La prueba de audición

On August 29, 2019—the same day that, more than half a century earlier, John Cage presented his celebrated work 4’33”—the protagonist of this novel, a young New York artist, wakes up with sudden deafness: “When I woke up that morning, I noticed an annoying ringing in my right ear, accompanied by a sound I can only compare to that of a large metal sheet being shaken, like thunder resonating endlessly.” Her case attracts the attention of several specialists, who, after resignedly admitting that “we’ve reached the moon, but not the inner ear,” ultimately conclude that, for unknown reasons, something has attacked her auditory nerve and her brain has decided to replace the lost frequencies with a perpetual roar. Adopting writing as a method to capture a suddenly incomprehensible reality, the narrator of this story recounts the months of bewilderment that follow in a narrative that is nothing more than a long walk around herself. She herself says: “To see something in its entirety, you have to be completely outside of it.” Through the description of fleeting encounters and a constant reflection on the work of artists, filmmakers, musicians, and philosophers, the author’s written journey—far from any hint of moralizing or lessons in courage in the face of adversity, fortune, or destiny—becomes not only a source of solace and curiosity, but also a survival strategy amidst chaos.