ENtities
Описание книги
ENtities is a selection of the five best short stories from BegottEN and the five best stories from IdenTITIES. It includes the following: Family History, The Toad Who Was a Poet, The Cave, The Man in the Mirror, Dawn, The Dream, Inner Monsters (or Fable in One Act), The Night Walk, The Avaricious Man, Ants. “Diego Maenza writes with certainty. Beings and situations that refer us to monsters located in those twisted paths of imagination and reality. These stories are tremendously deep because of the philosophical touches, surprising because of the subject matter and unexpected because of the endings”. (Carlos Ramos, Mexican writer) “His stories convey metaphysical ideas, they play with time and space; they try to make the minimum transcendent, the same nothing. They relocate us, they put us in different territories, they offer us the glances of lonely beings or human beings who must face destinies, even if their missions are not heroic, but only brush against a darkness that can break any spirit ”. (Iván Rodrigo Mendizábal, Ecuadorian writer and critic)
Отрывок из книги
Diego Maenza
Translation by Elizabeth Pickwell
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Toad reacted indifferently to all these events, since his life was fully devoted to poetry. During this time, existential thoughts began to incubate within Toad. Sitting on a stone in the swamp, at a particularly warm time of year, anyone who would have looked up to the constellations in the east would have observed the unmistakeable sign of Toad reflected in the stars. But leaving aside the esoteric connotations that such a situation may carry, for our character in question, that elusive and vaguely recognisable figure in the sky had no other significance than the brevity of life itself. A star, Toad thought, is far superior than any living being who could look up at it, having formed at the beginning of the universe.
The most radical beings, who in matters of a practical nature, always stand out as the most sensible, will say that Toad is far too pessimistic. Nevertheless, there will be others who, leaving aside the customary trends of the times, will recognise the value of the depth and clarity in young Toad’s words. But let's get to the point: he never shared his thoughts with anyone, nor did he put them in writing. Incidentally, they aren’t really worth analysing from a philosophical point of view. We all know that philosophers are such tormented beings who are visited only by fatality and apathy and who have never been distracted by the succulent aroma of women. Such is the case with this pensive Toad who is habitually consumed by this bittersweet torment of poets.
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