{"id":11458,"date":"2020-08-21T18:04:17","date_gmt":"2020-08-22T00:04:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/2022\/05\/from-my-favorite-girlfriend-was-a-french-bulldog-by-legna-rodriguez-iglesias-translated-by-megan-mcdowell\/"},"modified":"2023-06-03T21:58:06","modified_gmt":"2023-06-04T03:58:06","slug":"from-my-favorite-girlfriend-was-a-french-bulldog-by-legna-rodriguez-iglesias-translated-by-megan-mcdowell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/2020\/08\/from-my-favorite-girlfriend-was-a-french-bulldog-by-legna-rodriguez-iglesias-translated-by-megan-mcdowell\/","title":{"rendered":"From My Favorite Girlfriend Was a French Bulldog by Legna Rodriguez Iglesias, translated by Megan McDowell"},"content":{"rendered":"

My Favorite Girlfriend Was a French Bulldog <\/i>is a novel told in fifteen stories, linked by the same protagonist, our narrator, who\u2014in her own voice and channeling the voices of others\u2014creates an unsparing, multigenerational portrait of her native Cuba. Legna Rodriguez Iglesias\u2019s novel marks the emergence of an original and essential new voice on the literary scene.
\nMy Favorite Girlfriend Was a French Bulldog <\/i>is out now from McSweeney\u2019s Publishing<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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The initial idea of this book, according to the author\u2014who is not me, I\u2019m just her pet and her instrument of inspiration\u2014was to write fifteen stories, all in the first person so the reader would feel closer to the text. And all of it based on me. About me. So far it\u2019s going well, this is the last text, number fifteen, but there\u2019s not a trace of me anywhere.<\/p>\n

I mean that there\u2019s no trace of my real and conclusive and developed presence, the kind that would justify the book\u2019s title. I\u2019ve only made subtle appearances in those interesting phrases she places between one story and the next. And if I\u2019m honest I don\u2019t find them that amusing. Clever phrases she comes up with all the time and writes as her Facebook status and then people click like <\/i>on.<\/p>\n

Maybe she should have focused more. I saw her writing all the time and not sleeping, she\u2019d sleep maybe three hours at a time, and I wondered what she could be writing. Because she\u2019s all for writing two or three books at the same time, she starts a project one day, then comes up with another project and starts that one too, and she doesn\u2019t stop until they\u2019re both finished, which is exhausting, and something for which a person needs great talent and intelligence, and I don\u2019t know if that\u2019s really her.<\/p>\n

The other day, for example, she got up from her chair and started to make coffee. She looked at me sideways and she said, \u201cDoes it really have to come to this, to the point where I scold you, yell at you, throw a flip-flop in your eye?\u201d and all because I went running to the bed, jumped onto the bed, grabbed whatever was closest to the edge of the bed\u2014which was a pair of black leggings and a Forever 21 bra\u2014and I chewed them and shook them and played with them until I turned them into a handful of black shreds. I can\u2019t tell if she likes that or not.<\/p>\n

The thing about the flip-flop in the eye is just a saying. The way she\u2019s found to train me and make me respect her is by banging a flip-flop on the floor, something that scares me a lot, and to tell the truth it does make me wise up. But she does scold me and yell at me, even if in the middle of the scolding and yelling she realizes that I\u2019m beautiful and she takes me by the head and squeezes me affectionately.<\/p>\n

She tells everyone that I\u2019m a kind of fricken<\/i>. The word is a compound of frog and chicken. She says I\u2019m fat like a frog and I have eyes like a chicken\u2019s, too far to either side, it looks like I can\u2019t see forward, only sideways. She also says that I\u2019m a fish. She shows off to visitors, shouting, \u201cHelp! A fish!\u201d and then her friends blow kisses to the fricken and the fish that is me.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s stopped eating because she misses a person who is my dad<\/i>. The term dad <\/i>is her invention. I\u2019m happy because the less she eats, the more she writes. If she starts to eat she doesn\u2019t write. If she starts to read she doesn\u2019t write. She has to be completely idle and free and very hysterical for a truly marvelous text to come out of her. That\u2019s how she writes the best things. In an ideal state of desperation.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m the only thing she has and I do realize that and I like it. She takes off her clothes and bathes and lies down on the bed\u2019s edge and I go and lick an arm until she scolds me. It\u2019s yummy when the skin is all wet and tastes like soap or lotion. She uses lotions that taste like dried fruits. I like it. I like it. I like it.<\/p>\n

She gets up and starts to write naked and suddenly connects her speaker and she gets up from the chair and picks me up and together we dance to \u201cLa Bilirrubina\u201d or any song by Juan Luis Guerra or by Rita Indiana or by whoever. It\u2019s a playlist for parties that only take place between her and me. The party is here and now.<\/p>\n

When this person who is my dad <\/i>was at home she danced only with that person. All three of us naked because I\u2019m always naked. I ran crazy around the living room because that\u2019s what I think dancing is. Running and dancing are the same thing to me. When she and my dad <\/i>danced they almost couldn\u2019t dance from so much hugging. She misses my dad <\/i>and I miss my dad<\/i>, but the good thing is that she has only me now to act as her source of inspiration so I\u2019ll be the one and only protagonist of her books. The whole world will know me.<\/p>\n

She cooks up some stews of carrot, radish, and green beans that she shares with me, and since she\u2019s obsessive compulsive she cuts twenty-five slices of carrot, twenty-five of radish, and twenty-five of green beans. A stew unique in the world that contains a total of seventy-five vegetable pieces. She gives me a portion of that with my daily rice and my daily sweet potato.<\/p>\n

Only once did I get food poisoning and it was with minced turkey, a thing she hasn\u2019t spent her money on since then, not even to eat it herself. My eyeballs bulged and I broke out in hives. She shouted, \u201cHelp, a fish!\u201d and she started to cry, and called a friend on the phone and snuck a pill quickly into my mouth because I didn\u2019t want to swallow it. After a while I felt better and my eyes again looked like what they are, a couple of frog eyes, huge and green and tender.<\/p>\n

If she ever has kids that\u2019ll be it for me, she\u2019ll pour all that mothering into the new baby. She\u2019ll make the baby into the protagonist of her books and her poems, she\u2019ll take it to readings and to the movies and to the theater, the way she does with me now\u2014she takes me everywhere and people look at her like she\u2019s a crazy person with an unhealthy mother complex.<\/p>\n

Her girlfriends feel sorry for her because she lives in a rented apartment that costs an arm and a leg. Or something even more valuable\u2014an eye. I also cost an eye, so if you look at it like that the author of this book is a female Oedipus. I\u2019m citing Oedipus because I know that talking about theater consoles and cheers her. Everything to do with theater consoles and cheers her. Because the person who is my dad <\/i>worked in the theater and all that has to do with that medium. I cost her the equivalent of five months\u2019 rent. She\u2019d just come back from a poetry festival in Miami with a little money to subsist on, so it would be a good while before things got bad. But then she got that urge she gets that\u2019s like a fit, and she decided the only thing that would make her happy was a newborn Italian greyhound or a newborn French bulldog.<\/p>\n

That is the origin of my existence in this story of hers and mine. And no one knows this, not her family, not her friends, not her enemies. I guess that now when the book is published everyone will find out and open their mouths in a sign of astonishment.<\/p>\n

I understand that this text, because it\u2019s the last, should be conclusive and overwhelming, with an unsettling conflict and denouement, because that\u2019s how it happens in almost all the books and in almost all the movies and plays, the final minutes have to be overwhelming. But that\u2019s not how this will go, because this is a descriptive text in which I\u2019d like to expound upon my perceptions about human life.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s odd to watch her interact with her friends. I can tell when it\u2019s a true friend who\u2019s come over, and I can tell when it\u2019s just a friend, or when the person who has come over doesn\u2019t interest her in the slightest, or when it\u2019s someone she can\u2019t stand at all. I can also tell who is family and who\u2019s not. Her best girlfriends are her family.<\/p>\n

It takes her a long time to read boring books, and sometimes she sneaks around her own conscience and abandons those books halfway through, doesn\u2019t even finish them. She reads the books she likes very quickly, in a few hours, but she still never forgets to feed me, give me water, and clean up my urine.<\/p>\n

At first she dried my urine with a mopping cloth that she rinsed and wrung out all the time. Then the person who is my dad <\/i>taught her the magic of the newspaper, and since then she hasn\u2019t rinsed and wrung out again. She\u2019s saved herself work, detergent, and time.<\/p>\n

Since the person who is my dad <\/i>left I can feel she\u2019s more attached to me. I see her crying and I go over to her skin and I lick her skin softly and she looks at me and thanks me. She says, \u201cMy love, my fish, my little fish.\u201d That makes her cry more and it makes me howl and lick her more. Again she says, \u201cMy love, my fish, my little fish.\u201d The scene goes in crescendo <\/i>until she dries her own tears and says, \u201cEnough.\u201d Sometimes she\u2019s very hard on me and on herself. She\u2019s hard when she writes, and she takes revenge for the bad things that happen to her by writing. Not like other writers and artists, who take revenge in other ways.<\/p>\n

If she\u2019s given something delicious to eat, she gives half to me.<\/p>\n

If she copies a new, good movie, she tilts the screen so I can take a look, even though she knows that dogs can\u2019t understand movies even if they\u2019re as smart as I am.<\/p>\n

If she\u2019s invited to a party, she takes me.<\/p>\n

If she thinks I won\u2019t be able to make it because of the sun or the distance she doesn\u2019t take me, and she doesn\u2019t go either.<\/p>\n

We have the party at home.<\/p>\n

She celebrates my monthly birthday.<\/p>\n

I was born February seventh, so every seventh I turn another month old. And that day I eat the same thing as always, well cooked over a low flame with a lot of water, no salt or oil, and I receive the same love as always, but something tells me it\u2019s a special day. Something in her voice and in her eyes.<\/p>\n

To write a book whose leitmotif is the bond, affectionate or grotesque, with a pet, in this case a dog, is not a thing she was the first to come up with. Literary history is full of similar examples. Even Anton Chekhov, a man of theater, wrote about a dog, and I\u2019m referring to a very serious story published for children called \u201cWhitebrow.\u201d In my case I also have a white brow, like the puppy in Chekhov\u2019s story.<\/p>\n

Chekhov\u2019s tale is about a she-wolf who is able to raise a puppy of another species. The same thing happens in this book, whose author is raising me, I am not of her species, not even close.<\/p>\n

Really it\u2019s not about that, it\u2019s about something quite different, I made that up after she showed me the illustrations.<\/p>\n

I know how to get up onto the furniture and I sleep better there than on the floor, even if it\u2019s hot. But if she gets up from the bed where she\u2019s always reading, or if she turns over in bed, or throws off the covers, or goes to the bathroom to pee, or to the kitchen to knock back a glass of water, or whatever she does, I can\u2019t help but open my eyes, prick up my ears, look at her, and follow. I love her. She\u2019s my mother.<\/p>\n

Counting today, it\u2019s been three days since she\u2019s gotten up from the bed. I saw her lay down in bed day before yesterday after feeding me and giving me water. She\u2019d taken a bunch of pills from her backpack and swallowed them nervously. She even let me get up onto the bed and shred a pair of pants that are among her favorites. I tore them up not because I\u2019m bad but because I like her smell a lot.<\/p>\n

Before she went to sleep I saw she was reading a book by a certain Coetzee, a writer she loves and whose books she drinks like glasses of water. I watched her read from the sofa, on a cushion, and I started falling asleep too. When I woke up she had the book in one hand, on page one hundred and three, and she didn\u2019t finish it.<\/p>\n

At night she didn\u2019t get up, yesterday either. I\u2019m hungry and thirsty. I\u2019ve gotten up on her bed several times, I\u2019ve played with her hair and she doesn\u2019t wake up. Maybe she needs time. If she needs to sleep several hours for every pill she took, then she\u2019ll be asleep at least a year.<\/p>\n

Everything that Gilles Deleuze posits in his famous Alphabet Book<\/i>, which begins tidily with the letter A, becomes earth and dust before me. Gilles Deleuze can\u2019t stand animals. He\u2019s a great philosopher but he can\u2019t stand the friendly and familiar treatment of dogs and cats, and as such, for me and for her, he is reduced to dust. I love her. She\u2019s my mother. And she is the best writer in the world.<\/p>\n

Translated by Megan McDowell<\/p>\n

Visit our Bookshop page and support local bookstores.<\/a><\/b><\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The initial idea of this book, according to the author\u2014who is not me, I\u2019m just her pet and her instrument of inspiration\u2014was to write fifteen stories, all in the first person so the reader would feel closer to the text. And all of it based on me. About me. So far it\u2019s going well, this is the last text, number fifteen, but there\u2019s not a trace of me anywhere. I mean that there\u2019s no trace of my real and conclusive and developed presence, the kind that would justify the book\u2019s title. I\u2019ve only made subtle appearances in those interesting phrases she places between one story and the next. And if I\u2019m honest I don\u2019t find them that amusing. Clever phrases she comes up with all the time and writes as her Facebook status and then people click like <\/i>on.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3882,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[4449],"genre":[2022],"pretext":[],"section":[2365],"translator":[3145],"lal_author":[3060],"class_list":["post-11458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-numero-15","genre-preview-es","section-translation-previews-and-new-releases-es","translator-megan-mcdowell-es","lal_author-legna-rodriguez-iglesias-es"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11458","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=11458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11458\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11458"},{"taxonomy":"genre","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/genre?post=11458"},{"taxonomy":"pretext","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pretext?post=11458"},{"taxonomy":"section","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/section?post=11458"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/translator?post=11458"},{"taxonomy":"lal_author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/lal_author?post=11458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}