Pájaros de la playa (1993)
Literary antecedent (Spanish)
Notes:
Pájaros de la playa is the posthumous novel by the Cuban Severo Sarduy. The novel could be interpreted as an intimate meditation about the AIDS virus. It is not mentioned outright in the text, but it is evoked via the painful symptoms, which are repeatedly mentioned: fatigue, emaciated bodies, the blood transfusion treatments which are highlighted in the text: “Con su gorro de nailos azul claro, su máscara de gas y sus guantes- manipulaba sangre, sudor y saliva, las tres eses de la contaminación, según se creía […] (Pájaros, 929). (With his light blue nylon bag, his gas mask and his gloves- he manipulated the sanguine, sweat and saliva, the three “s’s ” of contamination, that is what was thought […]) The novel confronts psyche susceptibility of those who suffer. The work focuses on the body’s suffering and its inevitable end: death. In Sarduy’s writing the body in the novel is transformed into a character, the text itself gains a sensorial vitality, which culminates in a deep metaphysical thought of the human condition and its mortality. Leonor and Justo Ulloa illustrate the importance of the body in Sarduy’s works in the article La obsesión del cuerpo en Severo Sarduy, “[…] el cuerpo se convierte más persistentemente en objeto de análisis y de profundas cavilaciones en torno a su mortalidad” (1641). Así, el cuerpo encarna al texto, su misma presencia es hechura finita, su presentencia es su fin: “Como medio comunicativo (el cuerpo) se convierte en objeto semántico, en texto o agente de la escritura que formula la trama y su significación (Ulloa 1635). (The Body Obsession in Severo Sarduy, “[…] the body converts itself most persistently into an object of analysis, its presence is its end: “As a mode of communication (the body) is converted into a semantic object, in the text or as an agent of writing which formulates the plot and its significance) (Ulloa 1635). In an interview, Sarduy explained the relationship between the reader and the text: “La percepción o el acceso que el lector tiene al texto no está en lo más mínimo regulado, digamos por la tradición literaria. Yo no pretendo en lo más mínimo que el lector capte todas las connotaciones que hay en el texto” (Alvarado, 6). (The perception or the access that the reader as to the text is not regulated in the slightest, let us say by literary tradition. I do not pretend to in the least, that the reader understand all of the connotations that there are in the text). Because of this, the argument/plot in Pájaros de la playa, permits us to see in fleeting moments, in the sections that have a great poetic content and long descriptions that appear to diminish the referent and opens the door to the arbitrariness of the sign. The pleasure of reading is perceived in the word and its playful prerogative in relation to the reader-text. The excess of the baroque reveal by its absence what is not narrated in the plot. The essay Severo Sarduy, o el sentido de saber en De dónde son los cantantes describes this element of the text, “Los seres que despliegan colores, arabescos, filigranas, transparencias y texturas que simulan otros seres u objetos, en realidad, entiende Sarduy, no copian nada, sino que son hipertélicos, van más allá de sus fines, exceden para nada” (Ponce, párr. 13). A second possible interpretation of the novel is the theme of aging. The condition of aging seems to take on a similar importance as “el mal” that has aged the young who are sick. The topic of aging initiates the text. In the following quote, we will witness the sick who are standing naked over the high rocks by the seashore, doing breathing exercises: No eran viejos caquéxicos y desdentados, las manos temblorosas y los ojos secos, los que envueltos en anchas camisolas, estaban sentados en los bancos de hierro adosados a las paredes del pentágono; eran jóvenes prematuramente marchitados por la falta de fuerza, golpeados de repente por el mal (Pájaros, 920). Siempreviva (Always Alive), the novel’s main character, fights against the sickness of aging, “Se levantaba al alba y acudía al tocador japonés de tres espejos donde deploraba sus estigmas de frente y de perfil. Con la diligencia de la cosmética trataba de conjurarlos” (Pájaros 926). This moment can perhaps seem to us as a moment of vanity can be traced to her youth, “Vestirse era entonces lo primero que hacía. Trajes con galones de oro, turbantes de lentejuelas concéntricas que miraban como ocelos, sarís de seda” (926). A love triangle develops between her, Caballo (horse), a new nurse and Caimán, a witch doctor, force her to reclaim her youth, even if only for an instant. The novel appears to present “el mal” with these synonyms relating to the aging/elderly process: the body’s oppression, the rigidity of the treatment, the hope of a cure and the meditations on death, life, memory, lost memories. These synonyms allow the topic of aging to encompass other areas, which are related to it, instead of limiting itself to the boundaries of aging itself. At times, those are sick are referred to as “old people”, and the true old lady, Siempreviva (Always Alive), appears sick and without energy because of the years that have past. “El mal” of the sick, that is perceived via the loneliness the lack of health, the memory of a euphoric past, and a none to distant death, is universalized in the dialogue between aging and the sickness precisely because of the common effects they have on the bodies of the sick and Siempreviva. What is left at the end is the (possible) recurring image of Siempreviva at the beach, in search of the body’s happiness and a yearning for her past. Lastly, another element, among countless others, which is highlighted in the text is intertextuality. This is demonstrated in the segmented diary, whereby the astronomer meditates about the sickness, ““[…] el astrónomo se había encerrado a pan y agua en su celda para redactar un diario sobre la extinción del cosmos y su metáfora: la enfermedad:” (960). This diary makes references to the body’s ailments and extends itself to a rigorous philosophical examination, which could be identified as Sarduy the person. “[…] el astrónomo se había encerrado a pan y agua en su celda para redactar un diario sobre la extinción del cosmos y su metáfora: la enfermedad:” (960). Roberto González Echevarría elaborates on the use of intertextuality in Sarduy’s works and its intrinsic relationship to the baroque: “I am still of the idea that the barroque is a phenomenon of intertextuality precisely because the intertextuality allows me to bring into function another element – to my judgement and essential one- the element of parody” (González, 45).