An allegedly picaresque novel, Diary of a Humiliated Man by Felix de Azua, has been sitting next to the computer for weeks. It took a similar number of weeks to plow through after getting off to a promising start. Written in Spanish in 1987 and translated into English in 1996, the book is impossible to find. I guess there isn't any demand.
de Azua calls the first part "A Banal Man" and the second "The Dangers of Banality" so where the "hero" gets humiliated must have been lost in translation. After five months of diary entries, the hero explains who is trying to debase him -- his "employer" the Chinaman: "It us very clear that the Chinaman feels a visceral antipathy toward my banality and that he wants to teach me a lesson. With that idea in mind, he keeps me under control, tries to humiliate me. But his teaching method is corrupt. He doesn't even use fear, just disgust." But upon reflection, I conclude that only those whom we love and admire can humiliate us; we expect some social reciprocity. If we ignore or look down on someone, their attempts to diminish us has no effect as we do not adhere to their measure of man but our own.
de Azua maybe is modeling this life on Kafka. (Since I haven't read Metamorphisis, I don't know whether it is better to be an insect or banal.) How can one have banality as a quest goal? What insights there are on contemporary Spanish governmental corruption is gratuitous when the protagonist chooses not to interact with his community.
I have one more book from the 2010 list queued up to read. All these failures to inspire hold me back from opening it. This year's resolution is nothing to hold to.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment