By PAULO NOGUEIRA BATISTA JR.*
Author introduction to newly released book
I'm going to get myself into another mess today. I decided to write about my new book, Shrapnel. I have an excuse: it's coming out of the printer and will be released on December 3rd in São Paulo.
But why “cold”? It’s because writing about one’s own work throws any writer, artist or subliterate, genius or charlatan, into truly terrifying difficulties. If he speaks well of what he wrote, he will be seen as pretentious and boastful. If he speaks badly, to disguise it, he runs the risk of scaring away the reader. And if he adopts a neutral tone, he provokes boredom, irreparably. Thus, the author should not, in principle, try to be his own critic. The work must speak for itself, without explanations.
One way to avoid these traps is to write a sort of short sequel to the book, that is, not to try to introduce it, highlight its structure and central ideas, etc., but simply to choose one or two themes from the book and discuss them a little. This might give the reader an idea of what the book is about, of what interest it might have – and who knows? – arouse curiosity.
That's what I'm going to try to do here. Let's see. A recurring theme in the book, very present in all its parts, both in the aphorisms and in the chronicles and short stories, is the relationship between art and reality, between memory and fabrication. Non-artists sometimes think that it is in the nature of the artist to imagine, invent, and fantasize. I don't think that's quite the case. The artist puts down roots in his own experience and in the experiences of others. If he doesn't do this, he'll hardly be successful. He lives, suffers, observes the lives of others, suffers with them, and from there he elaborates.
Artists know this instinctively and vampirize life. They cling to events, big and small, social and individual, happy and unhappy. They select, adorn, transfigure, it is true – but they never lose touch with reality.
This is the case of François Truffaut, for example, several of whose films appear repeatedly in Shrapnel. Anyone who knows a little about his life, his childhood of isolation and abandonment, understands many of his male characters better. He himself used to say that his films were autobiographical, biographical or a combination of both. About the tragic love story of The woman next door, François Truffaut revealed that the script was based in part on his unhappy love story with Catherine Deneuve. For the dialogues, he said, he should pay her royalties.
What is behind this relationship between art and experience? Perhaps the explanation lies in the fact that reality has an immense complexity and richness, an unfathomable internal structure that gives life a strength and flavor that no other creation can match. ex nihilo reaches. In fact, imagining is typical of the subliterate. When writing or any form of creation is dissociated from reality, it begins to float aimlessly, convinces no one and, worse, often falls into ridicule.
One caveat. I'm not talking about plausibility here. The implausible has its place in art. After all, life is not always plausible. How much of what happens to us is unbelievable? Vertigo Alfred Hitchcock's masterpiece, treats plausibility with a bang. And yet it fascinates and retains the viewer. It induces, like Wagnerian opera, the suspension of disbelief.
Os Shrapnel are themselves a small demonstration of this – without me having planned the book in this way at any time. It gradually took shape, imperceptibly, as a mixture of reflections, memories and fictions. But not as watertight compartments; the boundaries between these three genres are always tenuous. What is memory? What is fiction? I left it up to the reader to make the distinction – also because I was sometimes embarrassed, I confess, to assume certain texts as memories.
This brings me to another theme of the book that I would like to revisit a little today – the role of suffering in both life and art. In the introduction, I write that the book is intensely romantic. In other words, it has its origins in suffering. Without wishing to underestimate the reader’s sensitivity, I would like to remind you that romanticism is not synonymous with, nor even related to, sentimentalism. Romanticism is not a walk in the park. On the contrary, it is a problematic and even sinister way of experiencing life and the world.
If I had to define Romanticism in one word, I would say that it is the exaltation of suffering. The artistic exaltation, the artistic transfiguration of suffering. In the West, it begins with Christ on the cross. And Romanticism, from the 19th century onwards, is this same valorization of suffering, but without the consolation of religion and belief in God.
I don't know if I'm being clear. I'll give you an example. Heinrich Heine, who figures prominently in Shrapnel, was a fierce critic of the romanticism of his time. But he was still a romantic himself. It has been said of him that he “stylized suffering in order to be able to bear it”. There, in this short sentence, is a complete definition of what romanticism is – it is an effort, from cathedrals to sonnets, to make human suffering bearable.
To be an artist, then, one must, as Fyodor Dostoevsky (another author who figures repeatedly in my book) said, “suffer, suffer, suffer” – repeating the word three times for dramatic emphasis. To truly be an artist, one must be vulnerable to suffering and, at the same time, resilient and creative enough to endure it and transform it into something that brings relief and consolation to all.
I conclude by saying that this is my most personal book, the most revealing of who I am or have tried to be. I gave it my best. But will my best be enough? I asked this question when I introduced the book and I repeat it here, in the somewhat anxious hope that it will find some acceptance, some identification from the reader with the experiences and torments that I tried to portray.
*Paulo Nogueira Batista Jr. is an economist. He was vice-president of the New Development Bank, established by the BRICS. Author, among other books, of Brazil doesn't fit in anyone's backyard (LeYa) [https://amzn.to/44KpUfp]
Reference
Paulo Nogueira Batista Jr. Shrapnel. New York, New York Times, 2024, 320 pages.https://amzn.to/3ZulvOz]
The book launch in São Paulo will be on December 3rd, starting at 19pm, at Livraria Travessa in Shopping Iguatemi.
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