A Brief History of Portable Literature by Enrique Vila-Matas Page A

surprise no one that the Shandies were extremely cheerful. As previously eluded to, they had understood early on that if they wanted the conspiracy to work better, it first had to vanish from the map: that is, the conspiracy needed to appear in the eyes of the world like the stunning celebration of something appearing and disappearing with the arrogant velocity of the lightning bolt of insolence. And we must be mindful that insolence, when it becomes manifest, does so always in relation to others, as part of a movement that is mindful—intensely mindful—of the other. It is the expression of a rebellious, scandalous, immortal ego imposing itself as a way of exposing itself.
    Grasping all of this led the conspirators to a pact of solidarity entailing a series of essential obligations, such as, for example, not visibly extending the existence of the conspiracy and, in brief, showing themselves swift and masterly in the art of abbreviation. This led them to close ranks against Crowley the traitor, which, in turn, gave him license to expose them to the world.
    What follows are certain interesting paragraphs the false Tirana read in Seville: “I’m here to say I don’t like you at all, mainly because there are twenty-seven of you, which is unacceptable, given that this number belongs exclusively to us. . . . As you can see, Shandy writers have a touch of the exorbitant, of the unacceptable about them. It’s both laughable and pathetic that to become manifest, anguish requires the work of a portable, sitting at a desk, writing letters on a piece of paper. Shocking it may seem, but only in the way that a prerequisite for a madman in his solitude is the presence of a sane witness. . . . Anguish means I no longer have anything to say about anything, but it would haunt me no less if I tried to give this lecture a justifying aim. . . . This aim could consist of me standing in front of you and saying a few words to try to forget, momentarily, my anguish. Clearly, I haven’t managed that. This lecture could have me acting like a traitor and unmasking the presence of the many Shandies among the respectable public. Clearly, I
have
managed that. . . . And I am pleased, to tell the truth, because all that is portable will never rear its head again. Having come this far, I’m off, and I’ll take my Portuguese hat and my intimate hydra with me. I believe I’ve written these words as the day draws its images, whispering over them, never to return.”
    When the lecture finished, it was roundly applauded by the professors from Madrid, seeing that—as Elsa Tirana was one of Marinetti’s foremost disciples—they thought the lecture must be avant-garde. But their applause only infuriated the portables, who decided to go around spreading all manner of malicious lies about the professors: a breakneck procession of gossip that sowed panic in the Ateneo.
    Emilio Prados, in an attempt to quell that orgy of calumny and gossip, went over to the person he thought was the leader of that insolent group, García Lorca, and took issue with the lowliness of gossip in literary terms. Glaring at Prados and leaning on the shoulder of the beautiful black woman he had with him, Lorca explained that Marcel Proust wrote novels comprised solely of gossip and the same went for Henry James.
    Along came Duchamp, a refreshing glass of shandy in hand, explaining to Prados that they only told stories so someone would repeat them, and that they would stop telling them when they were no longer fresh. If the stories ceased to be fresh, that was because, upon being heard, they no longer spun and wove. Then Luis Cernuda, grinning ear to ear, joined his Shandy colleagues, adding: “Let me tell you: gossip is part and parcel of this transitory state; a link in a chain whose other links are only partial reiterations. Gossip—narrative as pure transitoriness—also presents the impossibility of identical repetition, the inevitability of endless transformation.”
    Prados