Joseph Conrad said that with the right word and the exact accent, the world could be moved. Now we know that the world is moved by nothing, not even by Archimedes' lever. The world doesn't need movement; it is movement.
But the seven narratives in The Angel of Nicholas demonstrate that the right words, the exact rhythm, and precise images can recreate the incessant movement of nature and history. A chaotic nature is tamed by the indispensable harmony of music; an irrational history is rescued like a child kidnapped by its own parents by the invincible will of its protagonists, who assume the world's hazards to their ultimate consequences.
Verónica Murguía has masterfully reconstructed different moments in history and myth: on the one hand, her style is a serene and, with all the weight of the term, a classic teaching of the power of the word; On the other hand, her narratives reveal with generous wisdom the surprising interweaving of certain historical events in the West and the East, the most human possible meaning of biblical parables, and the irreplaceable secret of Greek representations.
Everything in these narratives seems ancient, or even timeless, like the story of the faun Marsyas, a panicky version of Orpheus; but Verónica Murguía's lucid imagination saves us a vital surprise at the end of each one, one that only reading can bring home: all events and all myths are always our history and our beginning. Antiquity becomes, in her hands, and in our eyes, a disturbing and unforgettable present.
If, as César Vallejo said, "art discovers paths, never goals," it is no coincidence that The Angel of Nicholas, this beautiful and singular book, begins in search of the language of Paradise and ends with the flayed body of the first artist floating in that eternal river where we will never enter twice.