The Rest is Silence - Augusto Monterroso

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The Rest is Silence

by
Augusto Monterroso

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Title:	The Rest is Silence
Author:	Augusto Monterroso
Genre:	Novel
Written:	1982 (Eng. 2024)
Length:	138 pages
Original in:	Spanish
Availability:	The Rest is Silence - US
	Lo demás es silencio - US
	The Rest is Silence - UK
	The Rest is Silence - Canada
	in Reif sein ist alles und der Rest ist Schweigen - Deutschland
	Il resto è silenzio - Italia
	Lo demás es silencio - España

	from: Bookshop.org (US)

Spanish title: Lo demás es silencio
Translated and with Notes by Aaron Kerner
With an Introduction by Dustin Illingworth

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Our Assessment:

A- : well-conceived and put together, and good fun

See our review for fuller assessment.

Review Summaries
Source	Rating	Date	Reviewer
World Lit. Today	.	Winter/1997	Naomi Lindstrom

From the Reviews:

"(A) full-length novel, Lo demás es silencio, which showcases the author's gift for cruel imitations of inept verbal expression." - Naomi Lindstrom, World Literature Today

Please note that these ratings solely represent the complete review's biased interpretation and subjective opinion of the actual reviews and do not claim to accurately reflect or represent the views of the reviewers. Similarly the illustrative quotes chosen here are merely those the complete review subjectively believes represent the tenor and judgment of the review as a whole. We acknowledge (and remind and warn you) that they may, in fact, be entirely unrepresentative of the actual reviews by any other measure.

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The complete review's Review:

       The Rest is Silence bears little resemblance to a traditional novel. It is presented as a Festschrift for Eduardo Torres, a locally prominent littérateur in (fictional) San Blas, Mexico, -- "that big city with all the charm of a small town, and vice versa" -- where he writes a column for the Sunday Cultural Supplement of El Heraldo de san Blas.
       The novel's title is also its epigraph, the Hamlet-quote suggesting that this volume might be considered complete, saying all there is to say about Torres. It's also the first hint of the games Monterroso plays, as the quote here is (wrongly) presented as taken from The Tempest (though that's also an appropriate play to keep in mind as Torres is presented here). The volume-proper then begins with an Epigraph -- "Composed by Torres himself, it will one day be engraved upon his tombstone", though he is still very much alive when this collection in his honor is put together (and, indeed, signed off on the book, its editor submitting it to him for approval before publication). Four parts then follow: 'Tributes'; selections from Torres' work; a selection of: 'Aphorisms, Maxims, etc.'; and a sonnet and analysis thereof. Torres also has to have the last word, so there is then also a short 'Addendum' -- 'A Final Point' made by Torres. Completing the volume is an 'Index of Names', as well as a two-page 'Bibliography' (and a list of 'Abbreviations Used in this Book') -- all giving the volume a quite convincing would-be scholarly veneer.
       The first of the tributes describes a scene in which Torres is practically begged to stand as candidate for the local governorship -- though the master declines. In other tributes his brother suggests that: "everything there is to say about E.Torres has most likely been said already", while his 'valet-secretary' suggests he is: "a man already too well-known, respected, and reviled in that miserable town for me to need to list his merits or eulogize his work" (while then also noting that: "the opinion currently held of him by the general public makes it impossible to say with any certainty whether at bottom the doctor was a vulgarian, a humorist, a sage, or a fool"). His wife weighs in, too -- noting that sometimes: "when I woke up and stretched I'd feel something strange and hard there between the two of us, and it was usually a volume of some novel, even Cervantes". The picture is of a man obsessed with reading and writing -- he studied law, too, but had no interest in practicing it --, admirable, of course, but they all also damn with their expressions of carefully qualified praise.
       Among the selection of Torres' own work then is, for example, a brief piece on 'A New Edition of the Quixote' -- complete with a reader's letter to the editor (or rather 'Carta Censoria') in response, expressing shock that a piece: "so plagued with ridiculous errors" (then enumerated) could be published. Torres also takes on translation, in 'Translators and Traitors' -- amusingly using as an example Christian Morgenstern's wordless visual poem, Fisches Nachtgesang (and offering two translations for comparison, a literal and a spiritual version ...).
       Torres' 'A Writer's Decalogue' has him offering his advice to would-be writers, such as:

Seventh. Never pursue success. Success undid Cervantes, who was an excellent novelist until he published the Quixote. Though success is always inevitable, be sure to screw up from time to time regardless, so as to generate sympathy among your friends.

Or:

Eleventh. Never forget the feelings of your readers. Generally speaking, feelings are all they have; not like you, who lack them entirely, otherwise you would never have tried to get into this profession.

       And, yes, Torres' decalogue is a list of twelve commandments -- supernumerary, so Torres, so that: "everyone can choose the ten that suit them, discarding two as they wish".
       An address given at a continental Congress of Writers offers another itemized list -- twenty-six commandments here, suggesting more of Torres' vision of the literary life and world, including the aspirational ("That we choose 'To write is to live' as our motto") as well as showing also a fixation on the male/female divide (though suggesting, for example, also: "That as an elementary courtesy, every book written by a female writer should be read before any book written by a male writer"). A collection of aphorisms and the like then offers pithy thoughts also on more general subjects -- "The best way to avoid death has always been to try to remain alive for as long as possible, provided of course that you don't make an effort so strenuous as to undermine the original idea", for example -- though also offering some literary advice (notably: "Poet, don't give your book away; destroy it yourself").
       There's also some literary (self-)reflection -- not least with Torres turning the tables on his creator , as it were, in 'Of Animals and Men', a review-essay on Monterroso's collection, The Black Sheep, amusingly having Torres judge the (true) master. In the final section then, a sonnet is presented -- 'The Burro of San Blas (Or, There's Always a Bigger Ass)' -- and then an essay -- "an impromptu contribution of unknown provenance" -- analyzing it in a 'play of mirrors' on the idea of authorship, reflecting also the game being played with and in this entire volume.
       A master of the short form, Monterroso's 'novel' is something of an assemblage of small and quite varied pieces -- a cleverly presented volume not so much of variations in form (though it is that too) but variations on a man, making for a full picture of this comic-serious figure. Monterroso doesn't go mainly for broad humor here; rather, he pricks at Torres with small, effective jabs -- from all angles. There are some inspired ideas here, and some of the pieces are exceptionally well-turned, but it's all good fun -- and well-dosed variety, as he doesn't rely on any one trick or approach for too long.
       The smaller touches, from the footnotes to the Index of Names and the Bibliography also show how attentive to detail Monterroso is, and The Rest is Silence is a beautiful piece of work -- a 'joke', but one that is meticulously, elaborately, and thoughtfully conceived and put together.

- M.A.Orthofer, 25 November 2024

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Links:

The Rest is Silence:

New York Review Books publicity page
Anagrama publicity page
Alianza editorial publicity page
Cátedra publicity page
Ediciones Era publicity page
Sellerio publicity page
Introduction by Dustin Illingworth
Excerpts

Reviews:

Other books by Augusto Monterroso under review:

Other books of interest under review:

Index of Latin and South American literature at the complete review
Other books from New York Review Books

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About the Author:

Augusto Monterroso, Guatemalan author, born in 1921 in Honduras, resident of Mexico since 1956. Winner of the Mexican Xavier Villaurrutia Prize in 1996 and the Prince of Asturias Award for Letters 2000. He died 7 February 2003.

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