I almost finished now It Lasts Forever and Then It's Over, a short novel by Anne de Marcken. It's a pretty disturbing book I got a hint of on Twitter a few weeks ago. I came across these two guys on a thread of the kind "Books I Read in 2024" (a year's end staple on social networks, along with "Music I Heard", "Movies I Watched", and so on). The thing is they were discussing this book and they were kind of raving about it, said that they had finished it in no time, that they just felt they couldn't stop reading, etc. Besides the hype, I admit the title attracted me, reminded me of a line in Godard's Breathless that I love: "- What is your greatest ambition in life? - To become immortal, and then die."
So, I immediately got the book (in English, there's no Spanish translation that I know of), and set out to read it. Had I been in my pre-internet mental attitude (and not least, had I had a good old paperback edition in my hands), I doubt not I'd finished it in two days at most, but that's not the case and I am still bracing through the last digital pages. The story—somewhat morbid, and even gross—reminded me of McCarthy's Blood Meridian, except for the fact that this is a first-person narrative, which gives the story a psychological, intimate, nuance as a counterpoint to the gore, apocalyptic backdrop. I'd say it's yet another (and welcome) instance of the long tradition of snatching pulp fiction and popular genres' topics and mounting them into a frame of new rules, akin to high literature—so to speak, I know these categories (high, low) sound funny nowadays, perhaps precisely because of the never-ending unscrambling and mingling of topics I've just mentioned.
The difficulty of the English text deserves a separate note: lot of descriptions, plenty of vocabulary I don't know, and somehow this frantic impulse to go forward through the text that hindered any searching at the time. So, I sometimes indulged in leaving dead (or undead?) words behind, a feeling that brought me back to my childhood, when in this or that book I had to grapple with unknown Spanish words, and many times I simply moved on—
By the way, hope not, but I'm almost sure a film or series based on this is coming soon.
Calling a book "high" or "low" literature certainly sounds snobby, but I do feel like these labels can be helpful (although I might choose different words???). Especially for books, I think it helps to know someone's perspective on what they like to read. Without this, it can be so hard to take a book recommendation. I definitely like to read a lot of "literary" work, which some people would describe as boring. It certainly can be, but that's not always the case. Anyways I'm rambling
On an unrelated note, I really like e-readers, but translating from spanish when I'm feeling lost can feel like a bear. I have found the least painful option for me is to use the phone's camera-to-text translator function.
I think that in postmodern times ideas such as high art and the like are taken with a grain of salt, or are simply discredited in some circles. Anyway, I think you still can use them (in italics lol) to convey a general idea, as in this case
I didn't know there's an app "camera-to-text translator". I usually type the word on the phone and google it or use "The Free Dictionary". However, it makes reading rather irksome, and I noticed I could skip some words in the descriptions, as in most cases (I suppose) I figured more or less what they referred to. Besides, in some cases I did a search the results weren't of much help (slang? have to check this out)
I just have the google translate app on my phone. There is a camera option there - you point your phone at the page and it will try to translate everything it sees. It's not perfect but I think context helps it to perform better.
Interesting
IDEA: As an income channel, why not translate this into Spanish? Do you think a Spanish translation would achieve financial success? Just an idea . . . .
You have to buy the rights to translate it, and most probably they will be purchased by a big editorial house (Anagrama, Bertelsmann or something, which by the way translate for global distribution in Spanish from Spain). A pirate edition distributed digitally would be nice, if nothing else to have a translation all'uso nostro, but only as a hobby, no income
However, I think a Spanish translation must be already in the works