In October 1982, the Catalan publisher Bruguera published in Argentina the first edition of There will be no more sorrows or forgetfulness, from Osvaldo Soriano. Like the almost brand new winter quarters, for obvious reasons, was better known in Europe than here, and it had on the flap –where the author’s biography usually goes– a kind of literary criticism written by Italo Calvino. In it, the Italian writer talks regarding the black humor that Soriano imprints on his novel. Of the vertiginous action that the narration entails. Of his tight and “sparkling” dialogues. And in a quick and dry style like it’s some kind of “Heroomic Hemingway” that places the fan of San Lorenzo in a “different” line from that of other Latin American authors, without specifying who.
The rest of Calvino’s article, as well as the prologue of that edition, suffers what every European suffers -or with airs of such, which is worse– when it occurs to him to analyze Peronism: a blatant and forceful confusion. But literary criticism hits the mark. Not much more than what Calvino tried is needed to recount the ways, the forms of the writer Soriano. Humorous. disturbing Sometimes sober. Others, sarcastic, but all literary habits that can be traced in any of his writings. In his shocking debut with a farewell name –sad, lonely and final–, in the almost contemporary and anti dictatorial winter quarters or in the seed To his plants surrendered a lion.
Anniversary of the death of Osvaldo Soriano
Today marks 25 years without Osvaldo Soriano, and one might continue to abound in the aesthetic traces of his popular literature. But the depths would not have been such without the man behind it. And the man behind was just one of us, with the plus of knowing how to imagine, create and write. What else but to be a village writer? What else, to remember that there was a time when his books sold like ice cream in summer. That the theater, but especially the cinema, adopted it as an inexhaustible source of stories to tell.
Inserted to fire in the imaginary argento is the transfer to the big screen of There will be no more sorrow or forgetfulness. Facilitator of memorable performances such as those of the municipal delegate Ignacio Fuentes (Federico Luppi), from crazy Juan (Miguel Angel Solá) and the fumigator Cerviño (Ulises Dumont), the comrades who tried to save the flags of Peronism in the mythical Colonia Vela, something that neither Calvino nor the prologuist of the book managed to understand.
Key novel to evoke him, of course… necessary to unravel his intentions from the part to the whole. It is true that the way in which the man from Mar del Plata put the characters into action gave rise to some interpretations that, riding the wave of two devils theory paradigmatic of the eighties and used in favor of the candidacy of Alfonsin to the detriment of another Italo (Luder), they tried to ridicule the Peronism of the moment. But that is not what appears when history is read carefully, regardless of the anti-Peronist prejudice. From a rereading more in line with the author’s purpose, it emerges that the novel is rather an impeccable synthesis of the ideological differences that led to the confrontation, without the need to exercise erudite, academic or brainy analysis. There are the traitors, and the “Marxist oligarchy.” There is the good cop, and the bad ones. There are the genuine Peronists accused of Bolches, the JP, the iron mittens, and the typical deceptions of the right in collusion with the press – more current, impossible – than the bandit Guglielmini, brilliantly played by Lautaro Murúa – later director of winter quarters— prepares before his own: “You already know what to say. Communists, weapons, the CGT bomb, the self-inflicted attack on my car, and that I was saved because there is a God” (page 72). Or the unvarnished symbolism of twenty pages ago, when the reactionary band fired on the municipality where the others barricaded themselves, and hit the painting of Peron who first staggers, and then falls to the ground. Impeccable analogy.
Nor might Calvin and his men grasp -logically- the tales of happy years, published in 1993. Those in which the man from Mar del Plata rescues the endearing and football-loving fifties – first five years, of course – and that, due to his character, hits another key point: it was not essential to go through the academy or the university to be a Writer. Soriano, strictly speaking, did not even finish high school, but the experiences of a wandering son, sensitive and observant of a father who works from town to town, managed to impeccably capture the heartbeat of its people, and turn it into pages without superfluous resources.
First metalworker and apple packer. Then “writing bug”, with a high pilgrimage through newspapers and magazines –The Echo of Tandil, La Opinion, Front Page, News, The Commercial Chronicler–, he suffered exile just like anyone who dared to be like him, so popular, so lovable, so daring. So committed, like that pen that they mightn’t shut up out of anger. That kept slipping on blank papers in the Paris that received it. There they are, for those who want to see them, their articles in the magazine uncensored, in the newspapers The country The The world. Or more here in time his unforgettable articles in PageI12. One in particular that demolishes any of the gorilla accusations that land on him. “The General was in charge and it was incomprehensible to me that someone would oppose his kingdom of protective goblins (…) That year in which the tragedy began (1955) I listened to the ‘Freedom March’ on the radio and the bravado of that miserable man who he dared to rise up once morest the authority of the General. The guy was still a rear admiral and hadn’t been heard from. Not even that he had been Eva’s courtier. He still hadn’t shot civilians or banned half the country. It was just a ghost with black glasses that bombarded Puerto Belgrano and advanced in a sad paper boat”… he wrote for a case in an article called precisely “Gorillas”, where Perón is the good one; and Isaac Rojas, the traitor.
It is worth remembering -despite its turns- to remember it well.
