The story goes more or less like this. The coordinator of the cultural supplement (from now on, C) thought of commissioning a piece explaining why Quim Monzó (Q) likes the stories of Etgar Keret (K) so much. The curiosity is justified: every time the publisher La Segona Perifèria de Miquel Adam (A), in the Catalan language, publishes a collection of stories or an anthology by K, Q melts in praise towards K on the old social network Twitter (X).
It has happened again. Not long ago, we have on the market, a debatable title that is the Catalan version of отукоркт or AutocorrectK’s last book published in 2024. A has had it translated from the Hebrew into (SK), as he had already done with The ages of man. Q, having received the new mandanga, did not miss the appointment and wrote to X: “So far, Keret never disappoints. If you take advice, do not miss this book”, triggering C’s curiosity with which this story begins.
The authority of Q, a supposedly living legend of native letters, is such that all reviews or interviews with K in Catalan are forced to mention their predilection for the Israeli’s work. And not only that. C also knows, from previous experience, that any text where Q appears will get a lot of hits. For this he turns to the columnist Bonet (B), . Here we pause for a moment the succession of events and introduce a reflection. Although for years there were dozens of imitators and continuers of Q’s style in Catalonia, the truth is that there has not been one that has been consolidated and the road has collapsed. Instead, anyone would say that his legacy has blossomed, delocalized, just at the other end of the Mediterranean in the work of K. B takes the pencil and jots down this thought, which he judges brilliant, in a margin ofThe blues of the end of the world.
Although it is difficult to compare, it seems obvious to B that there are points of contact between the two storytellers. Especially among the last stories of Q, those ofThe best of both worlds i A thousand cretinsfull of silent micro-violence and “private hells”. In K’s new book, colored by the concurrence of the war in the Middle East, the stories, in addition to making you laugh as always, also make you cry. But B doesn’t stick to his opinion. He wants more, and asks editor A, who tells him: “Perhaps I would say that Keret condenses in two or three pages situations similar to those that Monzó unfolds in stories of fifteen or twenty. This means that many things happen in Keret’s stories and they are very electric, having to sacrifice, of course, the irony that Monzó prints in the details. Irony yes, but not the monumental black humor, which seems to me to be the clearest point of connection between the two writers”.
B knows that Q reads K. But does K read Q? Through A, he conveys the question to K’s literary agent, Gal (G), who, pending the answer, is completely certain of K’s monsoonism. In fact, G knows that K uses a story by Q in his classes on creative writing in New York and Be’er Sheva, “the story of a woman who puts a dirty fork at her husband in a restaurant,” says G. Since B can’t remember what the story is, he asks his chief monsoonist, Edgar Illas of Indiana University (I). He identifies it instantly. It’s ‘The pitchfork’, from A thousand cretins. Professor I also takes the opportunity to have his say: “I would say that they both share a style and positioning insofar as they write about the tension between postmodern perplexity and the context of the Catalan or Israeli conflict.”
Still perplexed by I’s academic standing, B gets K’s reply. Of course he knows Q, and confesses that X’s compliments make him blush. On the other hand, he explains why ‘The Fork’ works in class: “It’s a story that draws strength not from the characters or the plot, but from the point of view of the narrative. It tells the story of a marriage from the perspective of a diner sitting next to him, able to perceive something that the husband will never know simply because he’s sitting at a different angle. It’s this deep understanding of the mechanisms of a story and of humanity (which are so often the same) which makes Monzó an essential teacher for any storyteller”.
We are getting close to the denouement. B thinks, sharply, that he needs one last angle to illuminate the story. Q’s. So he pulls to the right and shares K’s message with him. He replies: “I really like Keret. He’s precise and efficient, and he doesn’t use farbalans. I don’t like comparing books. I didn’t know Illas’ theory and I just didn’t see it clearly. I’m glad Keret uses ‘The Fork’ in his college classes. I had no idea. The story of ‘The Fork’ comes from observing a fact that it happened, literally, in a restaurant in Maçanet de Cabrenys. I was at the table next to the couple who were having lunch there and I was surprised by what happened discreetly. I tried to transcribe it as simply as possible.”
B thinks he can claim that all of them—A, G, I, K, and Q—have precise and efficient answers to C’s question. In any case, he says, satisfied, he has tried to transcribe it as simply as possible.
The blues of the end of the world
Etgar Frame
Translation by Paul Sánchez Keighley
The Second Periphery
192 pages. 18.95 euros
