A Pesar Del Oscuro Silencio

by Jorge Volpi

"He was named Jorge, like me, and for this his life hurts me twice." So writes Jorge Volpi in this highly original novel that presents a biographical perspective on the tragic life of the poet and chemist Jorge Cuesta. Cuesta was one of the founders of Los Contemporáneos, an influential twentieth-century literary movement. The poetic voice of Cuesta's verses can be heard throughout, offering insights into the creative and destructive forces and impulses in his work that eventually led to a mental ward—and a shocking suicide at thirty-eight. The fictional "Jorge," as narrator, embarks on an obsessive quest to understand the life of the long-dead poet, with the distance between subject and researcher blurring as he finds himself struggling to understand his own life. It is a brave search for anyone willing to gaze into the mirror of mortality "in spite of the dark silence."

Genres: Fiction, Spanish Literature

116 pages, Paperback

First published October 15, 2010

About the author

Jorge Volpi (México, 1968) Es licenciado en Derecho y maestro en Letras Mexicanas por la unam y doctor en Filología Hispánica por la Universidad de Salamanca.

Es autor de las novelas A pesar del oscuro silencio (Joaquín Mortiz, 1992; Planeta, 2000), Días de ira, en el volumen Tres bosquejos del mal (Siglo XXI, 1994; Muchnik Editores, 2000), La paz de los sepulcros (Aldus, 1995; Seix Barral, 2007), El temperamento melancólico (Nueva Imagen, 1996; Seix Barral, 2004) Sanar tu piel amarga (Nueva Imagen, 1997; Algaida, 2004) y El juego del Apocalipsis (DeBolsillo, 2000) y de los ensayos La imaginación y el poder. Una historia intelectual de 1968 (Editorial Era, 1998) y La guerra y las palabras. Una historia del alzamiento zapatista (Editorial Era en México y Seix Barral en España, 2004).

En 1999 obtuvo el Premio Biblioteca Breve por su novela En busca de Klingsor (Seix Barral, 1999), con la cual inició una "Trilogía del siglo xx", y de la cual se han publicado ediciones en veintisiete idiomas y más de treinta países. En 2004 publicó la segunda parte de la trilogía, El fin de la locura (Seix Barral) y en 2006 la última parte, No será la Tierra (Alfaguara).

Ha sido profesor en las Universidades de Emory, Cornell y Las Américas de Puebla y ha dado conferencias numerosas instituciones educativas en México, Europa, América Latina y Asia. Fue miembro del Sistema Nacional de Creadores de México y becario de la Fundación John S. Guggenheim. Actualmente es director del Canal 22, televisión cultural del Estado mexicano.

Reviews

[jeremy · Rating 5 out of 5]

jorge volpi's dolorous debut novel, in spite of the dark silence (a pesar del oscuro silencio), is a metafictional exploration of the troubled life and suicide of mexican poet and chemist jorge cuesta. volpi is a founding member of the crack "movement", a group "dedicated to breaking with the pervading latin american tradition of magical realism in favor of a return to the complexity of plot and style found in the works of jorge luis borges and julio cortázar." although in spite of the dark silence was originally published in 1993, it has only now found its way into english translation (the third of his books to be rendered from the spanish).

jorge cuesta, himself a founder of a literary group (los contemporáneos), was active during the 1920s and 30s, writing and working for a number of mexican magazines. in 1930 he married guadalupe marín, after her marriage to famed mexican painter diego rivera (by whom she had two daughters). following a fit of madness that included an act of self-castration, cuesta was hospitalized and would later hang himself using the bedsheets from the sanitarium where he was interred. sadly, it appears that none of his surviving poetry is available in english translation, not even his most well-known work, "canto a un dios mineral (song to a mineral god)," a lengthy piece he had been working on for the decade leading up to his suicide (at the age of 38).

volpi's in spite of the dark silence, despite its novella-like length, involves the considerable back story of the tumultuous years leading to cuesta's death. the work's narrator, jorge ("his name was jorge, like mine, and for that his life hurts me twice"), embarks on an obsession-fueled journey to learn all he can about the late poet. set about in brief chapters, the narrative wends its way forward, alternately moving between the life of cuesta and the life of the jorge relating the story. as jorge's research leads him to learn ever more about cuesta, his own life begins to slip away from him and his actions come to mirror those of his fated chosen subject.

much of the prose that makes up in spite of the dark silence is actually passages and poetic fragments from cuesta's own work. an elucidating afterword by the book's translator (olivia maciel) considers cuesta's life in context and offers explanatory notes on volpi's use of "displacements of syntax" that shape both the story as well as the narrator's own mental unraveling. she writes, "this semi-biographical novel manifests a precocious talent in the handling of language, and represents a serious attempt to innovate not just the lexicon, or the syntax of mexican novels, but also their thematic content."

in spite of the dark silence is a singular work in every true sense of the word. that volpi so effortlessly incorporates so many disparate elements into this novella is, especially upon reflection, utterly remarkable. charting a literary course wildly divergent from those of his predecessors, volpi has embarked upon a new stage in the evolution of latin american fiction. in spite of the dark silence is a brilliantly executed story, one distinguished by fresh, dynamic language and sorrowful, tormented characters.

truly, nothing destroys like writing: it annihilates reality instead of preserving it, it immobilizes and exhausts when it attempts to rescue it from oblivion and transience. the sense of the world is found in walking, in movement, in change: it was made only to slide in irrecoverable instants, to be born and die in the blink of an eye. in its place literature, facile remedy of memory, is paralyzed; formed from unsatisfied needs, it doesn't resuscitate anyone. like love, from its beginning it is doomed to fail. its a pity i discovered this so late; now, though i know it's useless, that through it i condemn myself, i'm unable to avoid it.

[tia · Rating 4 out of 5]

As previously mentioned, some books send you further down the Borgesian rabbit hole and this is one of them. I am dying to read Guadalupe Marin's scathing novel, The Only One, but either it doesn't exist or it's unavailable. That also goes for Cuesta himself...he is not to be found, despite the combined efforts of the protagonist, author, and reader... we must settle for glimpses, glimmers, nothing else besides. There are more questions than answers and the answers only lend themselves to mystery. Who was Cuesta? How could he? Why did he?
Added to the mystery surrounding our subject is the troubled relationship Cuesta (and the protagonist) have towards women; there is an image of sexual violence that "isn't really violent," that could be seen as a metaphor for what Cuesta and Volpi, much later, attempted to do with their literature: break away from the established norm, find new ways of communicating. The image of Cuesta, the "saddest of alchemists" injecting himself with enzymes and changing physiologically is paired with that of a disillusioned poet who abandons conventional language and forms of communicating to discover hidden truths... brilliant, subversive, melancholy. I will certainly be reading more Volpi in the future.

[Rosalind Minett · Rating 5 out of 5]

We don't see enough of Latin American writers in the UK. I am glad to review this literary novel by Jorge Volpi (Mexico) published by Swan Isle Press and seamlessly translated by Olivia Maciel.

When you know a novel has suicide as a central focus, you wait to find the right - the strongest - frame of mind before reading it. This was true of me, and so it is some months since I received this impressive work for independent review from Swan Isle Press. Fresh from reading the captivating 'To the Beautiful North' with its irrepressible characters (by Luis Alberto Urrea, another Mexican), I took up this well-presented volume with its haunting, probably haunted, portrait on its dust cover.

It is a hard read: hard in the sense that it is intellectually challenging; hard emotionally; hard in tone and use of language as opposed to soft and fluid; hard in its relentless move towards facing death.

The author, Jorge Volpi, is one of the originators of the Crack movement in Mexico, 'crack' or fracture - a break from what is trivial or superficial, and from the established magical realism of authors such as Marquez, well loved in the UK. Perhaps 'crack' is apposite with regard to Volpi's novel since it centres upon the cracking up of an esteemed poet and chemist, Jorge Cuesta, and ultimately of the narrator. We use 'cracked' or 'crackers' to denigrate people who have become mentally ill. Cuesta's 'crack' connects with his ambivalent sexual identity. His attempt at a fusion between the male/female ended with self-emasculation. But more than that, he was obsessed with catching the moment to the point of defeating time, perhaps finding a crack through which he could pass in order to do so. "Time doesn't stop, but passes."

If magical realists such as Marquez write about incidents, characters, and settings that could not occur within the physical world as we know it, Volpi straddles a world in which the reader is witness of what seems to be occurring but is in fact fiction, and is informed of a parallel set of events that are factual. Boundaries are deliberately blurred. The narrator is Jorge, like the author, like the poet. His friend, Eloy, has the same name as the author's father and Cuesta's colleague.

Jorge, a poorly paid writer, overhears mention of Cuesta's name and suicide following self-mutilation. He tells us at least twice that sharing the christian name hurts his life twice. It seems to place him under a responsibility to tell Cuesta’s tale.

The novel begins as Jorge visualizes in great detail the last agonizing days of Cuesta’s life. He gives an unnervingly empathetic account.

Jorge Cuesta is not really known in UK. His achievements in two professions were remarkable, yet the acme of his inventions appears to have coincided with his mental deterioration. The wisdom and despair of his poetry seep through the novel as Jorge searches out the poet's point of view. "I'm searching for Cuesta's not my own."

While immersing himself in researching Cuesta's life, Jorge listlessly follows his own. He is in an unrewarding relationship, unrewarding for his partner as well as for himself. Volpi's unpicking of this relationship is masterly. He shows us the selfishness of both partners and their unwillingness, not inability, to engage in the other's raison d'etre and preoccupations. It is a hostile dependency that fails to improve or to end.

Jorge amasses all the information he can about Cuesta, studies the poetry, takes note of the inventions, imagines the extent to which Cuesta loved, believed and understood. His scholarly and increasingly emotional investigation includes tracking down the two important women in Cuesta's life, his lover and his wife. Increasingly, the reader notes the parallels between the two Jorges’ existences, and despairs in his obsessive moves towards repeating the pattern.

In the process of his research, Jorge's own life becomes increasingly deranged. He believes that if he could fuse male with female he could preserve the moment of ecstasy, could break through the force-field of time. Volpi skilfully shows the intricacies of his thought pattern. The reader becomes concerned for Jorge’s self-destructive behaviour, his immersion in dark thoughts.

He visits the hospital where Cuesta lived his last days before hanging himself. The current patients are circling around a central flower bed. He asks a nurse why they do this. She answers, ‘Perhaps they want to exit time.’

Jorge's work to reveal Cuesta's 'meaning' culminate in scholarly articles. These are met with ridicule and condemnation by his intellectual colleagues and the academic community. This is devastating not only to his self-esteem, but to the chance of conveying the central concept via Cuesta's biography. Volpi, in the voice of the narrator, sees Cuesta as one of the "fugitive poets that favoured a clandestine existence rather than submit themselves to the absurd rules of time."

Meanwhile, Jorge's refusal to commit to an emotional and supportive involvement with his partner causes her to leave him. She has been no better able to provide an emotional investment in Jorge. She goes away with her former lover despite her sudden realization that she loves Jorge.

Left on his own, the last vestiges of normality leave him or perhaps it is more accurate to say that his last hold on himself as a unique individual drifts away. He is in despair.

A major strength of this novel is the economic and skilful delineation of the process of thought and the coming apart of a tortured mind.

Cuesta waited to end his life until he had written his poem, Song to a Mineral God. Early in the novel, this is discussed by Jorge and his friend, Eloy. With premonition, Jorge states "I'm going to write an essay -" In his last moments he does so. It is an account of his feelings. He is fully aware of the irony that this comes too late to save his love relationship. He writes his essay before repeating the act and manner of Cuesta's death.

The suicide of Cuesta, poet and chemist, was a great tragedy. Without academic recognition, Jorge's struggle to understand Cuesta and convey to the world the significance of the 'moment within the moment', the implacability of time, now has no hope of standing the test of time. He is defeated by it and faces death in spite of its dark silence.

[Dylan Román · Rating 5 out of 5]

Relectura de esta magnífica novela que aborda temas como la obsesión, el dolor y el olvido. Por supuesto, no deja de llamarme la atención las nociones autobiográficas que estructuran la novela y cómo se ven quebrantadas al difuminar al personaje narrador con la presencia angustiante del biografiado Jorge cuesta; éste último como un mecanismo que permite diversos cuestionamientos sobre el problema de la identidad en las escrituras del yo.

(:

[ErikaOlivaTC · Rating 4 out of 5]

"En verdad nada destruye como la escritura: aniquila la realidad cuando cree preservarla, la inmoviliza y agota cuando intenta rescatarla del olvido y el tránsito. El sentido del mundo está encaminar, en el movimiento, en el cambio: fue hecho sólo para deslizarse en instantes irrecuperables, para nacer y morir en un parpadeo. En cambio la literatura, falaz remedo de la memoria, está paralítica; formada a base de insatisfacciones, no resucita a nadie."

Volví a este libro después de veinte años de temerle. Porque cuando lo tuve que leer fue para hacer un trabajo escolar con un maestro que durante todas las clases se encargó de decirme que yo no servía para estudiar Letras Españolas, que mi voz era muy alta, que le estaba haciendo perder dinero a mis papás - ¿no le da pena estafarlos con su mediocridad, señorita de la voz estridente? - y cosas por el estilo. Fue un semestre en el que vi a mis compañeros de clase triunfar y convertirse en grandes amigos de ese maestro, mientras yo entregué el trabajo mediocre que él vaticinó que yo haría y me preguntaba todos los días qué hacía estudiando una carrera para la que no servía.

Contra todos los pronósticos del maestro me gradué, pero no me quise acercar a ningún libro de Jorge Volpi porque la sola mención de su nombre me hacía sentir mediocre, inútil, torpe. Pero pasaron veinte años y, así como he ido domando algunos viejos miedos, le llegó el turno a este libro. No me fue fácil iniciar la lectura, pero conforme avanzaba hice mía la obsesión de un Jorge por el otro Jorge y me dejé conducir por aquella escalera de caracol infinita que es el Canto a un dios mineral, en el descubrimiento de un poeta cuya vida me enseñó el significado de la palabra "emasculación". 116 páginas intensas para homenajear una vida intensa, para reconciliarme con la literatura de Jorge Volpi y para perdonarle a la Erika de hace veinte años el haber creído todo lo que aquel maestro me dijo.

[David Goldman · Rating 4 out of 5]

“He was named Jorge, like me, and for this his life hurts me twice." So writes Jorge Volpi in this highly original novel that ties a biographical perspective on the tragic life of the real life poet and chemist Jorge Cuesta with a fictional writer also names Jorge. Yet, yet, unlike, say, Paul Auster, Volpi does not use this set up for any postmodern tricks. Instead, Volpi uses the concept to explore how we become obsessed with subjects and use that obsession to attempt to transcend our own past. The nominal subject of the book is Jorge Cuesta, who was one of the founders of Los Contemporáneos, an influential twentieth-century literary movement but also a renowned chemist. There is a parallel with the author beyond first names; he is one of the founders of the Crack Movement, a literary movement in Mexico that aimed to break from, what the movement would term the cynical, superficial, and outdated movements of the past. The Jorge who narrates the novel overhears people talking about Cuesta’s death and moves quickly from interest to obsession to write an essay exploring the poet’s shocking suicide at 38. The narrator imagines a conversation with the poet, visualizing the poet’s last days. The narrator admits to the interrelation of his life and Cuesta’s: “If I could not rescue my own life, at least I would rescue his.” Volpi’s uses multiple literary styles - straight narration, imagined sequences with the poet, experts from the Cuesta’s poetry, and experts from the narrator’s failed article - to confuse the reader and draw them into the narrator’s increasing instability. This results in the narrator writing somewhat of an apology for the poet, defending his last work in both alchemy and poetry as two sides of a single attempt to stop time.


It becomes clear that the narrator himself is using his Cuesta investigation to stop his own time line - the dissolution of his marriage and failed career. The narrator parrelles the poet’s descent, fighting with his wife that ends in violence. Yet, the narrator comes to understand what he is doing and pulls back from his Cuesta essay,

“I prefer my own fragmented history, unserviceable, hypocritical, vain, the futility of my effort, my sad relationship with Alma, my one and unrepeatable Alma, and a destiny that cannot aggrandize me, that in no way resembles Cuesta’s passion, that is as worthless as anyone else’s, but that is enough to cry and finish.”

There is a melancholy in the narrator’s loss of his relationship with Cuesta - imagined as it was. Volpi has written a multilayer layered a dark novel that shows the continuing cycle of passion, love, relationships, and obsession. The characters are stuck. Alma, the narrator’s wife, is stuck in her own cycle - ending up with the man she left the narrator for. And Volpi hints that the creative force of Cuesta has dissipated without changing the cultural landscape - it’s easier to call Cuesta mad than deal with the reality of his ideas. Volpi’s book is daring and poignant. I did find the structure and writing forced at times. Yet, I enjoyed this novel’s ideas about the pull of the past in a novel that tries to break conventions.

[Licia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beloved, you are present in spite of the dark silence,


Jorge.

[Alberto Jacobo Baruqui · Rating 4 out of 5]

Una novela biografica corta. Jorge Volpi toma a Jorge Cuesta como inspiración, y basado en una carta de Cuesta a su hermana, juega con las posibilidades y sensaciones viviendo justamente desde los mismisimos pasos del aqui estudiado, lo que le dará una cercanía a su propia escritura... una locura que mas bien parece ser lo cuerdo y lúcido. AJ

[Alejandro Ramirez · Rating 1 out of 5]

No tan bueno como Klingsor, de hecho bastante lejos. Supuesta biografia de Jorge Cuesta. Ambicioso, pero no logrado. Prescindible