Because You Never Asked

(6/10, Spain )

     My literary guru in Spain, Pepin Mari, aforementioned in these pages on numerous occasions, cultured Catalan gentleman and devoted follower of the Barcelona Football Club (like all cultured Catalan gentlemen), introduced me to Eduardo Mendoza many years ago. Mendoza, also a Catalan gentleman, is one of those writers you might turn to after plowing through a tedious read you were glad to get done with. Mendoza is one of those writers who will never fail you. He’s what is referred to as a “stopper” in baseball parlance, that pitcher who is so good that no losing streak can last beyond his next start. Mendoza’s combination of intellect and geniality make him what I consider the most prized commodity in any art form: a profound, enlightened thinker whose style is within the grasp of most anyone.

     He’s one of the all time greats.

     Among Pepin’s candy store of reading this year was an entry by Eduardo Mendoza called “El Final de Dubslav” (Dubslav’s End). It is a piece with an awkward length of 40 pages, not quite a novel, too long to be considered a short story, the kind of effort an unconsecrated writer could never get published. “Well, what is it? A story? A novel? Sorry, it just doesn’t fit our plans.” But once a writer has become Eduardo Mendoza, none of that is relevant anymore. He could write, “the glop came strutting through the borscht on the erotic clit of porcupine dust” and have thousands of copies published immediately, along with a blurb stating it is the finest piece of Hispanic literature since Cervantes returned from the wars in Africa.

     And why not? Mendoza is so good I’d be willing to read his shopping list.

     “El Final de Dubslav” is a sublime effort that can only ride into existence on the efforts of a chosen few at the top of their game. It’s as if the artist has struck some musical chord of perfection or tapped into that mythical “ohm” that puts all things into that heavenly state of harmony. Athletes call it “being in the zone”.

     The bulk of this essay will be my translation of the last 3 pages of the story in question. Mendoza has probably been translated to English but his fame in the Anglo world cannot be considered what the word itself means. This makes my efforts a worthwhile endeavor for 2 reasons: 1) almost none of you have ever read Mendoza, and 2) the material I’ll put forth has a quality that could be flirting with some kind of “universal truth”, a concept of such elusive properties that even its existence is open to doubt. Picture yourself as that proverbial pilgrim in search of that legendary wise man, mystic, guru, that one person reputed to know the “secret of life”. This might be it.

     “El Final de Dubslav” goes something like this: Dubslav, the story’s protagonist, is engendered out of wedlock on a superficial night of passion. His parents are renowned scientists who met at a conference in their specialty and never saw each other again. When his mother learns of her pregnancy, she decides to have the baby on her own. Although her work, along with her personality, dissuades her from having a tender relationship with her son, she provides for his education and material needs in a more than adequate way. Dubslav grows up to be a misanthropic loner who spends his life traveling aimlessly in search of some kind of meaning in his or anyone else’s life. Near the end of the story, Dubslav, who has some kind of congenital heart problem he knows will end his days soon, gets word that his mother has both died and received a prestigious Nobel Prize-like award. He decides to go to the ceremony and accept the award for his mother. He gives the following acceptance speech:

     “Your Majesty, very illustrious members of the Jury, distinguished guests --- above all else I want to express my appreciation for having been granted this European Prize for Scientific Realization in ophthalmology. On such occasions, the recipient usually says he does not deserve such a magnificent award but I will not say that. In the first place, this award is not magnificent. It’s really a lot of bull. All such awards are, but this one surely takes the cake, although in my case it is not undeserved. I am not an expert in ophthalmology, I know nothing about ophthalmology, I’m not even a doctor. Therefore, by making off with this award, I do no harm to anyone. In truth, the award consists of this horrible statue and a measure of publicity, which is not worth a damn to me. The true recipient of the award did work in the field of ophthalmology, but will no longer do so, nor will she benefit from the publicity, nor see the statue. But have no fear: I am not an impostor. As the only son and universal heir of the winner, I have full right to the prize. As a result, I will take the statue and if a financial prize is attached to such, I’ll take that too. Perhaps I’ll deliver it to an opthalmological center of investigation, or perhaps not; I’ll do what I damn well please and give no explanations to anyone. If I spend the money on crap, even better.

     “With regard to myself, there is little to say. I am an absurd man. I was conceived in an absurd way, raised in an absurd way, and my whole life has been spent developing and perfecting this absurdity. Without knowing it, I was preparing myself for this ceremony all along. Check it out, not even this tuxedo is mine. A man had to die in order for it to end up in my hands (another recipient had died suddenly that same evening, a Dr. Tamborrini). He should be here before you in this tuxedo and I should be here before you dressed in filthy rags. That would have made my presence exemplary, if not symbolic. Perhaps that is why fate has preferred this tuxedo to find its way to me. In truth, pestilent rags are not my habitual wardrobe either. I am not a bum. I am a traveler, an explorer. My travels have taught me nothing, but they mess up my clothes a lot. In any event, the tuxedo is cool.

     “I have passed much of my life alone and don’t explain myself well. My explanations generally go from the trivial to the confused. (---) But some time ago, in Berlin, while walking one night in a lonely park, I received a warning. It was the first warning and I did not know how to interpret it. The second warning came a short while ago on a beach of the Costa Brava. This time I was ready, but I interpreted it poorly. Finally, this afternoon, first in the Grande Place and later in the room of the now defunct professor Tamborrini, I have understood the reason for my voyage, the sense of my search and the justification for my errors. Don’t expect any message here because there is none, at least that I know. I am not a visionary, only a man convinced of his own absurdity. I am absurd because I have lived without purpose, but I had no alternative. All our goals are absurd. Wealth only brings a false sense of comfort and, in reality, makes an idiot of the rich man and reaps the animosity of the rest. A short while ago, in the Grande Place, a group of tourists came to my aid; perhaps if I had not been dressed in rags, if I had been wearing this tuxedo with the fancy buttons, they would have left me sprawled on the pavement thinking a rich man in such a state had to be a fool, a victim of his own stupidity. Nevertheless, poverty brutalizes one even more; it gets you no sympathy, at best, a small amount of commiseration.

     “This prize is a demonstration of success, but the quest for success is a hair brained idea. Before it arrives it is only cause for anxiety. When it arrives it is even worse: your life doesn’t stop and the success casts its ominous shadow. It must constantly be repeated and turns into a heavy burden to bear. One needs it, all the time, but now you have some idea of its uselessness.

     “Nevertheless, of all of these quests or ambitions, the worst of all is the search for knowledge. The concept of knowledge is as irrational as that of wealth or success, and even more illusory. I never pursued it, but confess to always having such an idea present, barely in my sight, like a far off lighthouse. I learned of the uselessness of this dream too late. I learned of the value of ignorance too late. Not a narrow minded ignorance rooted in fear of the unknown, but an accepted ignorance, benign and disciplined. It is not a rejection of knowledge, but an acceptance that our efforts to acquire it are fruitless, that we should not violate the realm of the incomprehensible, that we should live and die without asking nor being asked the reason for one thing or the other.

     (---) “I don’t know if any of this is relevant to those of you who are sitting here tonight. You are useful people, capable of keeping the world in a fictitious but efficient state of cohesion and progress thanks to your infinite capacity to corrupt and be corrupted into believing in the value of the futile. I am not reprehending or congratulating you. Compared to the rest of humanity you are neither better nor worse, just a bit more evolved, thanks to the scientific and philosophical progress of our fictitious civilization. Our abandonment of primitive life forms and our desire to seek the path of this fictitious progress has not led us to a better state of being, but neither is it worse. Our old, primitive existence already carried with it the same level of deception: it is impossible to understand the sense of things, but it is also impossible to live in a state of indifference. And therein lays the contradiction. Right here, in this very moment, we are all knowingly deceiving ourselves just as the savages did when they performed their equally tedious and idiotic dances and rituals. But that is not our real sin. In reality, there is no sin other then our conceit and snobbery. We are a brutal, conceited species, but the conceit is worse. Because of this conceit, we pursue unreachable goals instead of trying to find a way to reduce our never ending brutality --- “

     At this point Dubslav took sick and had his fatal heart attack. But he endured on his feet long enough for the audience to believe he’d concluded. Enthusiastic applause, approbatory applause accompanied him in his last moments.

     The frightening element of this speech is that if there is something universal in its message, something that taps into a basic, unavoidable existential fact of life, it discredits just about everything a Post Consumer Man, an Eduardo Mendoza, a Hegel, Kant, Ortega y Gassett, Keynes, Einstein or Yogi Berra might try to do. But it also seems to be saying we are incapable of not attempting these things, that “it is impossible to live in a state of indifference”. Even Dubslav-Mendoza, the passionate purveyor of this pessimistic message, shows this inability to live in a state of indifference. Isn’t he leaving the door of hope just slightly cracked open when he says, “--- instead of trying to force ourselves to reduce our never ending brutality.”? Isn’t he offering a dim chance of salvation there, a chance for resolution? Isn’t the positive reaction of the audience a faint whiff of optimism?

     I feel better. I guess I’ll keep writing these words of dubious philosophical patter.