also acutely sensitive to those around him. His primary judgments about himself come from elsewhere - his family, superiors, social betters, anyone he considers admirable. So Zama muses that :
“… [I cannot] modify what [I] once was. Should I believe I was predestined by that past for a better future?… I saw the past as a shapeless, visceral mass, yet still somehow perfectible. It had its noble elements but among them I couldn’t help but recognize something—the main thing—that was viscous, unpleasant, and elusive to the grasp, like the intestines of a freshly disemboweled animal. I did not repudiate this element but accepted it as part of myself, possibly an indispensable part, even if I’d played no role in bringing it into existence. I hoped, rather, to be myself, at last, in the future, by dint of what I might become in that future. Perhaps I believed I was that man already, living in accordance with the image that awaited me further ahead. Perhaps this present Zama who claimed to resemble the Zama to come was built upon the Zama who once was, copying him, as if timidly venturing to interrupt something.”
Poor Zama. But, being a fellow Objective Introvert, I can confirm that Zama is, although in highly exaggerated form, the salt of the earth. Or, to put the matter less subjectively, he is the world’s cannon fodder. The domains of industry and commerce, of war and policing, of government and administration, couldn’t do without him. He is the perfect subordinate: loyal, attentive, hard-working, aspiring to get on by getting on with the boss, the perennial grey suited Organisation Man. He is, in other words (and I mean this is the kindest way possible), more or less insane. And he is a good century too early for appropriate therapy. Poor Zama.
Poor Zama. The only defence an Objective Introvert has against the world is the choice of those he has around him and whom he admires. He doesn’t know this, is of course, but their opinions are what drive him. Wrong people, then wrong judgments, and then you’re toast, mentally soeaking. So Zama is right to consider his past as shaping his future. He’s even right to want to limit what things he pays attention to:
’Acknowledging my own impassioned disposition, I must shun all stimuli that are contrived or deliberately pursued. There is no excuse when instinct has forewarned us but we do not heed the warning… I must not even lay eyes on them so as not to dream of them and render myself susceptible and bring about my downfall.”
But, poor Zama, he doesn’t have a clue that the the shaping of his personality done in the past has been done, and is still being done, not by his actions but by his associations, his relationships. And the maniac is still involving himself in the same associations and relationships he always has - those who purport to be better than he is. So by his (middle) age he is trapped. There is no escape as he waits helplessly for his own Godot, the illustrious viceroy, to appreciate him fully and give him the posting he deserves, away from the primitive plains of Paraguay to the boisterous ado of Buenos Aires.
Poor Zama. It ain’t going to happen. And even if by some fluke it does, Zama’s insanity would continue unabated. He would fixate on new aspirations, positions even higher up the social ladder, honours and titles for his valour in service to the sovereign. When the arbiter of worth lies elsewhere, there is always the need to get confirmation of one’s value through those who are perceived to have more of it. Those of lesser value - one’s subordinates, employees, even peers (he has no friends) and family members - don’t really exist for Zama except as abstractions. They may be treated badly as a matter of natural justice.
Poor Zama. He has become a snob, a racist, a misogynist, blatant social climber. His conscience has become a mere luxury in which he indulges from time to time. Otherwise it is silent, and he is ruthless. His inherent sensitivity, therefore, emerges as a constant self-pity and paranoia which justifies everything he does. There is no functional difference between Zama’s state of mind and an addiction to heroine. As he feeds it, the addiction becomes more demanding. The results are predictable.
Poor Zama. Hell, poor me!
February 27, 2024
“El oficial mayor distribuyó concienzudamente sobre su mesa los envíos para cada cual, ninguno para don Diego de Zama, porque mis manos estaban destinadas a permanecer vacías otro largo tiempo.”
“Zama” es en cierto modo, una novela kafkiana. En ella, un funcionario de la corona española en Asunción del Paraguay no logra poder irse de allí mientras pasan los años divididos en tres capítulos, a saber, 1790, 1794 y 1799.
En forma inversa a la novela “El castillo” de Franz Kafka, donde el agrimensor K. no logra acceder al castillo al que le fue asignado un trabajo, Don Diego de Zama se encuentra sin poder reencontrarse con su esposa Marta al otro lado del océano Atlántico.
La novela tiene ciertos puntos de conexión tanto con “Robinson Crusoe” de Daniel Defoe ya que Zama va contando todo lo que sucede pero no está solo, sino que tiene mucha gente alrededor, especialmente mujeres (Luciana, Rita, Emilia) con quienes se involucra sentimentalmente.
Existe otro punto en común a mi juicio, que en cierto modo se relaciona con "El desierto de los tártaros" de Dino Buzzati, especialmente en aquellos tramos narrativos en los que la acción pareciera detenerse en una apatía de días interminables donde nada pasa.
Mientras trata de comunicarse por carta con Marta, vive de la espera de la respuesta (la dedicatoria al principio de este libro dice “A las víctimas de la espera), lo que me recuerda a otro personaje, el de “El Coronel no tiene quién le escriba”, de Gabriel García Márquez donde la espera es uno de los personajes principales de esa novela.
“Zama”, escrita en 1956 por el mendocino Antonio Di Benedetto utilizando una técnica narrativa magnífica, descolla por su preciosismo, además de reconstruir el lenguaje colonial de la época y fue altamente admirada por escritores de la talla de Julio Cortázar y especialmente por Juan José Saer quien escribió un capítulo especial en su ensayo “El concepto de ficción” a modo de homenaje a punto tal que la compara con “El extranjero” de Camus y “La náusea” de Sartre.
Creo que se inspiró también en “Zama” para escribir su novela “El entenado”, más que nada por la posición de observador que adquieren los personajes de ambas novelas.
La prosa deslumbrante de “Zama” invita al lector a darle una oportunidad.
“Zama” es en cierto modo, una novela kafkiana. En ella, un funcionario de la corona española en Asunción del Paraguay no logra poder irse de allí mientras pasan los años divididos en tres capítulos, a saber, 1790, 1794 y 1799.
En forma inversa a la novela “El castillo” de Franz Kafka, donde el agrimensor K. no logra acceder al castillo al que le fue asignado un trabajo, Don Diego de Zama se encuentra sin poder reencontrarse con su esposa Marta al otro lado del océano Atlántico.
La novela tiene ciertos puntos de conexión tanto con “Robinson Crusoe” de Daniel Defoe ya que Zama va contando todo lo que sucede pero no está solo, sino que tiene mucha gente alrededor, especialmente mujeres (Luciana, Rita, Emilia) con quienes se involucra sentimentalmente.
Existe otro punto en común a mi juicio, que en cierto modo se relaciona con "El desierto de los tártaros" de Dino Buzzati, especialmente en aquellos tramos narrativos en los que la acción pareciera detenerse en una apatía de días interminables donde nada pasa.
Mientras trata de comunicarse por carta con Marta, vive de la espera de la respuesta (la dedicatoria al principio de este libro dice “A las víctimas de la espera), lo que me recuerda a otro personaje, el de “El Coronel no tiene quién le escriba”, de Gabriel García Márquez donde la espera es uno de los personajes principales de esa novela.
“Zama”, escrita en 1956 por el mendocino Antonio Di Benedetto utilizando una técnica narrativa magnífica, descolla por su preciosismo, además de reconstruir el lenguaje colonial de la época y fue altamente admirada por escritores de la talla de Julio Cortázar y especialmente por Juan José Saer quien escribió un capítulo especial en su ensayo “El concepto de ficción” a modo de homenaje a punto tal que la compara con “El extranjero” de Camus y “La náusea” de Sartre.
Creo que se inspiró también en “Zama” para escribir su novela “El entenado”, más que nada por la posición de observador que adquieren los personajes de ambas novelas.
La prosa deslumbrante de “Zama” invita al lector a darle una oportunidad.
February 6, 2020
Seven kadar sevmeyenin de olduğu Latin Amerika'nın çok da dikkat çekmemiş (bunun bir nedeninin de başka dillere çevrilmemesi olarak görülüyor) bir yazarını okumak, okumayı gerçekten seven bir bünyede heyecan ve mutluluk yaratıyor, bu bir gerçek.
Kitap biraz filmin gölgesinde kalmış, filmin olumsuz yapısı kitaba karşı bir ön yargı oluşturmuş durumda. Filmi izlemesem de duyduklarımdan sonra bu sonuca ulaşmak hiç zor olmadı.
Zama aslında yazarı Benedetto 'dan çok izler taşıdığı söylenen, ne dediği ne yaptığı neyi niçin yaptığı belli olmayan abartılı bir tabir olmayacaksa aslında "ziyan" bir karakter. Kötü bir eş, başarısız bir yargıç, alakasız bir baba, cesaretten yoksun bir asker. Aklınıza gelebilecek tüm toplumsal statülerde çuvallamış hayatı ıskalamış bir karakter. Böyle bir karakteri okumak sinir bozucu, sıkıcı olabilir ama ortada edebiyata dair çok daha manidar bişii var.
Kendini kolay açmayan sıkıcı bir metin gibi durmayı tercih eden roman aslında Zama'nın psikolojik yapısının yazıdaki tezahürü. Kitabı da başarılı kılan bence bu. Yani biçim ve içeriğin harika birlikteliği.
Zama'nın bize uzun uzun çok önemliymiş gibi anlattığı basit ve değersiz olaylar, kendini çok başarılı, akıllı, kadın avcısı ve cesur bir asker olarak görürken şahit olduğumuz çuvallamaları, bu "ikiyüzlü" karakteri nedeniyle yaşanan olayları "acaba gerçekten öyle mi oldu?" diye sorgulatması.. Ve en güzeli de satır aralarında gezinen "hah! şimdi bir aydınlanma yaşayacak " derken ışığa bu kadar yaklaşmışken geri dönüşlerine şahit olmak ve en sonunda kaçınılmaz sona ulaşmasını izlemek ne diyeyim beni o zamana o hikayeye ve Zama ile boğuşmaya didişmeye odakladı. Yaşanan gerçek felaketlerden uzaklaşmamı sağladı. Daha ne olsun.
Herkese tavsiye edilecek bir kitap değil ama edebiyatta karakter analizlerini, latin edebiyatını, farklı metinler okumayı sevenler için tavsiye edilebilir.
Herkese iyi okumalar....
Kitap biraz filmin gölgesinde kalmış, filmin olumsuz yapısı kitaba karşı bir ön yargı oluşturmuş durumda. Filmi izlemesem de duyduklarımdan sonra bu sonuca ulaşmak hiç zor olmadı.
Zama aslında yazarı Benedetto 'dan çok izler taşıdığı söylenen, ne dediği ne yaptığı neyi niçin yaptığı belli olmayan abartılı bir tabir olmayacaksa aslında "ziyan" bir karakter. Kötü bir eş, başarısız bir yargıç, alakasız bir baba, cesaretten yoksun bir asker. Aklınıza gelebilecek tüm toplumsal statülerde çuvallamış hayatı ıskalamış bir karakter. Böyle bir karakteri okumak sinir bozucu, sıkıcı olabilir ama ortada edebiyata dair çok daha manidar bişii var.
Kendini kolay açmayan sıkıcı bir metin gibi durmayı tercih eden roman aslında Zama'nın psikolojik yapısının yazıdaki tezahürü. Kitabı da başarılı kılan bence bu. Yani biçim ve içeriğin harika birlikteliği.
Zama'nın bize uzun uzun çok önemliymiş gibi anlattığı basit ve değersiz olaylar, kendini çok başarılı, akıllı, kadın avcısı ve cesur bir asker olarak görürken şahit olduğumuz çuvallamaları, bu "ikiyüzlü" karakteri nedeniyle yaşanan olayları "acaba gerçekten öyle mi oldu?" diye sorgulatması.. Ve en güzeli de satır aralarında gezinen "hah! şimdi bir aydınlanma yaşayacak " derken ışığa bu kadar yaklaşmışken geri dönüşlerine şahit olmak ve en sonunda kaçınılmaz sona ulaşmasını izlemek ne diyeyim beni o zamana o hikayeye ve Zama ile boğuşmaya didişmeye odakladı. Yaşanan gerçek felaketlerden uzaklaşmamı sağladı. Daha ne olsun.
Herkese tavsiye edilecek bir kitap değil ama edebiyatta karakter analizlerini, latin edebiyatını, farklı metinler okumayı sevenler için tavsiye edilebilir.
Herkese iyi okumalar....
December 7, 2019
In Don Diego de Zama, Di Benedetto has created a truly pathetic and loathsome character. The embodiment of male weakness, Don Diego is driven by lust, insecurity and the hollow desire for status. He lacks all self-control. He is aloof, self-centred and unsympathetic. His self-deception is delusional: he is utterly convinced of his own virtuousness while consistently demonstrating the opposite. But despite all this, there is something pitiable in his behaviour, something recognisably human in his delusional and destructive tendencies. Zama takes us down the path of apathetic self-destruction to its logical conclusion. It is a study of aimlessness, futility, isolation, and the irresistible pull of the abyss.
September 14, 2016
Deserves a place at the table with Julian Gracq's masterpieces of waiting for something to arrive (The Opposing Shore [1951] and A Balcony in the Forest [1958]), as well as Dino Buzzati's The Tartar Steppe [1940], another really worthwhile novel of anticipatory anxiety, all of which seem like Cold War fever dreams ("The Tartar Steppe" was ahead of its time -- really should have been published a decade later). This one is dedicated to victims of expectation: "expectation" suggests hope but also prediction of a future result, maybe from a potentially delusional position of privilege, too. A common engine in fiction: raised hopes dashed on the rocks of disappointment, resulting in oh so much poignancy. What did I expect getting into this? Hopes were raised for something more, the same way Zama himself had higher hopes. Is this a masterpiece? Best of all, it's a novel in which a poisonous snake in search of warmth enters your leather sleeping bag and curls up on your stomach, so you look at the stars and try not to move, dreaming that you flinched and died. Three sections: the first is about a gentleman in a position of privilege removed from his family lusting after ladies. His narration has a haughty character that, in the best way, reminded me of Erlich Bachman in the HBO comedy series known as "Silicon Valley" -- once I pictured Erlich as Zama, I enjoyed this more. But then the first section ended and that association fell away as we skip ahead a few years -- I can't really even seem to be able to write a basic synopsis of the middle part. After an extraordinary paragraph that suggested this section would be about existential more than amorous expectation, it seemed more about municipal logistics? The lust has subsided in favor of something far less exciting, something this casual reader can't even remember days later -- I guess because it's not chocked full of details, scenes, language, or insights that made me want to continue reading -- but thankfully I made it to the third section, set in 1799, a few years later. Zama has descended from his privileged position, makes no more than a single mention of Marta his wife other than a message he jots in ostrich blood and throws downriver in a bottle, rides out on a hunt for a nearly mythical strongman badguy who's actually in the group itself, sleeps with snake, kills a dog attacking his leader, and ultimately meets a satisfying spoiler alert of an end. For me, it's a cool weird novel, sure. But I can't say it reads like a "masterpiece." I get that Zama's narration dissolves from the first to the third section. There are fantastic lines in the third section, one about forests atop forests that seemed straight out of Bolano and surely influenced him. And the first section has its moments, although mostly about desire and not much else. I get that so much is suggested about his separation from his family, his aspirations, his position in the time and place. The time period and territory are nicely evoked, sure. The translation preserves Spanish words and phrases in a way that retains the overall flavor and the English throughout seems rendered with extreme attention and precision but never labored or wooden. But I guess just in general I wasn't all that into this. I expected more? The weaker middle section deflated this for me maybe. Glad I read it and I'm sure it will stick with me but I really feel like I need to read something fundamentally and indubitably great again, something I can effortlessly and effusively evangelize in a review on here the morning after I finish it -- it feels like every novel I've read this summer (since All Souls and Dark Back of Time, the second one incidentally by the same translator), I've liked in parts but after a point have been doing the math to see how much more I had to read before the end.
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August 21, 2022Bizarna jedna knjiga.
Zama je roman koji već na prvi pogled odaje da je nastao pedesetih godina. Iako (bar tako kaže kritika) Antonio di Benedeto nije stvarao pod uticajem egzistencijalizma, u Zami prepoznajemo teme i preokupacije nešto starijih romana koji su presudno uticali na taj književni period: mislim na Kamijevog Stranca i Sabatov Tunel. Kao i kod njih, i u Zami je glavni junak nepouzdani pripovedač koji se tokom pripovedanja sve više odvaja od društva i tone u izolaciju, ne toliko fizičku koliko duhovnu.
Ali na drugi pogled se stvari komplikuju. Ovaj roman nije epigonski, naprotiv. Don Dijego de Zama je minorni činovnik španske imperije koji vene u nekom zabačenom mestašcu Južne Amerike (u predgovoru se tvrdi da je to Asunsion, sam tekst slabo daje uporišta za takvo tumačenje; možda mi je nešto promaklo) i čeka na unapređenje ili makar premeštaj koji nikad neće doći, i to je jasno svima osim njemu. Ta atmosfera beskrajnog, besciljnog čekanja u prašnjavoj sirotinjskoj varošici, u društvu trećerazrednog palanačkog plemstva, njihovih slugu/robova i Indijanaca bez jasnog društvenog statusa, osnovni je ton cele knjige.
Zamina naracija je noćna mora za opuštenog čitaoca i ozbiljan poduhvat za svakog autora. Nemam uvid u original, ali mislim da se prevoditeljka Ester Alen morala grdno namučiti s ovim stilom. Zama se izražava jezikom koji je istovremeno arhaično dvorski-birokratski kitnjast i modernistički višesmisleno sveden. Pošto je jedna od Zaminih bitnih osobina neiskrenost i pritvornost i prema drugima i pred sobom, pripovedanje se na mahove pretvara u lavirint kroz koji pratimo vijuganje njegovih pokušaja da opravda različite niske i podle postupke (sve niže i sve podlije) ili ih makar prikaže u nekom iole prihvatljivom svetlu. Kroz tri duža segmenta u rasponu od nekih deset godina mi tako pratimo Zamino fizičko i moralno propadanje, ali i postepenu psihičku dezintegraciju i gubitak sposobnosti zdravog rasuđivanja; od početka se u pripovesti pojavljuju minijature koje deluju kao izgubljeni klasici magijskog realizma, mračni i nedovršeni - nijedna nam neće biti objašnjena do kraja i stoga Zama nikad ne pada u zamku da postane jednostavna alegorija.
Narativni zamah se, nažalost, gradi vrlo sporo, takoreći nikako, jer pisac mučki insistira na tome da čitalac iskusi položaj glavnog junaka: sve se izluđujući vuče, fraze, motivi i postupci likova se ponavljaju i variraju, i tek kad Zamin pad dostigne neku kritičnu brzinu, pripovedanje se ubrzava. Sve je to namerno i dosledno - ovaj roman je proizvod, reklo bi se, čelične spisateljske discipline u isterivanju maka na konac - ali koliko daje toliko i zahteva, i Zama na koncu ostaje odlična ali retko zamorna knjiga.
Zama je roman koji već na prvi pogled odaje da je nastao pedesetih godina. Iako (bar tako kaže kritika) Antonio di Benedeto nije stvarao pod uticajem egzistencijalizma, u Zami prepoznajemo teme i preokupacije nešto starijih romana koji su presudno uticali na taj književni period: mislim na Kamijevog Stranca i Sabatov Tunel. Kao i kod njih, i u Zami je glavni junak nepouzdani pripovedač koji se tokom pripovedanja sve više odvaja od društva i tone u izolaciju, ne toliko fizičku koliko duhovnu.
Ali na drugi pogled se stvari komplikuju. Ovaj roman nije epigonski, naprotiv. Don Dijego de Zama je minorni činovnik španske imperije koji vene u nekom zabačenom mestašcu Južne Amerike (u predgovoru se tvrdi da je to Asunsion, sam tekst slabo daje uporišta za takvo tumačenje; možda mi je nešto promaklo) i čeka na unapređenje ili makar premeštaj koji nikad neće doći, i to je jasno svima osim njemu. Ta atmosfera beskrajnog, besciljnog čekanja u prašnjavoj sirotinjskoj varošici, u društvu trećerazrednog palanačkog plemstva, njihovih slugu/robova i Indijanaca bez jasnog društvenog statusa, osnovni je ton cele knjige.
Zamina naracija je noćna mora za opuštenog čitaoca i ozbiljan poduhvat za svakog autora. Nemam uvid u original, ali mislim da se prevoditeljka Ester Alen morala grdno namučiti s ovim stilom. Zama se izražava jezikom koji je istovremeno arhaično dvorski-birokratski kitnjast i modernistički višesmisleno sveden. Pošto je jedna od Zaminih bitnih osobina neiskrenost i pritvornost i prema drugima i pred sobom, pripovedanje se na mahove pretvara u lavirint kroz koji pratimo vijuganje njegovih pokušaja da opravda različite niske i podle postupke (sve niže i sve podlije) ili ih makar prikaže u nekom iole prihvatljivom svetlu. Kroz tri duža segmenta u rasponu od nekih deset godina mi tako pratimo Zamino fizičko i moralno propadanje, ali i postepenu psihičku dezintegraciju i gubitak sposobnosti zdravog rasuđivanja; od početka se u pripovesti pojavljuju minijature koje deluju kao izgubljeni klasici magijskog realizma, mračni i nedovršeni - nijedna nam neće biti objašnjena do kraja i stoga Zama nikad ne pada u zamku da postane jednostavna alegorija.
Narativni zamah se, nažalost, gradi vrlo sporo, takoreći nikako, jer pisac mučki insistira na tome da čitalac iskusi položaj glavnog junaka: sve se izluđujući vuče, fraze, motivi i postupci likova se ponavljaju i variraju, i tek kad Zamin pad dostigne neku kritičnu brzinu, pripovedanje se ubrzava. Sve je to namerno i dosledno - ovaj roman je proizvod, reklo bi se, čelične spisateljske discipline u isterivanju maka na konac - ali koliko daje toliko i zahteva, i Zama na koncu ostaje odlična ali retko zamorna knjiga.
October 31, 2022
No es una lectura reciente, pero quería puntuar a este novelón. Bien merecido su lugar como una de las mejores novelas del siglo XX. Amerita relectura.
February 6, 2017
Zama by Antonio Di Benedetto is one of those unknown books from South America that makes one wonder whether the United States took a wrong turn by being so Eurocentric. From the southern cone of that wild, but strangely civilized, continent, life has au unfamiliar look -- probably because the path traveled through history was so different.
The main character is one Don Diego de Zama, a minor criollo official in Asuncion, Paraguay, far removed from his family down river in Buenos Aires. Zama is a bit of a schlub; and his superiors know it. They deprive him of his pay, while he squirms with loneliness and imagines affairs with various young women in the town. Then we cut to four years later, in 1794, when he has found a mistress, sired a bastard with her, and then fell out of favor. Cut another five years into the future, and we find Zama leading, in name only, a military expedition to find a bandit who, as a matter of fact, is a soldier in the party hunting him.
Zana is intriguingly strange throughout its length. At one point, the military party runs into a group of blind Indians led by their sighted children:
The main character is one Don Diego de Zama, a minor criollo official in Asuncion, Paraguay, far removed from his family down river in Buenos Aires. Zama is a bit of a schlub; and his superiors know it. They deprive him of his pay, while he squirms with loneliness and imagines affairs with various young women in the town. Then we cut to four years later, in 1794, when he has found a mistress, sired a bastard with her, and then fell out of favor. Cut another five years into the future, and we find Zama leading, in name only, a military expedition to find a bandit who, as a matter of fact, is a soldier in the party hunting him.
Zana is intriguingly strange throughout its length. At one point, the military party runs into a group of blind Indians led by their sighted children:
When the tribe grew accustomed to carrying on without eyesight, it was happier. Each one could be alone with himself. Shame, censure, and recrimination no longer existed: Punishment was not necessary. They turned to one another out of collective need and common interest: to hunt a deer or put a roof on a rancho. A man sought out a woman and a woman sought out a man for love. Some of them, to isolate themselves even further, beat their own ears until the tiny bones within them were crushed.It seems that Di Benedetto was a follower of Franz Kafka, and that he adopted the name of Zama because of its resemblance to Gregor Samsa of "The Metamorphosis." Whatever the case, this is one of those books which I think will only grow upon the reader. Even Jorge Luis Borges has written that "Di Benedetto has written essential pages that have moved me and that continue to move me."
February 23, 2020
Antonio Di Benedetto'nun üçlemesinin ilk parçasıymış Zama.
"Beklentinin kurbanlarına" ithaf ediliyor kitap. Ve her şeyiyle, özellikle de 2 sayfalık roman niteliğindeki sonuyla ithafı muhteşem şekilde yerli yerine oturtuyor Zama.
Anlaşılması hem güç, hem zor bir karakter Zama. Hem çok tanıdık hem özdeşleşemeyecek kadar yabancı. Hem nefret ediyor, hem seviyor, hem acıyorsunuz.
Kitabı okuduğumu sosyal medyada paylaştığımda, filmini izleyenlerden mesaj aldım; filmi anlamadıklarını ya da beğenmediklerini sorguluyor, kitabı soruyorlardı. Kitap bitince onlara ne demeliyim diye düşündüm. Sanırım buldum:
Ben epey sevdim ancak herkese önerilecek bir kitap olmadığının farkındayım ama yine de önereceğim. Çünkü okunsun, talep edilsin ki üçlemenin diğer 2 parçası da gelsin istiyorum.
Daha fazla Antonio Di Benedetto çevirisi ve eserine ulaşabilmek umuduyla.
"Beklentinin kurbanlarına" ithaf ediliyor kitap. Ve her şeyiyle, özellikle de 2 sayfalık roman niteliğindeki sonuyla ithafı muhteşem şekilde yerli yerine oturtuyor Zama.
Anlaşılması hem güç, hem zor bir karakter Zama. Hem çok tanıdık hem özdeşleşemeyecek kadar yabancı. Hem nefret ediyor, hem seviyor, hem acıyorsunuz.
Kitabı okuduğumu sosyal medyada paylaştığımda, filmini izleyenlerden mesaj aldım; filmi anlamadıklarını ya da beğenmediklerini sorguluyor, kitabı soruyorlardı. Kitap bitince onlara ne demeliyim diye düşündüm. Sanırım buldum:
Ben epey sevdim ancak herkese önerilecek bir kitap olmadığının farkındayım ama yine de önereceğim. Çünkü okunsun, talep edilsin ki üçlemenin diğer 2 parçası da gelsin istiyorum.
Daha fazla Antonio Di Benedetto çevirisi ve eserine ulaşabilmek umuduyla.
Read
April 7, 2023Book + Film review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0PDr...
June 30, 2013
Una historia de como se puede pasar una vida en la espera. Me encanta la dedicatoria de este libro: "para las víctimas de la espera".
Zama pasa la vida esperando a que lo transfieran cerca de su familia. La familia es un fantasma para el, el hogar, representa lo que más desea. Pero también se quiere enamorar y hace varios intentos que no llegan a nada. Creo que no era el libro indicado para empezar a leer a benedetto, pero me encantó igual.
Zama pasa la vida esperando a que lo transfieran cerca de su familia. La familia es un fantasma para el, el hogar, representa lo que más desea. Pero también se quiere enamorar y hace varios intentos que no llegan a nada. Creo que no era el libro indicado para empezar a leer a benedetto, pero me encantó igual.
October 2, 2017
Esta novela trata sobre la vida de Diego de Zama, un asesor letrado de la Gobernación en Paraguay y uno de los personajes más miserables que le�� en mi vida.
Rencor, venganza, crueldad, engaño, cobardía, miseria, fiereza ,traición, abuso de poder, marginalidad, son algunos de sus temas.
La historia en sí es interesante, aunque por momentos decae, siempre te mantiene interesado. Está narrada en primera persona y organizada en tres partes que ocurren en 1790 , 1794 y 1799. La primera y la tercera fueron mis preferidas.
Lo que más me gustó fue la forma de escribir de Di Benedetto, esa naturalidad con la que describe los acontecimientos y el pensamiento del protagonista, que hacen que valga la pena leer este libro.
Rencor, venganza, crueldad, engaño, cobardía, miseria, fiereza ,traición, abuso de poder, marginalidad, son algunos de sus temas.
La historia en sí es interesante, aunque por momentos decae, siempre te mantiene interesado. Está narrada en primera persona y organizada en tres partes que ocurren en 1790 , 1794 y 1799. La primera y la tercera fueron mis preferidas.
Lo que más me gustó fue la forma de escribir de Di Benedetto, esa naturalidad con la que describe los acontecimientos y el pensamiento del protagonista, que hacen que valga la pena leer este libro.
September 9, 2021
Me pregunté, no por qué vivía, sino por qué había vivido. Supuse que por la espera y quise saber si aún esperaba algo. Me pareció que sí.
Siempre se espera más.
Siempre se espera más.
August 7, 2016
For lack of a better term, I think you could call this South American historical Noir. Di Benedetto's wring is great, wonderful, powerful. He does things with sentences that make my knees weak.
So why three stars?
Because like Celine, this book has a narrator who I think should get hit by a bus; however, buses weren't around when the book takes place. I'm glad I read. I will most likely track down other books, but I was wishing for a bus. (Strangely, though the ending was great).
(2016 NYRB Book Club selection for Aug).
So why three stars?
Because like Celine, this book has a narrator who I think should get hit by a bus; however, buses weren't around when the book takes place. I'm glad I read. I will most likely track down other books, but I was wishing for a bus. (Strangely, though the ending was great).
(2016 NYRB Book Club selection for Aug).
January 31, 2024
https://kansasbooks.blogspot.com/2024...
“- Todos, casi todos, somos pequeños hechos. Elaboramos presente menudo y, en consecuencia, pasado aborrecible. Tengo miedo de elaborar culpas, para que el pasado no sea más poderoso que el futuro."
Antonio di Benedetto comienza esta novela con una dedicatoria, “A las victimas de la espera”, que ya de por sí está anticipando de alguna forma que la espera puede ser desilusión y que las expectativas la mayor parte de las veces crearán desesperanza y víctimas. Zama, que será la primera novela de la Trilogía de la Espera, es una novela que me ha dejado un poso del que sabes que perdurará, y difícilmente podré olvidar ya un personaje como el de Don Diego de Zama en el que se podrán reconocer muchos detalles de la esencia imperfecta de la condición humana y de cómo la desilusión acuciante se irá afianzando y apoderando de un hombre en una espera ya crónica. Desesperación y miedo ante una vida que parece que se estanca sin que él sea capaz de hacer nada por remediarlo. Una novela que transcurre a finales del s.XVIII y que bien podría ser una novela de ahora mismo. Una atmósfera profundamente asfixiante absorbe a Diego de Zama a medida que va siendo consciente de que no tiene salida, y que Benedetto logra transmitir al lector en un estilo que parece imitar a la lengua de aquella época con ecos a la lengua clásica del Siglo de Oro, pero que sin embargo no pertenece a ninguna época determinada, según he leído por ahí, pero si despierta esos aires a otra época. Yo diría que quizás sea esto lo que a mí más me ha hechizado de esta novela, la forma en que se conjuga el estilo de Benedetto con la evolución del personaje de Zama, los párrafos se van fragmentando y casi deteriorando en la misma medida en que el personaje se va desilusionando casi sin remedio... los párrafos aparentemente estructurados del principio, se van convirtiendo en frases más cortas, separadas en interlineados más diferenciados.
"- ¿Estaré hablando con un español o con un americano?
- Español, señor! Pero un español lleno de asombro ante tantos americanos que quieren parecer españoles y no ser ellos mismos lo que son.”
Dividida en tres segmentos perfectamente estructurados entre 1790 y 1799, serán nueve años en la vida del letrado de la corte Don Diego de Zama, que destinado en un remoto puesto en el interior de Paraguay, sirviendo a la corona española, está esperando a cumplir su plazo para regresar a Buenos Aires con su esposa y sus hijos. El mayor deseo de Zama será el de escapar de aquel puesto a través de un ascenso pero depende del gobernador provincial que lo tratará con un cierto menosprecio por el hecho de ser un americano, un criollo (ascendencia española pero nacido en América del Sur), así que tendrá que ver como otros oficiales, sí nacidos en España, aunque aparentemente sean castigados por faltas cometidas incluso por él mismo, sean trasladados a otros puestos mientras que el permanecerá eternamente estancado y sin posibilidades de ascenso. Zama no permanecerá solo aislado y alejado de su familia, sino que estará aislado también en el propio puesto que ocupa, los prejuicios, el clasismo jerárquico y su incapacidad para integrarse y hacer amigos "Estaba contento por mí, que cada vez quedaba menos ligado a la gente.", le harán perderse cada vez más en sí mismo y alejarse de las expectativas creadas. Se encuentra en una especie de tierra de nadie, sin pertenecer realmente a ningún lugar concreto, y es esta conciencia que va adquiriendo Diego de Zama, lo que hace esta novela tan inmensa, porque en la medida en la que este personaje va reconociendo que no hay avance, que no podrá escapar, también va perdiendo el sitio en el mundo que creía tener. Zama pasa mucho tiempo en el puerto, esperando la llegada del barco que le traiga alguna carta de Marta o un salario que siempre llegará con retraso. La eterna espera.
“Ningún hombre, me dije, desdeña la perspectiva de un amor ilícito. Es un juego, un juego de peligro y satisfacciones. Si se da el triunfo, ha ganado la simulación ante interesado tercero y contra la sociedad, guardiana gratuita.”
Diego de Zama es un personaje profundamente contradictorio y es en esta eterna contradicción donde podremos reconocer la esencia de la naturaleza humana. Terriblemente solo en esa tierra de nadie donde será continuamente menospreciado en su comunidad, convierte el sexo en su mayor evasión. La primera parte de la novela entre 1790 y 1794 está mayormente dominada por las mujeres y por su incontrolable deseo casi por cualquier mujer que se cruce en su camino, las espía a escondidas y las desea prácticamente a todas y llegado un punto se convierte en un tipo casi patético. Su vida es una continua autojustificación añorando a su lejana esposa pero al mismo tiempo, como él dice “Por lo menos, debo conservar el derecho a enamorarme.”, un deseo perfectamente natural en un hombre que ansía encontrar un sentido a una existencia cada vez más aislada y solitaria. Las contradicciones de Zama se extienden realmente a cualquier área de su vida ya que nunca predica con el ejemplo, no solo se ve a sí mismo como un marido fiel y es todo lo contrario, sino también se ve a sí mismo como un modelo de justicia y lealtad y no le hace ascos a dar de lado a quién está esperando su ayuda, o a traicionar si le sirve a sus intereses o incluso usar la violencia contra las mujeres, un hecho totalmente contradictorio con la idea de caballero andante que tiene de sí mismo: “Yo estaba enamorado de su cuerpo y hacia él tendía. Nada más me importaba de esa mujer iletrada, de rostro incapaz de sugerir impresiones amables.” Realmente y tal como se nos dice al principio, Zama era otra persona antes de llegar a ese puesto en el que se quedó anclado, así que es este aislamiento, desesperanza y falta de expectativas lo que le hará convertirse en el personaje que iremos conociendo a lo largo de esta novela, no es un héroe pero tampoco es un ser depravado porque Benedetto ya se encarga de describirnos que Zama se ha ido fragmentando a medida que los primeros meses de espera se fueron convirtiendo en años...
“¡El doctor don Diego de Zama!… El enérgico, el ejecutivo, el pacificador de indios, el que hizo justicia sin emplear la espada. Zama, el que dominó la rebelión indigena sin gasto de sangre española, ganó honores de monarca y respetó a los vencidos.”
La prosa de Benedetto es aquí el Santo Grial que va definiendo el personaje de Zama: seca, a veces muy opaca, brutal y vibrante a la vez, se va perdiendo en una especie de frases entrecortadas que definen dos conceptos cada vez mas difuminados, por una parte Zama creía en un mundo y su lugar en él, y por otra parte, la consciencia de que ese mundo en el que creía, no existe . Es este deterioro fisico y mental en el que se va sumiendo a medida que la novela avanza, lo que realmente define la condición humana.: un poco absurda, sombría, existencial y muy kafkiana: “¿No puede un hombre inflarse y errar, arrepentirse y ser perdonado?”
"Algo en mí, en mi interior, anulaba las perspectivas exteriores. Yo veía todo ordenado, posible, realizado o realizable. Sin embargo, era como si yo, yo mismo, pudiera generar el fracaso. Y he aquí que al mismo tiempo me juzgaba inculpable de ese probable fracaso, como si mis culpas fueran heredadas: disponía de una resignación previa porque percibía que, en el fondo todo es factible, pero agotable."
♫♫♫ Vivaldi: Andromeda liberata (RV Anh. 117) / II Aria 5 [Perseo]: Sovente il sole ♫♫♫
July 10, 2020
Zama, ikircikli bir karakterin ağzından yazılmış ikircikli bir roman. Başlangıçta Zama'nın zihninden dökülen darmadağın düşünceleri bırak anlamak, takip etmek bile epey zorlayıcıydı. İlk birkaç on sayfa, çevirmene mi söylensem kime söylensem diye aranırken, bir noktadan sonra kitap nasıl bitti anlamadım. Roman karakteri Zama'yı tanımaya başladıkça, Zama çok daha akışkan bir roman haline geldi benim için. Bu, romanın en büyük başarılarından birisi sanırım.
Roman 43. bölümde bitseydi, gönül rahatlığı ile 3 yıldız verebilirdim ama ondan sonrası müthiş bir dönüm noktası oldu kitap için. Benedetto bu romanı belki de son altı bölüm için yazmıştır diye düşünmeden edemiyorum. Benedetto'nun Zama'ya uygun gördüğü son ve Zama'nın bizimle birlikte bu sona şahit oluşunu görmek, bu romanı benim için özel yapmaya yetti de arttı bile.
Bir de kitap kapağı için romanı çok güzel besleyen bir resim seçilmiş, çoook güzel, bayıldım. Kocaman ağzını açıp Zama'yı yutuveren ormanı; ormanın insana birer vahşet gibi görünen tüm olayara karşı kayıtsız gözlerini ve uzanan ellerini görüyorum resme bakınca. Tabi ben de, Zama gibi ukala bir gözlemci ve yorumcudan ötesi değilim, biliyorum :)
ek: Zama ve Karanlığın Yüreği ile karşılaştırmalı olarak düşünülünce, romanın sonu hakkında söylediklerim daha anlaşılır olacaktır sanırım.
Roman 43. bölümde bitseydi, gönül rahatlığı ile 3 yıldız verebilirdim ama ondan sonrası müthiş bir dönüm noktası oldu kitap için. Benedetto bu romanı belki de son altı bölüm için yazmıştır diye düşünmeden edemiyorum. Benedetto'nun Zama'ya uygun gördüğü son ve Zama'nın bizimle birlikte bu sona şahit oluşunu görmek, bu romanı benim için özel yapmaya yetti de arttı bile.
Bir de kitap kapağı için romanı çok güzel besleyen bir resim seçilmiş, çoook güzel, bayıldım. Kocaman ağzını açıp Zama'yı yutuveren ormanı; ormanın insana birer vahşet gibi görünen tüm olayara karşı kayıtsız gözlerini ve uzanan ellerini görüyorum resme bakınca. Tabi ben de, Zama gibi ukala bir gözlemci ve yorumcudan ötesi değilim, biliyorum :)
ek: Zama ve Karanlığın Yüreği ile karşılaştırmalı olarak düşünülünce, romanın sonu hakkında söylediklerim daha anlaşılır olacaktır sanırım.
November 4, 2018
Σαμα, ο πρωταγωνιστής ενός καθόλα λατινοαμερικάνικου έργου
Αλληγορικός κ μεταφορικός, ουσιαστικά εξυμνεί την προσμονή κ αναδεικνύει τις αντιφάσεις τις, με κορυφαία την τελευταία σκηνή όπου δίνεται η δυνατότητα στον ίδιο να επιλέξει να ζήσει υπό όρους.
Αλληγορικός κ μεταφορικός, ουσιαστικά εξυμνεί την προσμονή κ αναδεικνύει τις αντιφάσεις τις, με κορυφαία την τελευταία σκηνή όπου δίνεται η δυνατότητα στον ίδιο να επιλέξει να ζήσει υπό όρους.
February 25, 2020
Zama tem uma esposa americana, que se encontra longe, e procura uma amante, ou várias, desde que sejam "fêmeas brancas, por oposição às índias, mulatas e negras que me causavam repugnância."
Zama, "um homem com umas mãos suficientemente poderosas para agarrar a cabeça de uma rapariga e mordê-la até sangrar."
Zama, "um homem com umas mãos suficientemente poderosas para agarrar a cabeça de uma rapariga e mordê-la até sangrar."
January 11, 2021
Zaman akıp geçiyor, öyle bekliyor Zama. Bazı talihsizlikler mi desem yanlış tercihler mi...
Bilmiyorum.
Bilmiyorum.
February 28, 2024
Don Diego de Zama, he of the title, is a kind of judge, assigned by the Spanish Crown to Asunción in Paraguay in the last decade of the 18th century. His position gives him status, but the emoluments are slow in coming. He wishes to be transferred to Buenos Aires where he hopes he might actually get paid. We can feel the dissolution coming. His wife, by the way, is a thousand miles away.
The novel starts in 1790. Our first-person protagonist does little judging that we know of, but he does drink a lot of maté. Mostly he ruts, in a very unrequited way. If he wasn't so unlikeable, his romantic failures might be comical.
Jump ahead to 1794. Don Diego's ruttings are no longer unrequited, but true love eludes him. As it should. And his dissolution is almost complete.
In 1799, the novel turns away from a continuity of urges. And it will ultimately turn metaphysical. Don Diego becomes a member of a posse, chasing after a man he has ruined in the past. The story turns more cinematic, yet also more philosophical. A woman tells him: All of us, or almost all, are small matters. We devise some small present for ourselves, and in consequence some hateful past. . . . I'm afraid to draw up a tally of sins. I don't want the past to be more powerful than the future. As I said, more philosophical. The posse enters a village: Blind. All the adults were blind. The children were not. It was the Spanish who had done it.
The ending turned vague, maybe surreal. Don Diego sees visions. There is redemption after all. Not for Zama, but for the story that is told.
The novel starts in 1790. Our first-person protagonist does little judging that we know of, but he does drink a lot of maté. Mostly he ruts, in a very unrequited way. If he wasn't so unlikeable, his romantic failures might be comical.
Jump ahead to 1794. Don Diego's ruttings are no longer unrequited, but true love eludes him. As it should. And his dissolution is almost complete.
In 1799, the novel turns away from a continuity of urges. And it will ultimately turn metaphysical. Don Diego becomes a member of a posse, chasing after a man he has ruined in the past. The story turns more cinematic, yet also more philosophical. A woman tells him: All of us, or almost all, are small matters. We devise some small present for ourselves, and in consequence some hateful past. . . . I'm afraid to draw up a tally of sins. I don't want the past to be more powerful than the future. As I said, more philosophical. The posse enters a village: Blind. All the adults were blind. The children were not. It was the Spanish who had done it.
The ending turned vague, maybe surreal. Don Diego sees visions. There is redemption after all. Not for Zama, but for the story that is told.
December 2, 2020
"Nenhuma desculpa é válida diante do instinto que nos avisa e não respeitamos."
"A tarde estava a começar, mas aquele dia estava a correr-me tão mal que me espantava que ainda continuasse. No entanto, uma pessoa não pode renunciar a meio dia de vida: ou é o resto da eternidade ou nada."
"O amor apaixonado tem como requisito o encantamento."
"Encontrei-me com a Lua, que era uma mulher gorda e nua sentada no horizonte."
"Deveria eu acreditar que o homem que defende com pouco zelo a sua mulher, mais do que temeroso, é limitado por secretas motivações, que o impedem de se ocupar demasiado dela? Um ódio oculto, uma aversão longínqua, um amor extinto e, no entanto, nada evidente, nem sequer para si mesmo?"
"A tarde estava a começar, mas aquele dia estava a correr-me tão mal que me espantava que ainda continuasse. No entanto, uma pessoa não pode renunciar a meio dia de vida: ou é o resto da eternidade ou nada."
"O amor apaixonado tem como requisito o encantamento."
"Encontrei-me com a Lua, que era uma mulher gorda e nua sentada no horizonte."
"Deveria eu acreditar que o homem que defende com pouco zelo a sua mulher, mais do que temeroso, é limitado por secretas motivações, que o impedem de se ocupar demasiado dela? Um ódio oculto, uma aversão longínqua, um amor extinto e, no entanto, nada evidente, nem sequer para si mesmo?"
February 2, 2020
Zaman yaratabilirsem uzun bir yorum yazmak istiyorum sonra. Kısaca sevmedim fakat kötü bir eser değil, onu belirteyim. 'Sakın okumayın' demem hatta Latin Amerika edebiyatına ilgi duyanlara mutlaka öneririm. Zira bütün o Latinlerin tarzı bir yana Benedetto'nunki bir yana. Sonra da mutlaka yazar hakkında yazılmış eleştiri yazılarını okumanızı tavsiye ederim. Tazeleyen bir tecrübe. Ama her şeye rağmen romanı sevmedim. Unutmaz yazarsam uzun yorumum da ayrıntılı anlatırım.
İyi okumalar.
İyi okumalar.
August 28, 2018
between a 4 and a 5, rounded to a 5. Now I'm wondering what other hidden gems are waiting for me, unread, on my shelves. Before I post about it though, I'm giving part two of this book another read. Hallucinatory stories generally require a second go round for me.
July 25, 2018
Erg knappe roman over een cynische, wellustige, paranoïde en overambitieuze dienaar van de Spaanse kroon in het Paraguay van 1790. De sfeerschepping is grandioos, de dialogen van een energieke levendigheid, de personages bijzonder geloofwaardig, van vlees en bloed. Diego de Zama is misschien wel een van de minst sympathieke hoofdrolspelers uit de wereldliteratuur, maar tegelijk neemt hij je meteen en zonder pardon voor zich in. Dat komt simpelweg omdat di Benedetto een meesterverteller is. Probeer ook de recente verfilming van Martel te zien: zij wist de beklemmende sfeer uit het boek perfect te vangen in minstens even onvergetelijke beelden.
October 19, 2016
This is an English translation of a classic masterpiece of Argentinian and Spanish literature. It is the interior monologue of a servant of the Court of Spain that is placed in 1790 in a small and isolated outpost of Ascuncion the capital of Paraguay. Don Diego di Zama is an Americano as is his wife Marta, of mixed blood, but through his ambitions has risen in rank but will always be viewed slightly less than the 'white' Spanish families that have the ear of the Governor and through him of the King.
He holds on to his elevated status with an arrogance and suspicion of others and a duplicitous character. Unfortunately Don Diego rarely gets paid as the King sends little for the upkeep of this outpost. His wife is far removed raising their son at a great distance, they are both living in penury, but required for the sake of his career to live as though they were already successful.
He dreams of some was to obtain an appointment to Buenos Aires whee he believes that his extraordinary talents will finally be recognized and obtain the funds to live in style.
The book is dedicated "to victims of expectation" which almost in itself tells Don Diego's story.
We are all familiar with this internal narrative. Most of us suffer the delusion, if only occasionally,
of the dialogue of what we should have become...if only. We all have misinterpreted the meanings of others when we want them to be a partner in our hopes for ourselves. Who has not thought of that great response to a person who have stuck us dumb with humiliation after we have walked away from them?
We imagine into our future often surrounding ourselves with those dreams that will be the rewards of our success, the trappings of wealth, the respect we imagine it brings, and a sense that we may become heroes of our own narrative. Little do we acknowledge that fame and immortality come t but a few who fit the narrative of history, and we will be known only by those who choose to remember us.
Beautifully crafted, a worthy translation as it seems to live up to its accolades.
He holds on to his elevated status with an arrogance and suspicion of others and a duplicitous character. Unfortunately Don Diego rarely gets paid as the King sends little for the upkeep of this outpost. His wife is far removed raising their son at a great distance, they are both living in penury, but required for the sake of his career to live as though they were already successful.
He dreams of some was to obtain an appointment to Buenos Aires whee he believes that his extraordinary talents will finally be recognized and obtain the funds to live in style.
The book is dedicated "to victims of expectation" which almost in itself tells Don Diego's story.
We are all familiar with this internal narrative. Most of us suffer the delusion, if only occasionally,
of the dialogue of what we should have become...if only. We all have misinterpreted the meanings of others when we want them to be a partner in our hopes for ourselves. Who has not thought of that great response to a person who have stuck us dumb with humiliation after we have walked away from them?
We imagine into our future often surrounding ourselves with those dreams that will be the rewards of our success, the trappings of wealth, the respect we imagine it brings, and a sense that we may become heroes of our own narrative. Little do we acknowledge that fame and immortality come t but a few who fit the narrative of history, and we will be known only by those who choose to remember us.
Beautifully crafted, a worthy translation as it seems to live up to its accolades.
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