He sees “impressions,” specter-like images from his memory that flash into his path like old newspapers blowing in the wind.
Two worlds reveiw Patch#
At the novel’s opening, he can barely find the park, though it’s the largest patch of green available on his map. Part of this is because of the narrator’s disconnect. I’m referring to the urban as well as rural ground of paths, to ground altered by humans in general, because ground in the abstract, the ground of the world, speaks different, near incomprehensible languages. The ground is one of the most revealing indicators of the present condition it is more eloquent in its damages, its deterioration, its unevennesses, and irregularities of all sorts. He notices, he calculates, he forms conclusions (often opposing): As the narrator walks, he is both the observer and the absorber.
Chejfec takes a literary outlook distinctly South American and pushes it through a new prism of organized wilderness. My Two Worlds is the kind of book that makes you wish we had more books in translation, an experiment for letting the mind wander-not in that Finnegans Wake way where you have no idea what’s going on, but through a guided path, like a park. Chejfec, however, turns this man’s afternoon walk into a kaleidoscope of imagery and thought. His latest novel is reviewing poorly, so the park seems like a good place to walk and think things through. The city is unknown to him, and, as is his habit, he takes to finding an interesting park in which to meander and meditate. He’s a writer, about to turn fifty, attending a literary conference somewhere in the south of Brazil.
The narrator of Sergio Chejfec’s new novel, My Two Worlds, is on just such an afternoon journey. It’s a way to work things out in your head I find that my most introspective moment is when I’m in the park at sundown, right before the police disturb my old newspaper blanket and make me leave. Carson (Rochester, NY: Open Letter Books, 2011)Įveryone knows that a good walk through the park is an enriching, calming experience perfect for airing some of that figurative dirty laundry. Translated from the Spanish by Margaret B.
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