ABSTRACT
Like the traditional seder, Sergio Chejfec’s novel, Lenta biografia, culminates with the story of the kid. Territorial gaps, historical hesitations, physical brutalities, linguistic barriers, and textual omissions constitute the narrative “content” of Lenta biografía. The “one kid” is the People of Israel; the cat that eats the kid, Assyria; the dog that bites the cat that eats the kid, Babylon, and so on. Each empire succumbs before another thanks to the Justice of God, who redeems His People from oppression and who, at song’s end, emerges victorious. In Lenta biografía, however, God does not appear; He is another of the absences that shapes the text. Neither does the story of the kid appear in detail. In Lenta biografía, the Argentine is insinuated in Borges’ manner, without abounding in local color—knife fights, tangos, mate—allowing modesty, pain, reticence, and thoughtful reflection to express what might be called “the Argentine”.
