The Museum of Eterna's Novel

WHAT IS BORN AND WHAT DIES

Today we release to the public the last bad novel and the first good novel.¹ Which one will be the best? In order to prevent the reader from opting for his preferred genre at the other’s expense, we’ve arranged that these two novels be sold as an indivisible set; considering that we’re unable to impose a mandatory reading of both novels, at least there remains the consolation of having devised an obligatory purchase of what one does not want, because it cannot be untangled from what one does. Therefore, the Obligatory Novel will either be the last bad novel or the first good novel, depending on the reader’s taste. There is one absurdity that must not be permitted: that the reader thinks the two novels are equally good, and congratulates us on such comprehensive “good fortune.”

The Bad Novel deserves its homage; this is mine. This way, nobody can say I don’t know how to do things poorly, that I didn’t have the talent for this novelistic genre; that is, the bad. Thus I’ll show the full scope of my capacities in the same day. It is true that I have run the risk of mixing up the bad thoughts of Adriana Buenos Aires with the good ones that constantly occurred to me for Eterna’s Novel, but it’s up to the reader to collaborate and sort out the confusion. Sometimes I found myself perplexed, especially when the wind blew the manuscript pages around the room. Then I wouldn’t know which page belonged in which novel because, as you know, I wrote a page of each novel per day; nothing could help me because the pagination was the same, the quality of ideas, paper, and ink were all equal — I had made an effort to be equally intelligent in each, to keep my twin novels from quarreling. How I suffered, not knowing if the brilliant page before me belonged in the last bad novel or the first good one!

Let the Reader take charge of my agitation and trust in my promise of a forthcoming goodbad novel, firstlast in its genre, in which the best of the bad of Adriana Buenos Aires and the best of the good of Eterna’s Novel will be allied, and in which I will recollect the experience gained in my efforts to convince myself that something good was bad, and vice versa, because I needed it in order to finish a chapter of one or the other…

1 Already in The Newcomers Paper and the Continuation of the Nothing (1944) these novels were so announced. As the Warning to Adriana Buenos Aires says, with its publication the original plan was restored, because although they were not sold as a set, the two novels have nevertheless appeared almost simultaneously. (Editor’s Note — Adolfo de Obieta)