‘The King and the Philosopher’, by Daniel Guebel: Leibniz in the black hole of Versailles | Babelia

At this point, no one is going to doubt John Lennon. But it is obvious that if White Album we would have taken away the 8:22 minutes of Revolution nº9, We wouldn’t have raised the needle on the record player a million times to advance it until good night. Remains White Album a great album? Of course. Let’s say then that Revolution nº9 It was unnecessary, but geniuses are like that.

For the same reason one is not going to doubt one of the best Argentine writers of his generation: …

At this point, no one is going to doubt John Lennon. But it is obvious that if White Album we would have taken away the 8:22 minutes of Revolution nº9, We wouldn’t have raised the needle on the record player a million times to advance it until good night. Remains White Album a great album? Of course. Let’s say then that Revolution nº9 It was unnecessary, but geniuses are like that.

For the same reason, one will not doubt one of the best Argentine writers of his generation: Daniel Guebel (Buenos Aires, 1965). It is simply that a wall clock never hurts in the room of a musician or a novelist. This—that of the elephantiasis in some final sections of the book—is the only sin of this superb exercise in baroque construction that is The King and the philosopher.

Under the cover of the real events of the visit as ambassador of the German Roman Empire, of the philosopher Gottfried Leibniz to Versailles to be received by Louis XIV, with the purpose of convincing him of the invasion of Egypt. Written in an epistolary way between a good group of characters, the action establishes, in its first part, its own conditions of writing and reading and they are brilliant. He is funny, intelligent, talented in knowing how to structure a narrative with just some ropes, pulleys and a rich, thoughtful language, with both literary and narrative meaning. As if Monty Python had kidnapped César Aira and convinced him to rewrite The process and he won’t stop doing it after page 150.

Leibniz and his assistant enter the black hole of Versailles, its salons that go nowhere, mirrors, gossip, fountains, betrayals, doors and scaffolding, masks, fleas and incredible stories that always end up being (more or less) true. .

The delirium of what we read about the court of Louis Having the nobility eternally waiting for an audience with the king, he avoided conspiracies and the revolutions ended up being just gossip and bedroom troubles. Guebel’s talent brings characters in and out, he asks us to follow K. and the White Rabbit and we can’t resist. It’s Versailles. It is the Baroque. It’s France and it’s Daniel Guebel.

Finally, Louis to darkness, ferocious beasts, illnesses, a vengeful lover or a wounded leg. Louis XIV, it seems, as it could not be otherwise, fills everything. Designed in a quixotically fascinating way by its author, it offers us great moments and some, towards the end, that are somewhat tedious, leading us to a state of anxiety because gangrene will arrive, once and for all, but when we close the book, we are overcome with nostalgia. . Not Louis XIV or Leibnitz. But about Daniel Guebel’s next book, whether or not he has a clock in his office.

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