{"id":11399,"date":"2020-02-19T01:00:48","date_gmt":"2020-02-19T07:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/2022\/05\/from-the-most-fragile-objects-by-alberto-chimal\/"},"modified":"2023-06-06T06:31:38","modified_gmt":"2023-06-06T12:31:38","slug":"from-the-most-fragile-objects-by-alberto-chimal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/2020\/02\/from-the-most-fragile-objects-by-alberto-chimal\/","title":{"rendered":"From The Most Fragile Objects by Alberto Chimal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" alignleft size-full wp-image-3546\" style=\"margin: 10px; float: left;\" src=\"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/themostfragileobjects1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"450\" title=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/themostfragileobjects1.jpg 300w, https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/themostfragileobjects1-200x300.jpg 200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><em>The Most Fragile Objects<\/em>, Chimal\u2019s first novel published in translation, tells three stories (maybe two, or just one) of people living secret lives in early 21st-century Mexico. They seem to indulge in wanton sex and power fantasies. But is everything what it appears to be? With a style that never resorts to titillation and a plot structure in which the factual and the dubious chase each other, <em>The Most Fragile Objects<\/em>\u00a0is an unusual, dark take on the themes of power, love, imagination, and freedom.<\/p>\n<p>Available now from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Most-Fragile-Objects-Alberto-Chimal\/dp\/1732114498\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Katakana Editores<\/a>.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<style type=\"text\/css\">p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-align: center; font: 12.0px Times; color: #919191}<br \/>p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-align: center; font: 12.0px Times; color: #919191; min-height: 14.0px}<br \/>p.p3 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times}<br \/>p.p4 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times; min-height: 14.0px}<br \/>p.p5 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times; color: #919191; min-height: 14.0px}<br \/><\/style>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><b>29<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Mundo is \u201cLatour&#8217;s ugly brother, his pathetic, detestable double\u201d: his property. As a rule, he lives naked and curled up in a ball, next to the kitchen door; it is no exaggeration to say that he is an animal. In addition to the usual treatment, he\u2019s received (every Friday, Sunday, and Tuesday since coming into Latour&#8217;s life) additional torture, meted out by the cruelest of masters. One can\u2019t but feel pity seeing him raise his head\u2014dirty and covered with matted hair, almost always full of every imaginable filth\u2014when he hears his master\u2019s footsteps. It\u2019s even more heartbreaking to see him run on all fours, rub against Latour\u2019s legs, beg for his attention, or at least try, with rasping, inarticulate moans.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIdiot!\u201d Latour yells, and Mundo answers back:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIdiot,\u201d without abandoning his position or caresses, then going on with a hundred more words, in a dozen languages, which Latour taught him and that describe him. Most are from languages \u200b\u200bhe doesn\u2019t even know\u2014kundel, which means \u201cmongrel\u201d in Polish, kichigai, or \u201cimbecile\u201d in Japanese, and achterlijke, Dutch for \u201cretarded\u201d\u2014but every word is heard in a clear and resounding way, as if they were made of glass or metal.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><b>30<\/b><\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat a horrible thing,\u201d says the actress. Nervous, she lifts her glass to take a sip and almost spills it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere are better ones.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBetter?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOf course. One should never overestimate beings like this. Look what a beast. He\u2019s carrion.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat are you talking about? Aren&#8217;t you supposed to be\u2026? What is he doing?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Latour enjoys the woman\u2019s confusion so much that he doesn&#8217;t answer immediately. Instead he deigns, for the first time in the whole conversation, to look down, to see what Mundo is doing.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDon\u2019t pay him any attention. He loves being mistreated. He takes pride in it. Allow me.\u201d And Mundo doesn\u2019t quite manage to lick the shoe that kicks him in the mouth.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><b>31<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Occasionally, Mundo is content to do nothing, to let time pass. Then he plays at suspending his thoughts and just being an animal. He doesn\u2019t try to name the objects that surround him in the house or recognize anyone who isn\u2019t Latour: this way everyone looks the same, imprecise faces, weak, incomprehensible voices. Someone walks up and pricks him with something. Mundo falls asleep. Later he wakes up and is somewhere else, but he attempts to forget his awareness of the fact and merely surrender, like an animal, like before the stranger came to stick him.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><b>32<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Latour writes, in pencil, on cream-colored paper:<i> Yes, Latour is perverse; perversity is a virtue. On the scale of things, skill and sincerity are rarely equal to those things that his soul\u2019s nature recognizes.<\/i><\/p>\n<p><i>Latour hits hard and knows how to hit in places that hurt. Latour knows how to subjugate and order.<\/i><\/p>\n<p><i>Latour believes that everyone would like to give orders, and those who deny it are merely afraid, aware of the nothingness of every being and every effort at living, or possess an even greater desire to obey, to disappear into someone else\u2019s will.<\/i><\/p>\n<p><i>The beings that are his property are always awaiting, in need of his orders, his fury, and his rare queries. But Latour doesn&#8217;t need them. More than once he\u2019s killed them, has disposed of their bodies and continued with his own life.<\/i><\/p>\n<p><i>With Latour, every story is true, as are all the tales of pain, torture, restraints, accessories, appliances.<\/i><\/p>\n<p><i>Latour isn\u2019t the terrible god his slaves worship; rather something higher: different.<\/i><\/p>\n<p><i>And Latour is simple: he knows that all his games are useless, a new ugliness in that design that has always been horrible and is, as always, devoid of meaning.<\/i><\/p>\n<p>He then tears up the sheet, burns it, urinates on it, or feeds it to Mundo. Never underestimate the importance of arbitrary gestures.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><b>33<\/b><\/p>\n<p>\u201cE,\u201d Mundo says. \u201cE, e, e, e, e.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He\u2019s on the floor of a library, in another house, dressed only in a mask that resembles the head of a mouse. Persuaded, he tries to eat a piece of cheese that Latour has placed next to him on the rug. The mask doesn\u2019t have any openings.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\">Translated by George Henson<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><em>The Most Fragile Objects<\/em>, Chimal\u2019s first novel published in translation, tells three stories (maybe two, or just one) of people living secret lives in early 21st-century Mexico. They seem to indulge in wanton sex and power fantasies. But is everything what it appears to be? With a style that never resorts to titillation and a plot structure in which the factual and the dubious chase each other, <em>The Most Fragile Objects<\/em>&nbsp;is an unusual, dark take on the themes of power, love, imagination, and freedom.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3546,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[2956,2992,4451],"genre":[2022],"pretext":[],"section":[2365],"translator":[2460],"lal_author":[3029],"class_list":["post-11399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-mexico-es","tag-mexico-es-2","tag-numero-13","genre-preview-es","section-translation-previews-and-new-releases-es","translator-george-henson-es","lal_author-alberto-chimal-es-2"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11399","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=11399"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11399\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3546"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11399"},{"taxonomy":"genre","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/genre?post=11399"},{"taxonomy":"pretext","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pretext?post=11399"},{"taxonomy":"section","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/section?post=11399"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/translator?post=11399"},{"taxonomy":"lal_author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/lal_author?post=11399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}