One of the good things about living in The world then, that is, 2023, is to coincide with Martín Caparrós (Buenos Aires, 1967) and his articles, essays and novels. That does not appear—of course—in the new installment of the Argentine journalist and writer, which is nothing more than the compilation in a single volume of the installments written in 2120 that the historian Agadi Bedu sent week by week to this newspaper, with Martín Caparrós of intermediary. It was about looking, analyzing, thinking, discovering what the world is today without the perspective that distance says it grants. Look at what you have in front of your nose and see it, really, see it.
Martín Caparrós has a long career as a journalist in Argentina and Spain, as well as in international media, which earned him recognition, first in 2017 with the National Journalism Award and, later, in 2022 with the Ortega y Gasset Award for an entire career. Likewise, he has stood out and been awarded both as an essayist (Extraordinary Cálamo Award for Hunger, among others) as a novelist (Herralde Prize with The Living in 2011). Its current publishing house tries to bring together its titles as a Martín Caparrós Library. This year it is the turn of The world then a kind of guide to understand today from the already mentioned perspective and work of a historian of the 21st century. In its 25 chapters it tries to summarize and interweave the vectors, pipes and conductive and organizational threads of our civilization, in this call, by the historian, End of the Age of Fire and the Western Age. In that sense, we do well to look askance at both ceramic hobs and TikTok.
In perspective, both America, that sentimental, social and imaginary map of an entire continent with which this book shares ways and forms, such as The world then They are nothing but stars launched from the implosion of that oceanic novel by Caparrós: The history. In this one—written and published in Argentina in 1999 and recovered by Anagrama in 2017—, in its thousand pages, Caparrós writes about a time and a place that have not existed, about an invented civilization and the signs that remained of it throughout of our history. In his last two essays, the mirror is inverted. What you see, exists, is real, but the image is almost fictional and extraordinary. (Namerica) or unequal and, at times, absurd (The world then).
Caparrós chooses topics and approaches them being as rigorous as it is entertaining. He uses numbers and statistics not as dead and telltale substances but quite the opposite: as signs, findings, “Look At This” signs.
At all times in the book, the way the mirror is placed and seen is an example of the talent and use of ingredients of the chef who is its author. A project can sometimes be judged by the Manichaean, elephantine or boring nonsense it could be in other hands. Caparrós chooses topics and approaches them being as rigorous as it is entertaining. He uses numbers and statistics not as dead and telltale substances but quite the opposite: as signs, findings, “Look At This” signs. He explains to us, he explains himself, he gives priority now to intuition, now to information, he uses the paintbrush. He amuses, ironizes, accuses, points and exposes on a map that could well be of the world in which you are. It indicates inequality and aberrations without pontificating or moralizing, it moves away from the apocalypse and the fashions of the moment or two days ago, and everything, absolutely everything is used to tell the truth and fiction, to entertain and inform you, to make you think and, At the same time, stop time and dedicate yourself to looking around and forward, with those cards of human beings that, like icebreakers, give names, faces and biographies to the protagonists of this book: us.
Martin Caparros
Random House, 2023
432 pages. 21.75 euros
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