165
Two pillars of Rio de la Plata literature, the Uruguayan writers Juan Carlos Onetti and Mario Benedetti, who spent much time on this side of the river, also held an interesting exchange of correspondence: Dear Benedetti: Many thanks for the prologue-study. I think you are right in all that you say, and if there is anything to fight about I will find it later when I re-read it, impossible now because the three copies of “Dreams” disappeared as soon as they arrived. Such is my popularity in the progressive neighbourhood of San Telmo, Parroquia de la Concepción. (In El Aleph there is a story with an odd name, the one about the mysterious coin; Borges writes that he went around drinking peach alcohol and Uruguayan cherry brandy and I don’t know what other excesses, in the early morning in the bars on Tacuarí and Independencia, just where I live; I asked the neighbourhood lads, but they shook their heads). I have however re-read Último viaje etc and Esta mañana etc. These last travels I enjoyed very much and they served to improve my opinion of the Esta mañana-ism.” Personally –and it is of no matter to you– I only find fault with half-baked picturesqueness, or shorthand (for example, the first bus trip; I am enthusiastic however about the now immortal phrase “heroes were those in the Maracaná and in the country’s history” as well as the already adopted “Good grief, what a figure, what a figure”. I’m quoting from memory. I remember some excellent things in the story about the guy who comes to visit the widow, and also the one in which she loves Alberto, eliminating the excessively sentimental bits. In short, carry on, you are doing very well. But now, where to? I add this because all the stories are dripping with exasperation and a little hatred. Of course, these are matters that can be discussed. If you were to be my slave, I would instruct you to write a novel, short, some 200 pages long, with a simple technique and a ban on inner monologues, in which without you proposing to you could unload yourself of all those things that are pouring from you. Then we would see; then you could lean towards a more tranquil, and safer literature, more “classical”, more lucid, rigorous, more suitable for Número, in short. Without ceasing to be Benedetti, of course. Keep this letter and leave it in the hands of the crows at the Institute of Research, as it is prophetic. You have my word on it… And the reply came: Friend Onetti: First of all, you can relax; as your Sueño and my Viaje were only ready on December 31(quite an achievement because of the printing workers’ strike) and that was the deadline under the new regulations
Mario Benedetti