Mac's Problem
will be a treat for readers who enjoy stories about reading, writing,
novels, journals and short stories. I should undoubtedly add two more to
the list: Rewriting and Repetition (caps for emphasis). To learn why
this is the case, please read on.
“I'm fascinated by the current
vogue for posthumous books, and I'm thinking of writing a fake one that
could appear to be “posthumous” and “unfinished” when it would, in
fact, be perfectly complete.” So begins the tale's narrator, Mac, a gent
in his sixties, a lifelong obsessive reader who now has abundant free
time following the financial collapse of his construction company. Hey,
Mac, how will you spend your days? Answer: Mac plans to sit at his desk
in his den and do something completely new: write, specifically, to
keep a diary (not for publication in his lifetime).
You're a
newbie writer, Mac? That's hard to believe since your writing skills
appear to be at the level of an accomplished author, say, someone like
Enrique Vila-Matas. And, besides which, halfway through your diary
entries, you tell us all that stuff about a construction company is
untrue; you're really a lawyer who was sacked from the law firm where
you spent your entire professional career.
Whoa, Mac, are you taking on the role of the ultimate unreliable narrator? Hey, Enrique Vila-Matas, similar to Montano's Malady,
are you playing a labyrinthine literary shell game with us, your
readers? One thing's for certain: exactly what's true and what's not,
what's fact and what's made up, will mostly be left to each reader.
Mac
obsesses over the act of writing and he laces his quizzical observations
and judgements throughout, as per this example: “if he's honest with
himself, that this activity (writing) has nothing to do with the vulgar
idea of believing himself to be a writer, because – and I want to say
this now with no more beating about the bush – in order to write one
must cease to be a writer.”
What to make of this remark?
My sense is Mac understands a writer is best attending to the writing at
hand, simply putting words on paper rather than being continually
preoccupied with one's identity and status as a writer.
Yet, is
Mac violating his own rule when he tells us: "I wonder why it is that
today, knowing myself to be a mere novice, I worked my fingers to the
bone trying in vain to begin this diary with a few impeccable opening
paragraphs." Hey, Mac, don't drive yourself crazy by being too tough on
yourself. Whoops! Such self-analysis could prove a foreshadowing of
things to come. Poor, Mac.
Sidebar: Mac's name comes from a famous scene in John Ford's My Darling Clementine
involving a bartender by the name of Mac. And Mac refuses to divulge
the name appearing on his birth certificate since that name amounts to
no more than an awful, tyrannical imposition set down by his paternal
grandfather.
Repetition counts as another one of Mac's
obsessions, with references to the likes of Søren Kierkegaard,
(repetition and recollection are the same movements only in opposite
directions), Alejandro Zambra (a character in one of his short stories
is a repeater) and Peggy Day (writer of a daily horoscope Mac takes
seriously).
Mac's obsessions reach a peak with his interactions
on the Barcelona streets with famous author Ander Sánchez – and
especially when Mac decides to rewrite a novel Sánchez wrote years ago
when mostly drunk, a novel Sánchez considers pure garbage, a novel with
the title Walter's Problem.
This brings us to the heart of Mac's Problem:
Mac detailing chapters of this Sánchez novel where the author devoted
sections to imitating (or parodying) short stories in the style of
various authors such as John Cheever, Djuna Barnes, Ernest Hemingway,
Jorge Luis Borges. And we're also given samples of Mac, in turn,
rewriting Sánchez's stories.
Will such a diary project drive Mac
crazy? That's exactly what Mac's wife Carmen thinks is happening. And
with justification. For instance, one afternoon Mac returns home
drenched in sweat. When Carmen asks Mac what happened, he tells of
narrowly escaping death, a chase, karate chops and a possible corpse.
And further on, at one point Mac accuses Carmen of carrying on an affair
with Sánchez and at another point thinking Carmen plans an escape to
Mars.
Are these bizarre exchanges and events happening not
out in the world but rather within Mac's mind and diary writing? Let's
not forget Mac noting how one character “believed in a fiction that
admits to being a fiction, in the knowledge that nothing else exists and
that the exquisite truth lies in knowing that it's a fiction, and yet
believing in it all the same.”
Enrique Vila-Matas has done it
again, writing a novel about the nature of literature that can be read
and appreciated on multiple levels.
Spanish author Enrique Vila-Matas, born 1948
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