El silenciero

by Antonio di Benedetto, Fabián Lebenglik (Editor)

Es uno de los nombres que debe tomarse en cuenta para la evaluacion de la literatura experimental en la Argentina. Atento a las posibilidades de renovacion de las tecnicas narrativas, Di Benedetto ha entrado en esa riesgosa aventura y debe convenirse en que lo ha hecho con notable felicidad. Las tres principales novelas de Antonio Di Benedetto, Zama, El silenciero y Los suicidas, en razon de la unidad estilistica y tematica que las rige, forman una especie de trilogia y, digamoslo desde ya para que quede claro de una vez por todas, constituyen uno de los momentos culminantes de la narrativa en lengua castellana de nuestro siglo. En la literatura argentina, Di Benedetto es uno de los pocos escritores que ha sabido elaborar un estilo propio, fundado en la exactitud y en la economia y que, a pesar de su laconismo y de su aparente pobreza, se modula en muchos matices, coloquiales o reflexivos, descriptivos o 1iricos, y es de una eficacia sorprendente. De ese arte singular, El silenciero es una de las cumbres.

Genres: Fiction, Spanish Literature, Literature, Latin American, Historical Fiction, Novels, 20th Century

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 30, 1964

About the author

Antonio di Benedetto was an Argentine journalist and writer.

Di Benedetto began writing and publishing stories in his teens, inspired by the works of Fyodor Dostoevsky and Luigi Pirandello. Mundo Animal, appearing in 1952, was his first story collection and won prestigious awards. A revised version came out in 1971, but the Xenos Books translation uses the first edition to catch the youthful flavor.

Antonio di Benedetto wrote five novels, the most famous being the existential masterpiece Zama (1956). Los suicidas (The Suicides, 1969) is noteworthy for expressing his intense abhorrence of noise. Critics have compared his works to Alain Robbe-Grillet, Julio Cortázar and Ernesto Sábato.

In mid-sixties or early seventies he caused a diplomatic faux-pas at a NATO meeting when during a ceremonial toast he raised his cup and said "cin cin" to bystanding Japanese diplomats. This caused an international pandemonium, as "chin chin" is a slang term for penis in Japanese. This later led to his prosecution. In 1976, during the military dictatorship of General Videla, di Benedetto was imprisoned and tortured. Released a year later, he went into exile in Spain, then returned home in 1984. He travelled widely and won numerous awards, but never acquired the worldwide fame of other Latin American writers, perhaps because his work was not translated to many languages.

Reviews

[Guille · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Anoche ha venido el gran gato gris de mi Infancia. Le he contado que me hostilizaba el ruido. Él ha puesto en mí, lenta e intensamente, su mirada animal y compañera.”

Zama ha sido una de las grandes sorpresas que la literatura me ha deparado en los últimos años. Con “El silenciero” este factor sorpresa, que siempre añade cierto atractivo, ya no cuenta, todo el placer que me ha proporcionado la lectura es achacable a la maestría del autor.

En “El silenciero” el lenguaje ha cambiado, ya no estamos en la América colonial del siglo XVIII sino en los años 50 "o su después", pero el estilo permanece y existe un claro paralelismo temático. La forma que encontré en Zama, sin semejanza con nada de lo que había leído con anterioridad, está aún más depurada en esta obra: frases cortas, lacónicas, esqueléticas, tanto que dan una impresión de burocracia, de discurso administrativo, técnico y que, en un arte de birlibirloque, consigue transmitir admirablemente las sensaciones de angustia, de dolor, de amor, de ternura. Con este extraño lirismo, Benedetto nos narra escenas esquemáticas que en ocasiones se siguen sin transición que las enlace: será en homenaje al silenciero que el silencio solo pueda romperse con lo esencial.

“La dimensión de la llanura invita a desoír la ciencia y atenerse a la engañosa evidencia de la que Tierra es una vasta superficie plana. Sobre uno de sus bordes, el sol parece tolerar la lentitud del auto que nos lleva, y decirnos: sin prisa. No me descolgaré todavía, les daré mi luz para que lleguen. Por entretenerse durante la demora, juega a pintarse de rojo y desparrama pintura alrededor y hasta muy lejos. El pueblo, de ladrillos colorados y mallas de alambre como cierre, se deja penetrar - por el autito -, sin perturbarse.”

Mientras en Zama se trataba la situación de demora de la vida, de la eterna espera de aquello que no acaba de llegar y que entorpece el vivir, aquí es el ruido el que aglutina el cansancio o la imposibilidad de vivir, el que impide a nuestro protagonista ser el que debe ser. En ambos es el hombre que, incapaz de manejar su vida, inventa obstáculos insalvables, construye molinos de viento que le sirvan de excusa y a los que se enfrenta impotente. Esa excusa acaba por llenar la vida vaciándola (hay otra lucha, otro personaje, quizás demente, seguramente demente, que actúa y pierde, que persigue y no encuentra; no hay escapatoria para Benedetto si es lo que te ha tocado).

“¿cómo pueden ignorar lo esencial, que el error se halla incorporado a la raíz del hombre?”

La primera parte me gustó incluso más que Zama; la segunda, donde se nos narra el desvarío, la espiral de desmoronamiento, menos; el conjunto, ligeramente menos, muy ligeramente.

"La noche fue silencio. Precedió el silencio a la creación. Silencio era lo increado y nosotros los creados venimos del silencio. De silencio fuimos y al polvo del silencio volveremos. Alguien pide: que pueda yo recuperar la paz de las antiguas noches y se le concede un silencio vasto, serenísimo, sin bordes. El precio es su vida."

[Glenn Russell]

The Silentiary - Antonio Di Benedetto's title had me running to the dictionary. From what I was able to find, silentiary refers to a maker of silence, an observer of silence or an advocate of silence.

Considering the barrage of noise raining down on the novel's unnamed narrator/protagonist, by process of elimination (so much noise he isn't in a position to make silence or observes silence), he's left with being an advocate of silence.

Poor guy. On the first page a bus leaves its motor running right outside his bedroom window. The noise hardly lets up in the novel's 150 pages - and all the noise drives De Silentio crazy. Johannes de silentio served as one of Kierkegaard's pseudonyms and I'll give half his name to our tale's narrator.

Originally published in 1964, The Silentiary easily qualifies as unique and one-of-a-kind. Juan José Saer notes in his essay included in this New York Review Books edition: "But while certain themes in Di Benedetto's work have an affinity with those of existentialism - the ghosts of Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer, and Camus drift along the back of the stage from time to time - the prose that discreetly distributes them across the page has neither precursors nor successors."

The author frames his tale thusly: We're in an unnamed Latin American city in the 1950s. De Silentio works as a manager's assistant in an office but aspires to be a writer. As a first step, De Silentio needs to get away from all the harsh city noise so he can concentrate. Not easy, especially since he must take into account his mother and his wife. He comes up with something simple for starters: he'll write a detective novel where he himself will assume the role of criminal, and, as criminal, he'll plan the murder of someone he knows.

Again, distinctive storytelling. The tale heats up halfway in. To share a flavor of what a reader will encounter, here's a batch of direct quotes along with my comments:

“Noise has become the sign or symbol of all that is now, all that is new, all that possess weight and validity; the rupture.”

The mushrooming of cities across the globe happened in the first half of the twentieth century. By the 1950s, many thousands of cars, buses and trucks came to dominate every aspect of city life. A near intolerable level of noise and stench and ugliness simply became the given.

“Therefore, eminent spirits – Kant, Goethe, Lichtenberg, Jean-Paul - have always shown an extreme dislike to disturbance in any form. Above all have they been averse to that violent interruption that comes from noise. Ordinary people are not much put out by anything of the sort.”

De Silentio quotes German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer here. Sad fact: Most people don't register noise – motors can rumble, sirens can blare, music can screech and the general population barely notices. However, De Silentio possesses a deep artistic sensitivity and, like Norwegian explorer Ering Kagge, he has a primordial need for silence.

One of the key themes of existentialism: a sense of alienation from society and from other people. De Silentio's wife Nina fears silence and solitude; she clamors to fill her world with sound, especially radio music. And Nina's fear is an expression of modern culture: silence has become the dreaded enemy. The last thing people want is to discover or come in contact with a deeper level of life that opens up via silence and solitude.

“Like everyone else, we had a television set, though like very few people, we used it with discretion.”

Antonio Di Benedetto displays keen insight - the 1950s inaugurated the age of television where television shows became central to the lives of an entire population. De Silentio wants to write a novel. Fortunately he and his wife bring a measure of discretion to their TV viewing – without discretion, the television could remain on and our novelist in the making could spend years with his ass plopped in front of the boob tube, his desire to write a novel reduced to a faint memory.

Sidebar: In all the dozens of existential novels I've read by authors like Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, André Malraux, Georges Simenon, I can't recall even the mention of television.

“Machines are useful. Their noise is not, and still less so when amplified or uncontrolled. At present, machine noise is neither moderated nor controlled nor suppressed. It produces the euphoria of power in those who generate it.”

Bullseye, De Silentio! To inflict your noise on others is a form of aggression and power. If anybody doubts this, think back to when you were subjected to the roar of a motorcycle.

There's also a curious philosophic dimension at play. As Esther Allen writes in her Translator's Afterward, John Cage told Morton Feldmann, his friend a fellow composer, that he shouldn't complain about the noises in the environment, explaining, in effect, that he (Morton) wants to impose his thoughts on the outside world so why shouldn't the outside world have the right to impose itself on him?

“My novel will have a crime and various suspects, but I myself, the author, will remain unaware of who the criminal is. That way the book can be prolonged indefinitely, until the crime it once was about has been entirely forgotten."

De Silentio goes on to spin other possibilities for his novel. I kept wondering if The Silentiary itself could count as one possible iteration.

Antonio Di Benedetto incorporates several other provocative themes in The Silentiary. I highly recommend picking up a copy. Perhaps you will also be moved to read the author's classic, Zama, likewise available thanks to New York Review Books.


Argentina's Antonio Di Benedetto, 1922-1986

[Paula Mota · Rating 4 out of 5]

“- E também o carrossel...
- Sim, claro, com os altifalantes a anunciar as voltas logo de manhã.
- Mas – corrigiu Nina – o carrossel não impediu nenhuma compra...
- É verdade, só nos fez sair de uma pensão, a quinta ou sexta em que estivemos.
- A quarta. A quinta tinha o night club enfiado na cave.
- Não, essa foi a sexta. A quinta dava para a cervejaria...
- ...com mesas no passeio, e de noite, junto à nossa varanda: pessoas a discutir, foliões, rádios a pilhas; os pedidos do empregado, o garfo que cai, o copo que se parte no chão...
(...) – Os apitos do guarda-nocturno...
- Os das corridas, que escolhiam aquele quarteirão para se reunir...

Tendo os meus próprios dramas pessoais com inúmeras fontes de ruído ao longo dos anos, sobretudo por ter um sono muito leve e ouvido de tísica, tinha obrigatoriamente de me identificar com o Silencieiro, um maníaco do silêncio.
Este jovem subchefe de secção, hipersensível ao mínimo barulho causado pelos outros, que parece atrair tudo o que é rádio, armazém, oficina, fábrica e bar a funcionar a desoras, vive numa angústia constante, arrastando a mulher e a mãe de casa em casa em busca do silêncio que idealizou, isolado do bulício urbano. Em frases curtas e secas, um pouco frenéticas, Antonio Di Benedetto conseguiu contagiar-me com a ansiedade do protagonista, em que tal como ele, eu temia e tentava prever o próximo confronto estrondoso, o próximo zumbido ou guincho que bule com os nervos. Neste crescendo de paranóia, o protagonista atinge um grau de neurose bastante incómodo, criando momentos quase surreais, que não me pareceram necessários e não conduziram ao melhor dos desfechos.

“- Pouco tempo para aprender a dançar, daqui até logo à noite.
- É a primeira vez que o senhor me diz uma piada. Teve graça. Vamos celebrá-la logo à noite. Agora, tenho de desligar. Espero por si às nove. Não falte.
E desliga.
Curioso efeito têm as minhas piadas: não são para rir no momento, é preciso celebrá-las umas dez horas mais tarde. E não era uma piada. De qualquer forma, eu não disse que irei. A sua interpretação não é a minha decisão."

[julieta · Rating 5 out of 5]

Había leído antes a Di Benedetto, pero no lo había entendido bien hasta este libro. Tiene una prosa extraña, deja espacio, hay algo en su rítmica que es atemporal, y te mete en el mundo obsesivo de este personaje, que vive obsesionado por los ruidos.
Además me encanta, hay algo de eso, de los ruidos y las urbes, de la urbanidad que no está construida de una manera en que a gente pueda vivir lejos del ruido, que me encanta.
Porque es muy real, y actual. Cualquiera que viva en una ciudad grande se puede identificar con este conflicto, aunque en este personaje se lleva a el extremo.
Voy a tener que volver a leer Zama, el clásico Di Benedetto, porque no recuerdo haberlo disfrutado tanto como esta maravilla, que amé de principio a fin.

[Cosimo · Rating 4 out of 5]

In forma di suono

“Probabilmente, stando come sto, un po' debole, non riesco a capire quest'altro rumore che è arrivato. Non so cosa lo produca né perché, nell'interrompersi ritmicamente, menta e riprenda la menzogna che non riprenderà. Riprende sempre. Non so cosa sia, ma è così perseverante che immagino provenga da una macchina a cui un uomo si trova incatenato”.

Antonio Di Benedetto fu vittima nel 1976 di sequestro da parte dei militari al potere e dopo il rilascio costretto all'esilio. Non si riprese mai del tutto e sopravvisse con sofferenza verso una conclusione molto triste. In questo libro è tracciata la sua esperienza precedente, dove si racconta il solitario e doloroso senso di sradicamento che provò in quanto intellettuale eccentrico e marginale nella provincia di Mendoza rispetto al centro della cultura argentina. In queste pagine acquista consistenza la coscienza dell'assurdità del male e il rumore viene a rappresentare lo strumento che la realtà usa per impedire all'uomo di essere se stesso. Dal silenzio veniamo e alla polvere del silenzio torneremo. La storia qui narrata è un'esperienza di perdita, vissuta da un protagonista anonimo e kafkiano, intrappolato in se stesso, in un mondo che non offre tregua né soluzione né via d'uscita. Del resto Di Benedetto aveva perso molto presto il padre, emigrato di origini italiane, e questo lutto era stata la spinta alla scrittura, per alleviare il dolore e difendersi dalla distruttività. Scrittura che l'autore argentino interpreta come forma di possessione, come ben descrive in prefazione Laura Pariani: la letteratura è una fatalità, un destino, le storie si impongono, entrano dentro la personalità dello scrittore e giornalista di origini cattoliche, seguendo un rituale di purezza e insieme di autoanalisi. L'io del romanzo non ha nome né identità, non viene riconosciuto da nessuno, è oppresso dalla giustizia, dal potere, dalla legge. La sua ipersensibilità all'insidia del rumore lo travolge e lo condanna all'isolamento e alla sconfitta, dopo aver cercato aleatorie soluzioni: le normative, la casa ideale, il riposo del sogno. Persino l'amore si rivela un'esperienza perdente e la solitudine diviene incubo, delirio, labirinto; la pace è inesistente e gli oggetti divengono intollerabili: autobus, altoparlante, tornio, giostra, radio, televisore. Tutto contribuisce all'ossessione che corrode e turba e depriva, in un'atmosfera di inquieta irresponsabilità. Il romanzo che lui sogna di scrivere si intitola Il Tetto e fa pensare a una casa protetta, un luogo senza intrusi; al romanzo come a uno spazio di felicità e insieme una esigenza morale rispetto alla percezione della violenza diffusa tra le persone e della rabbia del reale individuale. Lo scrittore avverte un desiderio corporeo di assoluto silenzio, il bisogno compulsivo di allontanare l'angoscioso rumore, insegue l'utopia di una vita priva di tormento e estasi. Attende che ogni istante gli consegni un carico di avversità, non vuoto di speranza e amore, ma senza il coraggio di passare oltre, senza credere nell'eterno. Si consegna a una spinta ossessiva all'annullamento metafisico di identità e sostanza, facendo appello ad entità immaginarie, a potenze inesistenti, a alleati estremi e sconsiderati. Trova un amore che non risponde, una maternità che non protegge, una creatività che non fluisce; in definitiva si perde in un sentiero di insensata, disperata e straziante follia dell'anima, al di là di metafore, motivazioni e lacerazioni.

“E' colpa mia. Mi sono lasciato catturare dalla seduzione delle parole: con la loro apparenza di idee sembrano rilevare qualcosa, come se mettessero in guardia sulla natura dei loro strati profondi. Hanno cominciato a confondermi e mi stava assalendo la paura di essere due, o di albergare in un altro me, o di aver perduto l'altro mio io o di trovarmi sotto il suo dominio”.

[Josh · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this over two days a month ago, and to be honest, I can't say I enjoyed reading this throughout. It was a grower and the more I thought about it, I can say I admired it more than 'liked' it. Maybe I should've started with Zama first?

...and to be truly honest, I'm only writing this review to plug a nice independent bookstore that I procured this at on a very short trip to Knoxville, TN. If you have a chance, check out Union Ave Books.

[Yuri Sharon · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have friends and relatives in several parts of the world who have, or have had, more to worry about than loud radios or building sites next door, and I therefore humbly beg their indulgence when I say that Antonio di Benedetto’s novel El Silenciero (1964) really resonated with me. Di Benedetto put the loathing of noise on a metaphysical level. For him it was torture ― and then in 1976 he really was tortured and physically broken by the bastards who seized power in the Argentine.
There are people, and I am one of them, for whom noise is as intrusive as being watched. Nikola Tesla, a synesthete, hated it. Mild-mannered Charles Darwin would drop his bundle over noise. Proust was tormented by his upstairs neighbors nailing crates directly above his bedroom early in the morning; and then having in a painter who thought he could sing opera. Nowadays tradesmen have radios ― but it is not, of course, opera to which they listen.
The Yanks at Guantanamo Bay (and no doubt elsewhere) used loud and constant Heavy Metal as a torture. There are jokes about which types of music would be the most effective torture. Sinatra’s My Way? Or would you be surprised that Country and Western could drive people mad faster than any other genre? Nothing funnier than jokes about torture.
You don’t have to look over your shoulder to find it, noise is just there. The torture of intrusive noise is in the victim’s lack of control, in not knowing if or when it will cease; or when it’ll start again. You are always on edge, waiting for the next assault. It can literally stop you thinking.

[Guillermo Jiménez · Rating 4 out of 5]

La editorial independiente Adriana Hidalgo se ha dado a la tarea de rescatar la obra de este autor mendocino que vivió el exilió y vio espaldas anchas en vida con respecto a su trabajo, aun a pesar de elogios por alguno que otro santón literario, tanto de su país como de fuera de la Argentina.

Dice el señero señor Cortázar: «Di Benedetto pertenece a “esos raros y preciosos autores para quienes la imaginación se da, por decirlo así, hacia atrás en el tiempo, como Karen Blixen, como Isaak Dinesen, como para insinuar con el doble nombre esa metempsicosis al revés, esa instalación tan natural y perfecta en un tiempo dejado atrás por la historia y por la literatura”.» (http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/sup...).

Esta fue la primer novela que leí de Di Benedetto, invitación, como no, de un admirador de su obra y que tuvo la gracia de conocerle y compartir anécdotas con él: Roberto Bolaño.

[Simon King · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is possible that Di Benedetto never gained recognition because, unlike the popular Latin-American novels of his time, his writing is not verbose or gimmicky. Di Benedetto strives for a whittled down ecomical use of words and looks towards European existentialism for inspiration.

Like Jean-Paul Sartre's Nausea, a novel this shares many similarities with, the character has a neurotic source of frustration - here it is noise. Living with his mother, he shares intellectual discourse with a like-minded eccentric called Besarión until he flees the anguishing noise of the town with along with a love interest.

The protagonist has literary pretensions, reading, thinking, writing, his aspirations always crushed off by the perennial presence of noise, a presence that obsesses him until, toward the end of the book, he becomes psychopathic.

All I can say is that I had wished I had written it. Noise is a major dilemma in my life, too, and Di Benedetto's laconic writing style serves as a lesson to the limitless number of wordy writers, like me, who are in serious need of an editor's scalpel.

[Lucas Sierra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oraciones como bálsamos, como balsas (Comentario, 2025)

Lo he insistido ya en varios de los comentarios de este año: me interesa la literatura que es capaz de crear su propio lenguaje. Y entre lo que he leído, no hay sino un puñado de escrituras que lo logren como lo logra la de Antonio di Benedetto, a quien hasta ahora no había leído (pese a que prometí hacerlo luego de ver la adaptación al cine de "Zama" hecha por Lucrecia Martel), pero a quien seguiré leyendo con ansias.

Porque "El silenciero" fue un bálsamo. Porque entraba a leerlo y todo se fundía en su cadencia, en su búsqueda, en su ritmo de suave rumor y febril contracción. La anécdota es kafkiana: un tipo quiere vivir tranquilo, disfrutar del silencio del mundo, pero la ciudad está creciendo y ahora hay talleres, y motos, y discotecas. Por tanto eso del silencio es más bien escaso. Pobre hombre, lo comprendo perfectamente, vivo frente a una calle principal y el tráfico es uno de mis némesis. Cada vez que un conductor se pega del pito agradezco los motivos por los que el azar no puso dinamita en mis manos.

Pero vuelvo al punto. La anécdota es una espiral de fracasos en la búsqueda del silencio. Pero es la forma lo que es precioso. Está narrada en primera persona. Y el protagonista narra en silencio. Es decir, narra con palabras, pero es casi como si todas las oraciones se pensaran para transmitirnos el silencio que añora. Incluso las que están ahí para describir el ruido. Incluso las que tienen corazón de estruendo.

Lo logra conteniéndose. Siendo parco. Yendo al mínimo. Pero ojo, que no estoy diciendo el minimalismo de ciertas escuelas realistas (Raymond Carver es solicitado en información, Ernest Hemingway pasillo doce), me refiero a una suerte de minimalismo poético más cercano a la poesía concreta. Me refiero a música, tal vez, y no a literatura. A pentagramas con espacio entre las notas, así sean notas complejas.

Qué delicia fue leer esto. Háganlo, para acallarse el alma.

[Kusaimamekirai · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Someone (not Besarion, not me) is full of love for everyone.
Someone (not Besarion, not me) is full of hatred for everyone.
Someone is full of reservations, mistrust, and suspicion of everyone. (it may be Besarion, it may be me)
Someone is full of violence toward everyone (each one of us is, everyone is)
Someone needs to be respected and loved (That’s me, that’s Besarion)
But is it truly possible for anyone to be full of love for everyone?”

“Noise is a torture to intellectual people...”
-Schopenhauer

If there is one thing I’ve learned about myself over the years, is that I don’t handle noise well. I don’t go to clubs, generally stay away from crowded places, and find myself annoyed at cafes and other public places where people are blaring some random YouTube video from their phone for all to hear.
Then there is however, our narrator.
If the sounds of everyday life occasionally irritate me, they drive him into convulsions of anger and philosophizing.
Through the course of moving house and home countless times due to the proximity to his home of a disco, metalworks, car repair shop, passing buses, and even a man who takes to banging a rock on a metal pole, our narrator seems incapable of any semblance of serenity in the modern world.
Interestingly enough, there are sounds that don’t bother him. As his wife understandably grows increasingly distressed by their constant uprooting, she asks him one day why the crying of their son doesn’t bother him. His reply? It is a sound from someone I love and therefore not imposed upon me.
It’s this sense of imposition in particular that leads him to muse on why for example a man reading a newspaper on a bus doesn’t bother him but if that same man read the paper aloud, it’s an imposition.
He loves music, but wants the ability to choose his own music, not music forced upon him.
Set in a unnamed Latin American country shortly after WW2, sound here could easily be a metaphor for the imposition of a new kind of capitalism imposed from abroad. With this capitalism comes industrialization and with industrialization comes its buses, it’s dance clubs, its constant encroachment on your ability to contemplate in peace.
Our narrator is perhaps an extreme example of this, he is in most respects pretentious and extremely in likable. However, for those who occasionally would like to have a quiet cup of coffee somewhere without being subjected to the YouTuber flavor of the month, it’s hard not to sympathize, even a little bit, with the path he eventually and perhaps inevitably goes down.

[G. Munckel · Rating 3 out of 5]

“De silencio fuimos y al polvo del silencio volveremos”.

Al protagonista de esta novela lo atormenta el ruido. Todo empieza cuando instalan un taller mecánico en la casa de al lado: detrás de la pared de su cuarto suenan todo tipo de máquinas. A eso se van sumando diferentes ruidos: las radios con su “música impuesta”, los kioscos que se abren frente a su casa y toda la bulla de los camiones y los vendedores, etc.

No le queda más opción que irse. Peregrina de una pensión a otra, siempre encontrando un ruido que lo moleste: desde el piano mal tocado por la hija de la vecina hasta las fiestas que se arman en la calle. Todo quiebra su paz y le impide el descanso. Usar tapones no es suficiente, denunciar el ruido ante las autoridades tampoco.

Hay un aire un poco kafkiano en toda esta novela, algo en la imposibilidad de escapar del ruido, que al final parece provenir del protagonista mismo, que lo acompaña siempre y del que no podrá escapar por más que sus acciones lo lleven hasta las últimas consecuencias.

[Guido · Rating 4 out of 5]

Una piccola delizia letteraria, è un vero peccato che Di Benedetto sia così poco conosciuto in Italia: per una volta, i commenti entusiastici di Borges e Cortázar riportati sulla copertina sembrano appropriati e meritati.

La storia di un uomo che ingaggia un'improbabile lotta contro i rumori di macchine, tv, radio, autobus, giostre, officine e simili, che assediano la sua voglia di esistere (e non, semplicemente, di "vivere") tranquillamente in città, è narrata in uno stile eccellente, le frasi sono brevissime e le parole debitamente pesate, mai ridondanti. In questo romanzo ho riconosciuto alcuni miei pensieri, di quelli che raramente avevano trovato, finora, un conforto letterario. Mi piacerebbe trovare altre edizioni italiane dei libri di Di Benedetto, ma temo che sarà molto difficile.

[Adam Ferris · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Last night the big gray cat of my childhood came to me.
I told him the noise stalks and harries me.
Slowly, intensely, he cast his animal, companionable gaze upon me."

The unnamed narrator in The Silentiary can't stand the sounds of the city. He completely detests them so much that he files complaints with the city, goes to extreme measures to avoid the noise and drags his family and a piano that hasn't been played in years, out to a new home in the country. Once there, another racket haunts his every second to the point of complete desperation where all that is left is complete self-annihilation and imprisonment.

"Do you know? Have you thought about it?
The darkness was silence.
Silence preceded the Creation.
Silence was the uncreated, and we, the created, emerged from silence.
Can sound gain access to the maternal womb?
Had my organs of hearing not yet developed, and that's why I can find no trace or memory of any sound there?"

The Silentiary is a metaphysical tale about the urbanization and industrialization of society. With Di Benedetto's fragmented writing, there is a perfectly sized gap between what is said and what is insinuated and left for the reader to piece together. This story is about the inner life of an aspiring writer who falls victim to his distractions whether it be females, his own imagination or his complete obsession with eliminating all sound that swirls around him. He spends too much time in his head, and not enough time living in the reality that is his reality.

"When the things we fear move away from us, they'll return if we name them. They'll mistake the mention of their name for a call to come to come back."

Di Benedetto has written a haunting story about the orchestra of simple and minute sounds that we have all come to accept as part of living in a city. We have become a world where people need to sleep with white noise to avoid other noises. How insane has city living made us where we need noise to find peace and quiet so we can sleep? Being inside the narrator's head was aggravating at parts being caught in his obsessions and delusions, and at other times insightfully exploring the metaphysical aspects of noise that affect our spiritual side that was equally engaging.


"Do you see the process? The war ends, and the industrial economy is transformed: great quantities of the machinery of peace go on the market. Set to work, the machines soon break down: they must be repaired. To repair or replace their parts, businesses, repair shops open. They have to be located somewhere, and no one regulates them, no one dictates where. Wherever they find the space. There are many of them. They take advantage of small empty lots between houses and blocks. The man who owns some land behind his house that once belonged to his parents or someone else further back sells it, and at a good price. What moves in is progress, but it's not where it should be, because everything around it is residential, and people can't sleep or eat or read or speak in the chaos of sound."

"Your quest against noise is metaphysical."

"I don't know what my daemon might be, or what a daemon is or how it looks. But there's something that prevents me from bolstering my simple negation with arguments."



From silence were we made, and to the dust of silence shall we return.

Someone begs, "That I may recover the peace of former nights..." And is given a vast silence, utterly serene, without boundaries. (At the cost of his life.)"

[Bhaskar Thakuria · Rating 3 out of 5]

OK, first things first....

To say the least and to cut to the point: I was disappointed with this novel.

So the author decides to continue with the same theme that run through his masterpiece Zama but the premise here is a lot more mundane and desultory compared to his previous novel. I had enjoyed reading Zama immensely and consider it among the greatest novels coming from Argentina. The whole semblance of frustration and escapism that was so evident in the main character of Zama had to be the guiding point for this work. It is there and suffuses this work and takes it to a whole new level (by avoiding the romantic and sexual entanglements of the narrator in Zama) but the only thing that served to undermine this novels's theme is the setting which seems a bit lacklustre compared to the exciting backdrop of Zama. Picture to yourself a struggling writer in a postwar South American city striving in vain to write a book of some sort. And in his frustration to put words to paper sets about to create for himself the necessary preconditions for writing. Such is his desperation that he strives to plan a crime on some individual so that his work might finally take place...

A bit too outlandish and far fetched in setting...after all who in his proper senses would commit such a thing?

This book is brief but I had to force myself to finish it...after I had gone through half of the book the story began to wander and it became one continuous drawl. I am giving it three stars only for the terse but tense conclusion which is reminiscent of Zama.

[Brenda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Antonio Di Benedetto definitivamente tiene una prosa particular. Única.
Y por eso sólo ya vale la pena leerlo.
La historia es muy interesante y el avance del ruido sobre la misma subjetividad
del protagonista está narrada magníficamente.
Es muy interesante como trabaja sobre el "fuera de cuadro", es decir, relatando marginalmente las cosas, sin explicar lo que ocurrió o no, sino a través de miradas y retazos construidos desde los distintos personajes y situaciones.
Para seguir investigando... Ahora iré por Zama y Los suicidas.

[Marc Nash · Rating 4 out of 5]

Video review
https://youtu.be/L4YDvpspnrA

[Omar Abu samra · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m in love with Benedetto! A remarkable work let’s say
Not complex as Zama but still well written

[Steven · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful. Weird. Can't wait to read his other novels (that've been translated).

[Héctor Genta · Rating 4 out of 5]

La storia di un’ossessione, quella dell’uomo senza nome protagonista del romanzo per il rumore, rumore che fa il suo ingresso in scena già alla seconda riga (Apro il cancello e trovo il rumore) e che viene presentato come qualcosa di concreto più che entità astratta (lo cerco con lo sguardo, quasi fosse possibile determinare la sua forma e il limite della sua vitalità). All’inizio è solo un disturbo, frastuono che proviene dalla strada e si limita ad infastidire il protagonista quando è in casa, ma nel corso della storia si dilaterà a dismisura fino a diventare ingovernabile, monomania in grado di fare da innesco per l’esplosione di quel malessere che il giovane non riesce più a comprimere dentro di sé. Un uomo solo, che frequenta un strano e contorto amico di nome Besarion, con il quale non riesce ad avere un rapporto confidenziale ma solo conversazioni superficiali, ed è invaghito di una ragazza, Leila, una vicina di casa alla quale non riuscirà mai a dichiarare i suoi sentimenti, finendo poi per sposarne l’amica, Nina, più per indolenza che per amore (Sposerò Nina. È la cosa più facile, sì, molto più facile di tutto il resto.). Un uomo freddo, apatico, che si sorprende della considerazione qualcuno può avere per lui (“Perché mi accetta?” – chiede a Nina – “Perché lei è buono e per bene.” “Sono buono e per bene?”), e che non riesce a provare alcuna forma di empatia per gli altri. Un uomo che vive veramente solo nella sua immaginazione, nei suoi sogni, come quello del romanzo che vorrebbe scrivere senza però iniziarlo mai, ma che se non altro gli fornisce il conforto necessario per andare avanti (forse questo è il fausto giorno in cui comincerò il mio libro. Ce l’ho quasi tutto nella testa. Mi basta sceglierne un inizio: cosa dire per primo, con cosa cominciare. Seduto allo scrittoio, ci rifletto, e le creature che ho pensato già fanno quel che devono per vivere il dramma prefissato. Ho detto loro di camminare, e camminano. Mi meraviglio della magia del mio pensiero. Reclino la testa e mi assopisco. Sono felice e questo mio riposo è meritato). Un personaggio simile in tutto e per tutto al Bernardo Soares di possoana memoria: un sognatore, ma forse anche un immaturo, uno che preferisce la fuga al confronto, che ha paura di assumersi delle responsabilità e appena può scappa in solaio a giocare da solo con i suoi soldatini. Un uomo lacerato, come lo definisce Besarion, senza sapere cos’è che lo lacera. Gli altri, la gente, i vicini, sono nemici, fabbricatori di rumori e di disturbo, da evitare prima e combattere poi, in un crescendo che diventa drammatico con il procedere della trama. Perché tanto accanimento nei confronti del rumore? Perché secondo il protagonista è ciò che gli impedisce la concentrazione, ma questa è solo una scusa, una giustificazione che racconta agli altri sperando di convincere anche se stesso, perché in realtà il problema è che non sa su cosa concentrarsi: il protagonista è un guscio vuoto, senza obiettivi, ambizioni, aspirazioni. Questo è il vero dramma, il dramma dell’uomo moderno che dopo essersi calato nei labirinti della coscienza scopre di aver perso il filo che lo legava all’esterno (Besarion tenta di essere, finge di essere, pur di non essere. Non essere che cosa? Non essere chi? Se stesso. Besarion tende decisamente a non essere. E io, tendo a non essere?... no, tendo a essere. Non me lo permettono. Interferiscono, mi bloccano. Potrò essere solo a certe condizioni. Quali non lo so, Lo intuisco appena.). Atmosfera kafkiana per una scrittura che per il rigore e la freddezza delle frasi brevi, secche come sentenze, mi ha ricordato Lo straniero di Camus. Ma Di Benedetto è scrittore argentino e come tale non può far mancare tra le pagine quegli squarci di luce tipici della letteratura sudamericana (il sole che si prodiga sul tavolo della stanza da pranzo, il giorno che non è altro che latticello acquoso alla finestra). Leggo sulla quarta di copertina che la rivista La Nacion ha definito l’autore “uno dei segreti meglio custoditi della letteratura nazionale”: ecco, sono contento che questo segreto sia stato finalmente svelato.

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don’t think I’m qualified to rate or review this novel. I need a literature lecture to really unpack and appreciate it. The afterword by the translator was tremendously helpful but it would have served me better as a foreword. The narrator’s existentialist quest to define his life as an author kept being interrupted by noise to the extent that one needs to question his mental health. I’m just frustrated because I know that every word was deliberately selected and every object was a symbol for another but I can’t understand all the nuances. It is beautiful and more meaningful than I gleaned from it.

[Richard Thompson · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's an odd little book, so it was right up my alley.

Our narrator is disturbed by noise and honors silence above all else. His idealized woman, Leila, with whom he doesn't speak, and his mother's unplayed piano symbolize the virtue of silence. He manages to go out into the world, to have a job, to have a friend, to have a girl friend and even eventually to get married and have a child, but what he would really like to do is sit by himself in solitude and silence. At first his complaints seem reasonable - an auto repair shop that has a common wall with his house that has a side business in testing loudspeakers would generate a level of noise that would be trying for anyone. And when he moves and is dogged by noise in all of his successive lodgings, we can sympathize. He seems to have a lot of bad luck. But when you scratch a millimeter below the surface, it's more than a little pathological. Noise becomes the excuse for his inability to write and for his difficulty in maintaining a normal relationship with Nina. Has he really discovered an essential problem with the modern world where noise defines everything and is inescapable and makes a productive and happy life impossible? Or is he just a lame narcissist making excuses or a sufferer from mental illness that is perhaps brought on by the modern world but that is a function of his unique mind and sensitivity? I think that the answer to all of these questions is "yes." And what about the end? Is he redeemed? Is he suffering for our sins? Or is he just a crazy person who needs to be isolated from normal society? "Yes" again.

I loved the character of his friend, Besarion, who flits in and out of the story and is the narrator's foil and evil twin. Besarion is a font of questionable wisdom who is as beset by the modern world as the narrator, but instead of being tormented by noise, his problem is that he has ants in his pants, having a pathological need to move from place to place and never settle down.

I also enjoyed Mr. di Benedetto's other more famous book, Zama, but I was having trouble understanding how this book could be part of trilogy with Zama, since it is so very different in style, tone and characters. I suppose that the character of Zama is also a bit mentally ill and delusional and that he is also a victim of the hostile qualities of his world, but that's all that I could come up with. So I was pleased to read in the afterword that Mr. di Benedetto never considered the books to be part of a trilogy and that it was just a publisher's gimmick in putting out a collected edition of the three books.

[Glenn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mordantly funny, mildly surreal, unique.

[Mateo R. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Novela angustiosa, rutinaria y un tanto críptica (algo kafkiana, ahora que lo pienso). Habiendo leído las tres obras de la denominada "trilogía de la espera" (Zama, El silenciero, Los suicidas) de Di Benedetto, veo varios paralelismos entre las tres. Un par de ellos: la personalidad de los protagonistas (solitarios, parcos, monomaníacos, con ciertas dificultades para socializar) y el elemento recurrente que los persigue (desarraigo, ruido, suicidio). La prosa única de Di Benedetto también las hermana irremediablemente. Hacia el final se desdibuja pero me gustaron mucho las últimas líneas ("Siento el cerebro...") así como las facetas que tiene y el destino que se le da al personaje de Besarión.

Intertextualidad

Menciones directas:
* "Sobre el ruido y el sonido" en Parerga y paralipómena (1851) de Arthur Schopenhauer (cita).
* Ópera Lohengrin (1850) de Richard Wagner.
* Ópera Orfeo en los infiernos (1858) de Jacques Offenbach, Hector Crémieux y Ludovic Halévy.
* El rey Lear (1606) de William Shakespeare.
* Ópera Guillermo Tell (1829) de Gioachino Rossini, Étienne de Jouy e Hippolyte Bis.
* Mención al episodio de Odiseo/Ulises y las sirenas, de la Odisea (ca. s. VIII a. C.) de Homero.
* Mención a los autores:
-Søren Kierkegaard (Dinamarca, s. XIX)
-Maurice de Sully (Francia, s. XII) (alusión)
-Immanuel Kant (Alemania, s. XVIII-XIX)
-Johann Wolgang von Goethe (Alemania, s. XVIII-XIX)
-Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (Alemania, s. XVIII)
-Jean Paul (Alemania, s. XIX-XX)
-Eugène Ionesco (Rumania/Francia, s. XX)

Indirecta:
?

[Lukáš Palán · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bom dia.

Tišitel je knížka o chlápkovi, kterej chce mít pořád ticho, tedy opak mýho dědy, kterej si televizní noviny pouští tak nahlas, že piloti ledadel si nad jeho barákem musí zakrývat uši, aby neohluchli.

Kniha je vyprávěna nespolehlivým vypravěčem, takže nic nedává mnoho smyslu a všechno může být naprosto jinak, soused je možná tranzistor, rýsováček, člověk nebo žemlovka, kdo ví, a hlavní hrdina je buď terorista, nebo takovej ten protivnej dědek v tramvaji, kterej vás sere už jen tím, že nastoupí - a pak vás plácne taškou přes ksicht, zatímco vám vysvětlí, že "za nás se staří lidi pouštěli sednout ty neřáde."

Jako i předchozí kniha od Benedetta, i tato se houpala někdě mezi 4/10 až 10/10, přičemž výsledná známka končí někde na 8,53/10. A jelikož jsem měl dneska sex a dokonce i langoš, dávám 5 hvězd.

[Derian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Me pegó para el lado de las relecturas juveniles esta pandemia. El silenciero es uno de los primeros libros que me compré, allá por el 2006/7, cuando era un pibito soberbio y lleno de vida. No recordaba la trama, ni los personajes, ni nada. Lo único que recordaba era una cierta impresión, una impresión triste y feliz a la vez que me había dejado este libro y que motivó la decisión de releerlo. No fue mejor de lo que la recordaba y no me arrepiento de haberla leído de nuevo porque aquella primera vez, estoy seguro, no había entendido nada. Ahora entendí, pero esa primera impresión, triste y feliz a la vez, ya no está.

[Vicente · Rating 3 out of 5]

Escrita irrepreensível mas sem a magia de "Zama". Bom sem ser brilhante.

[Abraham · Rating 5 out of 5]

Novela magnífica y un autentico descubrimiento en la persona de Di Benedetto. Un lenguaje sucinto, depuradísimo, extraordinario, para una historia de angustia frente al omnipresente ruido.
Muy recomendable

[Brian · Rating 5 out of 5]

I tell myself that the city ends somewhere, in a place where everyone sleeps at night.

A tram bears me towards that indeterminate periphery. Then I walk. I've lost the cane somewhere.

I come upon plaza after plaza where couples are managing to survive the cold, street corners inflamed with alcoholic fervor, little coffee shops where truco is played for beans amid impassioned sports talk.

Ghostly minibuses sleep in a caravan along the gutter, where the light fades.

One dog growls, another barks at me. A few more approach warily. I still have the afternoon paper in my pocket. I unfold it, light it, fan it, and the flames roar up. I let go and it falls, drifting, in an enormous blaze. The dogs howl as if they were being punished and abandon their pursuit.

[145]

[Rocio · Rating 3 out of 5]

Extraño, complejo, por momentos me resultó difícil de leer pero tenía ganas de algo especial, y este libro lo es. El pobre hombre quiere huir del ruido pero no lo logra, es desesperante y al mismo tiempo muy evidente. Me interpeló porque vengo con las pelotas llenas de ruido en Buenos Aires.