Obabakoak (34 page)
Authors: Bernardo Atxaga
“But there are so few writers, Master! And anyway none are of your stature.”
The Master plucked a fig from the tree and offered it to me. He remained thoughtful while I ate it.
“And what about plagiarists? Aren’t there any of them?” he asked.
“I’m not sure I know what you mean, Master,” I said.
“What I’m asking is, is there no one who, out of great respect for some particularly fine writer, adopts his style of writing? In my time that was how nearly all books came into being.”
It seemed to me that before going on I had to clear up a few points.
“I don’t think so, sir,” I began. “Moreover, things have changed a lot since your day. Ever since the eighteenth century, people have taken a very dim view of plagiarism. It’s considered as bad as stealing. Nowadays, the work of a writer has to give the impression of being created out of nothing. In other words, the work has to be original.” He looked at me hard as if struggling to understand. Then, producing a dish from somewhere, he began to pick figs.
After a while, as he went from tree to tree, he said: “That’s no good at all. In my view, plagiarism has many advantages over the labor of creation. It is much easier to carry out and less hard work. You can finish twenty works of plagiarism in the time it takes to produce one creative work. And because the qualities of the original serve as a guide and an aid, you often get very fine results, which is not always the case with creative texts. The idea that it is theft is most unfortunate, since it deprives us of the best tool we have to give life to the island.”
Although apparently annoyed, he took great care placing the figs on the dish. I, meanwhile, remained silent. I did not want to distract him from the subject occupying his thoughts.
“A rector shouldn’t really say such things but… what if the robbery were committed with some skill?” he asked, coming over to me again. A furtive smile flickered across his face.
“Commit plagiarisms without revealing them for what they are? Is that what you mean, Master?” I said, startled.
“Exactly.”
“But to do that you would need a method, and besides…”
He placed a hand on my shoulder.
“My son, answer me honestly!” he said. “Do you love this island?”
“Very much, Master,” I replied rather warily.
“And would you be prepared to run risks and put yourself in danger for it?”
Given the way he looked at me, it was impossible for me to say no.
“Then go out into the world and devise that method. Let the new generations learn to carry out with confidence new works of plagiarism! Let the island bring forth new books!”
Saying that, he placed in my hands the dish full of figs. Then he stepped into a cloud that had descended to our level and disappeared from view. I opened my eyes and woke up.
Although I could see the familiar sight of the mountains of Obaba through my window, it took me time to realize that I was in my bedroom. Everything there, pictures, clothes, books, seemed strange to me, because their reality was not potent enough to dispel the dream. Even with my eyes open, I was still standing with the author of
Gero,
now on the top of that hill looking down on the island, now on the plain among the fig trees. Once I was fully awake I remembered:
“I promised him I would come up with a method for plagiarists!”
I found it very hard returning to the world with that promise and I longed to go back to sleep. However, unease had taken hold of my heart and gradually my head began to clear. I felt I would be incapable of devising such a method and that, even if I were, no one would listen. Besides I had not given my word to just anyone, but to Axular himself, the Angelic Doctor of Euskal Herria. And that thought made me so nervous that, when I took a bite of fig, it went down the wrong way.
Then I thought: “A plagiarist must select texts with a clear plot. That will be the first rule of my method.”
Feeling surprised, but nonetheless pleased with the idea that had arisen so unexpectedly, I picked up a notebook from the bedside table and wrote it down, adding:
In other words, one must choose stories or novels whose plots can be summed up in a few facts or events. For that reason, models such as Robbe Grillet or Faulkner are unsuitable for the plagiarist, because in the works of writers such as these, the story is the least important thing. Writers like Saki, Buzzati, or even Hemingway, on the other hand, can be highly recommended. In general terms, the more ancient the model chosen, the better for the plagiarist: You could use a thousand stories from those collected in
The Arabian Nights
but not one from some avant-garde anthology.
I studied what I had written. It wasn’t bad and it occurred to me that perhaps it would not be as difficult to come up with a method as I had supposed.
And to celebrate my bold discovery, I raised another fig to my lips and ate it very carefully.
“In order to plagiarize one must discard all rare books,” I thought then, feeling even more surprised than when I had had the first idea. Without knowing why, I was more inspired that morning than ever before. But, of course, however surprised I was, I could not let such an opportunity slip. So I picked up the notebook again and set to writing a commentary on the second rule:
The plagiarist should never consider using a rare book that has not been translated into his own language, for example, the novel his parents bought for him in a book shop in Red Square on their trip to Moscow, not even if his friend the polyglot prepares an attractive synopsis of its plot. Because, after all, what does he know about the latest in Russian literature? And what if his parents, in all innocence, have happened upon someone about to become a dissident? Then what would happen? After a couple of years, that someone will be proclaimed by the mass media and then even university students will know by heart the plots of every novel he ever wrote. And, of course, if that happened, the plagiarized work would be placed in grave danger.
No, the plagiarist should not employ sly stratagems to achieve his ends. He should not direct his feet to far-flung neighborhoods or dark alleyways as if he were some shabby thief, rather he must stroll in the broad light of day through the open spaces of the very center of the metropolis. He must head for Boulevard Balzac or Hardy Gardens or Hoffmannstrasse or Piazza Pirandello… in other words, he must choose his models from among writers who are household names. And don’t worry. No one will ever know. Because, as with archangels, all anyone ever knows about the classics are their names and their faces.
I had now established two rules for my method, and, feeling a little calmer, I sat for a while looking out at the mountains of Obaba, watching the comings and goings of the people working in the fields. I would have gotten up to have a cup of coffee, as I usually did, but I was afraid to leave my bed. If I did, inspiration might leave me too. Where were all these ideas coming from? What did I know about plagiarism? Something strange was happening.
Then I asked myself: “Where did those figs come from?” Figs were not even in season in Obaba.
I picked up the white dish and, having examined it, all my doubts vanished. For it was clear that the fruits so neatly placed there were the very ones picked by Axular on the island.
At last I saw things clearly; I understood everything that had happened. I had not had that dream purely by chance, but according to the express wish of the Master, because he needed someone to spread the good news about plagiarism. And I realized too that the figs on the plate were no ordinary figs, those figs were full of wisdom, and, as they had already begun to, they would teach me how to plagiarize.
I meditated for a while on what had happened, amazed at the powers disposed of by those who dwell on Mount Parnassus. But the notebook was still by my side reminding me of the task I had promised to undertake. With that thought, I picked up my pen and prepared myself to write rules three and four.
An example will explain better than any dissertation how to resolve the problem of time and space. Let’s suppose that we have to plagiarize a story that takes place in Arabia or in the Middle Ages and that its two protagonists—who are embroiled in an argument over a camel—are Ibu al Farsi and Au Rayol. Right, the plagiarist should take the story in its entirety and set it—let’s say—in modern-day England. So the protagonists become, for example, Anthony Northmore and Philip Stevens, and, instead of a camel, the cause of the argument between them can be a car. As you can easily imagine, these changes will bring in their train a thousand more so as to render the plot completely unrecognizable to anyone.
Having discovered the origin of my inspiration, there was now nothing to prevent me from getting out of bed, and I went down to the kitchen to make some coffee. By then a lot of people were out and about in the village and the good mornings and good-byes they exchanged floated up to my house. The sun was driving away the few clouds in the sky. Shortly afterward, a knock on the door announced the arrival of the newspaper. Yes, the wheel of life was still ceaselessly turning and I felt happier than I had for a long time.
A few hours later, I poured my second cup of coffee, ate three figs one after the other, and was ready to transcribe the final rule.
“The preparation of a good defense is of vital importance to the plagiarist,” I began and added to that statement the following lines:
There is a possibility that despite following the preceding four rules point by point, a plagiarist may have his plagiarism uncovered. Anyone can have a stroke of bad luck. This is especially true among minority cultures where, since there is little space, relations—especially literary ones—tend to be rife with intrigue, malice, and hatred.
However, that stroke of bad luck need not necessarily prove prejudicial to the plagiarist; on the contrary, he may emerge strengthened from his enemy’s nets. But three conditions must be satisfied if this is to happen: First, he must leave scattered throughout the work “traces” of the text he has taken as his model; second, he must find out a little about metaliterature; third, he must make a name for himself. If he fulfills these three requirements, he will have built his own Praetorian guard.
Let’s suppose—to explain the first two rules of the defense—that the plagiarist has used for his purposes a story by Kipling and has done so by moving the story far ahead in time and setting it in the environs of the planet Uranus. To fulfill the first rule, it is vital, then, that the plagiarist call the astronaut Kim.
“May I ask you a rather impertinent question now?” a journalist will say to him a few days after his book has been published. “It seems that the story you tell in your book bears a remarkable resemblance to a story by the writer Pikling. Some have even used the term
plagiarism.
What do you have to say to that?”
“The writer’s name is Kipling, not Pikling,” the plagiarist will begin with great dignity, adding, with just a hint of scorn in his smile: “If my accusers were true readers and, instead of sharpening their claws, had read the whole of Kipling’s work, they would immediately realize that my work is nothing more nor less than a homage to that great writer. That is precisely why I call the astronaut Kim. For that is the title of a work written by that charming imperialist. To be honest, it doesn’t strike me as a particularly difficult reference to pick up. But, as I said before, these accusers of mine do not even have a clear idea of what reading involves.”
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t I hear you use the expression ‘charming imperialist’? With respect, those two words together do sound slightly odd to me…” the journalist will start in on his attack again, from another front this time. However, the plagiarist will not let him continue along that road, and, deploying the second rule for the defense, he will launch a further attack on the enemy.
“Moreover, I must say that these hairsplitters intent on discrediting others are very backward when it comes to literary theory. They’ve probably never even heard of metaliterature…”
“I have heard something about it, but I don’t quite remember…”
“Well, briefly, all the term means is that there’s nothing new under the sun, not even in literature. All those ideas the Romantics had…”
Ah, yes, love and all that…”
“Well, no, or rather, yes, their concept of love too, but I was referring to their literary ideas; the Romantics considered a work of art to be the product of a special and unique personality, and other such nonsense…”
“And metaliterature?”
“Well, as I said, we writers don’t create anything new, we’re all continually writing the same stories. As people often say, all the good stories have been written already, and if a story hasn’t been written, it’s a sign that it isn’t any good. The world today is nothing but a vast Alexandria and we who live in it merely write commentaries on what has already been created, nothing more. The Romantic dream burst long ago.”
“Why write at all then? If all the good stories have already been written…”
“Because, in the words of someone whose name escapes me, people forget. And we, the new writers, merely serve to remind them of the stories. That’s all.”
From everything that has been said up to now, it is clear that the respectability of the plagiarist would thus be placed beyond doubt. But just in case—bearing in mind that no one believes a complete unknown—he would be wise to have fulfilled the requirements of rule number three for the defense. In other words, he should make a name for himself. Because if his name is known and talked about, all the aforementioned reasons will take on extraordinary force and significance.
And, however arduous it may seem at first, there is no need to be intimidated by the task of making a name for oneself. Because, given the quantity of newspapers and the sheer volume of cheap chitchat—whether such and such a politician did or did not say something, whether the arrangements for the Carnival are satisfactory or unsatisfactory, whether the problems of traffic or trafficking have been resolved—getting your name into the public eye every week—answering surveys, signing petitions, etc.—will be a cinch for the plagiarist.