Lars Iyer Bercakap Tentang Novel Vila-Matas

Montano's Malady: Kesesakan pembaca dalam sastera

Di dalam artikelnya Nude in Your Hot Tub, Lars Iyer turut menyebut tentang kelesuan terhadap sastera dalam novel Enrique Vila-Matas Montano's Malady:

Vila-Matas’ narrator has even fewer options available to him than Kafka. The structures of religion had collapsed for Kafka, leaving him in the realm of allegory, but for Vila-Matas, even the structures of allegory have collapsed, even the structure of narrative itself have fallen into ruin. Even Kafka could tell a story, but this is beyond Vila-Mata’s narrator. Whereas Kafka was born too late for religion, we are all born too late for Literature. As the narrator of Montano replays the lives and works of literary legends, he shows only how remote these figures have become for us, these writers who Literature itself already seemed to keep at a distance. Literature is moving away from us just as it was moving away from our literary predecessors—from diarists like Gide, who, as described in Montano’s Malady, is forever dreaming of writing a Masterpiece. For the idea of a Masterpiece—or even dreaming of writing a Masterpiece—is itself part of literary kitsch. This is what the narrator means when he claims that literature itself suffers from Montano’s malady: Montano’s sickness—seeing the world in terms of Literature—is also Literature’s, a mirror that can no longer reflect the world.    

Keuzuran sastera. Adakah tubuh orang tua aman ini akan bangun semula untuk mendakap kesengsaraan kita?