I hadn’t even seen the Alhambra: Ben Lerner
Sheila Heti, 30 August 2012
At the start of Leaving the Atocha Station, Adam Gordon, a young American in Spain for a year on a fellowship, purportedly to write ‘a long, research-driven poem’ about the Spanish Civil War’s ‘literary legacy’, goes into the Prado and heads for Rogier Van der Weyden’s Descent from the Cross. He has been standing in front of it every morning since he arrived in Madrid, but today he finds a man in his place, facing the painting – or maybe the wall. Adam gets irritated, waits for him to leave, then suddenly the man bursts into tears.