Beers with a Character
We asked the following six writers what characters -historical or fictional- they'd like to have a beer with. This is what they answered.
Marta Sanz
I’d have drinks with many fictional characters. For example, with Dinah Brand, the femme fatale of blue eyes and embroidered stockings who shows up in Red Harvest, I’d have a gin tonic: she would tell me the secrets of Personville and I would make sure to warn her of things to come. With Severine, of The Human Beast, I’d have some rolls and fried eggs: we would talk with our mouths full; with Ralph, Elizabeth Archer’s cousin in The Portrait of a Lady, I’d have a tea and would have him explain the meaning of the word generosity and tell me about the pleasure he feels when seeing others make mistakes or get it right. With Carroll’s Alice I’d slide through the tree’s hole and eat one of the cookies which almost allowed her to enter through a keyhole. Lastly, I would have some white wine with Zeno, the one of conscience: with his casual pessimism or his fatalist optimism, we’d smoke several guilty joints. Few narrators have amused me as much as Zeno. Although in the end, my smile would be plastered on my face, unmoving.
Ricardo Sumalavia
I would like to have some beers with Juntacadáveres, and have the necessary confidence to call him Junta, or simply Larsen. I know it wouldn’t necessarily be a fun exchange; there would be a lot of listlessness, of puffs of smoke forming the gray sky of the conversation. Maybe we wouldn’t even say anything and just drink. And if the occasion arose, we’d talk about whores. I would tell him that my father’s dream was always to manage a brothel, but that he never had the nerve to do it. Or that a friend did have the nerve, but that it was a calamitous failure and because of it he’s now the pastor of a Methodist church in the United States. Surely I’d speak more than I should and Larsen would think me an idiot, would wonder what he’s doing with a writer like myself in a dingy bar. But then the silence would return, a silence which brings people together briefly, as long as it takes the foam of the beer to settle.
Enza García
I’d like to have beers with Sergei Paradjanov. There’s something terrifying in the beauty of his films which makes me feel that God spoke through his mouth: an indifferent and inhuman God. To admire someone’s work also means to be disingenuous enough to believe that a secret filiation is woven between the two of you, an atemporal and romantic form of love. I guess I would like that moment so that I could take his hand while I can’t think of anything to say and he talks about his ancestors. Something tells me that even there, love is possible, as I hope that it’s possible for Turkey to apologize and free the captive mountain.
Mercedes Estramil
Let’s imagine that ice-cold beers allow you to invite more than one. I would have them with Captain Ahab but before he lost his leg and chased after Moby Dick to no avail, and I would try to find out—surely without success—what it was he was already chasing. I would have them with Holden Caulfield, during the winter and in front of the lake, without asking him anything or bothering him, just to share with him the sadness stemming from the absence of the ducks. And above all with Emma Bovary, for the simple pleasure of meeting her and seeing the color of her eyes.
Sergio Chejfec
I’d like to invite Claude Simon (I mean the character) to some bitter and high-grade beers, with the condition that he brought, also to share, the great piece of salmon the Russians gave him at the airport.
Luis López-Aliaga
It would probably be brief. Him looking back and forth, restless, someone might be following him. Vic Mackey would not believe my only intention was to meet him, have a cold beer with him and talk about the police brigade he heads on The Shield. He’d tell me he didn’t have time, that he must grab by the balls a fucking pedophile who won’t confess. In an electric manner, Vic would give the beer one and more short sips, and if I was lucky, if he found we had a distant resemblance and began to trust me, perhaps he’d tell me details from his cases, stories that always have the moral ambiguity that all good stories have. Because it’s not by chance that the police department where Vic works was erected in the plce of a church. Vic Mackey knows it, the world is not made up of good guys and bad guys. The world is full of people just trying to survive.
Previous entries:
If not a writer... [Liliana Blum, Giovanna Rivero, Enrique Vila-Matas, Héctor Abad Faciolince, Jacinta Escudos, Francisco Díaz Klaassen]
Marta Sanz
I’d have drinks with many fictional characters. For example, with Dinah Brand, the femme fatale of blue eyes and embroidered stockings who shows up in Red Harvest, I’d have a gin tonic: she would tell me the secrets of Personville and I would make sure to warn her of things to come. With Severine, of The Human Beast, I’d have some rolls and fried eggs: we would talk with our mouths full; with Ralph, Elizabeth Archer’s cousin in The Portrait of a Lady, I’d have a tea and would have him explain the meaning of the word generosity and tell me about the pleasure he feels when seeing others make mistakes or get it right. With Carroll’s Alice I’d slide through the tree’s hole and eat one of the cookies which almost allowed her to enter through a keyhole. Lastly, I would have some white wine with Zeno, the one of conscience: with his casual pessimism or his fatalist optimism, we’d smoke several guilty joints. Few narrators have amused me as much as Zeno. Although in the end, my smile would be plastered on my face, unmoving.
Ricardo Sumalavia
I would like to have some beers with Juntacadáveres, and have the necessary confidence to call him Junta, or simply Larsen. I know it wouldn’t necessarily be a fun exchange; there would be a lot of listlessness, of puffs of smoke forming the gray sky of the conversation. Maybe we wouldn’t even say anything and just drink. And if the occasion arose, we’d talk about whores. I would tell him that my father’s dream was always to manage a brothel, but that he never had the nerve to do it. Or that a friend did have the nerve, but that it was a calamitous failure and because of it he’s now the pastor of a Methodist church in the United States. Surely I’d speak more than I should and Larsen would think me an idiot, would wonder what he’s doing with a writer like myself in a dingy bar. But then the silence would return, a silence which brings people together briefly, as long as it takes the foam of the beer to settle.
Enza García
I’d like to have beers with Sergei Paradjanov. There’s something terrifying in the beauty of his films which makes me feel that God spoke through his mouth: an indifferent and inhuman God. To admire someone’s work also means to be disingenuous enough to believe that a secret filiation is woven between the two of you, an atemporal and romantic form of love. I guess I would like that moment so that I could take his hand while I can’t think of anything to say and he talks about his ancestors. Something tells me that even there, love is possible, as I hope that it’s possible for Turkey to apologize and free the captive mountain.
Mercedes Estramil
Let’s imagine that ice-cold beers allow you to invite more than one. I would have them with Captain Ahab but before he lost his leg and chased after Moby Dick to no avail, and I would try to find out—surely without success—what it was he was already chasing. I would have them with Holden Caulfield, during the winter and in front of the lake, without asking him anything or bothering him, just to share with him the sadness stemming from the absence of the ducks. And above all with Emma Bovary, for the simple pleasure of meeting her and seeing the color of her eyes.
Sergio Chejfec
I’d like to invite Claude Simon (I mean the character) to some bitter and high-grade beers, with the condition that he brought, also to share, the great piece of salmon the Russians gave him at the airport.
Luis López-Aliaga
It would probably be brief. Him looking back and forth, restless, someone might be following him. Vic Mackey would not believe my only intention was to meet him, have a cold beer with him and talk about the police brigade he heads on The Shield. He’d tell me he didn’t have time, that he must grab by the balls a fucking pedophile who won’t confess. In an electric manner, Vic would give the beer one and more short sips, and if I was lucky, if he found we had a distant resemblance and began to trust me, perhaps he’d tell me details from his cases, stories that always have the moral ambiguity that all good stories have. Because it’s not by chance that the police department where Vic works was erected in the plce of a church. Vic Mackey knows it, the world is not made up of good guys and bad guys. The world is full of people just trying to survive.
Previous entries:
If not a writer... [Liliana Blum, Giovanna Rivero, Enrique Vila-Matas, Héctor Abad Faciolince, Jacinta Escudos, Francisco Díaz Klaassen]
