Between yesterday and today, I somehow managed to read Juvenilia, by Argentinian writer Miguel Cané. I say somehow managed because, first, I resisted the urge to get a dictionary to find out the meaning of every word that was new to me and, second, because Cané couldn’t resist the urge to mention dozens of names, from writers to painters, and titles, from literary works of ancient Greece to works closer to his time (including The Three Musketeers, perhaps the only of all those that I actually read).
In Juvenilia, Cané reminisces about his five years at the Colegio Nacional de Buenos Aires (est. 1863), with the chapters not necessarily in chronological order. He writes about the education he received at the school, founded under the command of an aging Eusebio Agüero, who was shortly followed by Amédée Jacques, of whom Cané speaks highly. With Jacques at the helm, the place became more science-oriented, getting away from the scholastic roots on which it was founded. There’s plenty of positive writing about Amédée Jacques, but this is cut short by M. Jacques’ sudden death, documented before the halfway point of the book.
The above isn’t really the focus of the book, as it is, for the most part, about the occurrences, experiences, events, adventures, misadventures, personalities and even pranks that Cané witnessed or participated in. Every so often, he dedicates a chapter or two to a specific classmate that he deems worth remembering, starting with a description and ending with … it depends on the classmate. Some of them are described as brilliant, highly intelligent, with a bright future ahead. Others aren’t so interested in learning as they are in everything else. The thing is that, while many of those mentioned end up living respectable lives and/or are still friends with Cané, others –including some of the brighter ones– end up in misery or meet their demise during or after the school years, be it because of some disease or due to the hardships of life.
That got me thinking … and looking at the introduction pages again, because two or three of those acquaintances are mentioned there. Cané writes about one, who seemed to have had everything in his favor during the school years, but didn’t get very far beyond that and ended up in a mix of alcohol and desperation, meeting his end not long after Juvenilia was written. Another one, adept at mathematics, doesn’t quite end up in a significant position. Yet another one, of a vivid imagination, who saw things in his own unique way and who couldn’t stop thinking of stories, is mentioned and presumed dead by the author. Oh, what the world can do to those with potential …
The rest of the book covers life at the school, escapades, various other experiences powered by the vitality of youth and it ultimately ends with the author’s desire to leave the school, to live in the world, as he approaches adulthood and studying becomes less appealing. Closing with a visit to the school many years later, Cané quickly walks through various other experiences, invaded with nostalgia for those years past, mentioning a few more names and places, as he now takes the place of his instructors, sitting in front of a new generation of students and remembering that he was once one of them.
Yes, I pretty much told the ending of the book with that last paragraph, but I didn’t actually spoil anything. The book is short, but it manages to say a lot and Cané doesn’t tire of making comparisons or allusions to various literary works and historic events that probably wouldn’t translate so well without careful thought. Not that I wouldn’t recommend it simply because understanding all of those requires some serious knowledge of literature. It just takes patience to understand that the author loved history and stories –after all, literature is what helped him in those first few months at the school–, and to learn how to skip through all those references instead of researching each one if you intend to finish reading it in less than a month.
If you know Spanish, reader, Juvenilia can be read online at Wikisource, though it’s missing the footnotes, some of which are significant, and I don’t think that reading whole stories from a screen compares to having an actual book in hand (so, take it if you find it). The biggest advantage of online reading that I can think of, especially in this case, is being able to quickly research what is being read … but that could be distracting.
There’s more I want to say about the book, including a few random thoughts I had while reading the first half of it, but that’s beyond this poor excuse for a review … or summary. I just wanted to get this all out there and out of the way before going in that direction.
If you managed to get through the word jumble presented above, congratulations: you are desperately bored.
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