Quotessence
Home / Authors / Sergio Chejfec Biography
Sergio Chejfec

Sergio Chejfec Biography

Writer

Related Quotes

“No hace mucho, un párroco quiso graficar en la misa dominical la idea que tenía de Dios. Explicó que siempre se ha dicho que Dios está en todas partes y que acompaña a todo el mundo en todo momento. Lo difícil, sugirió, es hacer tangible esa presencia, ofrecer ejemplos prácticos que no dejen lugar a dudas. Hizo silencio y enseguida agregó que Dios es como los mapas en línea (dijo textualmente "Google Maps"). Puede observar desde arriba y desde los costados, es capaz de abarcar con la mirada un continente o enfocarse en una casa, hasta hacer zoom sobre el patio de una casa. Y así, como todos los resentes en ese momento podían imaginar, nada escapaba a su vigilancia. Ahora bien, agregó, Dios funcionaba como los mapas digitales, pero mejor, porque no estaba reducido a la representación visual y sus distintas modalidades (mapa, relieve, tránsito, etc.): estaba en condiciones de abarcar literalmente todo, desde las voces y sonidos en el aire hasta los sentimientos más inconfesables, de un modo tal que podía prescindir de la visualización sin mayor problema, cosa imposible para Google Maps.”

DigitalDiosMapas
Book:La experiencia dramática
Create image

“For me parks are good when first of all, they're not impeccable, and when solitude has appropriated them in such a way that solitude itself becomes an emblem, a defining trait for walkers, sporadic at best, who in my opinion should be irrevocably lost or absorbed in thought, and a bit confused, too, as when one walks through a space that's at once alien and familiar.”

WayShouldFirstsLostBitsSpaceWalksOpinionSolitudeFamiliarAliensConfusedParksTraitsDefiningWalkersEmblemsImpeccableSporadic
Author:Sergio Chejfec
Create image

“A word, and all the infinite fluctuations it may possess. Like that moment when you know you have something to say, and you know you're speaking, even, but you still have no idea how you will say it. Or the moment when, as a reader, you're reading, and you are understanding what you are reading, but still have utterly no idea what will come next for you, what precisely the author wants to say. For me, that is the ultimate level of literary depth, of literary density.”

KnowsWantMayStillsIdeasMomentsReadingNextUnderstandingLevelsReaderUltimateInfiniteDepthNo IdeaThat MomentDensityFluctuation
Author:Sergio Chejfec
Create image

“Like when you pick up a book and you don't realize what type of text it is - it could be an essay, a novel, a biography - and at one point you realize you don't know where, as a reader, you want to be. Where are you going with this text? What is the goal? How are you supposed to interpret what you're reading? And people's responses vary - some dislike it, and are put off by the confusion, the lack of comprehension.”

PeopleKnowsWantBookReadingGoalRealizingNovelTypeReaderPicksResponseConfusionDislikeBiographiesEssaysVaryComprehension
Author:Sergio Chejfec
Create image

“What I find is that many times when I work with chance, with indeterminacy, I am more open to experience, less prone to a fixed process, and I think it creates a very important challenge. It creates a way of writing that is, in a way, flatter or smooth, a surface conducive to release, to movement. And in this way, the form of writing gets delightfully melded with the process of the writing.”

ThinkingWayWritingImportantFormProcessChallengesChanceMovementSurfaceReleaseFixedSmooth
Author:Sergio Chejfec
Create image

“Not to say that the process assumes anything of "greater" or "lesser" importance, though: it's just more graphic information. Take the surrealists, for example, or a work by Cage. For me, there's a great value in doing this with literature. There's a certain form of dependence; process and product inform each other, depend on each other. I consider myself a writer who doesn't write with a style, almost. I begin with tension, with a vibe, a character.”

WritingCharacterFormCertainValuesLiteratureProcessGreaterStyleInformationExampleProductsDependsImportanceAssumingTensionDependenceCagesGraphicGreat ValueSurrealist
Author:Sergio Chejfec
Create image

“When I use a name or place, I want to leave the reader open to the waterfall of determinacy that it may provoke. And I don't know, but I must mention the name Borges. I try to mention it in every one of my works. It's a mark, a stamp, a sort of homage to Argentinidad. But it's an homage that works through pat phrases, those stock images that populate his work: the night, labyrinths, libraries. That is, I don't want simply to pay homage to Borges, but rather the contrary: to recall his commonplaces.”

KnowsWantTryingMayUseNightNamesPayReaderMarkLibraryContraryPhrasesWorking ItRecallsProvokingStampsCommonplaceLabyrinthHomageWaterfallsBorges
Author:Sergio Chejfec
Create image

“We can speak of politics, ethics, and in this way, speak about the world. But at the same time, it's always in a way that is totally nebulous and abstracted, this way of thinking about reality. And that's why I write the way I do - it's an almost immortal way to show dependence on the biological, the political, the moral parts of us. I say immortal because we now have to find new formats, new eloquences, and resolve within ourselves this "constructed" life, a life that is incomplete, imperfect.”

ThinkingWorldWayWritingShowsRealityPoliticalSpeakMoralEthicsImmortalResolveImperfectDependenceWay Of ThinkingEloquenceIncompleteFormat
Author:Sergio Chejfec
Create image

“I find that, for me, it is this concept of borrowed or built life, life on loan, that gets me writing. It's similar to speaking about literature. I like it, and then I don't like it. It has such an inherent vein of pretention, because you're not speaking about real things. There's a literary pretentiousness made of speaking and spending so much time on unreal persons. And it seems, now, impossible to create an unpretentious, totally organic character.”

WritingPersonsMadeRealCharacterSeemsLiteratureImpossibleConceptsBuiltSpendingInherentVeinsLoanReal ThingsUnrealBorrowedPretentiousness
Author:Sergio Chejfec
Create image

“For me, it's a way to find a fiction within a fiction. To find a way to uncover that blunder within the "lie," because when you look closer, every "lie" - and I say that with quotation marks - can be much more complicated. Because that is what fiction is: it's probably the least important thing in the world. It's rich, but it is put-on, it passes the time. It borrows from the world, but it does not invent it.”

WorldWayLooksDoeImportantLyingFictionRichMarkImportant ThingsComplicatedQuotationsBlundersQuotation Marks
Author:Sergio Chejfec
Create image

“In the early days of the Internet, the word "navigation" had this ingrained in it. There really was a sensation of the cyber-flâneur, as you really would have no idea where you would end up. You would end up on pages that had nothing to do with what you wanted, experiences that were totally unanticipated. You had to connect the dots, connect the parcels of your experience. It was totally open to randomness.”

IdeasEndsWantedInternetPagesNo IdeaSensationsDotsCyberRandomnessNavigationParcel
Author:Sergio Chejfec
Create image

“I like to compare the first experiences of the Internet - the fortuitousness, the chance - with reality, with the experience, for example, of being in a city that you don't know. Many times - and I don't know if I can totally defend this argument - I've found that the way one experiences the world, and daily life, we are constantly dealing with these perceptions. And it seems like it works, this superficial perception of determinacy, but it's completely ridiculous.”

IfsKnowsWorldWayFirstsI CanRealitySeemsFoundChanceCitiesExampleInternetPerceptionArgumentRidiculousCompareDaily LifeSuperficial
Author:Sergio Chejfec
Create image

“Nostalgia for people, cultures, everything. There's an ability to use these marks to note things that are erased, deleted. Traces are a species of history, of evidence. It's a way for the way the narrator to construct a semblance of self, even though all of this creates a deception, a way to think of one's traces as a real way to define oneself. The trace is fallible, impermanent. It's one of the motives I had in mind throughout the text.”

PeopleThinkingWayMindRealSelfUseCultureAbilityEvidenceMarkNotesSpeciesOneselfNostalgiaDeceptionMotiveConstructsNarratorsSemblance
Author:Sergio Chejfec
Create image