hijos de Mitchell

No se han cumplido aún diez días desde que la conmemoración del desembarco de Normandía trajera la de quienes aún viven para contar aquel día de 1944, cuando un nuevo libro de Gay Talese –Los hijos- sirve para volver a imprimir en papel de periódico el nombre de Joseph Mitchell. Y qué más nítido que observar la estampa clásica de Talese –chaleco bajo la americana, corbata y sombrero- y leer después sus magníficos relatos publicados en The New Yorker para apreciar lo que ésta, casi centenaria ya, hace por el periodismo cada siete días. Que es, honrando lo que Mitchell elevara a obra maestra del género en su El secreto de Joe Gould, lo que la ficción que afrontamos diariamente como verdad puede decir de su opuesto: las veces no menos incontables en que la verdad escoge el aspecto de ficción para darse mejor, más hondamente.

Para quienes hayan leído lo que Mitchell escribiera sobre Gould, el turbador resumen que Wikipedia ofrece sobre un matiz de su relación: In a remembrance of Mitchell printed in the June 10, 1996, issue of The New Yorker, his colleague Roger Angell wrote: "Each morning, he stepped out of the elevator with a preoccupied air, nodded wordlessly if you were just coming down the hall, and closed himself in his office. He emerged at lunchtime, always wearing his natty brown fedora (in summer, a straw one) and a tan raincoat; an hour and a half later, he reversed the process, again closing the door. Not much typing was heard from within, and people who called on Joe reported that his desktop was empty of everything but paper and pencils. When the end of the day came, he went home. Sometimes, in the evening elevator, I heard him emit a small sigh, but he never complained, never explained." Perhaps an explanation does emerge, however, in a remark that Mitchell made to Washington Post writer David Streitfeld (quoted here from Newsday, August 27, 1992): "You pick someone so close that, in fact, you are writing about yourself. Joe Gould had to leave home because he didn't fit in, the same way I had to leave home because I didn't fit in. Talking to Joe Gould all those years he became me in a way, if you see what I mean."