The Procupine

The general editor cleared his throat and began the meeting.

“Gentlemen…”

The side conversations ceased and the general editor turned to face me.

“Well, Mr. Santini… I confess that I am somewhat flabbergasted… It’s just that, the Editorial Board has just finished examining the original copies for your next book…

“Yes.”

“Actually, no one understood a thing of what you wrote.”

“So, you’re not going to publish it?”

“Aren’t we!? You bet we are! Your book is going to be next summer’s best seller. Isn’t that right Werneck?”

The Marketing Director grinned and nodded in confirmation.

“Of course it is! The initial print run will be 100,000 copies. And we already have contracts for translations in line for Könnigsberg and Timbuktu!”

Confused at so many mismatches, I had to ask,

“But… You’re going to publish my book without even understanding anything of what I wrote?!”

“Exactly! Nobody buys a book because they understand its content. In reality, only after buying the book will the reader discover if he has or not the ability to understand its message.”

“What if they don’t understand me?”

“Well, the reader has several alternatives. He can admire the author’s hermetic expressionism; he may suspect that he is facing a new language, a new ‘Finnegan’s Wake,’ a ‘The Great Backlands: Paths’… Or, in desperation, he may admit to his own stupidity…”

“And then?”

“If the work is so hermetic, so full of arcane literary references and occult symbolism, soon it will be the subject of several master’s theses.”

“And then?”

“Well, Mr. Santini, don’t you grasp it? Then it’s time for the second edition. We’ll add another two or three prefaces and a long epilogue, containing reviews from literary critics.”

A bit scared with all this perspective, I dared to ask,

“And what will the critics say?”

“You see, since they understood nothing, they will be afraid to speak against it. They’ll make long ideological incursions around the semiotic universe and inevitably resort to paradigmatic structures and the mythological background of “Homo Tropicalis.” So far we’ve commissioned a first critic’s review from Coutinho to be published on launch day, on national television.”

“And what will he say about my book?”

“Well, we don’t know because he didn’t read the original copies. But we have already agreed on the title.”

“Which title?”

“Heidegger and the Porcupine.” Like it?

“Well, I know a thing or two about Heidegger… But what’s with the porcupine?”

“Well, Mr. Santini, that is referring to you…”

“Me?! A porcupine?!”

“Yes! A fairly rare animal to come by, unknown to the masses, absent in the major zoos and, above all… bothersome!”

“Bothersome, me?!”

“Naturally; you write a book that no one understands and you don’t want to take into account that it bothers us?”

“But, if so, why publish it?”

“Well, because everyone will want to read a work that is impossible to understand. Everyone will give their hunches. It will be an indicator of intellectual sublimity. Imagine all the whispering comments among academic circles: ‘I didn’t quite understand his connotations of the porcupine and its analogies to sadomasochism…’”

“I’m sorry, but I have to ask: are you serious?”

The Marketing Director rose to his feet and glared at me with his teal-blue eyes.

“Mr. Santini, I must remind you that we have already invested half a million dollars in this campaign and half of Europe is itching with curiosity (no allusion to the porcupine) to hear about the new cult novel from the land of bananas. And we have an exclusive contract together that we signed ten years ago after you wrote “Grandma Xandoca’s Stories.”

“But that was a children’s book. Children read it and understand the writing…”

“Exactly! And only a thousand copies sold! Thankfully, you sir have taken the next step and now you can write something for the grown-ups, something that no one can understand. And that will grant financial independence to our publisher. I propose a toast to our next success!”