to sound interesting, you end up saying nothing but nonsense. In the best cases original and even interesting nonsense, but nonsense.'
I didn't know how to answer and took a sip of beer. Noticing that sarcasm alleviated the outrage of my disappointment, I said: 'Well, at least after what you've read you'll admit that I'm immune to success.'
'Don't be too sure about that either,' Rodney replied. 'Maybe nobody's immune to success; maybe it's enough to be able to endure failure to get caught up by success. And then there's no escape. It's over. Finito. Kaput. Look at Scott, Hemingway: both of them were in love with success, and it killed them both, and long before they were buried. Especially poor Scott, who was the weaker and the most talented one and that's why the disaster caught him sooner and he didn't have time to notice that success is lethal, shameless, an unmitigated disaster, an endless humiliation. He liked it so much that when he got it he didn't even realize, although he kidded himself with protests of pride and demonstrations of cynicism, that actually he'd done nothing but search for it, and now that he had it in his hands it was useless to him and he could do nothing with it but let it corrupt him. And it corrupted him. It corrupted him till the end. You know what Oscar Wilde said: "There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.'" Rodney laughed; I didn't. 'Anyway, what I mean is that no one dies for having failed, but it's impossible to survive success with dignity. No one says this, not even Oscar Wilde, because it's obvious or because it's very embarrassing, but that's the way it is. So, if you insist on being a writer, put off success as long as you can.'
While listening to Rodney I inevitably remembered my friend Marcos and our dreams of triumph and the masterpieces with which we thought we'd get our revenge on the world, and most of all I remembered one time, some years before, when Marcos told me that an insufferable classmate at the Faculty of Fine Arts had told him that the ideal condition for an artist is failure, and that he'd replied with a quote from the French writer Jules Renard: 'Yes, I know. All great men were ignored in their lifetimes; but I'm not a great man, so I'dprefer immediate renown.' I also thought Rodney was talking as if he knew what success and failure were, when actually he didn't know either one (or he didn't know them except by way of books or any more than me, who barely knew), and that actually his words were just the words of a loser soaked in the hypocritical and sickly mythology of failure that ruled a country hysterically obsessed with success. I thought all this and was about to say it to him, but I didn't say anything. What I did, after a silence, was mock Rodney's jeremiad.
'Fucked if you fail, fucked if you succeed,' I said. 'Great prospects.'
My friend didn't even smile.
'It's a really fucked-up job,' he said. 'But not because of that. Or not only because of that.'
'That seems minor to you?'
'Yeah,' he said, and then asked:
'What's a writer?' 'What do you think?' I lost patience. 'A guy who can string words together one after the other and is able to do so with flair.'
'Exactly,' Rodney approved. 'But it's also a guy who considers extremely complicated problems and who, instead of resolving them or trying to resolve them, like any sensible person, makes them even more complicated. That is: he's a nutcase who looks at reality, and sometimes sees it.'
'Everyone sees reality,' I objected, 'even if they're not nuts.'
'That's where you're mistaken,' Rodney said. 'Everybody looks at reality, but few people see it. The artist isn't the one who makes the invisible visible: that really is romanticism, although not the worst kind; the artist is the one who makes visible what's already visible and everybody looks at and nobody can or nobody knows how or nobody wants to see. Probably nobody wants to see. It's too
I didn't know how to answer and took a sip of beer. Noticing that sarcasm alleviated the outrage of my disappointment, I said: 'Well, at least after what you've read you'll admit that I'm immune to success.'
'Don't be too sure about that either,' Rodney replied. 'Maybe nobody's immune to success; maybe it's enough to be able to endure failure to get caught up by success. And then there's no escape. It's over. Finito. Kaput. Look at Scott, Hemingway: both of them were in love with success, and it killed them both, and long before they were buried. Especially poor Scott, who was the weaker and the most talented one and that's why the disaster caught him sooner and he didn't have time to notice that success is lethal, shameless, an unmitigated disaster, an endless humiliation. He liked it so much that when he got it he didn't even realize, although he kidded himself with protests of pride and demonstrations of cynicism, that actually he'd done nothing but search for it, and now that he had it in his hands it was useless to him and he could do nothing with it but let it corrupt him. And it corrupted him. It corrupted him till the end. You know what Oscar Wilde said: "There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.'" Rodney laughed; I didn't. 'Anyway, what I mean is that no one dies for having failed, but it's impossible to survive success with dignity. No one says this, not even Oscar Wilde, because it's obvious or because it's very embarrassing, but that's the way it is. So, if you insist on being a writer, put off success as long as you can.'
While listening to Rodney I inevitably remembered my friend Marcos and our dreams of triumph and the masterpieces with which we thought we'd get our revenge on the world, and most of all I remembered one time, some years before, when Marcos told me that an insufferable classmate at the Faculty of Fine Arts had told him that the ideal condition for an artist is failure, and that he'd replied with a quote from the French writer Jules Renard: 'Yes, I know. All great men were ignored in their lifetimes; but I'm not a great man, so I'dprefer immediate renown.' I also thought Rodney was talking as if he knew what success and failure were, when actually he didn't know either one (or he didn't know them except by way of books or any more than me, who barely knew), and that actually his words were just the words of a loser soaked in the hypocritical and sickly mythology of failure that ruled a country hysterically obsessed with success. I thought all this and was about to say it to him, but I didn't say anything. What I did, after a silence, was mock Rodney's jeremiad.
'Fucked if you fail, fucked if you succeed,' I said. 'Great prospects.'
My friend didn't even smile.
'It's a really fucked-up job,' he said. 'But not because of that. Or not only because of that.'
'That seems minor to you?'
'Yeah,' he said, and then asked:
'What's a writer?' 'What do you think?' I lost patience. 'A guy who can string words together one after the other and is able to do so with flair.'
'Exactly,' Rodney approved. 'But it's also a guy who considers extremely complicated problems and who, instead of resolving them or trying to resolve them, like any sensible person, makes them even more complicated. That is: he's a nutcase who looks at reality, and sometimes sees it.'
'Everyone sees reality,' I objected, 'even if they're not nuts.'
'That's where you're mistaken,' Rodney said. 'Everybody looks at reality, but few people see it. The artist isn't the one who makes the invisible visible: that really is romanticism, although not the worst kind; the artist is the one who makes visible what's already visible and everybody looks at and nobody can or nobody knows how or nobody wants to see. Probably nobody wants to see. It's too
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