The Way Out by Ricardo Piglia

 


The Way Out is a novel set in the US by one of the giants of Latin American fiction - Ricardo Piglia (1941-2017) from Argentina.

We're in the 1990s with author Emilio Renzi who has accepted a position as visiting scholar at an Ivy League university in New Jersey, an hour train ride from Manhattan.

Emilio, the tale's narrator, develops a relationship with a fellow professor - brilliant, stunningly beautiful Ida Brown. But then the shocker: Emilio receives news Ida died in an automobile crash. The circumstances surrounding the accident, so called, strike him as suspicious. Emilio initiates his own investigation.

In his review of The Diaries of Emilio Renzi: Formative Years, Adam Thirlwell quotes Ricardo Piglia on the way telling a story can relate to actual events: "In Argentine history, politics and fiction are two simultaneously irreconcilable and symmetrical universes."

I cite Adam's review and Ricardo's quote to underscore two important points: 1) throughout his long literary career, Emilio Renzi served as Ricardo Piglia's double, his doppelgänger, his fictional alter ego, not only as the protagonist in a number of Piglia novels but also in three hefty volumes of diaries; 2) although taking place in the US rather than Argentina, The Way Out hits squarely on themes of politics and history.

Since the novel under review takes the form of a murder mystery, I'll avoid spoilers by immediately switching to a highlight reel:

You're from South America? - During his first night in the house where he's staying that's down the street from the university, Emilio receives a phone call from someone offering to sell him cocaine. What? Does the caller think just because he's fresh from South America, he's the perfect target for a cocaine sale? Now that's stereotyping with vengeance!

Omnipresent Idiot Box; Boob Tube Bombardment - "Television is the same everywhere, the only tenet of reality that persists beyond all changes." Emilio Renzi might be a scholar and author of highly literary works but, thanks to the power of TV, whatever he writes can't compete with mass media where anyone can instantly catch the Lakers score or President Bill Clinton speaking at a news conference or the latest deal on a Toyota. As Theodor Adorno explained in The Culture industry back in 1947, television will come to dominate culture by standardization, manipulation and deception, turning people into passive, mindless consumers. And where is literature in all of this? Not a question the almighty boob tube deems worthy of consideration.

Intellectual Superstar - Ida Brow is recognized as one of the top scholars of Charles Dickens and Joseph Conrad. As per Emilio, "She was bent on an all-out-war against the Derridean cells that rules over literature departments in the Northeast and, above all, against the central committee on deconstruction at Yale." Ida is quite the gal, attacking those postmodern approaches to literature from the great tradition of Marxist theory. In everyday terms, many people were both intimidated and just plain pissed off by sweet Ida.

Detective, Postmodern-style - One of the more intriguing parts of the novel: Emilio dealing with a New York City based private detective by the name of Parker. As Parker tells it, in a strict sense there are no longer any private persons investigating crimes; detectives like himself work within vast networks linked by computers and the internet.

It's War - Spending time within the ivy covered walls of academia provides Emilio with a vivid sense of the "terrible violence of well-educated men," individuals who use their intellects as lethal weapons against others within their specialty, expounding theories and ideas as a way to discredit, disgrace, humiliate, turning interactions within the higher echelons of university departments into deadly bloodsport.

Cross-Cultural Cosmopolitan - "I was interested in writers who were tied to some double identity, bound up in two languages and two traditions." My sense is Emilio is not only thinking of other writers steeped in more than a single language and tradition but also thinking of himself as a multilingual writer living both in Argentina and the US.

Personal note: Some of my favorite novels feature other cultures in conflict with our modern West, novels such as Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih, Passage to India by E. M. Forster and Maíra by Darcy Ribeiro.

Racism, American-style - Emilio informs an African American woman he's been interrogated by the FBI. She replies, "All inhabitants of New York (except black people) receive those kinds of visits from the FBI. The black people they don't bother to visit, they just kill them or lock them up straight away. We'd feel more comfortable if they did investigate us." It is now 2021. Are things any better in the US for black people?

The Power of Love - Even at age fifty, Emilio feels the transformative power of love for a woman. "It's the magical thinking of love, the hypnotic state of someone in love, bound to a woman he desires and pursuing her with clumsy, foolish determination." These are Emilio's feelings when Ida Brown is very much alive. If anything, Emilio's love for Ida soars even higher following her tragic death.

The Way Out explores our modern culture and society by way of Emilio Renzi's odyssey through the territory of Eros and Thanatos. Many thanks to Restless Books for publishing and Robert Croll for his fine English translation.


Argentinian author Ricardo Piglia

"There was a crow on the dresser, alive. It had its beak nested under its wing, keeping one eye fixed on me...It was 5:03 a.m. on the illuminated clock. At least I can dream, I thought, and awoke, lying faceup in bed, sweating. Had I been able to dream about her? I couldn't remember the dream, only fragments, Room 341, a blonde woman. What was she doing there? The dream had erased itself, but the feeling that remained was one of squalor and fear." - Ricardo Piglia, The Way Out