The Invented Part by Rodrigo Fresán

 

"Today's electrocuted readers, accustomed to reading quickly and briefly on small screens. And, yes, goodbye to all of them, at least for as long as this book lasts and might last. Unplug from external inputs to nourish yourselves exclusively on internal electricity."

The above quote is taken from the opening paragraph of this magnificent, exuberant 550-pager by Argentine author Rodrigo Fresán, a novel for lovers of books and reading, a novel about writing and writers and a plethora of other provocative topics for readers to linger over and luxuriate in.

As by way of a sampler, here's a few juicy bits from the first pages, the narrator, a writer, reflecting back to the time when he was The Boy in his boyhood:

"The same way he'd feel later on, holding any one of his many favorite novels. Eyes open wide, one of those books that, with time's rapid passing, time's running, charges you the entrance fee of learning everything all over again: a brand new game with rules and - you've been warned - a breathing all its own, a rhythm you have to absorb and follow if your goal is to climb up on the shore of the last page."

"And The Boy is already not all that rational and already thinks like one of those antique windup tin toys. Like his favorite toy."

"The Boy will learn how to neutralize and ignore the call of that abyss: opening a book, plunging inside, the freest of falls, closing the cover on reality, behind him now not in front and opening his eyes. And he'll always marvel at the fact that whenever he picks up a book for the first time - he's been told that the same thing happens to other people with firearms - he'll always be surprised by the fact that, no matter the number of pages and type of binding, he thought it'd be lighter or heavier, but never like this. And then it'll seem logical and narratively appropriate that each book feel unique and different and special."

"The laugh of someone who has come back from the dead and lived to tell the tale, to write it down, and then, alter it, improve it, add the invented part. The invented part that is not, not ever, the deceitful part, but the part that actually makes something that merely happened into something as it should have happened. Something (everything to come, the rest of his life, will spring from that there and then, from that exact moment) more authentic and valuable and pure than the simple and banal and often unsubtle and sloppy truth."

The Invented Part makes for a fun read - literary fiction that's actually highly enjoyable. But it doesn't stop there - to add a sweet icing to our reading pleasure, when we finish The Invented Part, we can look forward to two more books in the series: The Dreamed Part and soon (I hope) to be translated The Remembered Part, all published by Open Letter, translator par excellence Will Vanderhyden.

I must admit I face a dilemma as a reviewer sitting down to review The Invented Part. I could easily continue with author quotes. enough eminently quotable lines to go on for pages, but I'm obliged to make overarching observations about such things as what the book's about, the writing, the author's themes.

Here goes: we have The Boy becoming The Writer becoming The Lonely Man. There's also The Young Man and The Young Woman making a documentary about The Writer along with a tangent on The Writer's Mad Sister. The writing itself is nothing short of spectacular – James Joyce and Marcel Proust have nothing on Rodrigo Fresán. The novel covers the three most important themes of human existence: Eros and Thanatos and Grafi - love and death and writing.

Now the juice – juicy Invented Part quotes, a flock of fabulous Fresán. I'll sprinkle in my own brief commentary.

A Fresán definition: liferary - a life made of books, a life made of lives. Yes: the library like an organism, alive and in constant expansion, surviving owners and users alike.

I think here of not only a public library or a university library but one's personal library. Can you envision your personal library as a living, pulsing organism made up of a phalanx of lives - all those authors, all those fictional characters, a bit like Hesse's Magic Theater, as many doors as you like.


Rodrigo Fresán at home in his personal library

"A library without precise limits, where you never find the book you are looking for, but always find the book you should be looking for."

I remember those times in libraries where I walked out with an unexpected treasure. One of life's beauties: the glorious experience of browsing many books on multiple shelves.

"He'd become a writer because it was the closest thing to being a reader."

I'd go even further: I switched from writing microfiction to writing book reviews since, for me, reviewing gets me even closer to reading books.

"To put it another way: it's one of those moments in which literature, the act itself of making literature, reveals things that life does not and will never be able to make sense of on its own."

I hear echoes from philosophers like Arthur Schopenhauer and John Dewey when they speak of the clarity afforded by the aesthetic experience. For a literary writer, the fresh air, the lucidity, the insights into all facets of life when they press further and further into their story.

"The problem is that literature takes a habit of mind that has disappeared."

The narrator is quoting Philip Roth here but he surrounds this quote with observing how reading a book on a screen always contains the lure of hopping around the internet, much different than sitting in solitude with a real book where you make a firm time commitment to read without interruption.

"On screens - big and small screens - where our lives are no longer projected because our lives, now, more all the time, are screens.
To be or not to be a screen, that is the question."

Ha! According to the narrator, we no longer project ourselves onto our personal internet profile; we ARE our internet profile. With a touch of black humor, one can hear the current generation proclaim: Who cares when my physical body gives out and I die? I will live on as my internet profile.

The Writer on the type of book he would like to write: "A book like one of Edward Hopper's clean and well-lit rooms, but with a Jackson Pollock waiting to come out of the closet."

The above is one of dozens of descriptions The Writer writes down about the book he would like to put in our hands - a book that will eventually make a deep impression on our hears and minds.

"Writers are people who, inexactly, always prefer to look away, toward another part - the invented part."

Want a more exact reason why Rodrigo chose to title his novel The Invented Part? Read it to find out!