'Varamo' by César Aira (Review)

Today's review is of another of my lucky Latin library choices, and it's by César Aira, a writer I first heard of during Trevor's podcast chat with Tara about the BTBA shortlist.  He immediately sounded like a writer I should check out, although I knew nothing about him or his writing.  After my first try at his work though, I'm still not completely sure I'm any the wiser...

*****
Varamo (translated by Chris Andrews) tells you all you need to know in the first paragraph:

"One day in 1923, in the city of Colón (Panama), a third-class clerk, having finished work, and since it was payday, passed by the cashier's desk to collect his monthly salary, left the Ministry in which he was employed.  In the interval between that moment and the dawn of the following day, ten or twelve hours later, he completed the composition of a long poem, from the initial decision to write it up to the final period [full stop - ed.], after which there were no more additions or corrections."
p.1 (Giramondo Publishing, 2013)

Oh, except for the fact that the notes were forgeries - now that's a good way to start a book...

The rest of the novella, just ninety-five pages long, follows Varamo as he wrestles with the problem of the forged notes and has several rather unusual encounters.  We meet a madman who hassles passers-by, insisting that they repay imaginary debts; we are introduced to Varamo's mother, a Chinese immigrant (so small she only comes up to her son's waist) who speaks nothing but Cantonese.  Later, we stroll towards a bar, only to have our outing interrupted by a crash which may, or may not, be an assassination attempt on a government minister.  Somehow, this all conspires to make Varamo a poet...

It's a bizarre little book, a story of one humble man's day, which is interrupted in the middle for the writer to insist on the factual nature of the story, before events go on to become more and more outlandish.  By parts Kafkaesque, with a bureaucrat who encounters bizarre situations and brushes them off (only to plunge headlong into an equally-absurd situation), Varamo leaves the reader scratching their head and wondering what to make of it all.  It's interesting enough, but what it all means is anyone's guess...

Varamo himself is a great creation.  Being an average office drone, the case of the forged notes is enough to throw him off balance (of course, he never thinks of just giving them back).  A typical civil servant, by vocation he is a man of inaction, and thus unable to just do something, anything, to resolve his dilemma - at times, you think he might drive himself mad thinking about it.

Not that there's much to think about.  Varamo himself says that forgery is unknown in Panama, with no prior cases - which makes one wonder how he can be so sure that his salary was really counterfeit.  Even if it is, surely there's no need for the over-analysis the poor man goes through (even if his conclusion, that acting natural is an impossibility, is a sound one...).

Still, the subsequent encounters serve to propel him to great heights, and there's even a hint that the night's events may have a romantic ending for the fifty-something bachelor.  Perhaps Varamo is a story of how unexpected occurrences can inspire people to climb out of their comfortable rut and find a better life for themselves.  Certainly, it's hard to imagine that our hapless hero will go about life unchanged after the public holiday is over.

Whether it's a book about the nature of the poet, the strange way coincidences occur, or simply why goldfish can't play the piano, Varamo is a great way to while away an hour.  I'm just not sure it's a book I'll remember for a long time.  There's a meaning in there somewhere, but where...

" Her shouting was completely incomprehensible, of course, and yet it was perfectly clear.  The different forms that madness and senility can take all have a common effect, which is to bring intentions to the surface, and it is with intentions that understanding begins and ends." (p.29)

Just like the book ;)

*****
P.S. As my library consortium had nothing by Aira, I requested this on an Inter-Library loan, and (knowing that his works are short) I actually requested The Literary Conference too, hoping to do a joint review of the two books.  Sadly, that didn't pan out; you see, the library corporation I requested it from decided not to give it to me.  Why?  No idea.  It's not important, but I thought, in the manner of Aira, I'd let you know about that little detail.  I'm sure there's a moral in there somewhere...