Somehow the back cover blurb for this one had me expecting something more concrete and less philosophical, but I nevertheless enjoyed this novella made of linked vignettes that are mostly “about” the narrator’s passion for Artforum magazine but are also about the human condition: about being a person and having quirks and hobbies and routines and worries and desires, about time and passing/filling/wasting it, about superstition and art and how we assign meaning to chance events, and how we shape life into stories. The unnamed narrator lives in Buenos Aires and has been reading Artforum for a long time, and the fact that it’s difficult to get his hands on a copy of it in the city where he lives is maybe part of the appeal: when he does find one, it’s a moment of sheer delight. Eventually, he subscribes—but thanks to the unpredictable nature of international mail, the joy of happening upon an issue of Artforum is replaced by the agony of waiting for the next issue, which surely should have arrived already but somehow is always late, if it comes at all.
Sections I particularly loved: “Subscription” (first line: “When I made the transcendent decision to take out a subscription, I thought that all my problems were over”), “Twenty-four Issues of Artforum” (best lines from this one: “Isn’t it dangerous to be too happy? Wouldn’t it have to be paid back afterwards? Wouldn’t it be a better idea to save something for later? The answer is: No.”), and “My Very Own Artforum” (the narrator’s excellent idea: “I would paint the cover, gallery advertisements, illustrations accompanying the articles”).
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