Ida Vitale, Byobu

And now for something completely different! In February, Minervans tackled a very unusual translated-from-Spanish novella by Uruguayan writer, Ida Vitale, who was 95 years old when this book was published in 2018.

Byobu is not a novel/novella in the usual sense. There is no clear plot, and only one real character, Byobu. The novel, told in 34 “chapters”, comprises Byobu’s thoughts as he goes about his life in modern Uruguay.

As always, we started with our …

First impressions

• Blame me for this book! Found it curious and not easy to read, but enjoyed its interrogation of the dilemmas of modern life, like conformity, commercialisation, urbanisation, power, resistance to change, getting on with others, truth, imagination or lack thereof. Enjoyed the word play, its observations, and its humour. Found Byobu, himself, engaging in his ruminations on the minutiae of life, but did get lost in some of the abstract thinking. Many allusions were unknown to me.
• Didn’t hate it, found it puzzling. Didn’t understand it and so didn’t engage with it at all, so was pleased it was short. (Which had many around the room nodding their heads.)
• Found it hard to relate to, a bit strange, like a book of poetry. Didn’t dislike it, and thought some of it was quite clever and insightful, but didn’t understand it and didn’t finish it. Wondered about the impact of the translator in how it comes across to English readers.
• Found it very challenging to read, and didn’t understand what I was reading. Some of it was easy-to-follow narrative, some of it was very succinct, and some was esoteric like poetry. Enjoyed the wordplay, and thought the translation was good, however, “my head hurts”.
• Agrees with others. Found it difficult. It wins the prize for the book that required the most use of the dictionary. However, did enjoy the word play, found it humorous, and enjoyed it even if didn’t understand it all.
• Loves that in this group there are books that I arrive at with no preconception. It’s like an adventure. However, wondered at the beginning, “have I got dementia?” It’s not a narrative novel, but once I started to read it as being like a “narrative poem”, I started to enjoy it.
• Concurs with the previous comments. Found it so baffling, but knowing it won so many prizes, felt there must be a centre. Didn’t find it funny, but saw it as philosophical, perhaps a bit like Albert Camus’ Carnets.
• Wondered “Who suggested this?” Kept looking for Byobu the character, and came to feel that the novel reads like an autistic (or different) person’s view of the world.
• Overall enjoyed it, found it incredible. With all its allusions and classical references, it read more like poetry. It has some terrific flashes, and enjoyed being exposed to it.
• Agree with the idea of Byobu being a person who sees the world differently to others. Came to see it as an accumulation of things, and as a sum of the total. Some passages and observations are glorious.

Who is Byobu?

We spent a bit of time during the evening on who Byobu is, often returning to it as the discussion progressed. Some agreed with the idea that he’s a different, perhaps autistic person. One saw him as a sort of Everyman, while another proposed that, given Vitale was 95 when this was published, Byobu is an old person, sharing an old person’s reflections on life. Our Everyman person was happy to consider him an an “every older person”.

Our member who proposed this idea of its being an older person’s reflections talked about ageing, and her realisation that her ability to impact the planet is coming to the end, that she is passing on the baton to the next generation. Now she is more observing than doing. There’s also the sense of once you are old you don’t have to prove anything.

Favourite “chapters”

Members shared their favourite “chapters”, in random order, which led to further teasing out of ideas.

“Life is not a straight line” read for one member like a caricature of an older person, which resulted in more discussions about the book as being both comedic and endearing about human frailty.

“The Inhabitant” describes a melancholia descending upon Byobu, and his decision to burn his old family home:

One morning, using his last ounce of strength, he gathered a few indispensable and transportable items and cast his shadow over the beloved walls as he walked past them holding a jubilantly intense torch, the fire freeing his noble home from the unbearable decadence of senectitude.

We discussed this passage’s meaning, wondering whether he had actually burned the house. Regardless we saw it as supporting the idea of Byobu as an old man, and the book as being the thoughts of an old person.

“Seasons”, with its discussion of erratically changing weather patters within a season, made us think of climate change, though Vitale doesn’t specifically reference it. “Summer”, on the other hand, delighted us with its nature descriptions, such as the opening line:

In the garden, jasmines reign supreme. At night the star jasmine is a vertical Milky Way, delirious with aroma.

“Knots” contains some lovely writing, some playing with language, including alliteration (“attempting to temper his trepidations for trolley cars whose trajectories ignore him”). It reminded us of the challenges such a poetic work must pose for the translator.

“Useless knowledge” shows Byobu being generous to a person he despises, a person for whom power and show is important.

“Internal coherence” looks at the difficulty of changing oneself, but also poses whether we should resist the pull of society’s forces or surrender to a “power … that thinks for us and rules for itself”.

“Byobu and the Traffic Light” also explores some of the thoughts raised in “Internal coherence” concerning obedience and defiance. It uses traffic lights as a metaphor for “supervision and compliance”. This chapter ends on a man standing at traffic lights, having pressed the yellow button to turn them to green:

The man who placed his trust in the yellow button is slowly dozing off, like a listener of Elgar, who absently looks on at the extremely slow future.

“Byobu and the Acceleration of History” has Byobu thinking about continuity, and contemplating the value knowledge, and considering its limits. Thinking about stem cell research:

He’s excited at the prospect that cells from his bone marrow, standing in solidarity with the rest of his humanity, can humbly arrange themselves to change the rank and function and, if he were to suffer a heart attack, work to replace the wounded cells of his damaged organs. He supposes his body, seeing as how it’s an organism, must govern itself according to certain hierarchical principles like the ones he has become accustomed to respecting externally. While he has no doubt his bone marrow cells are very important he’s unsure if they are more so than those in his brain or heart stop and he’s comforted by the generosity to take on new and different responsibilities.

“Deaf Indiscretions” has Byobu on a bus with deaf passengers who are energetically signing, which he finds intrusive and immoderate. He gets off the bus, changing his destination, preferring, he realises “a peacefulness that relied … on hands held in silence, in one’s lap or pockets, or in a position of prayer or Chinese gratitude. Anything as long as they’re calm”.

Finally, we shared some favourites from the little collection of aphorisms in the final chapter, “Original Thoughts” like

No one can be enthusiastic in perpetuity. Only anxieties are perpetual.

Hmm! Makes you laugh – and cry.

A few more thoughts

We enjoyed the writing, particularly the nature descriptions. One member, though, felt that at times complicated words, like noctilucae (which translates to night light), were used when simpler ones would have sufficed. However, further investigations on the night – aren’t smart phones grand? – turned up that noctilucae are also marine unicellular micro-organism. This brought us to reflect that the book references quite a few single cell organisms. Is Vitale subtly taking us on a – non-linear – journey from the beginning of life to the end (senectitude)?

We talked about the novella expressing the things Vitale is seeing happening. As one member suggested, the opening chapters lay down who he is, and then the book goes on to consider bigger issues. We did wonder about the symbolism of Byobu’s name, a byobu being a Japanese screen. We also thought that the the book is both about the big picture (humanity) and the small (the internal self).

We realised that the book probably contains a lot of Spanish references that we didn’t get. We would love to have known more about the translator, Sean Manning, and the challenges he faced.

By the end of our discussion we had moved from the majority feeling that the book was challenging, and not engaging, to feeling we’d been enriched by the experience of having read it. It’s a book, we decided, in which you revel in the observations and not worry about narrative. It is also a book, we thought, that might be best enjoyed read aloud.

Other books referenced

• Albert Camus, Carnets
• Charles Foster, Being human: Adventures in forty thousand years of consciousness (which takes three moments in human life to consider who we humans are.)

And now, if you have further thoughts, please share them in the comments below!

Present: 10 members