While New Directions have published a fair few of César Aira's books in the US, he's still not really widely known here in Australia (or in the UK) - so my library doesn't have much of his work to borrow. Recently though, I've been very lucky, managing to obtain an inter-library loan and persuade my local branch to buy one of his books. Which is why you have a double dose of Aira delights today :)
*****
The Seamstress and the Wind (translated by Rosalie Knecht) starts with a writer in a Parisian café who wants to pen a story. He already has the title (the title of the real book), but that's as far as he's got. If only he can think of a story to go with it...
Eventually, he stumbles upon one from his childhood, a tale which starts with a friend's disappearance but quickly becomes ever more surreal. In the course of a mad dash to Patagonia, the reader makes the acquaintance of a host of unhinged characters, with the addition of a wedding dress, some serious gambling and (of course) the wind...
While some dislike the term, 'magical realism' is the easiest (and most apt) way to describe what's going on here. When you have a woman flung high into the air, only to land gently on her feet, an invisible lorry, a monster and a woman turning black from shock, you sense that we're no longer in Kansas (or even Buenos Aires). That's without mentioning the appearance of an armadillo on wheels, racing across the dried-out flatlands of Patagonia...
It's not always easy to tease out the deeper ideas hidden beneath the crazy surface, but one theme Aira works on is memories and forgetting. In his initial rambling monologue, the writer touches on these ideas, recalling(!) several mistaken memories from his childhood. He remembers his mother being asleep when he went to bed, even though he's sure she was always up later than him, and his memory of being waken by birds turns out to be mistaken (it was his neighbour's car).
He also enjoys playing with contradictions, frequently starting sentences off only to turn back on himself before we reach the full stop:
"My parents were realistic people, enemies of fantasy. They judged everything by work, their universal standard for measuring their fellow man. Everything else hung on that criterion, which I inherited wholly and without question; I have always venerated work above all else; work is my god and my universal judge; but I never worked, because I never needed to, and my passion exempted me from working because of a bad conscience or a fear of what others might say."
p.23 (New Directions, 2011)
The reader needs to stay focused when reading this book. Like the wind which makes its appearance late in the piece, Aira's story goes off in odd directions...
The Seamstress and the Wind is a great story that feels like it's being made up as the writer goes along - which, of course, is exactly what is happening, both in the story and in real life. Anyone familiar with the great Aira 'method' will know that he's a writer that doesn't like to plan too far in advance :)
*****
The Miracle Cures of Dr. Aira (translated by Katherine Silver), the second of my library delights, is a little different from the first. The book starts with the titular faith healer wandering the streets, and after an adventure in an ambulance (one which he undergoes unwillingly), he goes back to pondering his writings on the theory of miracle cures. One day, he is summoned to the bedside of an ailing billionaire, and, to his own surprise, agrees to test his theories for the first time...
It's very different from others I've read by Aira, a much denser piece despite its brevity. In fact, after the first couple of sections (44 of 80 pages), I wasn't really sure if I was enjoying it; I was missing the easy-reading flow his work usually induces. Then the 'great' doctor goes to work, and you are swept away by the energy and audaciousness of his attempt to bend the universe to his liking. It's a battle between belief and reason, and Aira and his doctor insist that you've got to believe...
Anyone wanting specifics about the miracle cure will be disappointed as the writer is deliberately ambiguous, which fits in very well with the slippery nature of what Aira's trying to say with his book. In fact, it's very easy to equate Dr. Aira with the writer, even without the name:
Writing was something he couldn't do in a single block, all at once. He had to keep doing it, if at all possible, every day in order to establish a rhythm... The rhythm of publication, so checkered due to the imponderables of the material aspects, could be regularized through the installment format, which also took care of the quantity of the product and its basic tone, that of "disclosure".
p.38 (New Directions, 2012)
Hmm - an author who writes every day and brings out regular short works... Remind you of anybody?
I may be completely wrong, but it seemed to me as if Aira was equating the struggle and mystery of producing a great work of art with the art of the miracle cure (or vice-versa). Just as in the creation of a work of fiction, the good doctor tries to bend the universe in his own fashion; more importantly, just as is the case in writing, it can all go horribly, horribly wrong.
At the end of the piece, we find ourselves asking whether the 'doctor' is a charlatan. More importantly, perhaps, what about his creator? Now that's not a question most writers pose about themselves...
*****
That makes four Aira books for me over the past few months, and I'm very happy that New Directions have taken on the job of bringing Aira's *many* works into English - one 'installment' at a time. Each of the books has had an excellent translation (Chris Andrews was responsible for both Varamo and Ghosts), and with several more translations already out there, I'm very keen to read some more. Why not give Aira a try? I'd definitely recommend his work. He might turn out to be your next new favourite writer...
It's the final stop on my reading tour of Spanish- (and Portuguese- ) language literature, and the last author on the trail is César Aira. My first encounter with the Argentine novel(la)ist was the enigmatic, and slightly confusing, Varamo, but I'd been assured that today's selection was a much more enjoyable choice...
*****
Ghosts (translated by Chris Andrews, published by New Directions) takes place in, on and around an apartment building in Buenos Aires on the final day of the year. A Chilean family is living on the roof of the unfinished building while the father, Raúl Viñas, works there as a caretaker. On a sweltering morning (northern hemisphere folk, take note: December = summer), the future residents of the building come to look at how things are progressing. All in all, the building is fairly packed - workmen, tenants, children and ghosts. Yep, ghosts.
The ghosts are real, gliding about in the background, men covered in dust, naked and invisible to the visitors. However, the Chilean family living on the building are able to see the strange apparitions, and most of them simply accept the figures as part of the background.
"The children weren't there, but the other characters, those bothersome ghosts, were legion. They were always around at that time. To see them, you just had to go and look."
p.47 (New Directions, 2008)
Fifteen-year-old Patri is a little different though, and the quiet young woman observes the ghosts as she walks up and down the stairs. And then they begin to talk...
Ghosts is confusing, but strangely comforting, a story which initially makes little sense but is nevertheless enjoyable. The story meanders along, wonderful rambling vignettes interrupted by tangential asides and the odd glimpse of naked men hanging in the air. At one point, Patri has a dream during her siesta, one which serves as a lengthy digression on the nature of architecture and the importance of non-building in primitive cultures. While it's nice to see a few pages devoted to the culture of Australian Aborigines in the middle of the book, you do start to wonder if Aira might have got ever-so-slightly sidetracked...
There is a method in his apparent madness though, and despite its brevity, Ghosts does deal with a few clear ideas. One is the difference between the Chilean main characters and the Argentines they are living among; in the sense that they are invisible migrants, the family are just as much ghosts as the real things. Aira describes the contrast between the Chileans and Argentines as one between rich and poor, delicate and brash, real and superficial. Patri's mother Elisa explains that in Argentina, money is the only form of virility (I think the writer is trying to say something about his mother country here...).
In contrast, the extended family are shown as people who can enjoy life and use time as they see fit rather than being strangled by it. Theirs is a relaxed existence, seizing the moment with little thought of the future, and it's one which appears to work well. Raúl's drinking may well end up badly, but it gets him through the day, and the wine (which he cools by putting the bottles inside the ghosts...) is drunk at exactly the right time. Even the melon eaten at the party has reached its exact peak at the time it is to be consumed.
However, Patri is the odd one out, tenser and more preoccupied, and Ghosts is really about how she starts to think about what the world may have in store for her. The ghosts are reminders of masculinity and her inevitable fate - and they're not exactly subtle reminders either:
"Although well proportioned in general, some of them, the majority in fact, had big bellies. Even their lips were powdered; even the soles of their feet! Only at odd moments from certain points of view, could you see the foreskin at the tips of their penises parting to reveal a tiny circle of bright red, moist skin. It was the only touch of color on their bodies." (pp.54/5)
In a sense, the ghosts may represent a metaphor for a sexual awakening, and only Patri's mother senses that her daughter might be in danger. While the other children race around the building with little fear of a slip, Patri might just be falling for a rather dangerous idea of happiness. Waiting for the ideal man is a little like waiting for a ghost to appear...
While I enjoyed Varamo, I wasn't quite sure if Aira was my kind of writer, but Ghosts has convinced me that he's definitely on my wavelength. There's so much to like in such a short book, and while a lot is made of his 'process' of writing a page each day and then just letting himself be forced to move the story along, I suspect that a lot of thought does go into the stories. Certainly, I felt that this story was extremely cohesive, with all the tangled strangs coming together in a dramatic climax.
And that's it - I've finally made it through my library loans :) Since finishing my IFFP reading, I've managed to try twelve books by six new writers (in between racing through my ARCs and a few choice works from the shelf). Hopefully, I'll be able to find some time to revisit a few of them in the future - and if I do, I'm sure Aira will be high on the list :)
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...
