The Enigma of the Red Mailboxes: Between Desire and the Literature of Vicente Palermo

Desire, like literature, travels along circuitous paths. Its course is winding and can trace oscillating figures. These same figures intertwine in the biography of an Argentinian, a native of Buenos Aires, a sociologist and PhD in Political Science, winner of prestigious awards and scholarships, who in recent times distanced himself from academia to indulge in the temptation of storytelling. This is what * Venus in Quarantine* (Hugo Benjamín), Vicente Palermo 's second book of short stories, is about, where, through eleven short stories and a novella , he elegantly constructs his own narrative world.

The author, who has published several essays on national history and politics with an emphasis on the Falklands/Malvinas issue, allows his critical essayist side to shine through in some of his short stories. Such is the case with “Crimson Mailbox: Collapses.” At just over one hundred pages, it is the longest piece. There, he narrates, in a perceptive and ironic tone, a curious plan devised by a businessman named Charles Lewis to bring visibility to those unmistakable red mailboxes so characteristic of the City of Buenos Aires. Under this narrative guise, Palermo unfolds various speculations surrounding these curious objects, which one might think forgotten but which still survive in the urban landscape, waiting to be discovered by the most observant eye.

In others, such as “The Adventure of the Clavileño,” where the protagonist is a high school teacher, he uses a lesson analyzing a scene from Don Quixote to include a lucid analysis of the political reality. The current situation also seeps into the story that opens and gives the book its title. A peculiar and erotic journey through the pandemic lockdown that, in certain echoes of confinement, recalls Sergio Bizzio's Rabia . These stories also function as a showcase of readings and influences: from mentions of James Joyce 's Ulysses or Leopoldo Marechal 's Adán Buenosayres to Borgesian techniques, as in “I Commit Plagiarism,” another story fused with the essay by problematizing the definition of authorship.

Undoubtedly, the most interesting stories are those that revolve around unrequited love, desire, and sex . Palermo demonstrates remarkable sensitivity and elegance in his prose, describing just what is necessary, as if he were a seasoned storyteller. Or perhaps it was the social sciences that provided him with the necessary tools to overcome his inhibitions when narrating brothel settings or conversations where the unspoken takes on even greater significance.

In “You’re Welcome,” two pages are enough to construct a world where a young man falls in love with a prostitute. “Leo” is a peculiar love story in which a jazz bassist is obsessed with her instrument to an erotic degree. “Ribelles” fuses seduction with a peculiar profession that engages with the past, much like the red mailboxes: a bookbinder-poet who wanders through a universe written in archaic Spanish. The last story, “She,” is one of the highlights. Here, seduction becomes unsettling and is combined in an original way with an obsession with suicide and a surprising ending, worthy of the best detective novels, which is best left unspoiled.

The author, who had also worked in a literary vein on a previous book narrating the life of Dardo Cabo ( The Brief Life of Dardo Cabo , Siglo XXI), skillfully combined a touch of irony with a subtle exploration of desire, an eroticism that avoids vulgarity, and a certain essayistic quality that lends his writing greater depth. At the same time, he doesn't allow this to become too pervasive. He permits mystery to take root in certain scenes, as in a Carver story where nothing is overexplained. Also, as if on a journey into the essence of things, a hint of objectivist poetry hovers, as in "A Scottish Cap."

Palermo creates characters who strive to emerge from the shadows, yet simultaneously appear to be desperately swimming in a pool whose depths they cannot fathom. His prose is adorned with allusions to the past, tinged with nostalgia, yet it reads like a survival guide against the wear and tear and the relentless pace of a time driven more by smartphones than by the hands of the clock. His writing endures like those cadmium-red mailboxes that survive in some forgotten little square, while speeding motorcycle couriers whiz past them.