Cesar AiraReviews

I did not share Patti Smith's enthusiasm for this book - she wrote the Intro -but I'll try to order it again from the library. Dense and grim, sad tales in the first half.

39000

the closest thing i've seen to a love story from aira. wow.

'To write you have to be young; to write well you have to be a young prodigy. By the time you get to fifty, much of that energy and precision [that makes for good writing] is gone.'

'All my life I pursued knowledge, but I pursued it outside of time, and time took its revenge by unfolding elsewhere.'

This book is not so much about a birthday but signifies (or rather 'signified' as this UK edition has been released some 20 years later and Aira is now 70 years old not 50) a point in the author's life where he takes stock of his existence. Upon realising he has incorrectly learnt the explanation for moon phases, he ruminates on other gaps in his 'knowing', his limitations, time's passing and what he has done in its stead.

Despite being only 93 pages long, it is a complex and thoughtful blend of ten mini-essays, loosely orbiting the idea of frailty and purpose especially in relation to the unnoticeable and irretrievable passing of time. I have previously only read one of Aira's novels and I think to have read a greater number would have enriched reading this. Even so, there were lots of interesting (not to mention sobering!) reflections here, reminding us that time waits for no one; cherish the fraction you have been given.

This was a strange one. Short, readable, engaging but at the same time bizarre, nonsensical and in some ways like reading the work of a creative writing undergraduate. This isn’t meant as a slur, i just really didn’t know what to make of it and I’m grappling around with how to communicate why/how! Maria is a young girl walking alone in the crowded Chilean barrios as night approaches when her attention is drawn by someone addressing her with the following pleasantry: ‘Wannafuck?’. Two ‘punk’ (in inverted commas due to their constant loathing of being labelled throughout the story) girls called Lenin and Mao, the latter lovestruck and adamant she loves Maria whom she has only just laid eyes on, want Maria to get to know them and see if this new found love will be reciprocated. You see, I said it was weird but that’s not half of it. For a large majority of the book, the girls discuss their situation and the world their situation is in. Through Maria and Aira, we explore the meeting of diverse people and the particular attempt for understanding of a more extreme facet of humanity. After theories on love and life and what is real and what is not real, we are led to Mao and Lenin’s declaration of proof and the somewhat ‘change of pace’ of the novella as it swiftly descends/ascends into slasher/horror/where did this come from territory! It is all rather a bit mad and you can’t quite believe what you are reading but then there is this sense that there is perhaps a profound message in there somewhere about energy, love, potential, meaning and life and the universe and everything. I’m very keen to read more of his work despite the fact I’m really not sure what to make of this nor feel like it was particularly good. But somehow or other it was really intriguing and interesting and... erm, good? Who knows! I give up trying to explain, haha!

César Aira uses the same detached perspective that I've seen in Bolaño. This is the method that uses the tone of a nonfiction book but then, almost surreally, covers details that a biographer or a historian couldn't possibly know. So you'll have a dry account of how this painter's letters indicated that he picnicked on a field south of town one Saturday only to dive into the painter's brain and examine how the universe is a series of unfolding aesthetic revelations or something like that. The total disregard for a consistent voice is more then just jarring, it's positively liberating. What's so great about it is that it is totally apropos to the subject matter. Bolaño, for example, uses it for his psychopaths and shell-shocked individuals. Aira, a little more subtly, uses it to convey the perspective of a true artist. Rugendas cares very little for interpersonal relationships, or typical travel details, or even really his own health and safety. All that matters is his quest for the "physiognomy of nature." Therefore the narrative itself is almost dismissive of physical events, but lovingly details the philosophical musings of a master trying to perfect his craft.
I also find the understatement of the title particularly amusing. The titular "episode" is an almost mythological cataclysm that unhinges and transfigures the artist into an even more perfect vehicle for artistic interpretation. This event, far from being a disaster, enables the artist to finally reach his peak. Rugendas as a drug addled, deformed maniac is finally liberated from humanity and becomes a creature totally fearless in the pursuit of art.

Delightful.

The more I read his work, the more I don’t know what to make of him. There’s talent, to be sure. But I’m not sure what it’s a talent for. The story revolves around César, a translator who’s got troubles because of the economy. His goal is simple: world domination. One day he happens to be at the beach where he quickly solves an ancient riddle, finds a pirate’s treasure, thus becoming wealthy. But world domination is his goal and so he attends a literary conference to be near Carlos Fuentes. Why Fuentes? Simple: a clone of Fuentes will lead his army to victory. All this in under 100 pages.

Daydreamy.

The main thing that I love about the Aira novels, and his writing style, is his ability to very subtly mix reality and fiction. Lines and translations. Those are, I think, Aira’s starting points in this little work. Maybe he is following these lines and translations through the character, César, whom the author has made into a mad scientist. What do the lines and translations symbolize or what is the author trying to show us? I feel like he is just having a fun time writing and seeing where things go.

This is not an easy novel to read. On the other hand, the prose is straightforward and uncomplicated. Aira does not sound obnoxious. He has this matter-of-fact delivery that is so engaging when contrasted with the absurd chaos his tales run to. Recommended for strong readers.

Well, that was weird and interesting.

This is my first Aira and I love an odd twist. The rollercoaster of the story itself--little snippets about individual characters who are barely connected--was great. And then the ending was totally unexpected weirdness and originality that I felt like he completely set up for the reader to expect. Yet it still came out of left field.

The kind of book that will never be the same on a re-read.

got absolutely plowed by work so had to blaze thru a cesar to get back in the reading riddims -- reading cesar aira is spiritually the same thing as watching sunday night hbo -- feels good on your brain in the same "unchallenging-and-knows-it's-n0t-challenging-but-your-coworkers-think-it's-challenging-for-idk-what-reason" way

that being said idfw this one so much, boss -- the last book of his i read was artforum which hit the exact kinds of walserian manic notes i was looking for. this attempts to do a variation on that theme, but the dream-framing in this really took me out of the conversation-framing which really took me out of the movie's arc which left me feeling like this was purely an exercise in Cleverness and one thing you should know about me is that (despite my aforementioned fondness for sunday night hbo programming) i am stridently anti-cleverness

He writes stream of consciousness-ish with a bit of lo-fi downbeat. Its mellow, but smooth. Nothing jarring, but a reader has to not become impatient. By using names as waypoints, the citizens of Pringles are able to go forwards and backwards and side to side regarding their memories and understanding of the community. Its possible to interpret the middle section in a variety of ways – and I think the lack of one definitive answer is what Aira is going for. He likes fairy tales and fables and magic so he is going to be more than happy to let the reader wonder and ponder on their own.

un delirio genial

This novella is an account built around a brief moment. It links together the people who are in that moment. Each has a history ahat has precee that moment and they also have links that stand outside that moment. Their stories each flow wellon their ownand flow into each other at the end---the moment that is a brief as a splash of water. Mesmerizing and evocative and seemingly without plot (but is it?). I will want to revisit this.

Very powerful and eternally provocative. A book that has left me feeling as if I am looking at the world and nature and art with new and yet very ancient eyes. I think I have found another writer to love! Life is good.

Aira's views about the inability of representations to capture contemporary art were of particular interest to me, instantiating so much of the experience that takes place with an encounter with a work, idea. It could be the opposite in the book actually, I don't remember.

Ghosts managed to feel expansive in its brevity. The build was slow and had a sort of rollicking pace and while I was wrapped up by the end it took me a while to get into its rhythm.

i would like to hear more of the little buddhist monk

...strange...!

Worst book I ever read. Almost. Both stories. Can't even go into it. I spent 9 weeks slogging through it. I am now FREE.

Riveting tale of an artist on a quest to find an indescribable something...Agonizingly brutal, a nightmare of excruciating pain ensues. This is an artist in search of the miraculous who finds himself a survivor that manages to hold onto his artistic talent despite the vicissitudes of fate. Minutely told in a rather matter of fact way, this is a story filled with everyday wonder. Overall astounding. "He felt a vague, inexplicable nostalgia for what had not happened, and the lessons it might have taught him."

My biggest complaint about Aira's stand-alone novellas is that when confined to a single plot his imaginative and paradoxical concepts tend to lose steam about 3/4 of the way through.

This format is far more natural fit for Aira's obsessive style, and allows him the freedom to move from one thought experiment to the next, once he's explored (and then thoroughly refuted) his point.

This small double-feature novella surprised me. I had only read My Life as a Nun by Aira. He’s an odd writer. Like Calvino and Bolano, but containing something of his own as well. He is memorable and forgettable at the same time. He’s easy to read, which is a plus, but only re-readable in bits and pieces. At least that is the feeling I get from these two novellas. They seem like the work of an amateur who has mastered what amateurs only dream of doing. He tells a compelling tale which is entirely absurd and unbelievable. He purposefully makes it difficult to suspend disbelief, but at the same time knows how to absorb the reader. I found the story of the Buddhist monk surprising because of the twist ending but also because of the shifting perspective. You get things wholly from the monk’s viewpoint at first, but then it starts shifting until the world takes on the likeness of a photograph. The art of the storytelling takes on the dimensions of its own story. The second novella, called The Proof, only justified the events it depicted in the last line. The last line was brilliant and surprising. The escalation from verbal to physical dread and horror was abrupt in the way that a lot of horror movies advance in fits and starts. The delightful conversation and shifts in attitude that occur seemed nonetheless realistic despite their extreme unbelievability.

I was disturbed by this novel. Sometimes that can be a good thing. I'm not sure whether it is in this case, though.

Ema felt to me throughout, as I read, as a horrific embodiment of a male fantasy. Ema is an ever-youthful, ever-desirable female who is subject to terrible violence (along with her children being subject to it) without her having much of a problem with it. She just passively makes the best of things. Because she is so passive about being carried off with regularity to be raped some more, then she doesn't really come across as a survivor who has agency, and her ultimate successes feel very pasted on, not believable.

The interstitial cuts to a male point of view throughout this novel all objectify Ema and focus on her sexual desirability, in ways where I'm simply not sure what to make of them--because the men raping her seem kind of reasonable and caring. The messages I'm getting from the text are garbled because I'm not confident that Aira is in command of the subtext, that this woman is a victim of serial torture. His writing dovetails too neatly with misogyny and male fantasy for me to trust that he knows what he's doing.

So one way to deal with this objectionable-ness is to separate my feeling about the book from any notion of author intent. If I do that, as an exercise in alternative interpretation, the novel becomes a deliberate farce, I guess, in a Candide-like way, of a character who decides she is in the best of all possible worlds. Or maybe the novel can be read as an indictment of men treating women like animals, or as a tribute to women's strength to overcome horrible abuse. If I try to shoehorn any of these interpretations into my own reaction to the novel, though, I'm still unable to resolve how such a completely passive character could ever survive and prosper.

The novel reminded me of the D.H. Lawrence short story "The Woman Who Road Away," a story of a woman who is as passive as Ema is about her fate, in a South American setting, but whose ultimate fate is a lot more believable, frankly, than Ema's:

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