Daniel Saldaña París

Towards the end of this strange novel, Rodrigo, our listless protagonist, begins pontificating about Descartes’ piece of wax--the very object that served to addle Descartes into nearly nihilistic skepticism (but for the grace of God)! Rodrigo’s strange recollection of Descartes’ Meditations reflects his understanding of his own life: Descartes sees the wax in a particular shape. A second figure removes the wax and places it over a fire, and remolds it. Can the first person recognize the newly presented wax as the same? Rodrigo concludes that if the first figure cannot determine it is the same piece of wax, then our senses cannot not reveal to us the principle of identity. We can only understand the piece of wax as the same piece of wax if we witness the process of its transformation. (Notably, Descartes is both first and second figure--no one conceals and then reveals it to him).

I suspect Descartes is a master key to Rodrigo’s self-understanding, which--on a physical and philosophical level--is an exercise in a oddly principled non-formation of the self. Rodrigo’s life happens to him; he endeavors to make as few choices as possible: to let the ebb and flow of happenstance dictate his trajectory.

“My life has the disadvantage of not being completely my own...The greater part of my time is spent in inertia, and that includes the most crucial decisions, which I take like someone picking a card from a deck held out to him. The result is never magic; I can’t even perceive the adrenaline of objective chance or observe a conspiracy of symbols behind what happens. I just go on living.”

Rodrigo behaves as though he is a rudderless ghostship, waiting for a gale force wind (or a slight breeze) to tilt his prow towards a new life course. A certain will-lessness is a driving theme here, and also what makes Rodrigo immune to moralism: he makes no blame- or praise-worthy choices--he makes no choice at all. Rodrigo is more piece of wax than he is Figure 1 or Figure 2 trying to determine if he is the same at T1 and T2. If he values anything at all beyond his apartment view, his hen and his collection of teabags, it is his own intangibility--his own commitment to not having an identity.… (more)