Las constelaciones oscuras

by Pola Oloixarac

En la segunda novela de Pola Oloixarac encontramos una narración compuesta por tres hilos que atraviesan tres épocas: 1882, 1983 y 2024. En cada una de estas líneas narrativas encontramos sus protagonistas: Niklas, Cassio y Piera, tres personajes marcadamente solitarios, hasta el aislamiento y la incomprensión, aunque de enorme curiosidad y talento.

Niklas es un botánico que participa en una expedición que le ha de permitir estudiar una planta denominada Crissia Pallida. Cassio, en cambio, vive en la época del desarrollo de los ordenadores y se especializa como hacker. Piera es una bióloga, igual que Niklas, pero en su época, el 2024, la biología ha cambiado totalmente y, junto a Cassio, participa en un grupo de investigación que recolecta ejemplares de ADN humano.

Antiguos exploradores y nerds del siglo XXI, biólogos y hackers, todos tienen un códice por escribir. Todos disfrutan de la sensación de control sobre otros seres humanos.

Genres: Fiction, Science Fiction, Dystopia, Speculative Fiction, Spanish Literature, Fantasy, Audiobook

240 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 2015

About the author

Pola Oloixarac (Buenos Aires, 13 de septiembre de 1977) es una escritora y traductora argentina. Estudió Filosofía en la Universidad de Buenos Aires y ha publicado artículos sobre arte y tecnología en medios como The Telegraph, The New York Times International, Folha de Sao Paulo, Página 12, Revista Quimera, Etiqueta Negra, Qué Leer, Revista Alfa, América Economía y Brando.
Su primera novela es Las teorías salvajes (Entropía, 2008; Alpha Decay 2010; Estruendomudo, 2010), próximamente en traducción al inglés (Jonathan Cape), francés (Editions du Seuil), holandés (Meulenhoff), finlandés (Sammakko), italiano (Baldini Castoldi Dalai), y portugués (en Brasil, Saraiva; en Portugal, Quetzal). En el 2010 fue seleccionada entre Los mejores narradores en español por la Revista Granta (Best of Young Spanish Novelists, Granta 113 UK). En el año 2010 participó en el International Writers Program de la Universidad de Iowa gracias a una beca del Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the US State Department. En el 2010 recibió la Beca Nacional de Letras del Fondo Nacional de las Artes de Argentina. Publicó cuentos en antologías en Suiza y Argentina, como Acerca de la comunidad de hipotálamos y el código Morse en la antología Literatura Fantástica Argentina (Ed. Pagina 12, 2004) y Die Nacht des Kometen. Argentinische Autorinnen der Gegenwart.

Reviews

[Lori · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't get a lot out of this one. Strange and an okay read. It's a mix of lost-world and techno sci-fi. The story is disjointed, but it's more odd than unpleasant.


Dark Constellations Audible Audiobook – Unabridged
Pola Oloixarac (Author), Roy Kesey - translator (Author), Justine Eyre (Narrator), a division of Recorded Books HighBridge (Publisher)

[Pedro · Rating 3 out of 5]

2,5

Siglo XIX, un grupo de exploradores de la naturaleza desembarca en una isla frente a la costa de África, después de lo cual describen cosas muy extrañas, como plantas-animales.

Cerca del milenio: una estudiante avanzada viaja a un encuentro científico en Brasil. Después, vendrá la vida de Cassio, que se convierte en un hacker “de sombrero blanco”: hackear no una manera de beneficiarse o dañar. Es un desafío personal, también compartido y disfrutado con otros camaradas y rivales.

A través de estas historias que convergen, aparece la postulación de las múltiples formas de simbiosis entre especies, incluyendo una última etapa, la incorporación de la tecnología a lo biológico, que rompe las paredes divisorias construidas por las ciencias de la naturaleza, conocidas como taxonomía.

La premisa es interesante y audaz, y la autora se muestra muy inteligente (en el sentido de pensar más allá de lo que aceptamos como realidad), y con bastante conocimiento respecto a diversos temas y teorías que animan la historia. Es una novela para leer asesorados por un buscador o Wikipedia.

He encontrado algunas cuestiones que le han quitado solidez a la novela. Hay muchas cuestiones que aborda, y que no conozco lo suficiente; pero entiendo algo de biología, y he encontrado algunas postulaciones dudosas; podría ignorarlas (es literatura), pero me genera la idea de que las construcciones conceptuales que sustentan la historia no están sustentadas en cimientos firmes.

Pero sobre todo me ha parecido que el afán de incluir tantas postulaciones y datos, debilita la trama de la novela, quitando fuerza a los personajes y a la historia.
De todos modos, una escritora muy interesante y original.

Observación: Personalmente, en algunas cuestiones de simbiosis humana-tecnológica (como se encuentra más desarrollado en Robocop) las había encontrado en la novela La Deriva (2019) de Namwali Serpell (Zambia, 1971), y con mayor calidad.

Pola Oloixarac (Paola Caracciolo), nació en Argentina en 1977, y es columnista de varios medios en diferentes lugares del mundo.

[Hendrik · Rating 3 out of 5]

Big-Data und Biotechnologie sind im Grunde spannende und absolut aktuelle Themen, um daraus einen interessanten Roman auf der Höhe der Zeit zu machen. Leider hat die Autorin über ihre Tech-Fixierung das Erzählen weitgehend vergessen. Die Figuren entwickeln für meinen Geschmack zu wenig Charaktertiefe. Man erfährt zwar viel über die einzelnen Lebensläufe, aber eben alles im Stil einer Chronik der Ereignisse. Mir bleibt die Geschichte zu sehr an der Oberfläche haften, die Handlungsmotive der Akteure treten oft nur unscharf hervor. Am ehesten gelingt das noch bei Cassio, dessen Entwicklung vom jugendlichen Hacker zum Wissenschaftler stellenweise ganz witzig erzählt ist. Ok, die sexuellen Nöte eines Computernerds sind jetzt nichts völlig Neues, aber doch irgendwie lustig. Woraus ich auch nicht so recht schlau geworden bin, ist die Geschichte um den Botaniker Niklas, die im 19. Jahrhundert spielt. Insgesamt hinterlässt der Roman bei mir einen eher mittelmäßigen Eindruck.

[A. Raca · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Diller yaratabilirim. Bankalar çökertebilirim. Bilgisayarcıların bugüne dek eşine rastlamadığı türde görünmez ordular yaratabilirim."

[Rachel · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is a difficult review to write because I am not sure where to begin. Before I continue with this review, I would like to add a disclaimer: I don’t think I fully “got” this book. I think I missed something crucial, or maybe I am just in too much of a cultural bubble to have been able to understand. But I did not enjoy this book.

The concept intrigued me. The novel centers around the “quest for knowledge and control.” It covers themes of privacy, mass surveillance, and evolutionary concepts. The story is supposed to connect three different stories: one of a 19th century plant biologist, one of a boy named Cassio who grows up in the 90s and becomes a talented hacker, and one of a researcher named Peira, who works on a research group with Cassio in 2024. The result of these three stories is a project that allows the Argentinian government to track all of its citizens using censors that identify their DNA.

The problem I have with this novel is in the disjointed narrative. It is just so hard to follow. The three stories are supposed to be interconnected, but it just doesn’t end up reading that way. It leaves the reader(or at least this reader) bewildered and confused. Another issue is in the flowery and overly sexual and descriptive narrative. The plot and message gets lost in the details of description, as well as the informational overload. I felt like I needed to have a more than mediocre understanding of anthropology and politics to be able to follow this novel. It seemed like it was written for a very specific reader, and I’m just not sure I was that reader. I recognize that this is a novel in translation, and perhaps some of the nuances were lost in the process of that translation; either that or perhaps I am just too culturally sheltered to be able to understand.

I struggled to finish this book. I mean, I really slogged through it. I think that may have just been due to my own inability to understand, but if I had that problem I imagine others will as well.

I would like to thank NetGalley for sending me an advance copy of this novel in exchange for my honest review.

[Sebastian · Rating 4 out of 5]

La impresión inicial es la de estar frente a una admiradora de Borges sin saber si lo imita o lo parodia. Esa impresión no dura mucho; Oloixarac se revela demasiado inteligente para una cosa y demasiado seria para la otra. La adjetivación paradojal alcanza niveles barrocos ("puluraron con ahínco", "brisa irresistible", "noche de perfumes sulfúricos", "los sueños ilegales de los hombres"). La erudición de la autora es vasta e impudorosa, pero en ocasiones la construcción de algunas frases es descuidada, y algunas palabras que emplea son cuestionables ("abrevar" por beber; una fea referencia al "valle de los labios"). Hay observaciones y analogías ingeniosas (el fútbol como una afiliación tribal), y un conocimiento concreto de la arcana informática pre-world wide web: phreaking, BBS, C, Assembler.

Hay un punto en el que los barroquismos que atraviesan el texto dejan de lucir como un descuido o un gesto rebuscado, y aparecen como una marca de estilo voluntaria, insolente: una provocación. "La noche progresaba su refutación de la luz". Entiendo que ante esta frase alguien diga "no más" y arroje el libro al fuego. Yo me reí, tomé nota, y seguí leyendo.

Estos rasgos se van diluyendo atravesada la primera mitad del libro. y la narración se impone. Ambas historias, la del naturalista dionisiáco del siglo XIX y la de Cassio, niño secuestrado por su madre que se convierte en hacker quizás porque las máquinas le resultaban más dóciles y misteriosas que su entorno, se entrelazan entre sí de una manera que no es perfecta pero intrigante. Este es un libro de la imaginación, y también de ideas, en el que uno de los principales temas es la legibilidad del mundo, tanto en su forma matemática como extática. En las partes del siglo XIX hay tonos decadentistas y de weird fiction, que me hizo acordar especialmente, quizás por Le Horla, a Maupassant. Hacia el final, el libro se vuelve visionario de una manera que es a la vez anacrónica e innovadora. Una rareza en la literatura argentina.

[Jean Ra · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sencillamente: no.

Trama interesante que conecta a dos tipos diferentes de "exploradores". Por un lado están los científicos del siglo XIX, descubridores de maravillas ocultas de la naturaleza. Esta trama 'dialoga' con la trama de Cassio, un hacker que, a su modo, también es un avanzado a su tiempo. Trabaja para una compañía de big data que toma información de ADN de una gran base de datos continental y establecen patrones y permiten extraer información que puede ser utilizara por compañías y gobiernos.

Para empezar la voz narrativa de Pola, afectada y pomposa. Salpicada de constantes locuciones francesas y otras lenguas extranjeras al español que Caraxiolo no logra encajar y que suena a metralleta de pedantería. Luego está la búsqueda de giros cultos y eufemismos sexuales sonrojantes, con lo que la mitad del libro está relatada por una voz redicha y que chirria casi en cada página.

Cuando la escritura más o menos está más afinada, resulta que la autora decide adaptar una narración más oblicua, de forma que no hay un desarrollo de hechos o personajes, solamente una niebla narrativa caprichosamente oblicua y rebuscada.

Mientras la lees tienes la sensación de autocomplacencia, como que efectivamente la autora es una persona muy cultivada y quiere subrayarlo de forma constante. Pero a la vez también quiere sonar coñona y traviesa. Suma esas dos partes y hallarás cifrado el número de la bestia: burgueses canallitas. Seguro que se me escaparon no pocas alusiones de muy alta cultura, no digo que no, pero ya os avanzo que Pola Oloixarac no es tan aguda como ella supone.

[Adam McPhee · Rating 2 out of 5]

Real curate's egg thing going on here. Some parts I found tedious, some brilliant. Doesn't really cohere. Liked the cyberpunk stuff, which isn't normally my thing. Possibly has an evolution of the light/darkness of stars metaphor employed by Alan Moore/Matthew Stover/Nic Pizzolato et al, but have to think on it more. Big points for that. Kinda has that Atwood thing going on where a literary writer talks themselves into thinking they're doing some classic scifi stuff for the first time. But some of the stuff, particularly the ending, is really well done.

Definitely check out her book Mona though.

[Larry · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is exactly my kind of book tbh. I'd say read if you enjoyed "2666" and "Cloud Atlas." It swings between cyberpunk near future and darkly sexual magical realism 1880s and it's a wild ride for 215 or so pages. Alternately, it's a lost world biotech parable about exploitation. Either way it would be well at home on the syllabus for my senior English seminar on the seven deadly sins.

[Drea · Rating 3 out of 5]

There were either too many drugs consumed during the writing of this book or not enough were taken when reading this book.

Nevertheless too many ideas lacking any sort of anchor to propel the story forward, which often led to blocks and blocks of exposition with nothing happening.

Kinds liked how weird it was though

[Becky · Rating 4 out of 5]

??? What did I just read? I have almost no idea what happened in this novel, but I did enjoy the reading experience. (Notable exception being the uncomfortable prevalence of absurd euphemisms for the penis. Meaty joystick? WHY??) This book is packed with ideas, but I don’t feel like I was smart enough to put it all together. The story begins in the 1800’s and as it advances to the late 1900’s and finally 2024 it keeps circling back to this nineteenth century explorer character but I couldn't tell you why. There’s a ton of character building of another character, Cassio, stuffed in the middle that somehow didn’t allow me to understand him at all. Then when part three introduces a neat woman as the final protagonist, it keeps being about the previous characters much more than her. This book is solidly speculative, but I want to say it leans more towards the “literary” side of fiction, even though I still couldn’t explain to you what I think makes a book “literary”. I love how much tech was stuffed into this book, and the feeling that it was asking interesting questions, however far just outside my reach, but ultimately I have no idea what went down in this book. In search of someone to talk to about this one? I don’t know, somehow I’m not especially inclined to try to Google my way towards some elusive understanding, preferring to let this book stand alone yet inscrutable. I think I should have read it slower.

[imaculata form · Rating 4 out of 5]

Im Innern der Maschine hatte sich ein Krieg entwickelt.
Im Innern der Menschen hatte sich nichts verändert.

[B. P. Rinehart · Rating 1 out of 5]

Elissa Schappell: "Why do writers have such a hard time writing about sex?"

Toni Morrison: "Sex is difficult to write about because it’s just not sexy enough. The only way to write about it is not to write much. Let the reader bring his own sexuality into the text. A writer I usually admire has written about sex in the most off-putting way. There is just too much information. If you start saying “the curve of . . .” you soon sound like a gynecologist. Only Joyce could get away with that. He said all those forbidden words. He said cunt, and that was shocking. The forbidden word can be provocative. But after a while it becomes monotonous rather than arousing. Less is always better. Some writers think that if they use dirty words they’ve done it. It can work for a short period and for a very young imagination, but after a while it doesn’t deliver. When Sethe and Paul D first see each other, in about half a page they get the sex out of the way, which isn’t any good anyway—it’s fast and they’re embarrassed about it—and then they’re lying there trying to pretend they’re not in that bed, that they haven’t met, and then they begin to think different thoughts, which begin to merge so you can’t tell who’s thinking what. That merging to me is more tactically sensual than if I had tried to describe body parts." - From Toni Morrison, The Art of Fiction No. 134


Unlike most folks, I don't go out of my way to read bad or lousy books. One of the reasons I haven't become a paid, full-time book reviewer is because of this. I get my books from works that have been out a while so that I know it has been vetted. Still, every once-in-a-while I will stumble on a book that I would rightfully never read. This is one of those books.

This book was recommended to me not by friends or word-of-mouth, but the New York Times! The same article that got me to read The Memory Police also recommended this book and since the digital library app Hoopla had it available as an audiobook, I said why not. Well...there were reasons why not. If I had looked on Goodreads, I would've seen a whole lot of reviews that kept saying DNF - Did Not Finish. Now I thought why would folks not want to finish a book called "Dark Constellations" (really the only great about this book is the title. Well, I had to find out, so I started listening....

So I think I got an idea of what this book was about after chapter 1's blood-seamen orgy. *Sigh* So now I have to decide if I finish-up this 5 hour audiobook or just waste one of my Hoopla borrows for the month--I said hell, might as well solider on. This synopsis of the novel is there, but it is totally subsumed in the faux-wittiness and most stunningly un-sexy, un-erotic descriptions ever written. It began so bad that I thought that if it kept itself at gutter-level when it talked or mentioned sex (which this book does a lot despite not advertising itself that way) than it would at least appeal to my morbid sense of humor as a so bad it's good book, but alas...it had to nerve to try take itself seriously as a work of literature and became mediocre. Not acceptable or terrible (at least not all thee time), but for the most time it was just plastered in mediocrity with a golden shower of horrible sex scenes and fetishizing throughout.

Besides the Morrison quote above, a novel that I have to contrast this book with is Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow which has some of the best erotic prose I ever read in a novel. Even "the un-sexy scene" Younger Brother"s and Evelyn Nisbit's first meeting is rendered so damn poetically because Doctorow was just a good writer. No such luck in this book. I don't know who to assign blame to accurately because I was listening to someone read a translation by someone else of another person's work. So I will blame all three equally for this horror. I can't help, but think that of all the Latin American literature to translate they take this vapid, self-important trash to translate....damn!

To make it plain, this is a crappy book. I will not even dare discuss the "actual" plot because this book don't deserve it. So many other better works out there that could have been promoted over this.

[Adriana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Difícil hacer reseña de este libro.
Tiene una idea que me parece muy buena, una preocupación muy Teddy Adorno sobre la naturaleza, sobre los intentos de normalización y dominio vía ciencia, tecnología, información, sobre la legibilidad del mundo (como dijeron acá en otra reseña) y también sobre las relaciones de todo esto con las multiplicidades, mutaciones, hibridaciones, oscuridad, caos.
Está dividida en tres tiempos: el siglo XIX y su gran proyecto clasificatorio/cartográfico, los inicios de internet y de los hackers y un futuro cercano, 2024. Me gustó que al tematizar la tecnología lo hiciera desde la biología, creo que es la que va (no soy una genia por esto).
Hasta acá re bien.
La forma en que está escrito al principio parece directamente copia de Borges, después afloja y gana naturalidad. A veces usa metáforas que van muy bien con la novela, pero cito una frase como ejemplo malintencionado: "Carrales propuso que se encontraran más seguido a ingerir café" :/
Me da la sensación de que hubiera sido mejor que el libro tuviera más páginas, más desarrollo, más personajes, o sea tranquilamente lo podría haber escrito Houellebecq. Pola lo hace con más gracia igual, pero me faltó que me atrapara la narración y la historia. Mucha idea, mucha forma, poca narración.

Último: no voy a spoilear (aunque no es una historia con desenlace), pero al final pasa algo que decís WTF... -_-

[Jonfaith · Rating 4 out of 5]

What creates space for meaning isn’t the bright dots or the presence of light–for dark constellations, the light is the noise. What matters is the darkness.

This is the strange, slightly pale sibling to Savage Theories, which I liked more than this one. There is a mesh of measured similarities but this Dark Constellations offers more bluntly a thesis: ontology as code, hence the primacy of the hacker. Oloixarac explores the consequences of when actors or entities intrude upon one another, this violation whether-- sexualized, imperialistic or simply respiratory--has consequences -- which can be measured, predicted and even altered. It is a mental miscegenation.

[Julio César · Rating 3 out of 5]

En líneas generales me gustó, sobre todo la parte de Bariloche. Aprecio la experimentación, la creación de un universo futurista con sus reglas y su lenguaje; me pareció más logrado que en Las teorías salvajes. Las referencias borgianas son medidas y adecuadas, más allá de unos pocos deslices (palabras como "atroz").
La creación de espacios es el punto más fuerte del libro y la definición de los personajes, el más débil. Otro aspecto que está muy bien es la descripción de las situaciones sexuales, le da un extrañamiento potente.

[Ian · Rating 2 out of 5]

Thought it was a good Techy sci fi . It was hard to read and follow so I decided to persevere . It was not worth it. I was hoping the weird floating ideas and scenes would settle out and resolve bit I could not figure out what happened at the end.

[Babie Fats]

I cannot rate this because I honestly and truly have no idea what is going on. Like my eyes saw words on the page and I can read words but that’s about it tbh.

I think this was a master level of weird and experimental that I am just not good enough for

[Rachel Louise Atkin · Rating 2 out of 5]

This started out really interesting but I quickly got so lost and had no idea what was going on. Really interesting concept but I could not get to grips with the story at all.

[Stephen · Rating 2 out of 5]

What a wild ride!
Some interesting stuff here but with the time hopping, plethora of ideas, innovative yet bad use of language to describe sex, it all just collided, crashed and burned.
It was just a bit beyond me and left me feeling disappointed and unfulfilled.

[Inés · Rating 4 out of 5]

Me lo pasé muy bien leyéndolo, incluso dentro de lo desagradable, me resultó interesante. Cada página es más extraña que la anterior pero trata temas importantes y de los que no había leído mucho. Conclusión más importante: nunca te fíes de una persona a la que le gusta la topología.

[Renee // Feminist Book Club Box and Podcast · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dark Constellations is a very different book than what I usually read. I was excited to read outside my comfort zone and grateful for the opportunity to explore literature from Latin America. Pola Oloixarac hails from Argentina and the setting of the book is partially in Argentina (as well as the Canary Islands, Brazil, and Patagonia).

The writing style is reminiscent of Haruki Murakami -- surrealist, magical, and at times inelegant. The pace moves at breakneck speed in a narrative style that is more like vignettes than linear storytelling. Oloixarac's descriptions are vivid, which is beautiful for depictions of the jungle and even the jungles of technology covered in this story. However, her vivid descriptions of sexual content were less about romance and more about meeting carnal needs. I had trouble connecting to them.

Truthfully, it was difficult to connect with much of this story. I have a background in technology so I understood the technical components of the story, yet did not find the hacker character Cassio likable in the slightest. The book is split into three parts, following three characters whose stories intersect and influence one another over the course of nearly 150 years, but it mostly focuses on Cassio and his work. I would've loved more time with the third character introduced, Piera. Though the final section is ostensibly about her and her research, she acts more of an ancillary character to Cassio's mission.

Up until the final pages, the book felt well within the confines of reality and I imagine we'll be seeing biotechnology like the kinds described in this book in the next 30-50 years. However, the final few pages went off the deep end into solidly science fiction territory. I love scifi, but I simply don't think it fit or flowed with the rest of the story.

Overall, I'm glad I read this book but unless you're a Murakami fan, I wouldn't recommend it.

Thank you to NetGalley and Soho Press for a copy in exchange for a review.

[ReadBecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the 1880s Niklas is a scientist on a jungle expedition. The expedition encounter a mysterious tribe whose women seduce them. But on their return questions rise about the existence of the tribe.
In the 1980s an Argentinean anthropologist falls for a brazillian engineer, then leaves with their infant son. Cassio is raised on technology, all but born to become a hacker. By the early 2000s he has come up into innovative tech startups.
In the 2020s, Piera is already responsible for the Bionose device that sniffs dna information right out of the air, when she's hired onto Cassio's company whose work will have serious implications when combined with her device.

This seemed to me like Jeff Vandermeer meets Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi. A bit of science, deeply integrated sexual undertones, and a dose of the darkly surreal. The prose & translation is lush and gorgeous. This was set up to be a near perfect book for me in the first half, with the expedition being my favorite bit yet painfully short, then Cassio's upbringing reading as straight out of the film Hackers, which is one of my absolute favorites. It sadly never quite came together, after what felt like 95% setup, the last bit seemed rushed and incomplete, not really exploring the conclusion it was coming to. I had incredibly high expectations it didn't quite live up to, but I still extremely enjoyed the book.

[Barry · Rating 4 out of 5]

So close to being a five, but the timeline was screwed up - middle section went from nineties (learning C and assembler, starting to study) to suddenly WiFi, botnets and microdrones (to make the story make sense), then stepped backwards to having Ninja Turtles and V for Vendetta coexist together with Coke Zero! There were also problems with the translation "numbers theory" and "cellular automatons". Ultimately, though, the ending was sketchy and unresolved - supposedly the virus was biological but also "fractal". And what was the lab actually doing? Just not clear.

Picture-esque and worth a read, but ultimately falls short of what it could have been.

[Leili V. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really liked getting lost in this, but half the time I didn’t really know exactly what was going on. I felt it ended very abruptly, and I have to admit, I’m not sure what happened. But, I really liked the writing. There were some themes in there that would be cool to explore further, I think.

[Jessica · Rating 2 out of 5]

some intriguing passages and definitely rich with ideas -- I only wish I had any idea what was going on

[Aerin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I keep falling for these beautiful covers...

[Michelle]

"Explain it to me like I'm 5." - Michael Scott

[Lucas Sierra · Rating 3 out of 5]

Consultar los oráculos en la era de la información es abismarse en las predicciones de las computadoras, que arrojan algoritmos analíticos sobre los patrones de comportamiento del ser humano -sumado a sus prótesis con la convicción de la necesidad y la escasa reflexión permitida por un burgués sentido de cultura. Plano y llano: lo impredecible deja lugar a los posibles escenarios de mercado, y en la abstrusa libertad de la hiperconexión, apenas para unos cuantos son visibles los hilos que manejan el desarrollo de la vida cotidiana.

Con una prosa que mimetiza los documentos científicos, Pola Oloixarac fabrica una novela de ciencia ficción que empieza en 1882, con los furores de la botánica y la presencia fantasmagórica de una planta alucinógena capaz de eliminar los límites del individuo para permitirle a la pitia hacer parte del todo universal; y cuyo último acto empieza a ocurrir en el 2024, con el nacimiento de una bióloga molecular que consigue, ayudada por un hacker de primer orden, la final simbiosis entre un organismo vivo y un código de computadora. Así resumida, Las constelaciones oscuras pierde su magia, que no reside tanto en la historia, sino en la fuerza narrativa de la autora, y en los meandros existenciales que -entre chanza y chiste, entre duda y canto- aparecen entre los episodios: lagunas de sorpresa bajo cuya clara superficie se agita un animal milenario.

Narrada en tres etapas (Niklas, 1882; Cassio, 1983; y Piera, 2024), la novela entrelaza los avances científicos y las biografías de los tres personajes que los consiguen, logrando un halo de misterio, de cosa inconclusa, que es quizás lo más seductor para los lectores. Si Roberto Bolaño había convertido la literatura en tema detectivesco contemporáneo (en Monsier Pain y Los detectives salvajes, pero principalmente en la primera parte de 2666), y al hacerlo probaba que un tema periférico en la cultura de masas obtiene atractivo bajo la fórmula infalible de Conan Doyle, Oloixarac aplica la lupa sobre la ciencia. El resultado es apasionante, leemos con el mismo arrebato que dedicamos alguna vez a Rayuela, con esa fuerza de juventud que tiene sus propios méritos, sus luces y, claro, sus oscuridades.

No hay fragmentos particularmente poéticos. El cientificismo de la prosa la margina de la belleza la mayor parte del tiempo. Sin embargo, dentro del juego con lo biológico y lo botánico, se consiguen metáforas alucinantes (el adjetivo se lo gana a pulso cualquier fragmento en el que, efectivamente, se narra el efecto del polen florido sobre la mente de los receptores). El mismo juego construye además una aparente realidad prosaica (la vida adolescente de un joven con granos en pleno desarrollo de la internet) bajo la que sentimos agitarse sentidos mucho más hondos. A lo largo de la novela se repite de la imagen de los gusanos que se retuercen bajo una capa de fango, el milagro de ese movimiento secreto se nos comunica (nos llega a la piel) mientras leemos, sin que haga falta decirlo nunca.

Finalmente, Las constelaciones oscuras es una elaboración racional y apasionada (válgase el oxímoron) del grito de Romeo, luego de que atraviesa el pecho de Tebaldo:

Soy un juguete del destino (Tragedias, 141).

Sobre a quién pertenecen los dedos de ese destino, sobre si su materia es la divina esencia o los códigos atómicos o las cadenas de lenguaje informático, queda abierta la pregunta. Leer a Oloixarac nos consuela y nos preocupa por partes iguales, al saber que no tenemos ni idea de por dónde empezar a responder, y que en el fondo -quizás- no importa.

Leedla.

[Hal]

While reading, I constantly felt like the book was just about to tell me something important, what all this lurid backstory was leading up to. It never really does though. Initially frustrating, eventually I found myself thinking that might be at least part of the point.

The three timelines revolve around researchers of different types, in the modern and near future narratives on computer scientists and geneticists, the past on botanists. The novel gives a hyperbolic version of the promises of some of these fields; the perceived potential for imminent significant insight by increased computational power, or an increased volume of genetic data, which struggles to be realised. The 'hacker' characters imagine themselves in some way revolutionary, though it's never clear they achieve anything much. The botanist imagines discovering new forms of life, though their discoveries might be nothing more than narcotic self indulgence.

I'm currently a Phd student studying computational biology, specifically ocean microbiomes. One character suggests that understanding the human genome is insufficient to understand the trajectory' of people, as humans are filled with and influenced by poorly understood microbial life. There's a decent scientific literacy throughout the book, we're beginning to characterise the human microbiome, but understanding the impact the body is in very early stages, and even further off for the oceans.

There was some misuse of scientific terms on either the part of the author or translator (DNA sequencers in the fiction seemed to be machines which synthesised rather than read DNA). At other points some of the speculative technology (like the bionose) came close to projects I've heard about recently.

Either the translator or writer refers to the present as the Anthropocene by name, though climate is frustratingly absent from the story. It reminds me of The Teleportation Accident by Ned Beauman, a story set in LA around the era of WWII, which persistently references significant historic events or figures, but has a protagonist who absolutely refuses to engage with them at all. Where the Teleportation Accident starts frustrating and becomes funny in the lengths it takes to avoid it's context, Dark Constellations stayed frustrating. Perhaps on purpose, but still frustrating.