books. I am much more interested in the books of others.
MM: Would you not cut a few pages out of
The Savage Detectives?
RB: No. In order to cut pages, I would have to reread it and my religion prohibits me that.
MM: Does it scare you that someone might want to make a film version of the novel?
RB: Oh, Mónica, I fear other things—much more terrifying things, infinitely more terrifying.
MM: Is “Silva the Eye” a tribute to Julio Cortázar?
RB: In no way.
MM: When you finished writing “Silva the Eye,” didn’t you feel you had probably written a story on the level of, say, “A House Taken Over”?
RB: When I finished writing “Silva the Eye” I stopped crying or something like it. What more could I want than for it to resemble a Cortázar story? Although “A House Taken Over” is not one of my favorites.
MM: Which five books have marked your life?
RB: In reality the five books are more like 5,000. I’ll mention these only as the tip of the spear:
Don Quixote
by Cervantes,
Moby-Dick
by Melville. The complete works of Borges,
Hopscotch
by Cortázar,
A Confederacy of Dunces
by Toole. I should also cite
Nadja
by Breton, the letters of Jacques Vaché .
Anything Ubu
by Jarry,
Life: A User’s Manual
by Perec.
The Castle
and
The Trial
by Kafka.
Aphorisms
by Lichtenberg .
The Tractatus
by Wittgenstein.
The Invention of Morel
by Bioy Casares.
The Satyricon
by Petronius.
The History of Rome
by Tito Livio.
Pensées
by Pascal.
A French surrealist writer, Jacques Vaché (1895–1919) worked closely with André Breton in the foundation of surrealism. A collection of his works,
Jacques Vaché and the Roots of Surrealism
, is available in English.
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–1799) was a German scientist and satirist. A collection of his aphorisms is available in English as
The Waste Books
, 2000.
MM: Do you get on well with your editor?
RB: Very well. Herralde is a very intelligent person and very often quite charming. Perhaps for me it would be more convenient if he weren’t so charming. The truth is I’ve known him for eight years now and, at least for my part, the affection does nothing if not grow, as one bolero puts it. Even though it might perhaps be better for me if I didn’t care for him so.
MM: What do you say to those who believe
The Savage Detectives
is the great contemporary Mexican novel?
RB: That they say it out of pity. They see that I’m down or fainting in public plazas and they can think of nothing better to say than a merciful lie, which, by the way, is the most appropriate thing in these cases, and it’s not even a venial sin.
MM: Is it true that it was Juan Villoro who convinced you not to name your novel
By Night In Chile
“Shit Storms”?
RB: It was between Villoro and Herralde.
MM: From whom else do you take advice about your work?
RB: I don’t listen to advice from anybody, not even my doctor. I wildly dole out advice, but I don’t heed any.
MM: How is Blanes?
RB: It’s a nice little town. Or a very small city of 30,000 inhabitants. Quite nice. It was founded 2,000 years ago by the Romans, then people from all over started passing through. It’s not a rich person’s resort but a proletariat’s. Workers from the north and the east. Some stay to live forever. The bay is most beautiful.
MM: Do you miss anything about your life in Mexico?
RB: My youth, and endless walks with Mario Santiago.
MM: Which Mexican writer do you admire profoundly?
RB: Many. From my generation I admire Sada, whose writing project I find the most bold, Villoro and Carmen Boullosa . Among the young writers, I am very interested in what Álvaro Enrique and Mauricio Montiel are doing, as well as Volpi and Ignacio Padilla . I continue to read Sergio Pitol , whowrites better every day. And Carlos Monsiváis , who, according to Villoro, gave Taibo II or III (or IV) the nickname Pol Pit, which seems to me a real poetic find. Pol Pit. It’s perfect, isn’t it? Monsiváis keeps his nails sharp.
MM: Would you not cut a few pages out of
The Savage Detectives?
RB: No. In order to cut pages, I would have to reread it and my religion prohibits me that.
MM: Does it scare you that someone might want to make a film version of the novel?
RB: Oh, Mónica, I fear other things—much more terrifying things, infinitely more terrifying.
MM: Is “Silva the Eye” a tribute to Julio Cortázar?
RB: In no way.
MM: When you finished writing “Silva the Eye,” didn’t you feel you had probably written a story on the level of, say, “A House Taken Over”?
RB: When I finished writing “Silva the Eye” I stopped crying or something like it. What more could I want than for it to resemble a Cortázar story? Although “A House Taken Over” is not one of my favorites.
MM: Which five books have marked your life?
RB: In reality the five books are more like 5,000. I’ll mention these only as the tip of the spear:
Don Quixote
by Cervantes,
Moby-Dick
by Melville. The complete works of Borges,
Hopscotch
by Cortázar,
A Confederacy of Dunces
by Toole. I should also cite
Nadja
by Breton, the letters of Jacques Vaché .
Anything Ubu
by Jarry,
Life: A User’s Manual
by Perec.
The Castle
and
The Trial
by Kafka.
Aphorisms
by Lichtenberg .
The Tractatus
by Wittgenstein.
The Invention of Morel
by Bioy Casares.
The Satyricon
by Petronius.
The History of Rome
by Tito Livio.
Pensées
by Pascal.
A French surrealist writer, Jacques Vaché (1895–1919) worked closely with André Breton in the foundation of surrealism. A collection of his works,
Jacques Vaché and the Roots of Surrealism
, is available in English.
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–1799) was a German scientist and satirist. A collection of his aphorisms is available in English as
The Waste Books
, 2000.
MM: Do you get on well with your editor?
RB: Very well. Herralde is a very intelligent person and very often quite charming. Perhaps for me it would be more convenient if he weren’t so charming. The truth is I’ve known him for eight years now and, at least for my part, the affection does nothing if not grow, as one bolero puts it. Even though it might perhaps be better for me if I didn’t care for him so.
MM: What do you say to those who believe
The Savage Detectives
is the great contemporary Mexican novel?
RB: That they say it out of pity. They see that I’m down or fainting in public plazas and they can think of nothing better to say than a merciful lie, which, by the way, is the most appropriate thing in these cases, and it’s not even a venial sin.
MM: Is it true that it was Juan Villoro who convinced you not to name your novel
By Night In Chile
“Shit Storms”?
RB: It was between Villoro and Herralde.
MM: From whom else do you take advice about your work?
RB: I don’t listen to advice from anybody, not even my doctor. I wildly dole out advice, but I don’t heed any.
MM: How is Blanes?
RB: It’s a nice little town. Or a very small city of 30,000 inhabitants. Quite nice. It was founded 2,000 years ago by the Romans, then people from all over started passing through. It’s not a rich person’s resort but a proletariat’s. Workers from the north and the east. Some stay to live forever. The bay is most beautiful.
MM: Do you miss anything about your life in Mexico?
RB: My youth, and endless walks with Mario Santiago.
MM: Which Mexican writer do you admire profoundly?
RB: Many. From my generation I admire Sada, whose writing project I find the most bold, Villoro and Carmen Boullosa . Among the young writers, I am very interested in what Álvaro Enrique and Mauricio Montiel are doing, as well as Volpi and Ignacio Padilla . I continue to read Sergio Pitol , whowrites better every day. And Carlos Monsiváis , who, according to Villoro, gave Taibo II or III (or IV) the nickname Pol Pit, which seems to me a real poetic find. Pol Pit. It’s perfect, isn’t it? Monsiváis keeps his nails sharp.
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