And Other Stories<\/a>.<\/p>\n
\n <\/p>\n
AUGUST 2000<\/p>\n
SATURDAY 5, 03:13<\/p>\n
Here begins the \u2018Diary of the Grant\u2019. I\u2019ve been trying to do something like this for months now, but systematically avoiding making a start. The aim is to set the writing in motion, no matter what it\u2019s about, and keep it up until I\u2019ve got into the habit. I have to associate the computer with writing. The most-used program needs to be Word. This will mean taking apart a series of cybernetic habits that have consumed me for the past five years, though I shouldn\u2019t think of it as taking anything apart, but rather as putting this together. Every day, every day, even if it\u2019s only a line to say I don\u2019t feel like writing anything, or I don\u2019t have time, or to make any other excuse. But it has to be every day.<\/p>\n
I almost certainly won\u2019t manage. Experience has taught me that. And yet I find myself hoping things will be different this time, because the grant is involved. I\u2019ve already been sent the first half of the money, which will be enough to keep me until the end of the year in a reasonable life of leisure. As soon as I knew for certain I was getting the grant this year, I began more or less clearing my schedule, getting rid of some things altogether and spacing others out, so as to leave very few days each month when I have any commitments at all. You see, a life of leisure takes time to arrange. It doesn\u2019t come about just like that, from one moment to the next, simply because you have nothing to do. At the moment my instinct is to fill every gap, devoting all my free time to stupid, pointless activities, because, almost without realising it, I have become like those people I always look down on: intensely afraid of my own selfhood, of being alone with nothing to do, of the ghosts in the basement pushing at the trapdoor, eager to poke their heads out and give me a fright.<\/p>\n
One of the first things I did with this half of the grant money was buy myself a pair of armchairs. In my apartment it used to be completely impossible to sit down and rest; for years now I\u2019ve had my living space set up like an office. Desks, tables, uncomfortable chairs, everything there to encourage work\u2014or playing on the computer, which is a kind of work.<\/p>\n
I had the electrician come and change the position of the plug sockets so I could move the computer out of sight, out of the central area of the apartment; I\u2019m typing this now in a little room by the bedroom, and in the central area, where the computer used to be, there\u2019s now a strange armchair, very soft and springy, its fabric a lovely greyish blue. The two or three times I\u2019ve sat in it, I\u2019ve fallen asleep. You relax, you can\u2019t help but relax, and then, if you\u2019re at all sleep-deprived, before you know it you\u2019re dead to the world and dreaming. But this armchair is another thing I\u2019ve been avoiding. As for the second one, I haven\u2019t sat in it at all yet, except to try it out. It\u2019s the kind known as a berg\u00e8re<\/em>, with a tall, rather hard back that makes it just right for reading. I only really intended to buy one armchair, but when I was testing them both out in the furniture shop, switching back and forth between the two, I realised it wouldn\u2019t be that simple. One chair was perfect for reading; the other was perfect for resting and relaxing. In one, you can\u2019t possibly read: it gets uncomfortable and your back ends up crooked and sore. In the other, you can\u2019t possibly relax: the hard backrest means you have to sit up straight and pay attention, which makes it ideal if you want to read. For many years now, I\u2019ve only ever read at mealtimes, or in bed, or in the bathroom. Admittedly, I\u2019ve also been steering clear of this armchair. But its time will come, just as the time for this diary has come.<\/p>\nI was able to begin it today thanks to my friend Paty. Some time ago I told her about Rosa Chacel, whom I discovered by chance at a second-hand book sale. I thought Memoirs of Leticia Valle<\/em> was an extraordinary novel and lent it to all my witch friends, because I was in no doubt whatsoever that Do\u00f1a Rosa was a genuine witch, in the good sense of the word. Paty is one of my witch friends, and of course she loved it. In return, a few days ago she left me a Rosa Chacel book I hadn\u2019t heard of with the caretaker downstairs, Money Box: The Way There<\/em>. It\u2019s the first part of an intimate diary (if you can call it that, since Do\u00f1a Rosa Chacel doesn\u2019t give away many intimate details), the second part of which is called Money Box: The Way Back<\/em>. Paty emailed to explain that she\u2019d sent me the book to help with the grant, since Rosa also received a Guggenheim fellowship at one point and all the ins and outs of the experience are recounted in the diary. In fact, even before reaching the part about the grant, which comes halfway through the book (and I have most of the second half yet to read), I noticed that this diary was inspiring me and making me want to write myself. I\u2019m amazed at how much Rosa and I have in common. Impressions, feelings, ideas, phobias, discomforts; all very similar. She must have been an insufferable old woman. There\u2019s a photo of her on the back cover; she looks surprisingly similar to Adalgissa (I\u2019ve never known how to spell that name; I think there\u2019s an H in there somewhere. Perhaps: Adalghissa), whom we used to call \u2018the fat aunt\u2019 when I was a boy. She was actually my great-aunt, the sister of my maternal grandfather. But the difference between Rosa and the fat aunt is the way they look at you; although Rosa\u2019s eyes are partly hidden by her round spectacles and slightly drooping eyelids, you can see the powerful intelligence of the brain behind them. The fat aunt, in contrast, was not very intelligent.<\/p>\nTranslated by\u00a0Annie McDermott<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A writer attempts to complete the novel for which he has been awarded a big fat Guggenheim grant, though for a long time he succeeds mainly in procrastinating\u2014getting an electrician to rewire his living room so he can reposition his computer, buying an armchair, or rather, two: \u201cIn one, you can\u2019t possibly read: it\u2019s uncomfortable and your back ends up crooked and sore. In the other, you can\u2019t possibly relax: the hard backrest means you have to sit up straight and pay attention, which makes it ideal if you want to read.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4556,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[4446,42],"genre":[2996],"pretext":[],"section":[2365],"translator":[3148],"lal_author":[3076],"class_list":["post-11354","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-numero-18","tag-uruguay","genre-previews-es","section-translation-previews-and-new-releases-es","translator-annie-mcdermott-es","lal_author-mario-levrero-es"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11354"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11354\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11354"},{"taxonomy":"genre","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/genre?post=11354"},{"taxonomy":"pretext","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pretext?post=11354"},{"taxonomy":"section","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/section?post=11354"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/translator?post=11354"},{"taxonomy":"lal_author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/lal_author?post=11354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}