![]() ![]() The character was a procrastinator, ambivalent, afraid even.īut in a way I did end up becoming a Leopoldo. I saw myself as one and I promised myself and Memo that I would never become a Leopoldo. I was writing, reading, and learning what a writer is supposed to be. My stories were far-miles away-from perfect, but I was spitting them out to the world with the confidence boasted only by the naïve. I had passed the test of not becoming the doomed character in the Monterroso story. That’s when we talked about Leopoldo, as if he were a real person, a ghost rather, always lingering above us, a menace we were trying to avoid or a lesson to be learned, as we sat in front of each other some evenings after school and read out loud in his studio, drinking coffee and highlighting our stories in bright green, pink, and blue, with the grayish undertones of the evening lights in downtown Monterrey coming through the window.Ī year after he decided for me, I had finished a few short stories that won some small contests, but my friend found ways to either postpone his writing or avoid sharing it with me, although he did tell me that he was taking notes, reading more, getting ready to put his stories together. There is a difference between writing as identity and writing as verb, even as craft.Īfter the switch in aspirations, Memo and I set out to workshop our stories one on one. “You can direct films as vanity projects after you publish some books, like Paul Auster did.” The joke clearly tells itself, but I believed him and followed his direction. After a few days, he invited me to his apartment and solemnly lauded my attempt to write fiction, then encouraged me to drop the celluloid dreams and begin to write in prose. When I came back to Mexico, I showed my story to Memo. It was there where I wrote my first short story, as an experiment, under the influence of the Chilean writer, who has motivated so many young aspiring writers. Two years later, after reading everything he recommended-“real books,” he’d call them-I spent a year in Seville, Spain, as a laptopless exchange student, waiting tables to pay rent, watching movies for hours in the dark, empty, university film room, and devouring as many books as I could, guided now by Memo’s emails and everything on the “syllabus” at the school of Roberto Bolaño, whose work had just been introduced to me. I’d listen because he was eloquent, but also because he looked the part: thick black paste glasses and a traced beard running along his jawline. Back then, nineteen, almost twenty years old, my life goal was to become a filmmaker, so “Memo” would share some of his books and talk to me about literature to shape me into a more cultured director. ![]() I first heard about Monterroso and this story from Guillermo, a friend I met working at a call center in Monterrey and who was a few years older than me, a Spanish major at the time, and the only person I knew who read books. Monterroso’s story could go on forever because he condemns his character to perpetually postpone his work, to dally ad infinitum. Of course, he never finishes the story: he is doomed to spend his time doing research and taking notes. ![]() The man goes back and forth, distracted in the meantime by ideas for other stories-for which he also takes notes-and by studying, observing, people coming in and out of the building. On the other hand, if the porcupine wins the fight, he would probably be seen as a detractor of technological advancement. He thinks that if the dog wins the fight, his not-yet-real readers could see it as a statement on the superiority of the city, of progress and technology, over the quieter and perhaps outmoded rural life. ![]() However, he is unable to scheme the ideal ending. To write a realistic battle, he reads and takes notes on all there is about the behavior of dogs, their smarts-it turns out they are not the brightest-and their physical capabilities, about life on a farm, the dynamic between humans and animals. His idea is simple: a city dog is moved to a farm and, at some point, meets a porcupine, whom he must fight probably to death. Leopoldo Ralón spends his days in the public library, researching, reading, and writing endless notes for a short story seven years in the making. In “Leopoldo (His Labors),” Augusto Monterroso tells the story of a man seen as a writer by everyone but who never finishes any of the stories he sets out to write. ![]()
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