Rodrigo Fresán (Buenos Aires, 1963) was born clinically stillborn. But the important thing is not how something begins, but how it ends. “I held on to life and, against all odds, I woke up. I came back to life to tell it, so I became a writer,” he reflects from an armchair at the headquarters of his publishing house, in busy Barcelona. The Argentine author has left his house in Vallvidrera – a temple of peace and writing – for a few hours to talk about his new book, The Style of the Elements (Random House), which hits bookstores this Thursday.
Its protagonist is Land, a boy who “is very clear that he does not want to be a writer but who ends up becoming one. Or, at least, something similar, since he writes about the lives of others. A kind of ghost writer of autobiographies.” A premise with which it is not clear whether or not Fresán meets the challenge that some friends proposed to him: giving life to a protagonist who was not a writer. “At the very least, it is not from the outset.”
The reader will follow Land in his childhood, adolescence and maturity throughout three large cities that, despite not being mentioned at any time, can be identified, since they are part of Fresán's own biography, such as Buenos Aires, Caracas and Barcelona. It is not especially important to recognize them, which is why they are not named. “I care more about how than where.” But it is an addition that can allow new readings although, he clarifies, “this is not a work of autofiction. My parents are not editors like the protagonist's. But there are a number of episodes, probably the most unlikely, that are connected to my life. For example, I pretended to go to school for two whole years and my parents didn't notice.”
Premeditated or not, the Argentinean's books usually have three common links: stories related to reading, writing and parent-child relationships. He already showed a predilection for them before having children and, over time, interest has only increased. “There are parts in which the protagonist harshly questions the attitudes of his parents, it is true. But, in no case. The book was written with a thirst for revenge. In fact, it looks more like a Wes Anderson film, because of its cross-sections and aesthetics.”
John Irving warned Fresán years ago that, when he had a son, he would remember the things that happened to him at each of his ages. "I was right. In fact, I wrote this book when he was 16 and 17 years old, like Land.” Who knows if that was a source of inspiration. It would not be strange given the admiration he professes for him, although he is grateful to life that the young man did not want to follow in his footsteps in the field of letters. “Knowing that he doesn't want to be a writer is a relief for me.” He does not believe that in the future the young man will be able to change his mind. “Being a writer is a childhood vocation. There are few cases of good late writers, like Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa with his Leopard. So I don't think he'll be encouraged if he hasn't done it already. But he has been in charge of designing the cover of the book.”
For Fresán, on the other hand, the vocation came alone, without warning, due to life circumstances, beyond the anecdote left by a complicated birth. “At four or five years old I remember not knowing how to read or write, but having the thought of wanting to learn as soon as possible so I could become a writer.” Part of that premature interest arose in his own house, always full of intellectuals, starting with his stepfather, the famous editor Paco Porrúa, who was often visited by writers of the stature of Rodolfo Walsh or Gabriel García Márquez.
Being born among books and being surrounded by them all his life allows him to affirm that “I would continue writing if the world ran out of readers. "It's the only thing I know how to do." A fear that Land expresses in the novel but that the writer is not too afraid of. “I have about twenty good years left in my profession, and I hope that doesn't happen in this period.”
Nor would I abandon reading in the most apocalyptic of scenarios. “You can be a reader without being a writer, but not the other way around. "It wouldn't make much sense." Among his readings, it is likely that Nabokov, one of his literary lights, will not be missing, nor Dracula, “a very important book for me because it was the first that I read in its complete original version and that provoked more sophisticated thoughts in me regarding the reading. I was not only interested in knowing how the plot progressed, but also how the text was put together. And Dracula only appears for thirty pages. The rest, Stoker plays with his absence. Furthermore, in the event that we run out of readers and writers, we can always call him, since, as reflected in the novel, it seems that everyone who knows this vampire cannot stop writing letters and diaries."
