An American poet has received a prestigious scholarship to Madrid for a year. The book’s opening finds him there, studiously avoiding any contact with the university department he’s supposedly connected to and, instead, smoking lots of hash on the roof of his apartment and going to The Prada to look at a picture for half an hour everyday. So far so good! After this daily ritual he writes poetry by copying out bits from Lorca and interpolating them with his own associations. I really enjoyed his honesty about his professional life and his truthfulness about whether any of it was meaningful.
I became less enamored with the stoner-poet lifestyle when I discovered the poet is also taking unidentified anti-anxiety drugs and suffers from panic attacks. Smoking a lot of weed seems an odd choice in this context. He also chooses to multiply his anti-anxiety dose after some negative event or other, to the extent he appears to be losing touch with reality. I was left with the image of a talented poet, behaving strangely and perhaps unraveling around the edges for unexplained reasons.
The story begins to draw in more characters when the poet makes some friends in Madrid, most prominently a young, fashionable gallery owner and his sister who move in artistic circles and like his poetry. Or the status his poetry scholarship confers on him. The poet tells outrageous lies in order to get attention or try to sleep with people – this was probably my favourite part of the book. He tells the gallery owner’s sister, who he is perpetually trying to sleep with, that his Mum is dead. Later, he confesses it is a lie but replaces it with another one about his Dad being a tyrannical fascist. I loved the way these shady acts are reported without any self-sympathy or attempt to justify his shittiness! It was also amusing to read in places.
Apart from the central pillar of the Atocha terrorist attacks, the narrative is quotidian and enjoyable. Visiting the relatives of Spanish friends, going to gallery events, house parties, the odd university conference or symposium and visits to other cities.
The prose was pithy and enjoyable but, perhaps inevitably, given to flights of poetic fancy where the texture of forgiveness or the heart rate of sanctimony are referenced. Even though I couldn’t find much to enjoy in the less prosaic passages, I was very taken by the fact that the author gives credit to other people’s ideas and phrases in his footnotes. It seemed like a manifestation of the same instinct towards honesty I found in other parts of the book. An instinct that is almost entirely contradicted by his reported behaviour during the story!
I thought it was a strange decision to put really small photographs in a paperback edition where the quality would always be poor. Even to someone who knows Madrid well, in heavily pixelated black and white printed on uncoated paper, the pictures add nothing.
Towards the end of the book, the poet calls his parents and confesses to lying about them. He also confesses to his friend, the gallery owner’s sister, who variously performs the role of his tour guide, lover and patron. She more or less tells him it’s OK for him to lie because he’s a poet. As someone who doesn't like poetry much, I wasn’t so sure! But I enjoyed the story as an interesting and entertaining glimpse into the life of a poet.
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