Desarticulaciones

¿Cómo mantener una amistad intacta cuando el Alzheimer se va llevando consigo las bases del lenguaje, la memoria y las experiencias compartidas?

La narradora visita casi diariamente a ML., con quien compartió una estrecha amistad y ahora padece mal de Alzheimer. A partir de esos encuentros y los fragmentos de memoria de ML. va construyendo un relato poderosamente conmovedor sobre la desarticulación de una mente que progresivamente va borrando todo de una manera peculiar.Un intento, a través de la escritura, de “hacer durar una relación que continúa pese a la ruina, que subsiste aunque apenas queden palabras”. “¿Cómo dice yo el que no recuerda…?”, se pregunta la narradora frente a esa mujer que le muestra la casa como si la visitara por primera vez o que es incapaz de decir que ha sufrido un mareo, pero puede traducir al inglés perfectamente un mensaje donde se dice que ella ha sufrido un mareo.Pasajes de un pasado y un presente compartidos que se transforman en ficción frente a un olvido que no puede contradecirlos. Un libro que opone al derrumbe una prosa precisa y vital y la sensibilidad única de una de las mejores escritoras latinoamericanas.

In brief, sharply drawn moments, Sylvia Molloy’s Dislocations records the gradual loss of a beloved friend, M.L., a disappearance in ways expected (forgotten names, forgotten moments) and painfully surprising (the reversion to a formal, proper Spanish from their previous shared vernacular). There are occasions of wonder, too—M.L. can no longer find the words to say she is dizzy, but can translate that message from Spanish to English, when it's passed along by a friend.

This loss holds Molloy’s sense of herself too—the person she is in relation to M.L. fades as her friend’s memory does. But the writer remains: 'I’m not writing to patch up holes and make people (or myself) think that there’s nothing to see here, but rather to bear witness to unintelligibilities and breaches and silences. That is my continuity, that of the scribe.'

How do you keep a friendship intact, when Alzheimer's has stolen the common ground of language, memory, and experience, that unites you?

In brief, sharply drawn moments, Sylvia Molloy’s Dislocations records the gradual loss of a beloved friend, M.L., a disappearance in ways expected (forgotten names, forgotten moments) and painfully surprising (the reversion to a formal, proper Spanish from their previous shared vernacular). There are occasions of wonder, too—M.L. can no longer find the words to say she is dizzy, but can translate that message from Spanish to English, when it's passed along by a friend. 

This loss holds Molloy’s sense of herself too—the person she is in relation to M.L. fades as her friend’s memory does. But the writer remains: 'I’m not writing to patch up holes and make people (or myself) think that there’s nothing to see here, but rather to bear witness to unintelligibilities and breaches and silences. That is my continuity, that of the scribe.'