There’s something about Spain that’s always enamoured me. I’ve never set foot on Spanish soil but there is a distinct tug I can’t place. Maybe it’s the food, the weather, the architecture, the football, or the quest for lands unknown. And no, I do not have plans in place for a bachelor’s trip across the country culminating in stupidity by indulging in the bull run. My thoughts are more about traipsing across towns with Zafon in my hand and chorizo on my plate. I hope you can see through the facade either way.
Ben Lerner’s Leaving the Atocha Station is a facade of its own built out by the protagonist, Adam Gordon, an American student living it up in Madrid at the turn of the 21st century. Adam’s the recipient of a prestigious fellowship (Fulbright) and makes several trips to the Prado Museum, drowning himself in the art. He’s also on a heavy cocktail of anti-depressants and casually tiptoes around everything he’s supposed to be doing. Avoiding any form of responsibility as he goes about chilling, in the true sense of the word as most of us use it. He’s busy smoking up, making summer trips in the guise of research, and lying to elicit pity, sympathy, or both. A good chunk of the narrative is his disconcertment with his Spanish-speaking skills and is used as the crutch for his inability to process anything in depth. He struggles with imposter syndrome and the story veers into space where the insecurities about his knowledge, his dysfunctional relationships, and his formal engagements collide leaving Adam short of breath, literally and metaphorically. The M-11 bombings form the backdrop for the latter half of the book, with the title of the book being a nod to the central station in Madrid.
The read: Reading about the author’s background makes you realize that this is almost non-fiction meant to read like fiction. Part meditation, part prescribing, Leaving the Atocha Station lives and dies by the sword, the protagonist. Adam really has nothing going for him – I felt no reason to root for the lad. In fact, it’s often frustrating to see how it seems like he’s throwing it all away. Neither do we get your classic foreigner’s ruminations in a foreign land nor do we get any formative thoughts generated by his first-hand experience of the bombings. Adam seems to drink the draught of the living dead because while we see everything through him, so much is left unsaid. I felt as hollow as Adam by the end of the read, mostly annoyed by the fact that there was so much promise. The only bit that felt substantial was Adam’s quandaries about what art stood for and its true representation but I was left asking for more. The train seems to have left the station, but I don’t think too many would board this one.
Trivia: The protagonist is mocked for missing out on visiting the Alhambra during his trip to Granada. The palace, a UNESCO world heritage site, is built of tiles that contain all of the 17 mathematically possible wallpaper groups, which inspired artist M.C. Escher and his work on tessellation.
Documentation:
Book: Leaving the Atocha Station
Author: Ben Lerner
Year of Release: 2011
Publisher: Coffee House Press