Call me a coward, call me a philistine, I couldn't keep on reading, or rather, I paged slowly but steadily through the book growing ever more impatient. A bureaucrat is sent from Argentina to an office in Paraguay (think, guy from New York City being sent to work in Edmonton). Not paid enough, but not bothering either to send his wife and children any money (there is some but he spends it on himself) or to bring them to Paraguay as he hopes to get back to 'civilization'. I couldn't help wondering, after fifty or so pages whether he had been sent there as a tiresome self-absorbed man no one could bear the sight of back home. The lack in Zama of any self-awareness (possession of which leads to humour, which leads to a balance). What caused me to abandon the novel is that I couldn't get past a sense of the whole taking itself too seriously (and I mean that at so many levels). I also found di Benedetto's use of melodrama, histrionics, and so forth in a sort of casual throwaway manner as a literary device to develop his protagonist's decline, unconvincing. I've read lots of gloomy novels written by men about men (and the occasional woman) who just can't get past their desires, their inability to get out of their own heads or other parts etcetera, most of those tales had something I couldn't find here and cannot endure searching for further. I'd love to spoil by offering the ending which, in its extreme melodrama, makes my point, and almost becomes humorous almost compassionate, but . . . really? I chose the book to widen my reading of South American writers (from NYRB). And seriously, I'm not condemning the book, but giving you my own reaction, and you might find this a gem as others have.

A truly remarkable book. It is hard to understand how this work does not have a more notable reputation nor a wider readership. Di Benedetto presents a first person stream of consciousness narrative of a life in decline. A reader can hear and feel how the character attempts to make sense of the miasma that he himself creates. Certainly an existential classic written in succinct and yet moving prose. Clearly ahead of its time and a must-read for any person interested in serious literature. ( )

This is masterpiece. A scoundrel of a hero that may relate to each reader uniquely, never flatteringly.

Don Diego de Zama, a government official representing Spain from his post in South America in the 1790s, is far from home and his family with no hope of returning home or attaining a better position. He grows paranoid, goes months without pay, and oddly stalks women in the street. At first he worries about his distant wife and children, then seems to forget they exist. He demands money and food from people, fathers an illegitimate child and generally treats others badly. His life devolves into horror. “The horror of being trapped in absurdity.”

As the years of isolation in his outpost continue, Zama’s mental health deteriorates, and the sense of claustrophobic madness builds in this masterful story. ( )

Solid--I suspect it loses something in translation, through no fault of the excellent Esther Allen, but just because I imagine Benedetto using all kinds of archaic, 18th century Hispanisms (did I make that word up?) I'm surprised by my enjoyment, actually. The first third is about Don Diego's bursting penis and its fight with his equally bursting self-importance, and it took a bit too much effort to convince myself that we're meant to read all that ironically. The middle third has some unfortunate ghost-story nonsense going on. The final third made me wonder if I should have just read some Cormac McCarthy instead. But, it turns out, those three things all balance each other out. I'd hardly call this a masterpiece of existentialist literature, if only because that sounds to me like a rather back-handed compliment ("comparable to Nausea", says Juan Jose Saer). Rather, file it alongside the better novels of Conrad and Cormac: mannered, manly, and not quite as ironic as it needs to be. ( )