The End of Literature, Part X of Many

Enrique Vila-Matas on Lars Iyer, El Pais:

A menudo, las voces se confunden. “Somos Brod y Brod, y ninguno de los dos es Kafka. Este es el Fin del Mundo, pero ¿quién lo sabe excepto nosotros?”. Lars Iyer describe un mundo literario a la deriva, donde sólo puede uno aferrarse a la seguridad de que las circunstancias en las que surgieron aquellas vanguardias de antaño ya no existen: aquellas condiciones, ligadas al ambicioso modernismo, se han desvanecido, y con ellas el sueño en su conjunto de la gran literatura. Se insinúa la necesidad de salvarse enlazando con el eslabón perdido de aquel modernismo, pero al mismo tiempo se narra la imposibilidad de lograrlo.

Todo esto, que podría ser inmensamente negativo, acaba siendo muy creativo. “Sin una relación con el modernismo, no hay futuro. Sin reconocer que la relación con el modernismo es totalmente imposible, no hay futuro. Sin reconocer que no hay futuro, no hay futuro”, decía el otro día Lars Iyer, para quien sólo tienen horizonte los que tienen un discurso que incorpora la conciencia de fin de trayecto. El limbo queda para los demás. Iyer convierte en narración desaforada su teoría de que el problema actual no es la imposibilidad de escribir (más propia de los años cuarenta), sino la imposibilidad de experimentar la imposibilidad de escribir. Falta el entorno del viejo orden del mundo literario, y esto provoca que las sesiones de insultos de Brod a Brod se muevan en una exasperada pero creativa atmósfera de risas en el gran duelo por todo lo perdido.

Lars Iyer on Enrique Vila-Matas, The Quarterly Conversation:

TS: According to Blanchot, literature can always be read as pointing to its own disappearance, but writers like the ones Vila-Matas mentions (and indeed Vila-Matas himself) seem to feel as though our cultural moment exposes and historicizes this disappearance. Do you think we’ll learn anything from this? Or will there just be more hot tubs, more lists, more distraction? What would an ideal literature be if the difficult lesson of disappearance were to be learned? Are literatures of naïveté or new forms of wisdom literature appropriate, or have we enough of both?

LI: In Vila-Matas, we find a humorous recapitulation Blanchot’s sense that a certain way of literary writing is at an end, and that a new kind of writing, one which registers this end in some way, is beginning. Andrew Gallix has much of interest to say on the topic of the various “ends” of literature that have occurred.[2] In one sense, I want to say that literature is always ending! The end is eternal. It will go on forever. There can be no “apocalypse” of literature. And for that reason, there will always be more hot tubs, more lists, more distractions! But I also want to insist on the specificity, on the singularity of this end . . . I believe in it . . .

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More from Conversational Reading:

1. Not the End of Literature Lars Iyer, author of the very well-received novel/memoir/blog extension Spurious has written a very interesting essay that I cannot agree with but nonetheless encourage everyone...
2. Literature for Four Hands Using the recent book Escribir en colaboration as a jumping-off point, La Nacion runs down some of the more notably literary collaborations: En Escribir en...
3. Las Lecturas de 2008 Those interested in a snapshot of the Hispanic literary mind should run on over to Hermano Cerdo’s Las Lecturas de 2008, where the pig brothers...
4. The Aztec Boom: Mexico’s Resurgent Literature Argentine arts magazine Ñ is celebrating the resurgence of Mexican literature. According to Ñ, various signs all point to an Aztec boom: Este 2009...
5. When to Publish Posthumously? The recent publication of 500 pages of Cortazar's uncompleted writings has occasioned a debate in the Spanish-language press as to whether or not they should...

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