{"id":133863,"date":"2019-02-22T09:00:03","date_gmt":"2019-02-22T14:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=133863"},"modified":"2019-02-22T16:49:20","modified_gmt":"2019-02-22T21:49:20","slug":"novels-defeat-the-law-of-diminishing-returns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/02\/22\/novels-defeat-the-law-of-diminishing-returns\/","title":{"rendered":"Novels Defeat the Law of Diminishing Returns"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

C\u00e9sar Aira. Photo: Nina Subin.<\/p><\/div>\n

You can\u2019t write a novel the night before dying. Not even one of the very short novels that I write. I could make them shorter, but it still wouldn\u2019t work. The novel requires an accumulation of time, a succession of different days: without that, it isn\u2019t a novel. What has been written one day must be affirmed the next, not by going back to correct it (which is futile) but by pressing on, supplying the sense that was lacking by advancing resolutely. This seems magical, but in fact it\u2019s how everything works; living, for a start. In this respect, which is fundamental, the novel defeats the law of diminishing returns, reformulating it and turning it to advantage.<\/p>\n

This law, which I\u2019m always referring to, can be explained in the following way: imagine there\u2019s a steel spring, a yard high, standing on the ground. We put a three-pound weight on it, and it goes down thirty-two inches, so now the spring\u2019s just four inches high, but to make it go down another inch, you have to add a weight of three hundred pounds. And then to make it go down another fraction of an inch, you have to pile on tons \u2026 The same thing happens in intellectual work, not because there is some necessary relation between the intellectual and the physical, it just happens to happen\u2014analogy wins out. Somebody opens up a new field of artistic or intellectual endeavor and in that initial impetus occupies it almost entirely. The classic case is Euclid: once he had the fundamental idea, he was able to complete his book within a few days, or perhaps a few hours, and geometry was done. In the two thousand years that followed, an innumerable legion of geometers, dedicating their whole lives to the field, could do no more than add a few superfluous details. This, of course, is not an example. It\u2019s what actually happened. The fact that something similar happened in other cases (Freud, Darwin) shows that the law of diminishing returns is valid, but doesn\u2019t reduce the protagonists to examples because each particular case is, by definition, a historical whole. That totality is reconstructed each time an artist discovers his or her style. To discover a style is to realize it, in a complete and finished form, and after that there\u2019s nothing left to do except to go on producing. Since artists generally reach this point while they\u2019re still young, they spend the rest of their lives in an atmosphere of futility and disquiet, if not outright anxiety in the face of what seems a colossal task, which would require ten lifetimes to complete, and even then would yield very meager fruit: compressing the spring another fraction of an inch, taking one more step after leaping a thousand leagues \u2026<\/p>\n

I thought I had found a way out of this trap, a daily, livable solution, in the writing of novels, since they keep putting off the artistic consummation that serves to justify them. Kafka must have been thinking along these lines when he complained about interruptions and said that a story would spoil if he couldn\u2019t get the whole thing written in one sitting. But for him, writing novels was not a solution, because they became unfinishable. I solved the problem in my own way, by taking the fine art of botching to a new level. I was so bored and ashamed by what I was doing, I felt that I might as well die as soon as the novel was done, but not before, because no one else would know how to finish it. So I would rush on to the end, always arriving sooner than I\u2019d expected (sacrificing quality, it\u2019s true), and then as a mark of relief, I would inscribe the date at the foot of the final page.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Not only is it impossible to write a novel the night before \u201cthe distinguished thing\u201d (Henry James); in reality, in practice, novels are rarely written in the weeks or months or years leading up to it. Novelists tend to retire well before that. I did, a few years ago, although I have maintained a respectable semblance of activity. It happened gradually, and at first I didn\u2019t even notice that I was no longer writing novels. I wrote first chapters, gave up, set them aside for later, had a better idea \u2026 And all that remained was a feeling of dissatisfaction and impotence.<\/p>\n

Eventually I realized where the problem lay: in what has been called \u201cthe invention of circumstantial details,\u201d that is, precise notations concerning the place, the time, the characters, their clothes, their gestures, all the things that set the scene. It began to seem ridiculous and childish, this fussiness in the realm of fantasy, this information about things that don\u2019t really exist. But without circumstantial details you don\u2019t have a novel, or you do but it\u2019s abstract and disembodied, and what\u2019s the point of that? When I became aware of this block, I began to look for a solution, because I don\u2019t really want to give up writing, but I can\u2019t see any way around it. Perversely and predictably enough, the only plots that occur to me now require the abundant invention of circumstantial details. Faithful to my \u201cflight-forward\u201d procedure, I tried to turn the problem into a theme and write about it, but by its very nature this is one of the trickiest things to thematize.<\/p>\n

Actually, I have nothing against circumstantial details. There\u2019s nothing wrong with them; on the contrary, I am grateful to them for the major part of my readerly pleasures over the years. They have always been used in the writing of novels, and I still admire good novels, as much as I ever did, or more. The author invents a character, and for that character to do things in the unfolding daydream of the novel, he has to walk down a street or sit in an armchair, enter a house, follow the flight of a fly, feel cold or hot; then a dog barks, or a rooster crows, the window is ajar, or wide open, or shut; the character\u2019s tie is \u2026 green \u2026 okay, okay. All that and much more. It has to be done, there\u2019s no alternative. But why does it have to be done by me<\/em>? There\u2019s a reason why reading is more fun than writing. Why can\u2019t someone else do it? Why can\u2019t they have done it already<\/em>? Circumstantial details are not so bad when you think of them as ready-mades. Once written down, they take on an air of necessity, almost like real things. But in the moment of inventing them, they\u2019re so childish, so silly \u2026 Just thinking about it fills me with an invincible despondency.<\/p>\n

What is to be done, then? \u201cWhat is to be done?\u201d (Lenin.) That is what I spent my life doing; it\u2019s all I know how to do. And now I don\u2019t want to do it. Maybe I should change direction, find a new activity. I\u2019ve often thought about it; and perhaps this is the time to act, prompted by my aversion to one of the art\u2019s essential technicalities. But I really don\u2019t know how to do anything else, so if I stopped writing \u2026 What would I do? Live? That\u2019s the classic answer. Which presupposes that I haven\u2019t been living up till now. \u201cLiving\u201d would be what lies ineffably beyond all renunciations and relinquishments: illumination, the Grand Prize. But no, I can\u2019t believe that. It\u2019s ridiculous, an adolescent clich\u00e9. I can\u2019t believe I ever took it seriously, even for a second.<\/p>\n

And yet the formula that I keep repeating to myself as incantation and talisman is: \u201cI haven\u2019t lived.\u201d Really? What did I do then? What did I do in fifty years? I could draw up a fairly long list because, after all, I\u2019ve done a lot, and yet I insist: I haven\u2019t lived. Thousands of things have happened to me, but not the things that should have happened. For example (except that it\u2019s not an example), I have never spoken with the dead, unlike the waitress I met in Pringles. That\u2019s why I can\u2019t hold up my end of a normal conversation. I have to keep quiet, listening to what the other person says, and later on, wandering around on my own in the labyrinths of my fantasy, I come up with something I might have said or done and promptly note it down, and then I wedge it into the unfinished novel that I have conveniently at hand, whether it fits or not. That\u2019s where \u201ccircumstantial details\u201d come from, basically. No wonder I\u2019ve ended up loathing them.<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t talk with a dead-brother-Jesus because I\u2019m not a believer. I\u2019m the sort of person who doesn\u2019t believe in anything. Which is nothing to be proud of because not believing is a sign of immaturity or inexperience. If things had happened to me, I would have no choice but to believe in them. Except that I\u2019m a maximalist and I say: Even if I saw it with my own eyes, I wouldn\u2019t believe it. If the Virgin appeared to me in all her splendor, my disbelief would find a firm footing, and I would become a true unbeliever. This seems to me the only honest position, since to be skeptical in a provisional way, while waiting for a miracle, is the height of credulity.<\/p>\n

I have been tested in this respect by a kind of miracle in reverse, a bad miracle: losing the two dearest friends of my adult life. Osvaldo and Jorgito died young: at forty-five and fifty-four respectively. In both cases, when it happened, I took refuge in the most intransigent denial. Under the illusion that they were still alive, I planned our reunions, imagined how we\u2019d laugh at the misunderstanding \u2026 This is a common reaction; it must be a natural defense mechanism. It takes a while to get used to the idea. \u201cI can\u2019t believe it \u2026\u2009\u201d Perhaps the sole purpose of belief in general is to prepare its own negation and thereby help us through hard times. But the thing is, I still don\u2019t believe it. I can\u2019t believe that Osvaldo is dead. I can\u2019t believe that Jorgito is dead. I just can\u2019t. I remember Osvaldo saying: \u201cI can\u2019t believe that Per\u00f3n has died.\u201d He must have come round to it in the end, because he was normal. And the waitress in Pringles said that she didn\u2019t believe in the death of her brother, but she was refusing to believe in one thing in order to believe in another, using her disbelief as a springboard. She was normal too, at least more normal than I am. In the end you believe in things because they have gone beyond the phase of their invention and actually occurred.<\/p>\n

I once wrote, in all sincerity, that I take no measures to preserve my health or safety, because it isn\u2019t worth the trouble. To treat a life like mine as precious would be inelegant; or, to put it another way, the only elegant thing to do with such a life is to hold it in scorn, or at least to remain perfectly indifferent to its continuity or interruption. If I think about it, I have to conclude that there are two cases and only two in which I would look after myself: if I were a genius or a millionaire. Only then would I be able to do everything (in my hallucinations or in reality, respectively: either would be fine) and that would give me a reason to want what almost everybody wants: to go on living indefinitely, because to do everything, or anything at all, you have to be alive. By an amazing coincidence my two friends fulfilled those conditions, and I wonder now if that\u2019s why they were my friends: Osvaldo was a genius, Jorgito a millionaire. Literally, not metaphorically. They died, and I survived.<\/p>\n

If I stopped writing, I would feel there was nothing left; it would be like demolishing a bridge that I haven\u2019t yet crossed. If I go on living, I\u2019ll certainly go on writing. I\u2019ll work out some way to do it. But not if I die tomorrow. Tomorrow, of course, I\u2019ll have finished and dated this book. I\u2019m hurrying to finish it today, rushing on blindly and deafly; the only thing that matters to me at this point is getting to the end, and actually there\u2019s nothing to stop me doing that right now.<\/p>\n

If I had to sum up, I would formulate the problem like this: all my life I pursued knowledge, but I pursued it outside time, and time took its revenge by unfolding elsewhere. That\u2019s why experience taught me nothing, and knowledge remained on the plane of hallucination. And now I find that even that plane is abandoning me, folding up and vanishing \u2026 In a good novel the illusion is achieved by accumulating circumstantial details, which is a task that requires belief. You have to believe the day before you do it, and the following day, you have to have believed.<\/p>\n

I say \u201cday\u201d because I\u2019m immersed in this day, on which I will finish and date a book. And because death also happens on a particular day. I could say \u201cyears\u201d or \u201cdecades.\u201d But my years and decades have already gone by. To write, you have to be young; to write well, you have to be a young prodigy. By the time you get to fifty, much of that energy and precision is gone.<\/p>\n

July 18, 1999<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2014Translated from the Spanish by Chris Andrews<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Nominated for the Neustadt Prize and the Man Booker International Prize, C\u00e9sar Aira was born in Coronel Pringles, Argentina, in 1949. He has published at least ninety books and was most recently the creator and curator of a limited-edition art piece, <\/em>The Valise, for MoMA.<\/em><\/p>\n

The poet Chris Andrews teaches at Western Sydney University in Australia, where he is a member of the Writing and Society Research Centre. He has translated books by Roberto Bola\u00f1o and C\u00e9sar Aira for New Directions.<\/em><\/p>\n

By C\u00e9sar Aira, translated by Chris Andrews, from <\/em>Birthday<\/a>, copyright \u00a9 2001 by C\u00e9sar Aira, translation copyright \u00a9 2019 by Chris Andrews. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

C\u00e9sar Aira turns seventy this Saturday. 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