Resurrection has become its own literary genre. Though hardly a new phenomenon (Moby-Dick, for example, was out of print at the time of Herman Melville’s death), the success of such ‘forgotten’ classics as Suite Française, Stoner and Alone in Berlin proved that an author’s death and/or obscurity were no barrier for readers. So publishers from Faber to Virago, from the British Library to Penguin Modern Classics are hunting through back catalogues looking for writer recommendations, searching for the next unjustly lost voice. In Angel Bonomini, Peninsula Press has found an ideal candidate.
How can such a powerful story have remained un-rediscovered for so long?
A contemporary of Borges, Bioy Casares and Silvina Ocampo, Bonomini was, in life, well-regarded as a writer and poet, winning several Argentinian and international awards. But after his death in 1994, he drifted into obscurity in his native Argentina and remained untranslated into English. Reading The Novices of Lerna, you can both see why and also wonder how such a powerful story has remained un-rediscovered for so long.
The novella’s voice – self-important, self-doubting, self-lacerating sometimes – belongs to Beltra, a recent graduate who is invited by the University of Lerna in Switzerland to apply for a six-month fellowship. It is a generous offer and one that answers many of his post-university financial and romantic troubles. However, the strange and cloying tone of letters from the university, and the astonishing level of detail required on the application form, give him significant pause. ‘Visiting Europe,’ Beltra writes ‘is something that every Argentine keeps in reserve as an unquestionable inheritance.’ And so he accepts, despite his misgivings.
On arrival, he is greeted by a man who might be his twin. The two men are virtually identical. The nature of the fellowship is then made clear. There are 23 other doppelgangers at the campus; 23 identical versions of himself. And they are to spend six months in each other’s company.
It is a cunning premise, one that feels both out of time and very much of our age. Themes of surveillance, identity and individualism are explored with light touches, suggestive glances and a creeping sense of dread. Beltra’s growing isolation is tempered by his growing dependence on the other members of The Project. What is it all for anyway? What is the point?
And this is the slight frustration with The Novices of Lerna. It promises so much, teases so much, yet ultimately Bonomini leaves too many questions unanswered, too many themes hanging. In different hands – it’s hard not to think of Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain in this regard – the minor characters would become more central to the narrative. Yet they fade away like smoke and fold into the background, like one of the many doppelgangers. It is a novella – and a very short one at that – but it feels as though it could be far more than that.
Jordan Landsman’s translation is fluent, clear and alive to humour, though occasionally prone to a strange word choice (‘onesie’ for ‘jumpsuit’ for example). We should be indebted to him – and to the always excellent Peninsula Press – for bringing us this hauntingly intelligent and psychically unnerving fiction. It might not be perfect, but it will not easily be forgotten again.
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