1. When poets do not dedicate themselves to writing novels, they attack them.
2. It is good that novels are attacked. It’s like exfoliating them from frivolity, from arrogance, from the number of copies sold. It begins to be possible to wonder about the abyss.
3. Mario Montalbetti attacks the novel when he can. Usually in interviews: “The contemporary novel is boring, easy and harmless.” But in his essay the thought of the poem says: “The novel is applied poetry.”
4. Montalbetti is a poet and linguist. Chomsky directed his PhD thesis at MIT. He scares poets. He does not go around with demagogy.
5. That the novel is applied poetry is not praise, nor attack. It is confirmation. Poetry has the possibility of not meaning. no need to go to trilce nor to the last song of Altazor. Montalbetti goes to a short poem by Blanca Varela in animal concert: “my head inside another head / and even deeper / not my head”. The entire poem has fifty-eight words. Montalbetti dedicates a ninety-six page essay to him: the harshest winter.
6. Certain novels want to mean with emphasis, to find the truth, to describe a city, to build a nation, to be outraged, to free the oppressed (of whatever), to tell of shootings and violence, who gives more. They lock themselves in the Tower of Compromise or climb the pedestals of evidence. The prose applies and moves away from the poem. Unfortunately.
7. The best negronis in Cuenca are from Bógoli. It’s beside the point, but this is not about revealing any truth.
basin, literature
8. Tieck, in his report on Novalis’s truncated novel, Heinrich von Ofterdingen, says that the poet’s intention was to dedicate himself to writing six more novels about civil life, physics, history, action, politics and love. About his ideas about it. Better not.
9. However, to Novalis and his friends in the Jena circle we owe the dignity of the novel as a form of thought. Schlegel said: “Novels are the Socratic dialogues of our time.”
10. Montalbetti was at the Cuenca Literature Meeting the week of November 21, 2022. In a cafe he asked me what novels are thrown into the abyss in Latin America. Few, I said. Those of Onetti, those of Arguedas – he goes for The fox above and the fox belowme for the deep rivers– Y Conversation in the Cathedral Y Aunt Julia and the writer (although due to its minor key it does not seem so at first glance), Pedro Paramo.
11. I don’t like it very much Pedro ParamoMontalbetti said. It’s not a novel, I told him, it’s a novel.
12. He added that they jump into the abyss paradiseby Lezama Lima, Great Sertón Sidewalks from Guimaraes Rosa. I subscribe. The question haunted me. There are other abyssal novels: Virgil’s death, The Outburst of Lol V. Stein, blood meridian, The inconsolable, 2666, The armies, A breath of life, Absalom, Absalom. we talked about Absalom, Absalom: I told you that its entire narrative form is contained in the repetition of the title.
13. Moby DickFrom Melville, of course. The white whale is deep.
14. “There is no language language.” Four words that Montalbetti had tattooed on his left forearm. He threatened to tattoo his right forearm soon. With what other verses? narrative suspense.
Ecuador present at the Pan-Hispanic Poetry Festival that brings together more than 40 countries to empower the Spanish language
15. I did not read Montalbetti when I lived in Peru. In his work there is a wide hiatus between books. Reminds me of Westphalen. I recently discovered him in Mexico in 2014. In a bookstore I opened an anthology of his and a verse struck me by chance: “There is a river within the river / manufacturing delicate fevers”. I didn’t need more. Then I was bothered by his statements against the novel. He is right about the vast majority of them.
16. We need critical voices like those of the Peruvian poet. The dignity of the novel is on the ground. Now any jerk is a novel. A biography, a chronicle, an autobiography, a compilation of short stories, a pamphlet on duty: everything wants to pass as a novel. They are filled with theories and pretexts to justify an anticipated genius. The result: novelistic gibberish. What must be left behind is the realistic novel of the 19th century, introducing fissures, engulfing the essay and poetry, breaking the unique and monotonous narrators. When telling stories, suspend the obvious meaning, bet on the unforeseen, make the composition tremble. Launching into the poetic and the abyssal.
17. What did you mean by that of the river within the river manufacturing delicate fevers? I asked him. What do I know, she said, are you asking me?
18. In Ecuador, the Ruido blanco publishing house published a stupendous anthology of his poetry: in a broken tongue. not broken, broken. Disobey the Windows checker. Also read his essays.
19. The Bógoli negronis have giant ice. They can be drunk slowly. The illuminated domes of the Cathedral of Cuenca are reminiscent of the Kremlin, said Montalbetti.
20. Scarselli’s formula for negroni was 1+1+1. A measure of Gin, of Campari, of Red Vermouth.
21. Negroni novel: 1 language, 1 rhythm, 1 composition.
22. The Bógoli negronis are 2+1+1. I want to imagine novels in which the measure is increased by language: novel 2+1+1. I am also interested in the 1+1+2 variant.
23. When a real poet appears, everything that crackles in vain goes out. (EITHER)
Source: Eluniverso
Paul is a talented author and journalist with a passion for entertainment and general news. He currently works as a writer at the 247 News Agency, where he has established herself as a respected voice in the industry.
