Poetry New York

Mario Vargas Llosa, Salman Rushdie, and Umberto Eco reunited for the second time to read and discuss their work at the 92nd St. Unterberg Poetry Center. First, just to clarify why they are called The Three Musketeers; Umberto Eco first graced them with the nickname over a decade ago when they met for the first time to read together. Since then, the name has stuck and when asked to read, they jumped at the chance to be reunited.

Umberto Eco read an excerpt from his novel Foucault's Pendulum. He walked out on stage and the crowd erupted in a long applause. He briefly described the excerpt that he was about to read. He spoke in detail about the characters as if he were telling an anecdote about a close friend. The scene he read was set in a cathedral square at the start of a funeral procession. The main characters in this scene are a peasant, Don Tico and Jacobo Belbo (one of the main characters in the novel). Troops, municipal dignitaries, and the rest of the town band are there as they all proceed to the cemetery. The excerpt is appropriate and adequate considering Eco's amusing and witty banter during his explanation. He stated that "of course the author has to die in order for the reader to become aware of his truth" and the crowd chuckled. He continued to describe Don Tico's character being unable to play his titular trumpet for the final ceremony because of the green mint ice that was being served at a tavern across the street from the cemetery. He gladly handed the trumpeter title to Jacobo and when the commander ordered him to play Taps for the finale, he simply gave him a do mi sol do. Eco's novel is well over 600 pages long and so packed full of esoteric and philosophical references that it was hard for me to grasp the whole meaning from a mere two or three pages. To add to it the entire reading was in Italian with the English translation scrolling on a large screen in the background.

Next was Salman Rushdie reading from his latest novel, The Enchantress of Florence, which will be available in English late May. He failed to describe a lot of the passage that he read, however, the crowd reacted as if it were the funniest thing they've heard. The passage was about a stranger or a traveler going to a town where he intends to kill the king because "it is reason that rules, not the king" but, "before he kills him, of course, they discuss philosophy". The actual reading was very descriptive and full of fairy-tale like images. The first sentence, "In the day's last light the glowing lake below the palace-city looked like a sea of molten gold". He proceeded to describe a traveler and did a magnificent job taking the reader inside the head of the traveler to see what he sees. We were able to imagine the fable-like fortress that this mysterious traveler saw as he approached the town. Rushdie's style of writing is captivating. I felt like a kid listening to a reading of a mythological fable . I anticipated the ending but of course, the book isn't even out yet. He left off after the traveler told the townsmen "I'm a man with a secret, that's what-a secret which only the emperor's ears may hear".

Mario Vargas Llosa read from his 2007 novel, The Bad Girl in Spanish. His work was translated on the big screen as well. Unfortunately, I tried to see how much of it I could understand without looking at the translation and lost a lot of the details. His reading was more of a character study of a girl from a town called Miraflores . He describes the narrator's attraction to this new and very different girl that has just arrived in town. The crowd burst into laughter more so with Llosa's reading than the other's and while reading Llosa maintained a slight grin on his face which made it even more enjoyable. 

The moderator Leonard Lapote walked onto stage with the rest of the readers and, immediately, Eco took the lead in speaking and remained the spokesperson for almost the remainder of the Q & A session. They at first discussed Dumas' work, mutually agreeing that it was bad writing and went on to say that The Count of Monte Cristo was Dumas' better work. Eco and Rushdie argued who was Aramis. After that, Rushdie admitted that James Fenimore Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans is so badly written that he can't read a line without falling asleep. After about ten minutes or so of banter about badly written work, the moderator finally stepped in and said that we are not here to talk about bad writing; we're here to talk about all of your writing. The conversation turned to questions that were written on note cards from the audience during the reading. The first was "Can you describe your writing style?" I laughed so hard along with the rest of the audience. It reminded me of an undergraduate creative writing class. All of the writers laughed and agreed to go onto the next question. Instead, they ignored the audience's questions and discussed more thought provoking issues. The roles of writers and their level of influence in society regarding politics was the main topic. Llosa strongly believes that writers have great influence when they live in countries with dictatorships because they are more dedicated and more responsive, and obligated to rise up. Rushdie believes that major universities play a large role because they are nestled out in the middle of nowhere, in the country far from the center of large cities where students are able to be more civically and politically engaged.

Llosa was asked how he felt about his first novel after about 1,000 copies were burned. He responded by saying that it shortly thereafter became a bestseller. The moderator jumped to Rushdie and asked him about his movie star status. Rushdie, sarcastically, was thrilled to talk "about his most important work" with actress Scarlett Johansen's new music video where Rushdie kisses her neck.

Lapote moved on to the topic of cultural language. Eco believes that "...we cannot work for a common language. It will never work". Ultimately, we have to be polylingual. Eco described a theory where humans have a universal language where each word spoken during a conversation is of a different language. It has a name that is an acronym of every language known on earth right now but is impossible to pronounce.

Overall, I think it is important and rather remarkable that writers are able to read in their native language or the language in which they wrote their work in front of an audience. Being able to hear Eco read in Italian and Llosa in Spanish was astounding. Not only was I able to hear the words that they intended to use, I was able to understand through the translation.