Essay
No toda es vigilia la de los ojos abiertos
Not translated into English
Macedonio Fernández · 1928
Opening lines
La doctrina de un subjetivismo absoluto o idealismo, que es la verdad del misterio, es la actitud en que ha de situarse el lector con el autor; ella confiere a la exposición y a las respuestas que en cada caso nos exige, perentorias, el asunto, una sencillez e inequívoco que pone a prueba la honestidad de los asertos y su concordar.
The doctrine of an absolute subjectivism or idealism, which is the truth of the mystery, is the attitude in which the reader must place himself with the author; it gives the exposition, and the answers that the subject peremptorily demands of us in each case, a simplicity and unambiguousness that put to the test the honesty of the assertions and their agreement.
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from halagomacedoniano.wordpress.com
Synopsis
The book brings together texts that are hard to classify, between philosophical speculation, fiction and poetry. The author maintains in it that time and space do not exist, that perceived meaning is the totality of being, that nothing is unknowable and that waking cannot be told apart from dreaming; he denies the law of causality. Morales reads in it an alchemy of the self, pushed to the idea that we are immortal because we do not exist, in a language that seeks to express the state of consciousness.
Context
The book appeared in 1928 with Manuel Gleizer; it was the author's first, and he agreed to it only, as he says in his preliminary text, at the insistence of three young writers. Morales places it among the idealist writings published from 1908 to 1950. It has been noted for a language constantly remade and shot through with humour, serving ideas set out with rigour. Jorge Luis Borges says he imitated it at the time, even to the point of copying it out, according to escritores.org.
Who it is for
Texts of metaphysics in Spanish, between essay, fiction and poetry; translated into French in 2004 by Payot et Rivages.
Prizes and reception
For Morales, a humour that frees us for an instant from the universal law of reason, at the heart of a metaphysics of the self.
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