This was a translation into English from Spanish. I couldn't find out what the Spanish name of the original was, but possibly The Man Who Thought He Was Vicente Rojo (El hombre que se creia Vicente Rojo).
Anyway. This was a very interesting book. All the characters in it seemed to be busy fooling themselves — and those around them — as hard as they could about essential things. Central things. My own psych schema imagines that acting is our central occupation, and that this is true of all persuasive animals. What persuasion has to do with it I couldn't say. No wait, persuasion is central to acting.
But yeah, my feeling is that our interactors, our constructs, are built and maintained, over the course of our lifetimes, by whatever's in there to efficiently (and persuasively) transport prayers, desires and demands back and forth between whatever's out there and whatever's in there. And pretense is central to the job. Acting. The construct tries by its act to persuade whatever's out there that whatever whatever's in there wants is important; and the same the other way.
Which is not to say that her characters believed that their acts were deceptive in any way (in general, that is… the Vicente Rojo character was certainly aware of his deceptiveness). And it's not just that sincerity is important to good persuasion; it's that the persuasion the characters were involved in wasn't directed at any particular person or goal, but (apparently) at life in general and at a goal that was a strategy. The goal being to perfect, in some sense, the strategy of the act one has chosen. At whoever they might meet. I guess for some reason it has to be the same act for everyone we meet, or we can't convince ourselves that we're sincere, and that's an important characteristic.
The author was, or seemed to believe she was, concerned with the interaction between truth and fiction; whether she accomplished her goal, I couldn't say. But it was very interesting and engaging, and the characters were too. Kind of a fleshing-out of the idea of the person as actor, and the different internal and external goals people that are actors have, and how those goals are expressed in their acts. Very memorable and recommendable!
by Bulawayoland