The navigator of Eternity
A foreword
by Martin Hadis
A foreword
by Martin Hadis
In 2015, the publishing house Fantagraphics released the English translation of The Eternaut. In addition to helping translate the more “Argentine” sections into English (such as the truco card game, for example), I also wrote the following foreword.
Fast-paced, richly scripted, and masterfully illustrated, The Eternaut gained immediate acceptance upon its publication; through the years its fame has only grown, and by now it is widely considered a cultural icon. It is perhaps tempting to explain away its impact by focusing on the impression it made on the local, Argentine audience for which it was originally intended. True, Solano Lopez’s drawings are minute to a fault, and remain accurate to this day. Any reader who takes it upon himself or herself to visit Buenos Aires after reading The Eternaut will instantly recognize the tiled sidewalks, the styled lampposts, and the many landmarks depicted in these pages. And it’s also true that, until Oesterheld came along, aliens had mostly stuck to their old and well-rehearsed routine of invading U.S. or European cities. Their interstellar ships and weapons had, so far, left South America mostly untouched. For us Argentines, seeing (and I use the verb deliberately) our city in ruins, our monuments and buildings either shattered or strangely disfigured by alien technologies, our streets blanketed by an eerie, iridescent snow, literally brought the idea of an alien invasion home, and sent shivers up our collective spine.
Buenos Aires has annual temperatures similar to those of South Florida or Southern California; snow has only been observed twice in living memory. The first reported snowfall was in 1918; the second, almost a century later, in 2007 (a significant date, it turns out, as it marked the fiftieth anniversary of The Eternaut´s first publication). Both were considered odd and extraordinary events. Thus, the very sudden onset of snow at the beginning of the story is completely anomalous and disturbing.
But The Etemaut´s success and recognition has gone way beyond Argentina’s borders. It was released in Spain and Mexico; and translations were published in Croatia, France, Greece, and—last but not least— Italy, where it was received with great acclaim. There’s evidently something about this narrative that transcends frontiers, languages, and cultures, something that speaks to readers of every conceivable background. But what possible interest could the story of the alien invasion of Buenos Aires hold for other audiences? Where does its universal appeal actually reside?
In retrospect, Oesterheld’s life seems fated: a willful trajectory intended to turn him into the craftsman of imagination that he became. As a child, he grew up surrounded by books. “I read Salgari, Defoe, Stevenson, and Verne, the latter voraciously,” he once said. “I had older brothers, so by the time I was five I already had a lot of books at my disposal. It is from these authors that my inspiration sprang from, not from comics.” Fluent in Spanish, English, and German, Oesterheld was a polyglot and developed a strongly multicultural worldview from his earliest days. As a young man, he pursued a degree in the natural sciences and finally graduated as a geologist. He spent the next few years doing prospecting work throughout Argentina, from the freezing plains of Patagonia to the scorching deserts of the north, paying special attention to the landscapes, the terrain, the plants, and the animals at each potential drilling location. One can hardly think of a more propitious upbringing for a sci-fi writer, a creator of imaginary worlds. s such, he was certainly exceptional. Oesterheld wrote for a living, and throughout a long and distinguished career he produced literally hundreds of stories and comic scripts. His science-fiction prose works (many of which remained unpublished, in part due to his tragic death) were recovered and compiled by Mariano Chinelli and me in an anthology entitled Mas allá de Gelo.
Though Oesterheld gladly acknowledged his predecessors, he was also aware of having a unique perspective. “My stories,” Oesterheld once wrote, “are all filled with allegory and have a message to convey. They all try to express something, and they attempt to do so in a way that is ours, that is, Argentine: neither that of Bradbury, nor of Arthur C. Clarke, nor of Italo Calvino, nor of any of the other great sci-fi masters. Just that: ours.” A bold statement, indeed, and one that in turn conveys more than meets the eye
It is clear that Oesterheld saw himself at the center, and perhaps the intersection, of those illustrious names. As the reader will soon notice, he was spot on: in the coming pages he or she will readily feel waves of nostalgia and horror on the scale of The Martian Chronicles, stand in awe at cosmic revelations like those found in 2001: A Space Odyssey, and laugh at ironies worthy of Calvino’s Cosmicomics. What those three authors have in common is that their fictions go beyond the limits and conventions of the genre. And exactly the same can be said about Oesterheld. His preoccupations lie neither on exoplanets nor on the vast realms among the stars. They reside, rather, within the inner space of the protagonists: “I do not limit myself to scientific or technical aspects,” he once wrote. “My stories narrate the doubts, the angsts, the horrors faced by those men who, with complete abnegation, are willing to risk their lives and their sanity while carrying out humanity’s wonderful leap into the unknown.”
Akin to Art Spiegelman’s Maus, The Eternaut depicts a worldwide catastrophe by focusing on a microcosm: while keeping the reader constantly aware that the very existence of humanity is at stake, Oesterheld centers his narrative on the adventures, trials, and struggles of a small group of friends, who attempt to survive while they try to come to grips with the magnitude of the devastation they’re facing.
In other words, and perhaps paradoxically: The Eternaut attains its universality by focusing on the local. My role in this edition has been to ease this transition; that is, to render Argentine geographic, cultural, and linguistic peculiarities understandable to a new audience. While habits and customs may vary, the effect of pitting friendship, home, and comfort against the utterly alien and frightful cannot fail to stir anyone’s passions.
Thus, The Eternaut is a sci-fi story, but it’s also an exploration of the human condition, an observation of our primal instincts and fears, an homage to heroism, friendship, and camaraderie, and an insightful anticipation of what the future would bring about: to Argentina, to the world, and to the author himself.
As with a symphony, there’s thus no single chord to which one can fully attribute the appeal of The Eternaut. It is a work of a singular richness and depth. Every reader will find something in its pages that resonates with them; this is just another way of saying that it is a literary masterpiece and a classic.
Fast-paced, richly scripted, and masterfully illustrated, The Eternaut gained immediate acceptance upon its publication; through the years its fame has only grown, and by now it is widely considered a cultural icon. It is perhaps tempting to explain away its impact by focusing on the impression it made on the local, Argentine audience for which it was originally intended. True, Solano Lopez’s drawings are minute to a fault, and remain accurate to this day. Any reader who takes it upon himself or herself to visit Buenos Aires after reading The Eternaut will instantly recognize the tiled sidewalks, the styled lampposts, and the many landmarks depicted in these pages. And it’s also true that, until Oesterheld came along, aliens had mostly stuck to their old and well-rehearsed routine of invading U.S. or European cities. Their interstellar ships and weapons had, so far, left South America mostly untouched. For us Argentines, seeing (and I use the verb deliberately) our city in ruins, our monuments and buildings either shattered or strangely disfigured by alien technologies, our streets blanketed by an eerie, iridescent snow, literally brought the idea of an alien invasion home, and sent shivers up our collective spine.
Buenos Aires has annual temperatures similar to those of South Florida or Southern California; snow has only been observed twice in living memory. The first reported snowfall was in 1918; the second, almost a century later, in 2007 (a significant date, it turns out, as it marked the fiftieth anniversary of The Eternaut´s first publication). Both were considered odd and extraordinary events. Thus, the very sudden onset of snow at the beginning of the story is completely anomalous and disturbing.
But The Etemaut´s success and recognition has gone way beyond Argentina’s borders. It was released in Spain and Mexico; and translations were published in Croatia, France, Greece, and—last but not least— Italy, where it was received with great acclaim. There’s evidently something about this narrative that transcends frontiers, languages, and cultures, something that speaks to readers of every conceivable background. But what possible interest could the story of the alien invasion of Buenos Aires hold for other audiences? Where does its universal appeal actually reside?
In retrospect, Oesterheld’s life seems fated: a willful trajectory intended to turn him into the craftsman of imagination that he became. As a child, he grew up surrounded by books. “I read Salgari, Defoe, Stevenson, and Verne, the latter voraciously,” he once said. “I had older brothers, so by the time I was five I already had a lot of books at my disposal. It is from these authors that my inspiration sprang from, not from comics.” Fluent in Spanish, English, and German, Oesterheld was a polyglot and developed a strongly multicultural worldview from his earliest days. As a young man, he pursued a degree in the natural sciences and finally graduated as a geologist. He spent the next few years doing prospecting work throughout Argentina, from the freezing plains of Patagonia to the scorching deserts of the north, paying special attention to the landscapes, the terrain, the plants, and the animals at each potential drilling location. One can hardly think of a more propitious upbringing for a sci-fi writer, a creator of imaginary worlds. s such, he was certainly exceptional. Oesterheld wrote for a living, and throughout a long and distinguished career he produced literally hundreds of stories and comic scripts. His science-fiction prose works (many of which remained unpublished, in part due to his tragic death) were recovered and compiled by Mariano Chinelli and me in an anthology entitled Mas allá de Gelo.
Though Oesterheld gladly acknowledged his predecessors, he was also aware of having a unique perspective. “My stories,” Oesterheld once wrote, “are all filled with allegory and have a message to convey. They all try to express something, and they attempt to do so in a way that is ours, that is, Argentine: neither that of Bradbury, nor of Arthur C. Clarke, nor of Italo Calvino, nor of any of the other great sci-fi masters. Just that: ours.” A bold statement, indeed, and one that in turn conveys more than meets the eye
It is clear that Oesterheld saw himself at the center, and perhaps the intersection, of those illustrious names. As the reader will soon notice, he was spot on: in the coming pages he or she will readily feel waves of nostalgia and horror on the scale of The Martian Chronicles, stand in awe at cosmic revelations like those found in 2001: A Space Odyssey, and laugh at ironies worthy of Calvino’s Cosmicomics. What those three authors have in common is that their fictions go beyond the limits and conventions of the genre. And exactly the same can be said about Oesterheld. His preoccupations lie neither on exoplanets nor on the vast realms among the stars. They reside, rather, within the inner space of the protagonists: “I do not limit myself to scientific or technical aspects,” he once wrote. “My stories narrate the doubts, the angsts, the horrors faced by those men who, with complete abnegation, are willing to risk their lives and their sanity while carrying out humanity’s wonderful leap into the unknown.”
Akin to Art Spiegelman’s Maus, The Eternaut depicts a worldwide catastrophe by focusing on a microcosm: while keeping the reader constantly aware that the very existence of humanity is at stake, Oesterheld centers his narrative on the adventures, trials, and struggles of a small group of friends, who attempt to survive while they try to come to grips with the magnitude of the devastation they’re facing.
In other words, and perhaps paradoxically: The Eternaut attains its universality by focusing on the local. My role in this edition has been to ease this transition; that is, to render Argentine geographic, cultural, and linguistic peculiarities understandable to a new audience. While habits and customs may vary, the effect of pitting friendship, home, and comfort against the utterly alien and frightful cannot fail to stir anyone’s passions.
Thus, The Eternaut is a sci-fi story, but it’s also an exploration of the human condition, an observation of our primal instincts and fears, an homage to heroism, friendship, and camaraderie, and an insightful anticipation of what the future would bring about: to Argentina, to the world, and to the author himself.
As with a symphony, there’s thus no single chord to which one can fully attribute the appeal of The Eternaut. It is a work of a singular richness and depth. Every reader will find something in its pages that resonates with them; this is just another way of saying that it is a literary masterpiece and a classic.
-MARTIN HADIS
Buenos Aires, 2015