"WANNAFUCK?"
Marcia was so startled she didn't understand the question.
The above two lines serve as the opening for The Proof, Argentine author César Aira's remarkable novella.
Marcia is the tale's main character and our small, chubby, blonde sixteen-year-old is about to have an encounter that will radically shift the direction of her young life. Marcia strolls along an avenue in Buenos Aires three blocks away from Plaza Flores, in an area of the city where teenagers gather en masse.
The only reference to Marcia's backstory occurs in connection with a sense of time. "It was only logical that time should become denser when she got there. Outside her story she felt she was gliding along too rapidly, like a body in the ether where there was no resistance. Nor should there be too much resistance or she would be paralyzed, as had happened to her during a rather tragic period of her life that was already vanishing into the past."
César Aira plays with time throughout - for example, slowing down time in a Pumper hamburger joint, speeding up time in the final scene. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. Back on Marcia walking down the street, feeling as if she somehow exists on a different plane of reality. "It was as if she were a ghost, invisible."
But then it happens: two girls begin to follow her and quickly catch up, one talking to her, the other listening eagerly. The two slightly older girls are dressed in black - ah, punks, Marcia thinks. One of the punks says, "You're gorgeous and I want to fuck you," to which Marcia asks if she is out of her mind.
But it doesn't seem like a joke. "There was something serious but insane about the pair of them, about the situation. Marcia couldn't get over her astonishment. She looked away and kept on walking, but the punk grabbed her by the arm."
What follows will also astonish readers - and for good reason: César Aira has constructed an astonishing tale.
Step by step, the drama mounts. First the punks' conversation with Marcia on the street, then when the trio sits together in a fast food joint, and finally, the climatic, hyperviolent finale, the punks and Marcia in an enormous grocery store.
The Proof is best read in one sitting to absorb the full impact of unfolding events. Allow me to shift to a batch of philosophic reflections:
What's In a Name?
Wannafuck? The punk asking Marcia the question calls herself Mao. And the other punk goes by the name of Lenin. At one point in that hamburger stop, Mao tells Marcia both she and Lenin will change their names to Marcia. Why? As Mao cryptically explains, "Because tomorrow will be an important day in our lives."
How important? Foreshadowing with a vengeance; foreshadowing in murderous spades. And with hints that Mao and Lenin are not what they appear to be - these two gals might not be punks so much as combat-seasoned anarchists.
The Transformative Power of Art
Mao shares a story with Marcia. "Mao's art as a narrator had transported her from the plebeian neon lighting of the Pumper to the shadows of this dream, shot through with a lunar glow." If we as readers open ourselves up, we can also be transported via Aria's artistry.
Crafty César
Reviewing Terrorist, the 2006 novel by John Updike, James Wood criticizes the author for putting impossible thoughts in the head of his 18-year-old main character, impossible in the sense that an eighteen-year old could never have such thoughts and could never express such thoughts in the novelist’s sophisticated language.
Here's a snip of Marcia speaking to the punks: "When you two intercepted me, I was walking around in a world where seduction was very discreet, very invisible. Everything that was being said and was going on in the street were signs of seduction, because the world seduces a virgin, but nothing was aimed specifically at me. Then you two appeared, with your abrupt: wannafuck? It was as if innocence became personified, not exactly in you or in me, but in the situation, in the words (I can't explain it). Before then, the world was talking, but saying nothing. Afterward, when you said that, innocence removed her mask."
Does this strike you as the thinking and articulation of a sixteen-year-old? Oh, César, you sly dog! Similar to John Updike, you might be doing the same thing (what literary critics call a misuse of "free indirect style") but you do it with such a light touch and subtlety, it becomes a part of the tale's charm.
The Power of Love
Mao tells Marcia, "The big mistake is the world of explanation you live in. Love is a way out of that mistake. An escape from that mistake."
How crazy can we be when we're in love? What bizarre-o action will we inflict on the world to prove our love? Marcia is about to find out, big time.
Pulp Fiction/Kill Bill Redux
The concluding scene in that jumbo grocery store takes a mere five minutes of clock time. However, there's so much Quentin Tarantino-style action, the details span twenty pages. This is the explosive magic of César Aira's writing.
The Proof is a minor masterpiece. I double-dog dare anybody to read this short novel and judge otherwise.
Argentine author César Aira, born 1949
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