Attila by Javier Serena

Spanish ifction

Original title – Atila. Un eseritor indescifrable

Translator Katie Whittemore

Source – personal copy

I also recently ordered these, as I want to support Open Letter, which had lost some grant funds, by purchasing a few books from them that had caught my eye over the last few months. Open letter brought out two books with the same title, Attila. This is the one written by Javier Serena, a Spanish writer, whose other book examined the Chilean writer Roberto Bolaño. In this book, he features his fellow Spanish writer Alioscha Coll, who is the author of another book titled Attila, which he  wrote . He died shortly after this book was published, and it is now considered a masterpiece. Serena himself has spent time in Paris, which is where the book is set and where Alioscha Coll spent most of his adult life as a writer in Paris after he had left his studies as a doctor. What is captured is the time he spent writing his book and himself as a person.

This seemed to be his only aim: to finish the book as soon as possible, working around the clock, refusing to feel sorry for himself over Camille’s jilting, taking refuge in his idiosyncratic endeavor to string together words and thereby not confront the absolute isolation in which he was immersed. He clearly avoided the subject of his reclusion as we looked for the exit from the park, for as we climbed stairs and left ponds and leaf-strewn dirt paths behind us, Alioscha wanted only to talk about his recent reading and certain technical aspects of his book, making no mention of the despair I knew the young university student must have caused him. Nor did he confide in me when, having left the bounds of the park, we ran out of literary topics to discuss. As we moved farther from where I had found him, I remained uncertain whether Camille’s departure was a temporary, mutual decision, or if she had unilaterally resolved never to sleep in my friend’s company again.

Regardless of what Alioscha did or did not tell me, he certainly showed obvious signs of having gone too long with no one to talk to: it was partly the nervous way he had of speaking, his expressions more clipped and abundant than usual, along with the worsening of his physical appearance, evidenced by long greasy hair and obvious pallor.

He has a on/ off relatonship with his girlfriend

The book is divided into three parts, all of which revolve around the writing of his historical novel Attila. The book is told from the point of view of a friend of Coll, a fellow writer who talks about a hit man who may be caught out of time. From him not reading any modern novel. We see him later on diving into a bin of discarded books, hoping to find a lost gem of a book. He is described as a man who could sit and read a three-hundred-page novel in a single sitting, coming from a relatively well-off family with a number of his relatives having fame as well. This is a writer on the edge like a modern day figure from a Somerst Muagham novel, living in a one of those numerous small parish flats writers and arritst inhabit when trying to be famous and struggling to get by that was Coll he was a volatile man that had an up and down relationship with his girlfriend. But also struggles to be a writer in the modern age. He is drawn to history, and this current book he is writing, which is other book that Open Letter has published in this pair of books

This seemed to be his only aim: to finish the book as soon as possible, working around the clock, refusing to feel sony for himself over Camille’s jilting, taking refuge in his idiosyncratic endeavor to string together words and thereby not confront the absolute isolation in which he was immersed. He clearly avoided the subject of his reclusion as we looked for the exit from the park, for as we climbed stairs and left ponds and leaf-strewn dirt paths behind us, Alioscha wanted only to talk about his recent reading and certain technical aspects of his book, making no mention of the despair I knew the young university student must have caused him. Nor did he confide in me when, having left the bounds of the park, we ran out of literary topics to discuss. As we moved farther from where I had found him, I remained uncertain whether Camille’s departure was a temporary, mutual decision, or if she had unilaterally resolved never to sleep in my friend’s company again.

Regardless of what Alioscha did or did not tell me, he certainly showed obvious signs of having gone too long with no one to talk to: it was partly the nervous way he had of speaking, his expressions more clipped and abundant than usual,

As a character he capture Alioscha well .

 

I loved this. I picked this way around to read this fictional account of the writer. I’m not sure how much is the writer himself and how much is what Serena has imagined. But the bones of the story are the actual fact that he was writing this novel at the time the book was written, and he had struggled with his mental health. I do wonder how much is his and how much is Serena’s own experience as being a lone writer in Paris. However, the book captures a writer on the edge trying to be distinctive, as evident when he states in the book that he avoids modern writers of his age. This is a view of a soul trying to get his final book on paper, a book he knows is essential, but as he does this, his whole world is falling apart, and other things are happening./ An interesting mix of books to publish the book of the writer and the book from the said writer is an interesting idea. I will review the other Attila novel at a later date. Have you read either book?