TOUCH THAT WHICH WE CANNOT POSSESS
Starting from its mysterious crib in 17th century Venice, a violin journeys through the New York City subway and the concert halls of Europe in the hands of a contemporary string quartet. It searches for its identity, a chance to touch immortality, and its ever-eluding object of desire. Narrated from the violin’s point of view, the novel shows how a violin deals with contemporary questions of power and inequality: Can evil and marvel coexist as one? Can the desire to destroy turn into a desire to love within seconds? How are the sounds of human bodies different from the sounds of instruments? Should we use the same notes to write the music of immortality and the music of love? And from the hands that play the violin to the hands that abuse it, we finally discover who plays whom.
Published by Spuyten Duyvil Press
“In the tradition of Tolstoy’s Kholstomer or Victor Pelevin’s The Life and Adventures of Shed No. XII, Jorge Armenteros takes us on a consciousness expanding picaresque with an unnamed “cheap” violin from 17th century Venice to modern day New York, from classical music to jazz, to a deep exploration not only of our relationship with music but of “the brotherhood of bodies,” both animate and inanimate, with which we inhabit this world. Somehow, in telling the story from a non-human point of view, Armenteros creates the most human of characters, one who yearns for the transformative power of music but is so often denied by the whims of the world around it. Questions of identity abound. Who are we if not defined by our relationships with others? Can we rely on others to help us find the music inside? As Armenteros says so eloquently, ‘There is the music of birds and elephants. There is the music of fish underwater. There is the music of falling leaves. And there is the music of the world spinning and the winds whirling.’ Bravo for the hands that write such musical sentences. Bravo for the imagination that dares to show us what a novel can do. Bravo for this new book by Jorge Armenteros.” —Peter Grandbois, author most recently of half-burnt and The Three-Legged World
“If Kafka wrote about objects instead of his insect and animal stories, you'd get something akin to Armenteros' deliciously fine-tuned and deeply original lyrical novel, Touch That Which We Cannot Possess. After reading this book, you may never glimpse an object the same way again; a carnal body mired in beauty, desire, shit, love, lust, jealousy, vengefulness, and loneliness. A sweet and vindictive thing that breathes, feels, thinks, and manipulates; but also, a thing that is loved, abused, and violated, string by string, hole by hole. Visually and aurally mesmerizing, the novel weaves a refreshing tale of a violin, whose dissected and continually repackaged body reflects our own shattered identities and souls as we interact with lovers and abusers. Vivid, chilling, and intoxicating, it's a book best enjoyed with a glass of absinthe in an opium den, redolent of sweat, eau de cologne, and packed bodies. Sensually addictive and brilliantly memorable, like a first kiss or cigarette.” —Pedram Navab, Author of This Will Destroy You (2019 Foreword INDIES finalist)
“Jorge Armenteros’ Touch That Which We Cannot Possess is a wonderful novel: passionate, fascinating, and educational at the same time. It is all about being human, music, love, and miracle. Readers who are far from classical music will learn a lot and get interested in music as it has been happening with many generations after reading Leo Tolstoy's The Kreutzer Sonata.” —Levon Ambartsumian, Franklin Professor of Violin at the University of Georgia Hugh Hodgson School of Music