Timbuktu

Paul Auster

Mr. Bones es el perro de Willy, un hombre enajenado, echado a perder, el producto de una vida estudiantil rica en sustancias psicotrópicas que acentúan la incomprensión que reina en la relación con su madre. Pero Willy lo es todo para Mr. Bones, que se vanagloria por haber llevado una vida digna con su amo, haber visto algo de mundo y haber sido un chucho fiel hasta el final. Cuando Willy muere y su alma va a Timbuktu, Mr. Bones se las ingenia para sobrevivir sin su protector en un mundo hostil mientras espera ser admitido en Timbutku cuando muera para poder reencontrarse con su amo.

Timbuktu es una novela tierna y muy graciosa donde Auster te pone en el pellejo del mejor amigo del hombre para hacerte reflexionar sobre cómo se ve la vida desde ahí abajo siendo incapaz de decirle a tu dueño que las galletitas de toda la vida solo te las comías porque era elegir entre eso o la inanición.

El siguiente es uno de mis fragmentos preferidos del libro:

"More days passed. He settled into the rythms of the household, grew accustomed to the various comings and goings around him, came to understand the difference between the weekdays and the weekends, the sound of the school bus as opposed to the sound of the UPS truck, the smell of the animals who lived in the woods that bordered the yard: squirrels, raccoons, chipmunks, rabbits, all manner of birds. He knew by now that birds weren´t worth the trouble, but whenever a wingless creature wandered on to the lawn, he took it upon himself to chase the varmint from the property, rushing toward him in a frenzied outburst of barks and growls. Sooner or later, they would catch on to the fact that he was hooked up to that damned wire, but for now most of them were sufficiently intimidated by his presence to keep the game interesting. Except for the cat, of course, but that was always the case with cats, and the black one from next door had already figured out the exact lenght of the leash that held him to the wire, which meant that he knew the limits of Mr. Bone´s mobility at every point in the yard. The feline intruder would always position himself in a spot designed to cause the maximum frustration: a few inches out of the dog´s range. There was nothing Mr. Bones could do about it. He could either stand there and bark his head off as the cat hissed at him and shot his claws toward his face, or he could retreat into his doghouse and pretend to ignore the cat, even though the son of a bitch would then hop on to the roof and start digging his claws into the dense cedar shingles just above his head. Those were the alternatives: be scratched or be mocked, and either way it was a losing proposition".