If on a winter's night a traveler (23 page)

If an infidel were allowed to excogitate variants on the legends of the Prophet, I would venture this one: Abdullah loses his faith because in writing under dictation he makes a mistake and Mohammed, though he notices it, decides not to correct it, finding the mistaken form preferable. In this case, too, Abdullah would be wrong to be scandalized. It is on the page, not before, that the word,

even that of the prophetic raptus, becomes definitive, that is to say, becomes writing. It is only through the confining act of writing that the immensity of the nonwritten becomes legible, that is, through the uncertainties of spelling, the occasional lapses, oversights, unchecked leaps of the word and the pen. Otherwise what is outside of us should not insist on communicating through the word, spoken or written: let it send its messages by other paths. There: the white butterfly has crossed the whole valley, and from the reader's book has flown here, to light on the page I am writing.

Strange people circulate in this valley: literary agents awaiting my new novel, for which they have already collected advances from publishers all over the world; advertising agents who want my characters to wear certain articles of clothing and drink certain fruit juices; electronic technicians who insist on finishing my unfinished novels with a computer. I try to go out as little as possible; I avoid the village; if I want to take a walk, I choose the mountain trails.

Today I ran into a party of boys who looked like scouts, excited and yet meticulous, arranging some pieces of canvas on a meadow to form geometric patterns.

"Signals for planes?" I asked.

"For flying saucers," they answered. "We're UFO observers. This is a place of transit, a kind of aerial track that has seen a lot of activity lately. They think it's because a writer is living somewhere around here, and the inhabitants of the other planets want to use him for communication."

"What makes you believe that?" I asked.

"The fact is that for some time this writer has been undergoing a crisis and can't write any more. The newspapers are wondering what the reason can be. According to our calculations, it could be the inhabitants of other

worlds keeping him inactive, so that he will be drained of terrestrial conditionings and become receptive."

"But why him, particularly?"

"The extraterrestrials can't say things directly. They have to express themselves in an indirect way, a figurative way—for example, through stories that arouse unusual emotions. This writer apparently has a good technique and a certain elasticity of ideas."

"But have you read his books?"

"What he has written so far is of no interest. The book he will write when he emerges from the crisis is the one that could contain the cosmic communications."

'Transmitted to him how?"

"Mentally. He shouldn't even be aware of it. He would believe he is writing as he likes; instead, the message coming from space on waves picked up by his brain would infiltrate what he is writing."

"And would you succeed in decoding the message?"

They did not answer me.

When I think that the interplanetary expectation of these young people will be disappointed, I feel a certain sorrow. After all, I could easily slip into my next book something that might seem to them the revelation of a cosmic truth. For the present I have no idea of what I might invent, but if I start writing, an idea will come to me.

What if it were as they say? If, while I believe I am writing in fun, what I write were really dictated by the extraterrestrials?

It is no use my awaiting a revelation from the sidereal spaces: my novel is not progressing. If I were suddenly to begin filling page after page once more, it would be a sign that the galaxy is aiming its messages at me.

But the only thing I succeed in writing is this diary, the

contemplation of a young woman reading a book, and I do not know what book it is. Is the extraterrestrial message contained in my diary? Or in her book?

A girl came to see me who is writing a thesis on my novels for a very important university seminar in literary studies. I see that my work serves her perfectly to demonstrate her theories, and this is certainly a positive fact— for the novels or for the theories, I do not know which. From her very detailed talk, I got the idea of a piece of work being seriously pursued, but my books seen through her eyes prove unrecognizable to me. I am sure this Lotaria (that is her name) has read them conscientiously, but I believe she has read them only to find in them what she was already convinced of before reading them.

I tried to say this to her. She retorted, a bit irritated: "Why? Would you want me to read in your books only what you're convinced of?"

I answered her: "That isn't it. I expect readers to read in my books something I didn't know, but I can expect it only from those who expect to read something they didn't know."

(Luckily I can watch with my spyglass that other woman reading and convince myself that not all readers are like this Lotaria. )

"What you want would be a passive way of reading, escapist and regressive," Lotaria said. "That's how my sister reads. It was watching her devour the novels of Silas Flannery one after the other without considering any problems that gave me the idea of using those books as the subject of my thesis. This is why I read your works, Mr. Flannery, if you want to know: to show my sister, Ludmilla, how to read an author. Even Silas Flannery."

"Thank you for that 'even.' But why didn't you bring your sister with you?"

"Ludmilla insists it's better not to know authors person-

ally, because the real person never corresponds to the image you form of him from reading his books."

I would say that she could be my ideal reader, this Ludmilla.

Yesterday evening, on entering my study, I saw the shadow of a stranger escaping through the window. I tried to pursue him, but I found no trace of him. Often I seem to hear people hidden in the bushes around the house, especially at night.

Though I leave the house as little as possible, I have the impression that someone is disturbing my papers. More than once I have discovered that some pages were missing from my manuscripts. A few days afterward I would find the pages in their place again. But often I no longer recognize my manuscripts, as if I had forgotten what I had written, or as if overnight I were so changed that I no longer recognized myself in the self of yesterday.

I asked Lotaria if she has already read some books of mine that I lent her. She said no, because here she doesn't have a computer at her disposal.

She explained to me that a suitably programmed computer can read a novel in a few minutes and record the list of all the words contained in the text, in order of frequency. 'That way I can have an already completed reading at hand," Lotaria says, "with an incalculable saving of time. What is the reading of a text, in fact, except the recording of certain thematic recurrences, certain insistences of forms and meanings? An electronic reading supplies me with a list of the frequencies, which I have only to glance at to form an idea of the problems the book suggests to my critical study. Naturally, at the highest frequencies the list records countless articles, pronouns, particles, but I don't pay them any attention. I head straight for the words richest in meaning; they can give me a fairly precise notion of the book."

Lotaria brought me some novels electronically transcribed, in the form of words listed in the order of their frequency. "In a novel of fifty to a hundred thousand words," she said to me, "I advise you to observe immediately the words that are repeated about twenty times. Look here. Words that appear nineteen times:

blood, cartridge belt, commander, do, have, immediately, it, life, seen, sentry, shots, spider, teeth, together, your... "Words that appear eighteen times:

boys, cap, come, dead, eat, enough, evening, French, go, handsome, new, passes, period, potatoes, those, until... "Don't you already have a clear idea what it's about?" Lotaria says. "There's no question: it's a war novel, all action, brisk writing, with a certain underlying violence. The narration is entirely on the surface, I would say; but to make sure, it's always a good idea to take a look at the list of words used only once, though no less important for that. Take this sequence, for example:

underarm, underbrush, undercover, underdog, underfed, underfoot, undergo, undergraduate, underground, undergrowth, underhand, underprivileged, undershirt, underwear, underweight... "No, the book isn't completely superficial, as it seemed. There must be something hidden; I can direct my research along these lines."

Lotaria shows me another series of lists. "This is an entirely different novel. It's immediately obvious. Look at the words that recur about fifty times:

had, his, husband, little, Riccardo (51) answered, been, before, has, station, what (48) all, barely, bedroom, Mario, some, times (47) morning, seemed, went, whom (46) should (45) hand, listen, until, were (43) Cecilia, Delia, evening, girl, hands, six, who, years (42) almost, alone,

could, man, returned, window (41) me, wanted (40) life (39)

"What do you think of that? An intimatist narration, subtle feelings, understated, a humble setting, everyday life in the provinces ... As a confirmation, we'll take a sample of words used a single time:

chilled, deceived, downward, engineer, enlargement, fattening, ingenious, ingenuous, injustice, jealous, kneeling, swallow, swallowed, swallowing... "So we already have an idea of the atmosphere, the moods, the social background... . We can go on to a third book:

according, account, body, especially, God, hair, money, times, went (29) evening, flour, food, rain, reason, somebody, stay, Vincenzo, wine (38) death, eggs, green, hers, legs, sweet, therefore (36) black, bosom, children, day, even, ha, head, machine, make, remained, stays, stuffs, white, would (35) "Here I would say we're dealing with a full-blooded story, violent, everything concrete, a bit brusque, with a direct sensuality, no refinement, popular eroticism. But here again, let's go on to the list of words with a frequency of one. Look, for example:

ashamed, shame, shamed, shameful, shameless, shames, shaming, vegetables, verify, vermouth, virgins... "You see? A guilt complex, pure and simple! A valuable indication: the critical inquiry can start with that, establish some working hypotheses.... What did I tell you? Isn't this a quick, effective system?"

The idea that Lotaria reads my books in this way creates some problems for me. Now, every time I write a word, I see it spun around by the electronic brain, ranked

according to its frequency, next to other words whose identity I cannot know, and so I wonder how many times I have used it, I feel the whole responsibility of writing weigh on those isolated syllables, I try to imagine what conclusions can be drawn from the fact that I have used this word once or fifty times. Maybe it would be better for me to erase it.... But whatever other word I try to use seems unable to withstand the test.... Perhaps instead of a book I could write lists of words, in alphabetical order, an avalanche of isolated words which expresses that truth I still do not know, and from which the computer, reversing its program, could construct the book, my book.

I have encountered the sister of that Lotaria who is writing a thesis on me. She came unannounced, as if she were passing the house by chance. She said, "I am Ludmilla. I have read all your novels."

Aware that she didn't want to know authors personally, I was surprised to see her. She said her sister always had a partial view of things; for this reason, too, after Lotaria had spoken to her of our meetings, she wanted to check in person, as if to confirm my existence, since I correspond to her ideal model of writer.

This ideal model—to say it in her words—is the author who produces books "as a pumpkin vine produces pumpkins." She also used other metaphors of natural processes that follow their course unperturbed—the wind that shapes the mountain, the wrack of the tides, the annual circles in the bole of trees—but these were metaphors of literary creation in general, whereas the image of the pumpkin referred directly to me.

"Are you angry with your sister?" I asked her, feeling in her words a polemical tone, as of someone accustomed to sustaining her own opinions in argument with others.

"No, with somebody else whom you also know," she said.

Without too much effort I was able to elicit the story behind her visit. Ludmilla is the friend, or the ex-friend, of that translator Marana, for whom literature is more worthwhile the more it consists of elaborate devices, a complex of cogs, tricks, traps.

"And, in your opinion, what I do is different?"

"I've always thought that you write the way some animals dig holes or build anthills or make beehives."

"I'm not sure what you say is very flattering for me," I replied. "In any case, here, now that you see me, I hope you haven't been disappointed. Do I correspond to the image you had formed of Silas Flannery?"

"I'm not disappointed. On the contrary. But not because you correspond to an image: because you are an absolutely ordinary person, as I was expecting, in fact."

"My novels give you the idea of an ordinary person?"

"No, you see ... The novels of Silas Flannery are something so well characterized ... it seems they were already there before, before you wrote them, in all their details.... It's as if they passed through you, using you because you know how to write, since, after all, there has to be somebody to write them.... I wish I could watch you while you're writing, to see if it really is like that...."

I feel a stab of pain. For this girl I am nothing but an impersonal graphic energy, ready to shift from the unexpressed into writing an imaginary world that exists independently of me. God help me if she knew that I no longer have anything of what she imagines: neither expressive energy nor something to express.

"What do you think you would be able to see? I can't write if somebody is watching me ..." I reply.

She explains that she believes she has understood this: the truth of literature consists only in the physicality of the act of writing.