All Roads Lead to Austen: A Year-long Journey with Jane

by Amy Elizabeth Smith

  Too bad she didn’t stick around to see what happened next. I rounded up all of the tasteful “accents” in the apartment and stashed them in a closet. From my overstuffed bags I pulled my purple Mexican fish blanket and various indigenous-patterned fabrics from Ecuador and Paraguay. Every beige surface in the place disappeared under riotous color. Then came my faithful entourage of traveling critters. Foremost was Señor Guapo the stuffed Chihuahua, the treasured gift from Diego. Next, the big-eyed owl statue, three wooden llamas, and the small copper Chilean alpaca. From Paraguay I’d brought a pudgy little family of clay birds that looked best roosting on the windowsill.

  Home away from home—for the last time.

  It was the homestretch for my mother as well, because I was finally in a country she wasn’t too nervous about. Dancing with the Stars had taken care of that. As I settled onto the bed and called to report that I was still alive, she skipped her usual questions about airport delays, my seat on the plane, and if I had gotten any sleep during the flight. “Will you go out to see any shows with people dancing ‘the Argentine tango?’”

  ***

  A nap and a shower later, I descended into the lobby and spoke again with the doorman and manager. When I explained that I was a university professor carrying out a literary project, they both warmed up, apparently shifting me mentally from the “slob” category to “eccentric academic.”

  “Oh, you’ve come to the right city for literature,” Vivienne the manager assured me, while the doorman proceeded to mark up a map to show neighborhoods with the highest concentration of bookstores.

  “This city is full of bookstores,” he assured me. “But along Corrientes, about eight blocks from here, you’ll find one after another.”

  Because of the unexpected turn of events back in Paraguay, I’d given away the copies of Emma I’d planned to use in Buenos Aires. So, even before hunting down Austen readers, I needed to make sure I had enough books for them. In no time I located a store with three copies of Emma. They could, the clerk promised, have three more the following day.

  Ecstasy over the sheer number of bookstores I found whisked off the rest of my travel weariness. Santiago had been impressive, but now I could see why even my Chilean friends traveled here just to buy books. In a single stretch of about eight blocks on Corrientes, heading west from the Avenida 9 de Julio, there were more than twenty bookstores. Some had only new books; others, used; and some, both. There were stores with every kind of classic you could want, translated from any language; stores focused on Latin American politics, history, and literature; stores specializing in overstock with new books for less than two dollars apiece; stores with used books stacked precariously from floor to ceiling; stores with antiquarian books guarded jealously behind glass. And this was just the beginning, just a single neighborhood!

  In all fairness, it’s probably worth mentioning that there’s plenty aside from bookstores in Buenos Aires. Fin-de-siècle architecture from Argentina’s golden era, 1880 to 1920, is the kind of thing that might attract some tourists, plus there’s no shortage of tempting shops, cafés, and restaurants. And packing these shops, cafés, and restaurants (and, of course, the bookstores), one finds perhaps the most appealing thing of all—those fabled beings who think God wants to take their picture, who can’t bear to have their mirrors fogged up, etc.—Argentineans themselves.

  Of all the traveling I’ve done in my life, the only other country that had me ogling the passing locals so much was Italy. Italians have the charming custom of dressing their best and strolling the city streets not only to see the sights but to be seen. In fact, they have a name for this—passeggiati. When both political and economic turmoil forced tens of thousands of Italians to emigrate at the turn of the nineteenth century, many went to the United States and leaped into the melting pot. Most who didn’t went to Argentina. Three or four generations later, Italian blood runs strong in Argentina, and it shows. A noteworthy percentage of men and women alike in Buenos Aires dress handsomely, carry themselves with confidence, and know how to make the most of what they’ve got.

  “It’s not just the women who get plastic surgery here. Men do, too,” a chic store clerk informed me one day when we’d gotten to talking about just how many well-preserved older gentlemen one sees in Buenos Aires. “Even the ones who aren’t fags,” she added. I tried not to wince at the not-so-polite term “maricón,” given that she was trying to be helpful.

  So there they were, in all their splendor—Argentineans. Or more to the point, porteños, as the inhabitants of Buenos Aires are called, given that it’s a port city. And more to the point still, porteños in a prosperous neighborhood. The very long ride from the airport had shown me that Buenos Aires is massive, and I didn’t have any illusions about what some of the neighborhoods must be like. But I was where I was. Leti from the Ecuador group would fit right in on Corrientes, browsing the shops, whiling away her time in the cafés with the cultured and the coifed.

  Now I needed to determine which five or six of these folks would be up for reading Emma. Emma is Austen’s own experiment with “handsome, clever, and rich,” so I hoped she’d go over better here than she had in Paraguay. Bookstores seemed the right neighborhood to start. The handsome twentysomething who’d sold me my Emma copies had been pleasant, but when I tried to engage him on the subject of local literature, it became clear that he could just as easily have been selling shoes.

  Used shops were probably a better bet. Keeping a used bookstore afloat is a labor of love, and I needed to find booklovers, not just booksellers. I bypassed several stores that somehow didn’t look promising and entered one with a motherly woman at the counter penciling prices into a stack of books. After browsing until I’d found something appealing in a bargain bin, I approached and put in my bid for Austen.

  “Oh, cariño, I’d love to be in a reading group! And I love women authors. But I just don’t have time.” As I paid for my book and thanked her, she added, “You know, there’s a nice store two blocks down, on one of the side streets. Librería Romano, it’s called. You should try them.”

  I set off down the street but hadn’t gotten far when I heard a voice behind me calling, “Señora! Señora!” The kindly bookseller, having hurried out after me, pressed something into my hands and said, “Bienvenida a Buenos Aires!” She bustled off again before I could get out more than a surprised “Gracias!” I found myself holding a small pack of cards with the label “Naipes Gauchescos Argentinos.” Gauchos are, in a rough translation, Argentinean cowboys. Well, still no readers, but I now had a lead, a very sweet welcome, and something to entertain myself with in the apartment.

  Turning down what I hoped was the right street, I found the store. It was 10:58 a.m., and two sharply dressed men were gazing in the window like dogs outside a butcher shop, waiting for it to open. No 7:00 a.m. schedules in Buenos Aires. A sign centered in the glass, just below eye level, read:

  EN ESTA LIBRERÍA

  EL PRESIDENTE

  DE LOS ARGENTINOS

  SIGUE SIENDO

  DOMINGO F. SARMIENTO

  “In this bookstore the president of the Argentineans is still Domingo F. Sarmiento” (note to self: ask). After a short wait we were allowed in by a tall, dark, and silent type who immediately sat back down again behind the store’s computer. As I debated whether to speak to him, a cheerful voice called up from the store’s basement level, and, suddenly, Edmund Gwenn from the 1940 Pride and Prejudice emerged—short, portly, with a glint in his eye and a book in each hand. Could this be a magic tunnel to the library at Longbourn?

  “I’m Ernesto Romano,” he introduced himself. From that point on I only understood about half of what he said. With each new country in Latin America came a new accent, and my comprehension level dipped, sometimes precipitously, until I readjusted. Argentineans have the most distinctive accent in all of South America, a singsong, lilting Spanish tha
t sounds for all the world like Italian—presumably an ethnic inheritance from their biggest European influence after Spain. Plus, their “y” and “ll” sounds are more of a “sh,” so that “yo” sounds like “ssshoo” and a common word like “ella” (meaning “she”) becomes “eeessshaaa,” rather than the “eya” sound of Mexican Spanish. To further complicate matters, they don’t use “tu” as a familiar form, they use “vos,” which comes with a whole other set of conjugations for the second person familiar.

  But goodwill is goodwill in any language, and clearly, I’d come to the right place.

  “A book group—what a nice idea!” Ernesto said. “You can do it here, if you’d like. Come down and see my basement.” I’m filling in a few words here and there, but that was the basic idea—and being led down the stairs required no translation. “This is my Sarmiento library. Look, there’s a table here. You can use this space!”

  When I asked if he’d like to take part, he declined but offered up his girlfriend, Carolina. “I imagine she’d like to join you. And you should ask my employee Hugo, upstairs. He loves British literature!”

  After profuse thanks and a promise to let him know when the date was set, I tried for Reader Number Two. But waiting for Hugo to finish something at the computer, I was dubious; there was nothing inviting about his manner. With thick dark hair and the heaviest eyebrows I’d seen in some time, he looked, well, like what I’d been told to expect from an Argentinean—handsome and arrogant. If I had to play “which star does he look like,” it would be Chris Noth, aka Mr. Big, with some extra pounds on him—dark, intense eyes, strong Roman nose, intriguing lips.

  When he finished his task, he looked up at me expectantly. That seemed to be all the invite I would get, so I plunged in, my Spanish taking more bad turns than usual as I explained my project. He stared at me, practically unblinking, his solemn expression unaltered.

  “And so, the novel that I want to read with everybody here is Emma,” I concluded. He continued to study me silently. Whew. Well, there was always the next bookstore.

  Finally, one of his eyebrows moved upward. “Why Emma? Why not Northanger Abbey?”

  I gawked.

  “You’ve read it, of course?” he asked, a second bushy eyebrow rising to join the first, misreading my silence.

  “Of course! In fact, well, it’s my favorite. Of course I’ve read it. I’m just surprised that…you have.” Fabulous—Amy’s Big Parade of Assumptions, coming to a city near you. I blundered on. “It’s just that her other books are more popular. All of her other books.”

  “English Gothic literature is very interesting to me, and Northanger Abbey is an important parody from the classic period.” As he leaned back against his seat and crossed his arms, my stomach gave a funny little lurch. In his handsome, challenging gaze I saw a flash of Luis, my long-lost sparring partner from Antigua.

  I’d come to the right place, that was clear.

  We talked books for a stretch, then I realized I’d better let him get back to work. He never cut loose with anything resembling a smile, but he seemed interested in the conversation and agreed to give Emma a try, despite its lack of Gothic horrors. I promised to drop off copies of the novel the next day. On impulse, as I was pulling the door shut behind me, I looked back to see if he was watching me leave.

  He wasn’t.

  ***

  Day two of the hunt for Austen readers also went well. Enough time had gone by since I’d been attacked in my bed by a mosquito in Asunción that I believed I’d live after all. I spent the morning wandering around an open-air book fair in the Plaza Italia, and although I didn’t sign on any new readers, I bought so many books I had to get a taxi to haul them back to the apartment.

  The only dark cloud over the day passed when I returned to the Librería Romano to drop off three copies of Emma just as Hugo the clerk was trying to put a “Back in Five Minutes” sign on the door to run an errand. I’d secretly been looking forward to seeing him again, but he seemed distinctly cross at being interrupted, so I handed over the books and bolted before he could change his mind about the group.

  Following up on an inspiration to try for more readers, I went to the National Library. Something of an eyesore in the Recoleta, an otherwise attractive, upscale neighborhood, the library was designed in the 1960s and built on land cleared by the demolition of Juan and Eva Perón’s personal residence. “Evita” and her husband remain beloved to this day by millions of Argentineans (and by lovers of musical theater who don’t really know who the heck they were), but others hate them like poison, and as soon as the 1950s post-Perón government got a chance to flatten Juan and Eva’s house, they went for it. From the ruins sprouted the library, looking for all the world like a concrete mushroom with windows.

  With a mother who’s a librarian, I know where the nerve center of a library is: reference. The person who greeted me there was a petite blue-eyed blond who introduced herself as Teresa. She only let me get partway through my Austen spiel before she interrupted.

  “Oh, I adore book groups! And I’ve already read some Austen. That would be lovely!” She promised to bring along two friends who she was sure would want to join in. All three, she told me, were Jewish and interested in Hebrew language and literature. We arranged to meet later that week for lunch so that I could deliver the books and learn a bit more about these newest Emma recruits.

  Slipping back into librarian mode, Teresa reached for a pen and began writing down Argentinean authors I should read, before I could even ask. “Borges, of course you know him. Borges I’m not even going to write down,” she said with a wave of her hand. Aside from Shakespeare, there are few authors who dominate their country’s literature the way Jorge Luis Borges does in Argentina. Despite having died in 1986 at age 86, he still rules the world of the essay and short story the way Colombia’s Gabriel García Marquez dominates the novel. Borges is arguably Latin America’s most important literary intellectual, and he and his circle of writers are a prime reason for the literary fame of Buenos Aires.

  Teresa handed me the list. “All of these authors are good,” she said, “but my favorite, I have to tell you, is Bullrich, Silvina Bullrich. If you like Austen, I know that you’ll love her novels!”

  The name sounded familiar, and when I returned to the apartment, sure enough, I already had Teléfono Ocupado (“Line’s Busy”) by Bullrich, which I’d bought at the Plaza Italia book fair because, quite frankly, I liked the cover. Judging books by their covers is seriously underrated, and any book nerd who claims never to have done it is probably lying.

  “Austenesque” is a seriously abused term in the United States, one mostly employed to sell books just as one sells knockoff perfume: “If you like Chanel No. 5, you’ll LOVE [insert ‘item for sale’ here]!!!” The latest variation on this old ploy is “If you like Austen, you’ll LOVE Austen with [insert ‘zombies/vampires/yeti’ here].” Numerous writers touted as “a modern-day Austen” have nothing more in common with her than the fact that somebody ends up married by the novel’s conclusion.

  If Teléfono Ocupado were one of today’s ubiquitous Austen updates, it would have Emma married to Mr. Knightley in a comfortable, passionless marriage, sitting around all day taking boring phone calls from Miss Bates or Harriet Martin or her sister Isabella, people for whom she has affection but from whom she feels alienated. Then things would heat up when John Knightley’s secretary calls to blackmail Emma, threatening to reveal her torrid affair with Mr. Knightley’s brother prior to her marriage, back when Emma had gone off to London to discover herself and wound up working as a dancer in a nightclub. So…not very Austenesque.

  Still, it’s an interesting novel, good for someone learning Spanish. If you took Teléfono Ocupado’s theme of “too much time on the phone not really connecting” and substitute “too much time on Facebook, etc.,” then the translation into the twenty-first century is pret
ty much seamless.

  ***

  After a pleasant lunch with Teresa I decided to celebrate the fact that I now had five readers, all with Emma in hand. The San Telmo district is a magnet for tourists from abroad and from Argentina’s other cities, thanks to an open-air market with stalls for antiques, handmade jewelry, and other types of crafts. There are dozens of small shops in the blocks surrounding the plaza with similar wares. The area is not as upscale as Palermo, a shopping hot spot more dedicated to clothing. San Telmo is rougher around the edges, a little more old Buenos Aires, tango and all.

  That nippy winter day the pedestrian areas were packed. Street performers, each with a strategically located tip jar, competed for attention. A man in his sixties glided across the cobblestoned streets, tangoing languidly with a life-sized stuffed doll strapped to his body, marking a large circle of territory with his dips and turns. When a young woman tried to dodge through rather than fight the crowds around him, he tangoed her into a doorway on one side of the narrow street, rubbing against her in a way that would have been extremely lewd if there hadn’t been a third party (albeit made of cloth) between them. Yet he never once made eye contact, pretending archly as though he hadn’t seen her at all and was simply occupied with his faithful fabric partner.

  Other tango dancers worked style rather than humor. Within a five-block radius, at least four different handsome couples glided across the cobblestones, dancing first with each other and then, after whetting the public’s appetite, drawing new partners from the crowd and posing for photographs, all the while keeping an eye on their tip jars. Despite enjoying the display I couldn’t help but feel sorry for the women, gorgeous in their billowy black skirts and tight-fitting, cleavage-enhancing tops, but ill-dressed for the chilly weather.

  Stopping into a café bathroom, I interrupted a street dancer adjusting her stockings with one sleek, muscled leg propped up on the sink. Dressed all in black with a red scarf at her waist and beaded red feathers holding her dark hair slicked down in a tight bun, she wore dramatic makeup that would have looked cartoonish on the average woman—but she was anything but average.