The Library of Aira

Tea Party Outsiders

2011-08-03T10:11:00.000-07:00

Having let this blog go dormant for the better part of a year, due largely to the fact that I felt like it lacked any sense of purpose, I have to admit to a certain embarrassment to posting now just for the sake of getting something out of my system. (And perhaps insomnia and sleep deprivation play a role in this) But, oh well, the inspiration is there and better to write about it than to leave it turning over in my head.

I was motivated to write by today's Maureen Dowd column in the New York Times, Washington Chainsaw Massacre, in which Dowd draws parallels between our current political situation and the plots of some major horror works in literature and film and references Lovecraft. Now, don't get me wrong, I mostly agree with Dowd. There's certainly plenty of Fear and Loathing to go around in our current political climate, and it's not difficult to imagine the Capitol--currently occupied by one overly sensitive party and one that has fallen into somnambulance--splitting apart like the House of Usher.

And it's kind of cool to see Lovecraft referenced in the New York Times, but as sometimes happens, I can't help feel it's done in a way which reinforces the image of Lovecraft as a writer who mostly just called things "indescribable" and then threw a lot of adjectives around. The passage in particular is:

In the short story “The Outsider,” Lovecraft’s narrator offers a description that matches how some alarmed Democrats view Tea Partiers: “I cannot even hint what it was like, for it was a compound of all that is unclean, uncanny, unwelcome, abnormal and detestable. It was the ghoulish shade of decay, antiquity and desolation; the putrid, dripping eidolon of unwholesome revelation; the awful baring of that which the merciful earth should always hide. God knows it was not of this world.”

There's something about the choice of this quote that feels, well, like Dowd just skimmed a Lovecraft Best of... until she found the first sentence that seemed purple and horrific enough. Where to start? How about the fact that the narrator in this case is describing his own reflection, which actually seems like an interesting commentary though not one that Dowd seems be to trying to make. Or how about the fact that both the Tea Parties and Lovecraft have a soft spot for the 18th century? Or how the past in Lovecraft's fiction often takes on a dual role of both idyllic refuge and source of menace? Not to mention that some of these descriptors just seem off. (Do Democrats really think of the Tea Party as a "shade of decay" or an "unwholesome revelation"? Isn't it the Republicans who are more likely to think in terms of moral disgust?)

To tell the truth, as a Lovecraft nerd, as someone who has read more than a couple of biographies about him, as someone who thinks it's kind of cool how he went from being a cult writer to having a Library of America printing, I feel a certain degree of affection for Lovecraft and an almost protective reaction when I see him portrayed in a reductive way, especially by people who perhaps should know better (*cough*StephenKing*cough*). And I don't really feel like the Lovecraft quote Dowd chose adds a whole lot to her argument. It's just a series of pejoratives, taken out of context in a way that deprives them of much of their meaning. It seems like, had she read a little more deeply into Lovecraft, she might have turned up something more appropriate or interesting. And I guess that's what I find most disappointing.

Behind the Green (Room) Door

2010-09-23T16:22:00.000-07:00

After a couple of stories that arguably fit with the horror theme, Palahniuk shifts gears. There's nothing vaguely terrifying, eerie or mysterious going on in this story. In it, Miss America and a "slick guy" sit in the green room of a television studio where some mid-sized town's local version of "Good Morning, America" is produced. They are there to sell products, she an exercise wheel, he a set of investment tapes.

The SG is the more experienced of the two, so a large part of the narrative is taken up with his advice/commentary on these TV shows and what it takes to succeed on them. We learn a little about Miss America's back story. She was once fat, but through diet and exercise thinned down to the point where she looked much better. She is also given to wearing pink. There's not really much else to her. As she herself says, "Losing all that blubber is the only really heroic thing I've ever done... If I gain it back, than it'll be like I never lived." I wonder if it's intentional for this character, so objectified and labeled by society that she has become shallow, to be portrayed in such a superficial way. Is it just poor writing, or does Palahniuk want us to know that he, too, is part of the problem?

As for Mr. SG, he's one of those typical Palahniuk creations who can rattle off facts about some chosen field. Here his obsession is broadcast media, especially television. One of the facts he sites is how cameras collapse three dimensions into two, rendering everything flatter. Because of this, faces with many angles look more interesting than those with less. Advances in image technology, however, tend to relatively bring out the details of faces, so those sharp angles might seem less attractive on current broadcasts than they used to. You could argue that Palahniuk's general point about the way the medium distorts reality is still true, but I wonder if his topicality means that some of his fiction will date rather quickly.

We learn that Mr. SG's parents were both product spokesmen who traveled from town to town to appear on morning shows. His mom is dead, but his dad, who didn't stick around for very long, is the old guy who is currently in the studio of the same station, his presentation delayed by some national catastrophe.

Overall, it's a pretty dull story. If Miss America weren't such a one-note character, seeing her back story might be interesting. Definitely no horror elements, save perhaps the horror of being around people lacking in personalities. There's some potentially interesting commentary about how mass media ends up altering what it portrays, though this hardly provides any deep insights.

Foot Work

2010-09-16T16:36:00.000-07:00

This story is told by Mother Nature, who is something of a hippie New Age type, with her long skirts, henna-painted skin and patchouli smell. She used to be a reflexologist, trained in treating medical conditions by massaging people's feet. It's not a lucrative career, but one day she meets a former classmate who now appears to be living an upper-class lifestyle. The classmate introduces MN to the world of "foot jobs," in which reflexologists use foot manipulation to give clients orgasms that leave them "to weak to walk for the next couple of days." In order to improve her financial situation, MN also gets into the business of foot jobs. At first, she earns a good amount of money, but she soon finds herself competing with too many other former idealists now turned high-priced call girls/guys and being in hock to the mafioso who acts as her pimp. Her friend introduces her to the next "dark side" application of reflexology, as an assassination technique. It is already too late for MN, who now has to go into hiding.

When Palahniuk is on his game, as he is here, he has a talent for coming up with amusingly twisted concepts that seem not entirely implausible. While not as horrific, claustrophobic or suspenseful as "Guts" the story still manages to create something of a paranoid vibe. It's world of reflexologist hit men, Reiki assassins, Feng Shui murder techniques, etc. suggests a darker, quasi-supernatural truth behind placid everyday reality. This story also continues the theme of people willing to employ rather odd means in order to better "get their rocks off."

One quick note: I'm leaving Post-Production, The Nightmare Box, Poster Child and Cassandra until the end. These four stories constitute their own, separate narrative, which can be thought of as the Cassandra Sequence.

A Change of Direction/The Poetry of Chuck Palahniuk

2010-09-15T17:11:00.000-07:00

I've been neglecting to continue with my review of Haunted for a variety of reasons. In part, because as I thought of the project, it became somewhat daunted. However, I've found inspiration to pick up the project again from two rather distinct sources. The first is Julio Cortázar's seminal novel, Hopscotch, written in 155 chapters which can be read in standard order or in a more convoluted "skipping around" manner. (Explained more fully in this Wikipedia entry.) A couple of days ago, while reading it, I found myself pondering whether the two different strategies represented two different ways of reading the novel or in fact represented two distinct novels. Is there an alternate order that would make the novel more powerful, more entertaining, more insightful than either of the two approaches offered by Cortázar?

The second is from Mr. Palahniuk himself in this interview where he describes his goal as the following:

In Haunted, I wanted to mimic the appearance of “Best of” collections. For example, The Collected Works of Poe. Those books alternate stories with novellas and poems.

When I first read that, I thought mainly of how it backed up my feeling that Haunted suffered from a certain lack of focus, that it was a fix-up novel in search of an identity. But in light of Hopscotch, I though I might follow Palahniuk's logic to its inevitable conclusion and treat it as a Collected Works of...

I've decided to reconstruct this "novel" along somewhat different lines, treating as some might treat an anthology. I've already read all of the poetry. Next, I plan to read and review the short stories (save "Guts," about which I've already written) as individual stories) and will finish off with a review of the novella/framing story.

I've already discussed the poetry a little in a previous entry, and reading all of it in a couple of sittings only serves to confirm that there isn't much here in traditional poetic terms of rhyme, meter, flow. There's a common visual element of the subject of the poem standing on a stage, while a thematically appropriate series of images is projected onto them. This element serves to express the way these characters are obscured by their own stories, a visual analogue of the way the character names, based on their backgrounds, crimes, etc., take the place of any sort of personal or family name. (The relationship between the story and the teller being one of the central themes of Haunted.)

One question I had hoped to resolve in rereading Haunted was, "Is this a horror novel?" On the one hand, there's the name, the cover, the fact that it would seem to be the third novel Palahniuk wrote after announcing he would write three novels "reinventing horror," and the Bram Stoker nomination it received. But there's still the question of the content of the book and to what degree it either uses horror elements and/or manages to be scary.

I'd have to say that the poetry falls by and large into the not horror. There's nothing particularly scary, atmospheric, moody. Some of them are amusing and/or transgressive, such as Mother Nature's tale of trying to enter a convent or The Matchmaker's account of his twisted, uh, matchmaking. Some, as with the matchmaker, try to fill in some of the details on these characters. Often, Palahniuk uses them to hit the themes and concepts that the novel also touches on elsewhere.

There's a degree of earnestness to some of these, such as "Evolution," which argues for life as a gift earned by other's sacrifice, and ends asking, "How will you show their birth and work and death were worthwhile?" Or, "Looking Back," in which a woman wistfully talks about raising a child. Sometimes this degree of earnestness can feel a bit heavy-handed as with the Earl of Slander's "Trade Secrets," which ends:

A journalist has a right...
...and a duty to destroy
those golden calves he helps create.

It might be an interesting thought if it were somewhat original.

Overall, the "poems" are a bit of a dud. They don't really hold up on their own, they don't contribute anything in terms of atmosphere, and they often touch on themes that are developed more in depth elsewhere. The poems mostly serve as something of a sideshow or distraction, helping to give the book the appearance of being more complex than it really is.

Next up, I'm going to pick up on the short stories. Since I've already covered "Guts," the next story will be "Foot Work."

The Fall of the House of Wanker (Guts)

2010-07-28T12:21:00.000-07:00

“Guts” is sort of (in)famous for being the story that caused people to faint at book signings. While it’s a dubious distinction for a story, it does capture a good sense of how potent the story is. Whatever problems I may have with the rest of the book, “Guts” is still a brilliant, if brutal, (or brilliantly brutal) tale, worthy of a modern day Poe, albeit one more interested in premature ejaculation than premature burial or in getting off than getting even. It’s a nearly perfect story, with the exception of a couple of moments when Palahniuk seems to overreach.

The story, of course, begins with a falsehood.

Inhale.
Take in as much air as you can.
This story should last about as long as you can hold your breath, and then just a little bit longer.

This story clocks in at somewhere in the 3000 word range, meaning that even at 2500 words, and read at the cheetah-like 600 words per minute, it would still take five minutes to get through the story. I'm not sure what the lung capacity for the average person is, but I imagine five minutes is pushing it. It's even worse if the story is out loud. Even John Moschitta, Jr. (who most in my generation will recognize as The Micro Machine Man) only clocks in at 586 words per minute, or slightly over five minutes. It's arguable that the narrator himself, who describes his lung capacity as "huge," may manage to hold his breath for that long, but it's not advisable for the rest of us.

"Guts" is essentially three stories about masturbation, each more gruesome and twisted than the one before it. The first is a kid of thirteen years old who was always "jonesing for a better way to get his rocks off." The kid hears about stimulating the prostate gland to induce orgasm and attempts it using a carrot and some Vaseline. When he gets called to dinner, he hides the carrot but comes back to see that it has disappeared along with is dirty laundry. From that day onward, a sense of shame and foreboding hangs over his relationship with is parents.

The second kid hears from his older brother that orgasm can be intesified through the insertion of a thin smooth tube into the urethra. One evening, while high he uses a thin tube of wax, which he's taken from a candle dripping, in order to try out this theory. Just as he's about to climax, he realizes that the tube has disappeared. A few hours later, his abdomen begins to hurt. After being taken to the hospital, an X-ray reveals that the tube has fallen into his bladder and is absorbing minerals, growing rough and damaging the inside of his bladder. His parents have to dip into his college fund to pay for the operation. "One stupid mistake, and how he'll never be a lawyer," the narrator tells us.

The last story is the narrator's own. He used to masturbate in the pool while sitting naked on the drain at the very bottom, which he called Pearl Diving due to his practice of snatching all the floating ejaculate from the water afterwards. As he finished one day and goes to kick off for air, he finds that he's stuck. Looking back, he sees "some kind of snake, blue-white and braided with veins" has come up from the pool drain and is latched on to his butt.

This is where the novel achieves something almost Poe-like. As the narrator realizes that the snake is actually his small intestine--pulled out by the suction of the drain--and begins to consider his actions and the consequences, the story achieves a degree of claustrophobia, compounded by the gruesome body horror, that makes it difficult to forget or dismiss. The kid eventually does what he has to in order to survive, telling us in a line that is perhaps a little too clever: "If I told you what it tasted like, you would never, ever again eat calamari." (Of course, "If I told you what it tasted like, you would never, ever again eat chitterlings" would be more accurate, but probably leave many confused.)

Afterwards, his family lives in denial, his dad attributing the mess to a dog that fell into the pool. It is just at the end that Palahniuk/the narrator seems to overreach, laying out the final horror wherein his sister misses her period, implying that she has become pregnant from the ejaculate in the pool. It is at this point that the story crosses over from extreme but plausible to simply ridiculous, for reasons I won't get into at this point. However, overall it's a brilliantly gruesome story, that manages to inject dark humor and a certain melancholy into its shocking proceedings.

The First Second Poem (Landmarks)

2010-07-26T13:05:00.000-07:00

Because my previous experience with Haunted was with the audiobook version, I had always assumed that "Landmarks," a poem about St. Gut-Free, was the first poem in the book. However, the index in the back indicates that "Landmarks" is the second poem. "Guinea Pigs," which I had previously identified as the cold open turns out to be the first poem, or perhaps I should say "poem." Due to the structure of the book, I had come to the conclusion that all off the poems are told from the point of view of a single character, who in the visual scheme of these poems stands on a stage, as if presenting at some odd open mic night. "Guinea Pigs" is from the collective perspective of the rest of the framing story, with no visual sense of being "spoken" by any particular character, so I'd always assumed it was just another section of the framing narrative.

The poems are sort of an interesting feature, though not so much for the poetry themselves. Even calling them poems is a bit of a stretch. Now, I confess I consider myself a pretty unsophisticated reader of poetry. My general approach is to read a poem out loud and judge it by how it feels being spoken. This doesn't give me much more than a general impression of whether I like a poem, but it beats poetry read silently, which usually feels a little flat to me. By that standard, these poems don't quite work. The language doesn't vary much from the style Palahniuk uses in the rest of the book.

What sets the poems apart is more their visual and structural elements. As I mentioned above, the poems all feature the visual of a character standing on a stage speaking. There's a short physical description of the character as well as a short introduction. Some of these are proper stories, others are more of a general rambling either about themselves or something of interest to them. The other common feature is of a movie playing over the characters, as a form of spotlight, which tends to echo whatever the character's theme is. This heightens the sense that these are archetypes of a sort.

In terms of the narrative structure, the poems are each told by the character whose story immediately follows. There are a couple of stories that are not preceded by poems, but I'll get into that later.

"Landmarks" brings St. Gut-Free who is so skinny that "his hands touch in the middle of his back." He tells a story of the job he used to have, where he drove a bus for tourists. One day, he takes the bus by his parents' house, and on spotting his father out front, dubs him "Saint Mel, the Patron Saint of Shame and Rage." He comes back the next days and adds, Saint Betty, "The Patron Saint of Public Humiliation." He later drives by his sister's condo and adds Saint Wendy, "The Patron Saint of Therapeutic Abortion." When he drives by his own apartment, he christens it the shrine of "The Patron Saint of Masturbation."

Overall, the poem is fairly amusing and interesting. If I praise it slightly at this point, it is because some of the impact should come from the discomfort of the combination of sainthood with these rather terrible things. This is pretty standard for Palahniuk, so seems a little less innovative now that I'm more accustomed to his shtick.

The Wheels on the Bus (Chapter 1)

2010-07-20T13:30:00.000-07:00

Chapter 1 begins with a bus picking up Comrade Snarky who is wearing "an army-surplus flak jacket--dark olive-green--and baggy camouflage pants, the cuffs rolled up to show infantry boots...a black beret pulled tight on her head, she could be anyone." I think those last four words are worth paying note to, since this is not that last time we'll see a character disappear behind a costume. I think it's fairly ambiguous whether this qualifies them as 2-D slasher flick victims or something more complicated, such as the archetypal lost souls I suggested previously.

The Matchmaker, introduced a little later in the chapter, not only comes in with cowboy boots and a straw cowboy hat, spitting brown tobacco juice out the window, but even (just in case you didn't get he's a hayseed) trailing horse shit. Before we move on with the characters, who we'll learn more about (or not) in future chapters, it's worth noting one last detail. Director Denial arrives with her cat, Cora Reynolds, and a tweed blazer, one of the lapels of which is swollen out from her chest. "A shoulder holster," says Comrade Snarky on seeing that.

These people are all being picked up in the dark hours of the morning, before the sun hasn't even come up. After this, they know they will be in their isolated writer's retreat, an experience likened to being on a desert island. They are each allowed one suitcase because "there will be a lot of [them], and the bus taking them to the desert island is only so big." (Here's hoping Palahniuk is aiming to mix up his metaphors, and just for the record, were I taking a bus to a desert island, my suitcase would contain scuba gear.)

As they get on the bus, they think about the people they are leaving behind.

Those people still in bed, they'd be asleep another hour, then washing their faces, under their arms, and between their legs, before going to the same work every day. Living the same life, every day.

These people would cry, but then they would go back to waiting tables, painting houses, programming computers.

It's a sentiment echoed by the organizer of the writer's retreat, Mr. Whittier, an old man with a "spotted shiny dome" of a scalp across which a few gray hairs have been combed. He tells them: "The people you're sneaking away from, they don't want you enlightened. They want to know what to expect."

I wonder if Palahniuk is still read in fifty years, whether he'll be considered largely an author you read when you're still young, preferably in high school or beginning college, like Jack Kerouac. It's possible that Mr. Whittier is not meant to be a mouthpiece for the author, but I doubt that since some variation on that sort of thinking seems to crop up often in the author's novels.

I confess it's a point of view I find myself having less patience with as I grow older. Yes, those people who have been left behind by their loved ones probably would get one with their lives, but I can't say I blame them, since the alternative would be to go chasing after those selfish pricks who abandoned them. Additionally, I wonder how Palahniuk's criticism fits in changing times.

In a time of increasing personal bankruptcies, of great economic risk being transferred from governments and business to families, is the desire for some sense of security--knowing you won't be homeless in retirement or that you'll be able to put your kids through college all that unreasonable--all that unreasonable? Or is Palahniuk prescient about how even the little security people had in 2006 would soon be destroyed by uncontrolled avarice?

Nonetheless, these would-be writers are not without their own economic dreams. They hope to write

...some maserpiece. A short story or poem or screenplay to make sense of [their lives]. A masterpiece that would buy [their] way out of slavery to a husband or parent or corporation. That would earn [their] freedom.

There's an interesting conflation of literary (masterpiece) and monetary (buy, earn) goals in that paragraph. Since this story of would-be writers began as a story of critics, I feel I must turn to Ricardo Piglia's commentary on the intersection of those realms (from his brilliant "Assumed Name"):

...as in every good detective story, what is at play is not the law, but money (or, more appropriately: the law of money). ...critics act like administrators of art and their function is to regulate the circulation and sale of books in the market: to be "criticized" (discovered) is to lose readers, that is, to be unable to earn money through literature. Once more, as with the counterfeiter who prints forged bills, to be discovered is not a moral (in this case: literary) problem but an economic one.

A couple of posts back, I mentioned how (like The Castle of Otranto) Haunted traffics in a little bit of misrepresentation. Haunted began life as a collection of short stories but was reworked into a novel because short story collections don't sell well. Haunted as a novel is a work of forgery motivated not by literary (moral) concerns but by monetary ones, interestingly paralleling the motives of his would-be writers. Interestingly, the would-be writers see money as necessary to buy their way "out of slavery." One wonders if the parallel between author and subject extends so far.

I want to move on from the novel's various crimes and ghosts for now, and let's get to the end of the chapter. Here, after an off-hand comment from Miss Sneezy, we learn that Comrade Snarky feels that Anne Frank had "life pretty good." As she explaines "Anne Frank ... never had to tour with her book..." Yes, this is offensive, but for Palahniuk pushing those kinds of buttons is sort of de rigueur, especially for Haunted. (I warn you now, if that seems bad, you may not want to go on.)

For now, let's look at the strange juxtaposition of Anne Frank's life with that of an author who "has to" tour with his or her book. Snarky seems to suggest that behind forced into hiding is preferable to being forced (or at least contractually obligated) to reveal oneself. As a would-be author, Snarky would appear to believe that she can create a masterpiece to earn her freedom, but she would prefer to remain in hiding than to be seen with her work. There's a suggestion here, perhaps one not unfamiliar to writers, of wanting the work to stand for the person. Instead of going out into the world him or herself, the writer would rather the work could function as their representative.

Ghosts, false identities, entrapment, hiding, the human replaced by its simulacrum--some themes already beginning to crop up--sign posts that we may be entering Gothic territory.

The Cold Open (Guinea Pigs)

2010-07-19T14:13:00.000-07:00

Books generally don’t have cold opens, which are a short teaser section before the titles roll. You could probably make a case for certain mass market genre novels that will throw a few paragraphs of suspenseful action from within the novel on the very first page of the book. (A practice that I recall from all of those cheesy AD&D novels I read when I was younger.) However, “Guinea Pigs,” the two-page chapter that follows the epigraph certainly feels like a teaser. It describes the basic premise of the novel, of a group of writers at an “isolated writers’ retreat” organized by an old man whose intentions end up being less than innocent, which makes for a nicely Gothic set-up.

Additionally, the narrator tells us that the writers gave each other pseudonyms, such as "The Matchmaker," "Lady Baglady" and "The Duke of Vandals." The narrator claims the nicknames are based on the sins or crimes or. It’s never clear exactly when, how or why these nicknames are determined, though perhaps there was a “Reservoir Dogs”-style meeting at some point. (“How come he gets to be a Duke but I’m stuck as an Earl?” “What are you talking about? An Earl is way higher than a Duke.” “No, you must be thinking of a Baron.”)

There are, of course, a couple of possible ways of reading this. If one were to take it at its most superficial level, it’s possible to see this as a twisted variation on the cast of characters of your typical slasher flick, which tends to feature characters easily identifiable as “The Jock, “The Nerd,” “The Rich Girl,” and so on. On another level, one keeping not only with the premise of “the opposite of superhero names” but also with the rest of Palahniuk’s oeuvre, these characters may be archetypes of a sort, the lost souls that haunt our contemporary world. The narrator describes them as:

Silly names for real people. As if you cut open a rag doll and found inside: Real intestines, real lungs, a beating heart, blood. A lot of hot, sticky blood.

It’s a brilliant description, and one that when I first read the book, gave me hope that the rest of the novel would manage a similar combination of the uncanny and the visceral. (The suggestion of the puppet as a stand-in for the human, in particular, recalls that modern master of the uncanny, Thomas Ligotti.)

One note on the narrator: This chapter and all subsequent chapters of the framing story are written from the first-person plural--that is the story is told by a “we.” It’s never spelled out who this “we” is but it’s pretty clear from the novel that it’s the collective voice of all (or almost all) of the writers. This is something of a departure for Palahniuk, whose previous novels, however experimental in some respects, were all narrated from the point of view of a single character.

I confess that even now, recollecting what I found frustrating or disappointing about the novel, I still find this opening quite effective. If nothing else, it's a crackerjack premise told with an economy that immediately leaves me wanting to read on.

Every Story is a Ghost (The Epigraph)

2010-07-15T13:28:00.001-07:00

Haunted kicks off with an epigraph from Poe’s “The Masque of the Red Death”: “There was much of the beautiful, much of the wanton, much of the bizarre, something of the terrible, and not a little of that which might have excited disgust.” I’ll probably delve more into the way that “Masque” informs the story, as well as Palahniuk’s take on Poe once we I get a little deeper into the book, but since we’re in Gothic territory, I want to delve into the past a little. Heck, let’s go all the way back to The Castle of Otranto, generally recognized as the first Gothic novel. Walpole incorporated all forms of supernatural elements which he figured might seem hokey to his then-modern audience, so he set the story in Italy of a couple of centuries back, believing this to be a time and place where such things might be more readily believed. The first edition of Otranto compounds this somewhat by including an introduction which states that the story is actually a translation of an old Italian manuscript written in the approximate era as that in which the story is set. I find it intriguing that the Gothic genre kicks off with this little bit of fraud, especially since it’s a mode of fiction that frequently makes use of hidden identities.

The full title of Haunted is Haunted: A Novel or Haunted: A Novel of Stories, either of which features a little bit of misrepresentation. Haunted did not begin as a novel, but as a collection of short stories. A framing narrative was added in order to take this disparate collection of stories, which do not appear to have been written around a central theme, and make a novel out of them. That narrative actually started out as a different story, a novella about critics isolating themselves from the world and then going slowly mad. It seems so very appropriate that a novel as concerned with stories as ghosts and vice versa features its own ghost of a story, one which actually lines up more closely with that epigraph. “The Masque of the Red Death” is the story of how in the midst of an epidemic of a very contagious and highly disease, Prince Prospero and his court lock themselves up in a palace and hold a masquerade ball. The masquerade features a collection of rooms, each designed around a color theme and with the goal of indulging the senses. All kind of outré and wild costumes and behavior are celebrated, but then someone walks in wearing a mask which reproduces the worst symptoms of the plague. This is too much for Prince Prospero who then (SPOILER WARNING) chases after the figure, only to find that it is the very plague itself in human form, and that he and his court have been trapped in with that which they had hoped to keep out. (Yes, that is a spoiler warning on a 150+ year old story, though if you haven’t already read “Masque,” I’m hoping this will serve as something of a wake-up call.)

In Palahniuk’s ghost of a story, the critics decide to isolate themselves from society because they have decided that they hate everything the culture that they review. They plan to set up their own community where they can create their own art, literature, etc. Yet because they are critics and not artists, they cannot create anything and so end up cannibalizing themselves and each other. (I’m tempted to stop here and ponder the irony of critics who dislike the very thing they center their careers around or question Palahniuk’s sharp dividing line between artists and critics. I think reading some reviews of Palahniuk’s Diary, especially that of Salon’s Laura Miller, will probably suffice to show what inspired Palahniuk to write that story.) As with “Masque,” a group of people hole themselves up hoping to escape something terrible in the outside and create their own idealized world only to find doom within that same enclosure they had believed would provide safety.

When discussing Haunted, Palahniuk sometimes talked about writing the sorts of "dark things Poe couldn't write about in his own time," which I confess I find a somewhat questionable notion. Though I'll have more to say on Poe later on, for now I wonder to what extent does a book itself serve as an author's escape from the threatening critics rampaging outside, and can a narrative trap itself by those strategies it had hoped would provide it with salvation?

Rereading Palahniuk's Haunted

2010-07-15T00:20:00.000-07:00

Haunted was my first Palahniuk. I had been meaning to read Fight Club since after the movie came out, but hadn’t ever gotten around to it. In 2006, a coworker of mine offered to lend me a bootleg copy of the Haunted audiobook. I jumped at the chance because not only had I been intending to read Palahniuk for years, but what little I had read about Haunted intrigued me. Not so much the bit about people fainting as the fact that it was a work of horror from an author tagged as a nihilist, which made me hope I was in for the same sort of thrilling, revelatory experience I had as reading Thomas Ligotti’s Grimscribe. Also, though a novel, much of the book was made up short stories, which are generally a much better vehicle for horror.

What I read was both more and less than I expected. The first story (“Guts”) definitely left an impression, as well as some mild nausea. More horrors abounded, often through scenes of bodily destruction as well as some taboo defying behavior. Yet, overall, I was left with mixed feelings. There seemed to be a lot going on with the novel, yet it didn’t really hang together. The relationship between the short stories and the framing narrative seemed questionable, and neither did the social and philosophical commentary seem to mesh well with the events of the story. There was something of a Frankenstein quality to it, not because it was reminiscent of the classic tale from Mary Shelley, but because it felt stitched together. However, with so much going on, I considered the possibility that perhaps it was beyond me, too provocative for my middle class sensibilities while too subtle in its philosophy.

Looking back on it now, it strikes me as the sort of sentiment that must have been the product of a literary inferiority complex. I thought of myself as principally a reader of Lovecraft-type horror trying to branch out a little, so there must be some failure on my part. It couldn’t possibly be that an author as brilliant and respected as Palahniuk had flubbed something as low-brow as a horror story, could it? I confess that this conundrum inspired a certain degree of obsession with the book. I ended up seeking out all of the Palahniuk interviews related to the novel (Well, those available on the web) in the hopes of getting a better sense of the novel and later delved into Palahniuk’s other works. Since then, I’ve often considered revisiting Haunted, and I figured this is a good a time as any.

2010-04-16T17:10:00.001-07:00

Got Lovecraft Unbound from lib today. Goody.

2010-04-16T17:08:00.001-07:00

Trying to race through huge booksale in 1 hr before job: not fun.

2010-04-16T15:00:00.001-07:00

Santa Rosa Friends of the Library book sale. More crowded than I expected.

2010-04-14T16:21:00.001-07:00

First test of mobile blogging. Wanted to try it out w/short stories of "Los gauchos judios."

Review: The Brontës Went to Woolworths by Rachel Ferguson

2010-04-04T16:15:00.000-07:00

"How I loathe that kind of novel which is about a lot of sisters." So begins The Brontës Went to Woolworths with a touch of playful irony, as this happens to be a novel very much about sisters. The oldest (who also happens to be the narrator) is Deirdre Carne, who works as a journalist and has been attempting to get a novel published. Katherine, who is a little younger, is an actress still trying to achieve success in her career. The youngest of the three is Sheil. She is still young enough to have a governess present to guide her education. All three live together with their widowed mother in a London house in the 1930s.

The family members are drawn together by a very playful imaginative life. A large part of it revolves around humorous anecdotes regarding "family friends" which can be anything from childhood toys to prominent strangers. Among them is Judge Toddington, who Deirdre first saw when she had to serve jury duty. Deirdre describes these "friendships" in a such a matter-of-fact manner that I sometimes felt a little lost early in the novel, unsure as to what was real and what was not.

The family appears to have built up this world in part as protection for the challenges they face. Katherine gets kicked out of her acting class and has to decide whether to join a travelling show. Deirdre agonizes over whether her novel will find a publisher. Even the fantasy realm provides some degree of discomfort. Sheil's governess considers it foolish and grows increasingly frustrated with the sisters' talk about their "friends." While on holiday, the family attends a séance, where they appear to draw some attention from a couple of mysterious phantoms.

The major development comes when Deirdre gets a chance to know the real Lady Toddington during a charity bazaar. As the two become friends, the two families begin to get to know each other. The Toddingtons have no children of their own and so are flattered by the attention of the Carne family. What follows is a negotiation between imagined and real friendships.

I confess I'm more familiar with this sort of shared imaginative world in somewhat darker contexts, as in Peter Jackson's "Heavenly Creatures," and so for a good part of the novel felt sure that something awful was bound to happen. The novel never takes that sort of turn, though there is a sense of the disappointments of the wider world. Deirdre's narration was very entertaining, reflecting a very sort of English literary quirkiness. (Deirdre even tells how she once turned down a marriage proposal because she was too in love with Sherlock Holmes at the time.) While the Carne's fantasy world serves to bring them together, it proves surprisingly fluid, presenting an intimate portrait of how people connect with each other.

Review: Mr. X

2010-02-12T23:18:00.000-08:00

In Mr. X, Peter Straub writes about identity, family and the way the past influences our present. He also pays literary homage to weird writer H.P. Lovecraft. It was this last item which most got me interested in reading Mr. X and, sadly, the element I found most disappointing. Straub can write great literary horror, as seen in his Ghost Story, which pays homage to the ghost stories of Henry James and Nathaniel Hawthorne, but he seems to stumble here. This isn't entirely Straub's fault, as the Lovecraft homage or pastiche can be harder to pull off than it looks. Argentine author Jorge Luis Borges gave it a shot with "There Are More Things," and while it's a decent story, it's not one of Borges' best nor is it likely to make you forget "The Rats in the Walls." Writing a Lovecraft homage is a little like playing a Led Zeppelin cover song. Just because it's been done badly so often doesn't mean that doing it well is easy.

The premise is intriguing, and for the first of its six sections the book moves swiftly, drawing the reader into its sense of mystery. And the life of our protagonist, Ned Dunstan, is full of mystery. There is the strange premonition he gets of his mother's impending death; the question of his father, a man he has never met and about whom his mother has refused to talk; the feeling of missing something or someone in his life; and finally, the terrible attacks he has had every year on his birthday, starting when he was three years old. Only Ned knows, however, that what other people see as seizure-like episodes, he experiences as vividly real dreams. In these dreams, he witnesses terrible crimes committed by a strange figure dressed in a black coat and hat. He identifies this bogeyman by the name of Mr. X.

Interspersed with Ned's narrative are journal entries from Mr. X. Mr. X describes his own childhood, the discovery of certain supernatural powers and the revelation that he was descended from beings known as the Great Old Ones to help bring about their reign on earth. Later he discovers the work of H.P. Lovecraft and identifies his own story with that of the Providence author, going so far as to become obsessed with Lovecraft and his stories, believing them to be prophecies.

The premonition of his mother's death has brought Ned back to his hometown of Edgerton, where he spends time with his aunts and uncles as well as some of his mother's old friends. He also begins to search for the father he never knew and becomes embroiled in a local businessman's shady dealings. As you can see, there are a lot of elements here, and had Straub managed to blend them well, it would make for a real tour-de-force.

One central problem is Mr. X, who makes an effectively creepy villain for a little while but becomes less frightening the more journal entries we read. About a third of the way into the novel I came to the conclusion that Mr. X was easily the whiniest of the Bastard Spawn of the Great Old Ones I had ever encountered. (I imagine he avoids Old One family reunions lest he suffer Cyclopean wedgies at the hands of Wilbur Whateley.) There's something to be said for bogeymen willing to be quietly ominous, or if they're going to rant, it should reinforce the sense of menace, not undermine it. Mr. X's purple prose might be intended as a parody of Lovecraft's writing style but comes across as bad Lovecraft fanfic, especially when Mr. X is expressing such non-Lovecraftian sentiments such as:

I HATE ART. ART NEVER DID ANYONE A BIT OF GOOD. IT NEVER WON A WAR, PUT FOOD ON THE TABLE, SWEPT THE FLOOR, TOOK OUT THE GARBAGE, OR SLIPPED YOU A TWENTY WHEN YOU WERE DOWN AND OUT. ART DOESN'T ACT THAT WAY.

This may be a consequence of the weakness of the villain, but I found myself pretty bored with all of the characters. Ned is compelling as a confused young man beset by mystery but less so as a pulp detective figure hunting down the various threads of family and criminal intrigue. His aunts and uncles are a motley crew who are meant to be sort of charming in their twistedness, but every time one of them said some variation on "We are Dunstans" to reference the family's low standing in Edgerton, they crossed closer to self-parody. There have always been Dunstans in Cold Comfort Farm, after all. Ned also has a love interest, Laurie Hatch, who is tangentially connected to the criminal dealings. (She's the husband of a local, corrupt businessman.) She has a cute kid with musical talent and is quite sexy in a panther-like sort of way but sadly lacks much in the way of a personality.

The lack of engaging characters ends up undermining some of what should be the novel's strengths For example, Straub's prose has a nicely literary quality, such as when he describes Ned and Laurie's lovemaking:

Some of the women I had known may have been more passionate than Laurie, but none were more gracefully attuned to the capacity of each individual moment to spread its wings and glide into the next. She also had the gift of what some would call a dirty mind and others inventiveness. The more we explored our bodies and celebrated their abilities, the more unified we became until we seemed to pour into each other and become a single, profoundly interconnected thing.

It's nicely written and would be almost transcendent if I felt some connection to the characters, but since I don't it just seemed sort of purple to me, high-toned Harlequin romance.

This deleterious effect also extends to some of the novel's twists. We learn three different backstories for Laurie, and if she were a character I had cared about, I would have been struck with a feeling of suspense and wanted to know which was true. I didn't really care, though, and so felt that reading one backstory was punishment enough. Other twists were undermined by Straub's decision to riff off certain elements of Lovecraft's "The Dunwich Horror." This isn't bad on its own, but some twists that should have been surprising seemed obvious if you were familiar with the original.

Straub probably should have taken the advice offered up to Joseph Curwen about not calling up what you cannot put down, since I think the Lovecraft homage proves particularly damaging to the novel. Lovecraft had many weaknesses as a writer, but his portrayal of a universe where cosmic forces easily overwhelm a humanity to which they are indifferent was quite radical for its time and still retains the power to inspire dread. In discussing Ghost Story, Peter Straub says he realized that the "low key and restrained" horror story was self-defeating, and that "horror stories were best when they were big and gaudy, when the natural operatic quality in them was let loose." It's an effective strategy when riffing off of James or Hawthorne, but Straub doesn't adjust it for Lovecraft. In "The Dunwich Horror" Lovecraft gives us a monster that is like a big elephant, octopus thing with a huge face on one side of it's body. Mr. X has a guy who teleports around and stabs people. There's a bit of a scale problem there. Compared to Lovecraft's tales of horrors from beyond the borders of the known universe, the intrigue over trust funds and daddy issues come off as so much small potatoes, all those twists and turns just soap opera.

No scene illustrates Straub's failure to capitalize on the Lovecraft homage than the library scene. Yes, a library scene. If you've read many Lovecraft stories or even Lovecraft pastiches, you're familiar with it. When Ned discovers Mr. X's library he finds "multiple copies of every edition of Lovecraft's books... first editions, paperbacks, trade paperbacks, library editions." This is the Lovecraftian equivalent of leaving cash on the table. There's no texture there, none of the frisson between real and fictional works. By the time Mr. X was written, Lovecraft had become the subject of so many works, the pastiches of Arkham House, the periodical Lovecraft Studies, the Simon Necronomicon, the Hay Necronomicon, The Starry Wisdom. These last three all deal, to different extents, with the question of Lovecraft's fiction as cosmology, so they would be just the sort of thing you'd expect someone like Mr. X to own.

I realize that many of my criticisms wouldn't be shared by a reader who is less of a Lovecraft fan, and so I am hesitant to discourage anyone from reading the book. There are some good aspects. Straub's prose has its usual polished middlebrow quality. Edgerton--especially its seedier side--really comes alive sometimes. There also a certain audacity to all the twistiness, which I probably would have enjoyed if I had engaged more with the characters or didn't know what to expect. I almost wish I could read or at least review this book as someone who was not a Lovecraft fan, but it's not something that I'm able to do.

I think despite the homage, it's not really a book for Lovecraft fans. I'm not sure it would appeal to the reader who is wholly ignorant of Lovecraft's Mythos, either. That still leaves a good portion of horror readers, who tend to be ambivalent about Lovecraft and who would possibly really enjoy the novel. I hate to end a review on such a noncommittal note, but, seriously, your mileage may vary.

Review: The Keep by Jennifer Egan

2009-12-24T15:42:00.000-08:00

The story begins with Danny's arrival at The Keep, an ancient European castle that has come into the possession of his cousin. Though Danny thrives on a busy social scene, he has left New York for the isolated confines of the Keep because he has angered too many people at home. Howie, the cousin, has been very successful in life and has bought the castle with the goal of creating a special sort of resort where people can escape from the modern and allow their sense of adventure and imagination free rein.

The story of Danny, Howie and the Keep alternates with that of its author or narrator, an inmate in a state penitentiary for unspecified crimes. He's taking part in a writing program, where he is creating or remembering the story of the Keep. With this story, he hopes to impress the leader of the writing group, a woman named Holly, but in prison, even writing a story can attract the animosity of a man's fellow inmates.

There's an interesting tension between the two narratives. Both stories are contemporary, but the story of the Keep, while mostly realistic, incorporates so many Gothic elements--not just the Keep itself, but an ancient baroness, a journey into the catacombs, a looming tower--as to push into the realm of fantasy or parody. The prison narrative, while not outwardly Gothic, still very much involves those Gothic elements such as isolation, confinement, the weight of the past, and forbidden longings.

Despite the use of Gothic and metafictional elements, the story is fairly restrained, which sometimes gives the novel a little bit of a truncated feeling. My initial response was to feel a little disappointed by the end of the novel, as if the unique setting and structure of the novel had promised much more than it had been able to deliver. On reflection, my affection for the novel has grown. The Keep is a story about the choices the people make and how those affect their lives and connections with others. It may not indulge the fan of the Gothic novel in the full-on outrageousness one may expect from that genre, but it does use those elements skillfully.

Review: Laughter in the Dark

2009-12-22T12:15:00.000-08:00

An early Nabokov novel about a man named Albinus, a well-to-do German businessman who becomes infatuated with a callow younger woman. There are some similarities here with Pandora's Box or "Der Blaue Engel" (for fans of Weimar Cinema) in this story of a rather pompous individual brought low by his romantic entanglement with a younger woman.

Overall, it's a fairly tragic story, as Albinus loses first his marriage, then his daughter, then, in quick succession, his sight, dignity, fortune and life. It has its moments of humor and unique prose. Though hardly as brilliant or radical as Nabokov's later works, Laughter in the Dark is still a well-crafted narrative of one man's folly.

Review: We Have Always Lived in the Castle

2009-07-10T23:28:00.000-07:00

The title of the novel is no accident, for it is as gothic a tale as any that was ever set in a crumbling castle on the banks of the Rhine. Its treatment of human evil, isolation and madness could easily qualify it as the pinnacle of 20th Century American Gothic.

A shadow has fallen across the house of Blackwood. Though once a prominent family, a possibly accidental poisoning has reduced their numbers to three (two sisters, an uncle) and made the townspeople suspicious of the survivors. The uncle, Julian, has been left physically crippled and one of the sisters, Constance, has developed a phobia about the world outside the house which does not prevent her from accepting visitors. It is left to the younger sister, Merikat (short for Mary Katherine), to venture into town on necessary errands.

Gothic literature often features singular characters, individuals who seem eerily plausible yet who are warped in a way that makes them unlike anyone else we've ever encountered. Merikat, who is the narrator and thus our guide through this story, is just such a character. It is clear that she views the townspeople with hostility, going so far as to craft charms--ordinary household items such as books or mirrors placed in odd locations or strange configurations--to keep the world at bay.

But soon it does intrude, in the figure of Charles, a cousin from an estranged branch of the family. His healthiness and level headedness seem to promise an opening up of the Blackwood home, a return to normality. But Merikat sees in him a representative of the crudity and selfishness of the outside world and seeks to drive him out through more and more powerful charms. The last of these results in a terrible reaction from the townspeople which sends the Blackwoods into greater isolation, leading to a hauntingly melancholy end to the story.

We Have Always Lived in the Castle is an incomparable achievement, a story that will equally charm and disturb in ways that sometimes can be almost intolerable. And you will probably never forget Merikat Blackwood.

Review: Lamb; the Gospel According to Biff, Jesus' Childhood Pal

2009-07-09T22:16:00.000-07:00

In The Last Temptation of Christ, Judas finds himself in a terrible situation. Jesus has told him that it will be necessary for Judas to betray him in order for mankind to be saved. As Christ acknowledges, God gave Judas the really hard task, that of betraying someone who he holds very dear. By comparison, all Christ has to do is die.

Though it's never acknowledged, the narrator of this book finds himself in a similar bind. As the lifelong friend of Joshua (aka Yeshua aka Jesus) and under the dictum that "dying is easy; comedy is hard," he has been left the harder path. All Joshua has to do is die. Biff has to make it funny.

Biff has been brought back to life by God so that he can write the definitive gospel since he was there from nearly the beginning. In order to ensure his cooperation, God has an angel chaperon Biff. Though it makes up very little of the story, the scenes of Biff and the angel in the hotel room are some of the funniest of the novel, especially in the angel's befuddlement at modern life.

Biff first met Joshua when they were both kids, and Joshua was bringing lizards back to life for the benefit of his younger, lizard-killing brother. From there they strike a lifelong friendship not impeded by the fact that Joshua knows he will one day be the Messiah. Biff is your quintessential underachiever, and his philosophical outlook, which has been derived from the teachings of Cynic, makes for a nice foil for Joshua's earnest desire to fulfill the task that has been set before him. When Joshua decides he will never learn how to be the Messiah if he does not seek out his origins, it is Biff who accompanies him on his travels.

They go in search of the Three Wise Men in order to learn the truth of Joshua's birthright. In their travels, this Hebraic Hope and Crosby encounter bandits, Taoist magicians, herbalist concubines, a hungry demon, a Buddhist monastery, the Tibetan Man of the Mountains, martial artists, a Kali ceremony, Tantra, untouchables and the Kama Sutra. After their travels, Joshua comes to learn what he has to do to become the Messiah, so they return to Palestine for the more familiar part of the story.

Christopher Moore here has a fine line to tread in attempting to make the story of Christ funny and believable yet keeping Joshua as the earnest Messiah figure we can all look up to. (No Last Temptation-style dream sequences of Christ experiencing the temptation of giving it all up here.) Having the story told by the underachieving and very sardonic Biff is a great way to thread that needle.

Moore makes the most of the sections where the gospels are silent, which give him a lot to work with. It yields great comic touches, like the time Joshua, Biff and Maggie decide to "circumcise" a well-endowed Greek statue, or the origins of the Jewish custom of Chinese food on Christmas. Though not every joke works, the passages overall maintain a high level of humor without robbing Joshua's quest of meaning.

The humor does begin to lost its impact near the end. Once Joshua and Biff return to Nazareth and Christ begins his ministry, Moore has less leeway with which to play. Once the ministry and the inevitable path to Golgotha have begun, the humor becomes more forced. As Joshua himself once said (though not in this book), a man cannot serve to masters, for he will honor one and neglect the other. The book has to choose between the earnestness of Joshua and the cynicism of Biff. It opts for the latter, for which one cannot entirely blame Moore. To have gone with the latter would have been to write a different, much edgier book. That Moore manages to make both elements work for as long as he does is testament to his talent and his great sense of humor.

Denevi: La cola del perro

2009-06-30T23:29:00.001-07:00

"La cola del perro" is that last of the stories in this collection, this one in the fable mode. A farmer is trying to maximize efficiency at his farm by making sure his animals are not goofing off. Since he doesn't have a good sense of how to judge their output, he decides to prohibit the dog from wagging his tail, under the theory that if the dog is wagging his tail he must not be working. The farmer goes so far as to threaten the dog with death if he will not stop wagging his tail.

The dog finds this very unnatural, but does learn that if he concentrates, grits his teeth and squeezes the right muscles, he can keep from wagging his tail. But he finds it very frustrating and stressful. As he becomes more stressed, his behavior becomes more hostile and threatening. Although the other inhabitants, including the farmer's wife, begin to think the policy has cost the dog his sanity. The farmer, though, thinks it is great, especially since a hostile dog makes for a much better guard dog.

Interesting story, which struck me either as a satire on workplaces that fixate on productivity or a commentary on communism. (They may seem like pretty divergent possibilities, but the Soviets were pretty fixated on productivity numbers in their days.)

Denevi: Eine Kleine Nachtmusik

2009-06-29T23:05:00.000-07:00

"Eine Kleine Nachtmusik" is the last of Denevi's character-based pieces, and like some of the others has an element of confrontation between a certain porteño snobbery and the wider world. Two spinster sisters spend their nights listening to records of classical music in their apartment, which is in a building which is largely empty. One day the hear that a young musician has moved into an apartment in the floor below theirs. That night they hear him playing tangos in the apartment below.

The younger sister finds his tangos moving and becomes fascinated with him. She begins to think about running into him, seeing him as a potential escape for the lonely existence she is living with her sister. Though her sister acts horrified about the sort of music he plays, she also has an interest in meeting him.

In the end, things do not work out quite as either planned in a melancholy ending.

IPA: Snowmen

2009-06-29T23:00:00.000-07:00

And here the book swings back into weird/fantasy/magical realism mode with a great story about a few days in winter. There's admittedly not much in the way of a plot here. Snow falls one day in the hometown of the narrator, who is a young boy. He heads out with his friends to play in the snow. Soon they encounter some very intricate snowmen. They wander around some more, and then go back outside day after day to see the new variations in snowmen. The snow figures become ever more fanciful: people in complicated scenes, animals, plants, mythical beasties. Of course, these are all pretty much figures it is impossible to make with snow, but I found it only added to the sense of the wondrous that Millhauser is after in the story.

CHM: The Same Dog

2009-06-29T22:59:00.000-07:00

A tricky story to discuss, because it actually hinges on a little bit of a twist that I'd rather not give away. The story features two periods in time, the first when he was a young boy and the second having grown up and visiting the house he grew up in. As a boy he was a little bit of an outcast, but there was a little girl he was good friends with. They would go out exploring the English countryside together, roaming as far as they could get away with. One day they discover a strange house, guarded by a very frightening dog. As they leave, the boy thinks he sees something which creeps him out, but he catches only a vague glimpse.

Soon thereafter, the boy becomes sick and spends many days in bed. After he recovers he learns that his friend has died, but nobody will tell him what happened. He grows up never having known what happened to her. He returns to his childhood home from the army with a fellow soldier along. They go out exploring and discover the strange house that he had found as a child.

And to reveal anymore would be to give too much away. This again is Aickman at his most mysterious, with a sense of the strange but providing no ability to really puzzle out what has happened.

BDT: Revelación de otoño & El invierno propio

2009-06-28T22:25:00.001-07:00

These last two stories round out the seasonal section of Buzon de tiempo. "Revelación de otoño" is about an academic couple, who decided somewhat late in life to adopt a daughter. It's an interesting sketch of their lives, their friends and interests. The conflict arises at the end, when the daughter decides that she wants to know about her biological mother. As with the spring story, the seasonal connection doesn't seem as integral as it could be.

"El invierno propio" (One's own winter) is, unsurprisingly, about death. An old professor thinks about life and death as he sits in his library, looking at all the books. There's a certain elegance to the simplicity of the piece, and any bibliophile can appreciate the feelings of nostalgia of looking at books that have accompanied one through life.

IPA: A Day in the Country

2009-06-28T22:24:00.000-07:00

"A Day in the Country" is the last story of the second section, all of which are stories with little to no fantastic element (outside of the stylistic approach) told from the point of views of women. The emphasis here is on epiphanies.

This story concerns an academic in her mid-thirties staying at a lodge. (I was reminded of the lodge in Yosemite National Park, though I don't think the exact location is ever named.) She reads, works and wanders around, running into different people. There is one woman in particular she feels a need to avoid. This woman, who is approximately a decade younger, has a look on her face that suggests she is looking someone to talk to, to unload her problems onto. One unexpected encounter between the two proves eye-opening, as the protagonist is forced to confront some truths that she has been keeping from herself.

While these stories have all been good, and I certainly like Millhauser's style, I have to admit I'm looking forward to see if the final section returns to some of the more interesting aspects of the first story.

CHM: The Hospice

2009-06-28T22:23:00.000-07:00

A man on a business trip finds himself lost and running out of gas. He decides to see if anyone at the very large house nearby can help him. They seem friendly enough but behave a little strangely.

It's a pretty well-worn premise, which I wouldn't be surprised is older than the novel. As often in horror, it's all about execution, execution, execution. (Yes, pun intended.) There's a certain quality to Aickman's strange stories--an atmosphere that manages to be both uncanny and subtle--that is done particularly well in this story.

The house turns out to be a hospice, named simply The Hospice, which seems to specialize in healing people with some undefined nervous condition. The host seems friendly enough, though it is not clear if he can be trusted. The staff, too, are polite, though with a strangely condescending manner. The protagonist has dinner at The Hospice, where he is served the same gigantic portions as everyone else, which he is strongly encouraged to eat.

He meets another resident, a woman who flirts with him. Then he ends up spending the night, having to spend the night sharing a room with one of the residents, whose behavior, much like everyone else's, is a little bit off.

This ends up being one of Aickman's pieces where the atmosphere is the strongest element. There's no real resolution, no revelation as to what is going on, or even a final shocking twist. But it still manages to be quite tense throughout.

I'm "with" the Band (dream fragment)

2009-06-27T23:01:00.000-07:00

Though I realize there's nothing more dull than an account of someone else's dream, on occasion some dream strikes me enough that I feel like sharing. What follows is only a small fragment of what must have been a larger dream, but only this particular scene stuck with me after awakening.

For some reason the image is saturated in a violet tint, as if filmed through a filter. The scene begins with a man at a drum set, banging away with enthusiasm, which is reflected in the almost beatific look of joy on his face. His hair is long and straight, and though his clothing is hard to make out in the purple saturation, it's light tone and lose shape suggests the hippie look circa 1969.

The scene pulls back, revealing a similarly dressed guitarist, also playing with the same degree of bouncy enthusiasm. Also a mike stand stands before both of them, awaiting the arrival of the singer. There is something peculiar about their happiness, as if it comes just shy of being clearly parodic. The thought crosses my mind, as the viewer of this scene, that this may be a parody of a band, something akin to The Monkees. The music is largely unmemorable, but shares the exaggeratedly sunny feel of the rest of the performance.

The scene pulls back a little more, and a man comes into the foreground. He is wearing a suit, also circa 1969, and his hair is a large mass of pale curls. Were it not for the violet tint of the scene, which creates the impression of a clown wig, it would appear to be an oversized Harpo Marx wig. He doesn't say anything, only looks at the viewer, smiles, turns to look at the band, than turns back and smirks. There's a hint of an eye roll, and the whole performance communicates something like, Get a look at these guys, can you believe they're for real?

We than see come out on stage a third member of the band, who strides out to stand in front of the microphone stand. During the whole time he has been in the scene, he has been facing away from the viewer. Though he is dressed just like the other two members, he sports a large pale Afro, which looks similarly clown-like as that of the man in the suit. As he turns around, the scene comes to an end, but I am left with the conviction that had I seen his face, I would have seen that he was the same person as the man in the suit.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Some thoughts: I'm always struck by how seemingly ironic dreams can be. Perhaps there is some simple Freudian interpretation to the above. Yet what sticks with me are the odd ironic elements. The way the musicians' enthusiasm suggests a parody of enthusiasm. The man in the suit, which suggests something like the host of a music program, responding to the enthusiasm with the implication that he finds the whole thing ridiculous. Yet, it's not clear if he's supposed to be in on the joke (if there is one). Made all the more haunting by the suggestion that he is really the singer, though we don't ever hear his voice.

There are of course different theories on dreams. Freud believed that they were expressions of the unconscious, those things that we keep locked away from our waking selves. Others believe that dreams are just random scenes that don't really mean anything. I have to admit I'm agnostic on whether either of those two theories is entirely correct. But the above sort of dream really strikes me with the way it seems to neither be an expression of something as straightforward as anxiety or desire nor does it seem entirely random. Weird, yes; surreal, definitely; but with its own peculiar dream logic.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I drafted this earlier in the day and since have had some opportunity to think it over. Some elements are recognizable. The general tone of ironically upbeat rock music may have been inspired by my viewing of The Happening meets "The Happening" on the Agony Booth website. The man in the suit bore something of a resemblance to Syd Barrett (albeit with a blonde/purple Afro), though why he ends up being the presenter as well as singer is something that just seems original to the dream. And the image of a clown-like figure, who is about to turn around but is never seen doing so may have been inspired by Thomas Ligotti's "Gas Station Carnivals" which features a much darker variation on the same scenario.

Denevi: Viajeros

2009-06-27T22:58:00.002-07:00

"Viajeros" is a curious little story. It's one of the metaphorical works in the collection. (The intro is right; there is a pretty clear breakdown.) It is about a couple who love to travel. They begin with road trips around Buenos Aires province, move on the bus trips around Argentina, then train trips around South American. Soon, this turns out to be insufficient, so the couple are flying to and fro. Not only are they fond of flying but also of collecting souvenirs and taking pictures, which they store with the narrator of the story. However, with so many places to travel to, they find they have no time to look at the pictures or do much with the souvenirs.

Soon, all the travel begins to take its toll. They get used to speaking in so many languages that their speech takes on a pidgin quality, incorporating words from several languages in a single sentence. And they also come to lost track of where they are. This is a fairly funny story, somewhat reminiscent of Kafka or Borges though with a slightly lighter touch.

IPA: The Sledding Party

2009-06-27T22:58:00.001-07:00

As with the previous story, this story is told from the perspective of a young woman in a very short span of time as she comes to certain epiphanies. The protagonist of the story is at a high school party with her friends, when one boy reveals an innocent truth which puts her ill at ease. She first avoids him, then wanders the party before coming to terms with it.

In both this and the prior story, there is some subtle degree of wonder or mystery. This doesn't reflect so much the threat of something potentially unnatural at play as much as it is the wonder and terror of life at such an age. There was a moment early on, where an animal is spotted, which may be a cat or a rabbit, which reminded me of Denevi's Decadencia y caida, but nothing so strange happens.

CHM: Pages from a Young Girl's Journal

2009-06-27T22:57:00.001-07:00

I'm not sure, but I think this story shows up frequently in anthologies. It did win a World Fantasy Award. I was aware when I started the story that it did deal with the theme of vampirism, and as the story opens I actually thought it might have been the journal of a "young" vampire girl. Even as the entries continue and that possibility seems less likely, I still couldn't quite be sure that there wouldn't be a final reveal that the author was a vampire all along. Again, Aickman does a great job with the atmosphere and keeping the reader just off balance enough.

The basic plot is that the narrative is a series of journal entries from a young Englishwoman as her family travels through Italy, where they tend to stay as guests of local landholders. There's an intriguing degree of allusions to other writers, particularly those of some Gothic importance. (As with Northanger Abbey, the narrator is fond of the Gothic works of Ann Radcliffe. She also learns that Shelley and Byron are staying nearby.) When it arrives, the vampire element is fairly conventional. (Who is that dark gentleman who the heroine is so drawn to?) The corruption of the narrator still makes more a compelling read and has a degree of ambiguity which reminded me of the end of "The Shadow Over Innsmouth."

BDT: Primaveras de otros & Nubes de verano

2009-06-27T22:52:00.001-07:00

From here, we move to the last section, which works off a seasonal motif. The first story is "Primaveras de otros" (Other people's springs), which is about a man living a hermit-like wandering experience. He has been driven to solitude by despair over all the terrible things happening in the world, which have robbed life of meaning. As he watches a couple make love on a beach, he finds new meaning in life and calls the wife he left behind. I have to admit at this point, my feelings are a bit torn. Benedetti is returning to the theme of solitude and alienation, and I'm not sure the new variation on it adds anything new. While it can be fascinating to see an author work on a theme from multiple angles, this one bordered on cliche. (Both for the world-weariness of the narrator and the lovemaking as epiphany moment.)

"Nubes de verano" is the story of fifteen-year-old boy left alone with his cousin, while his parents go away for a weekend. Since he has little to do, he spends a lot of time thinking about his life and writing in his diary. His sister killed herself several years ago, and he has been unable to cry since then. He wonders what this says about him, if other people find him strange. He sits down to watch television, flips through channels. As he gets to an ad for aid, which features an African boy suffering from malnutrition, he begins to cry. Though the ending here also borders on cliche, I think it was stronger than the former story. For one, the cloud/rainstorm imagery as stand-in for emotional build-up/release is pretty effective. For another, the protagonist's dilemma feels a little more genuine.

BDT: Contestador automático & Testamento ológrafo

2009-06-26T22:56:00.001-07:00

These last two stories of the Buzon de tiempo section actually break with the format of letters from one individual to another. The first is the transcript of two voice mails left on an answering machine. (The title translates as "Answering Machine.") The messages are both from the voice (probably a ghost) of a man who was tortured by the man to whom he is leaving the messages. (The two messages are there because the machine appears to limit the time for any individual message.) Here, again, is the theme of coming to terms with the dictatorships of the 20th Century. Admittedly, except for the format, there's not really much here that hasn't already shown up earlier. (Aa in "El diecinueve.")

"Testamento" also falls back on some themes that have been pretty prevalent throughout the collection; the bittersweet acceptance of death. This document is a last will and testament, and the format does allow for a new variation on this already familiar theme, as the narrator switches between concrete and intangible items in coming to terms with his life.

Denevi: Las abejas de bronce

2009-06-26T22:55:00.000-07:00

"Las abejas de bronce" is another one of Denevi's fables, and here concerns a Fox who runs a honey business. He makes pretty good money at it, but when he hears about some mechanical bees (made of bronze) he figures it's his opportunity to expand his business. The bronze bees appear to be a real wonder. They work constantly, do not get caught in spiderwebs, and are able to refine the have the honey refined by the time they get back to the hive. They have their drawbacks--the honey lacks the same flavor--but he is able to provide so much honey that he ends up cornering the market. However, soon the unintended consequences grow, and the Fox does not know how to stop it.

As it Boroboboo, the story seems to reflect a certain cautionary view of technology, especially its ability to take over swiftly. There are is also a degree of satire on the logic of modern capitalism.

IPA: A Protest Against the Sun

2009-06-26T22:46:00.001-07:00

The story is a marked contrast to "August Eschenburg." To begin with, it is much shorter and told from the point of view of a specific character. Millhauser's style does retain some of its sense of the fantastic that appeared in the former, but here it appears to play a greater role as emotional shading to a specific moment in a character's life.

The story is of a teenage girl at the beach one day with her parents. She talks to them about books, goes for a swim, thinks about the way the opposite sex looks at her and her own thoughts on sex. As she sits with her family on the beach, they spot a young man at the beach wearing dark clothing, including a hooded sweatshirt. The narrator's dad feels very upset by this, believing the young man has deliberately attempted to draw attention to himself by dressing that way in such a place. But the narrator sees it as a protest against the sun and feels some kinship with the boy.

"August Eschenburg" featured moments when August thought of the moments in his life that seemed to hold special significance and wondered if it was only in retrospect that he had assigned special meaning to a few particular events. "Protest" bears some similarity to those moments, here told as it is happening, without the benefit or distortion of retrospection.

CHM: Niemandswasser

2009-06-26T22:44:00.000-07:00

Niemandswasser is German for "No Man's Water," which in this novel represents an interesting variation on the theme of the Borderland as a realm where reality is not entirely solid. The story concerns a young man from the Austrian nobility who after a failed love affair, sinks into despair. To flee society, who hides out in a home by a lake whose shores border on several nations. It is in this lake that a friend of his was horribly bitten several years ago, losing part of his hand and sinking into depression himself.

One day the young noble spots a boat on the lake and asks a peasant about it. The peasant advises him against venturing out to the boat, since it is in No Man's Water. When the young nobleman inquires from one of the local teachers, he is told that not only is that part of the lake under disputed nationality but that it also appears to have a considerable collection of superstitions and uncanny stories built up around it. Out of curiosity, the young noble decides to row out there one moonlit night.

While "Real Road" was mostly a building up of atmosphere with a climax, that while intriguing was rather ambiguous, "Niemandswasser" ends with a more traditional horror story resolution. Aickman never resolves the mystery entirely, but he has crafted a satisfying horror tale.

Review: La continuacíon y otras páginas

2009-06-25T19:26:00.000-07:00

La continuacion is an anthology of stories and poems from Silvina Ocampo, who was friends with Borges, married to Adolfo Bioy Casares, and sister to Olivia Ocampo. In reading her short stories, I found it tempting to compare her to her contemporaries, Borges and also Julio Cortazar, which isn't entirely fair. Ocampo is certainly drawing from some of the same influences as those authors, but her perspective and style are clearly her own.

Among the themes are the blurring of identity (probably used most effectively in "La casa de azucar"), memories of childhood ("La siesta en el cedro"), and textual games ("Carta bajo la cama" and "El diario de la Porfiria Bernal"). Ocampo usually injects these themes with her own particular approach, as with the air of mystery and sadness that pervades the childhood stories. Of particular note is the sensuality of some of the stories, brining a certain liveliness to those elements. Admittedly, not all of the stories are great. (Of particular note is "El pecado mortal" for its oddly engaging take on the intersection of religion and sex.) Some of the later tales seem to have interesting concepts, though used in ways that struck me as less original.

Overall, a pretty nice collection presenting a sampling from the authors lifelong output.

BDT: La muerte es una joda & Un sabor ácido

2009-06-24T22:53:00.001-07:00

"La muerte es una joda" is the letter written to an old friend by a dying man. He is Argentine or Uruguayan, who moved to Mexico City after receiving a cancer diagnosis. Although he admits he is frightened of death, the letter is written with something of a light, almost joking, tone. He is already getting fainting spells, and he suspects the next time he faints, he will not be awakening.

"Un sabor ácido" is a letter to a childhood friend. After some brief thoughts on solitude and then some reminiscence regarding his childhood, the author goes on to explain why he has written the letter. He is in prison for shooting his wife. He had developed a problem with jealousy, and had hired a detective to follow her. The detective he hired worked alone, not with an agency, which he figured was a point in his favor. The detective had reported that she was having an affair. Enraged, the man shot his wife. He then flees and hides out in the house of another friend. Several days later, he finds out that his wife was not cheating on him, and that the detective worked alone because he was disreputable. He had a reputation for fabricating tales of infidelity concerning the wives he was watching.

There's a sense I get in this collection of these being very much the stories of a writer in his sunset. A lot of sort of bittersweet coming to terms with loss. This is pretty strong in the first story, but also comes through in the second story's nostalgic reminiscence. The theme of solitude seems to be most ironically used in "sabor," where it appears the narrators preference for solitude ends up dooming him.

Denevi: Decadencia y caída

2009-06-24T22:52:00.000-07:00

The title translates as "Decline and Fall," and is probably the most surreal of the stories in the collection. It is told in flashback by the butler working for a wealthy family. One day, the gardener brings him a report of strange droppings, then of a strange animal that appears to be something like a rabbit or a cat. The chef sees something in the garden and tells the owner. He is told not to worry about it, so ends up quitting. Though the creatures seem harmless, they slowly end up taking over the garden.

This is one of Denevi's metaphorical works and reminds me a bit of Cortazar's "House Taken Over." Though it is established that the creatures do not attack people or animals, the sense of strangeness about them contributes to the atmosphere of the uncanny at work in the story.

In the Penny Arcade: August Eschenburg

2009-06-24T22:51:00.000-07:00

In the Penny Arcade kicks off with the extended short story "August Eschenburg." (At 64 pages, the longest story by far.) This is the story of a 19th century German prodigy who becomes fascinated from a young age with clockwork automatons. The story kicks off with August's playing with a strange and cruel toy, a paper figure into which a small bird is placed. As the bird struggles to free itself, it gives the paper figure the illusion of being alive. It is a later encounter with a carnival magician's automaton that gets August interested in building his own.

He builds a few pretty good figures for the clock shop his father owns. He attracts the attention of a German industrialist looking to add some element of novelty to his new department store. August finds in the industrialist the opportunity to work on his clockwork figures with a focus he has not been privileged to before. The moving figures he creates are so striking that they make the department store a huge hit. But soon a competing department store opens, featuring its own automaton that are cruder but novel in a way that August finds distasteful. As the new department store begins to draw business away, August and the industrialist come to part ways. August returns to his hometown, where years later he receives a visit from a mysterious visitor with a new business proposition.

It's a delightful and fascinating look at creativity, at the tension between the artist and the public, but also just a very playful story about a manufacturer of clockwork wonders.

CHM: The Real Road to the Church

2009-06-24T22:50:00.000-07:00

"The Real Road to the Church" is the story of an Englishwoman who is living on an unspecified European island, in which she has trouble communicating with the locals. She hears that the chateu she is renting is on "the real road to the church," a phrase which she finds vaguely troubling and which nobody appears capable of explaining to her. This is mostly a nicely atmospheric in which not that much happens until a subtle climax which may or may not be a hallucination. It's an intriguing story, though definitely on the quiet side.

BDT: Bolso de viajes cortos & La vieja inocencia

2009-06-23T16:40:00.003-07:00

Even a consistently strong collection can turn up stories that stick less successfully in the mind than others. I imagine this is even more true when there's a repeated theme, so that some story can give the impression of being a minor variation of the other similarly themed stories. I would have to say that about about "Bolso de viajes cortos" which returns to the theme of solitude and coming to terms with the past. I read it a few days ago, and when I went to write about it today, I could not remember a thing. Scanning it over, it mostly came back to me. It's a story about a man who chooses a solitary wandering life as a reaction to memories he can't let go off. I don't remember it being a bad story, but it did get a little lost among similar stories.

"La vieja inocencia" did leave a stronger impression. It's a letter being written by an octogenarian to the woman he lost his virginity to, and has a strong sense of wistful reminiscence, capturing the sense of innocence of that first encounter. (The title translates as "The old innocence.")

Denevi: La última Navidad del primo Vegelio

2009-06-23T16:40:00.002-07:00

The story is told in flashback by a narrator who remembers when he was a young boy and his cousin Vegelio came to his family's house for Christmas. Vegelio is something of a sad sack, showing up in crummy clothes and always bringing the same flavored almonds every Christmas, which nobody in the family cares for. The narrator, however, has a certain fondness for Vegelio. That night, as Vegelio leaves he tells the narrator a certain secret, which would devastate the narrator's family if were to be revealed. It was interesting overall, but not one of the stronger stories so far.

Cold Hand in Mine: The Swords

2009-06-23T16:40:00.001-07:00

Aickman has been on my TBR pile for a while now. To a large extent, this is mostly figurative since it was not until last year that I actually obtained some of his works. (I found Cold Hand in Mine for 25¢(!!) in a used bookstore in Madison, WI.) His work has been highly praised by (among others) Fritz Leiber, Robert Bloch and S.T. Joshi. One critic described his "strange stories" (as he called them) as "ghost stories in which there is no ghost." So, what I'm expecting is some good subtle weirdness.

"The Swords" certainly gets the collection off to a good start. The story is presented by the narrator as the story behind his first sexual encounter. It takes place during the two years in which he works as a traveling salesman. On one trip, he finds himself in a decayed English town holed up in a flophouse. (Accommodations having been arranged by the uncle who employes him.) With little to do, he visits a fairly pathetic carnival and wanders into a tent wherein a rather strange sideshow is being held.

The show features a young woman dressed up in sexy clothing and a collection of cheap-looking swords. The attendants to the show (who are all men) are each given the opportunity to stab the girl with one of the swords, after which they get to his her. Though she places her hands over the spot on her body into which the sword entered, no blood appears to flow and the girl evinces no pain. (Quite the contrary in fact.)

The boy sneaks off before his turn comes up, but he later runs into the girl and the showman in a restaurant. Here, the showman offers him a private performance by the girl. I'll skip summarizing what follows, since there's no way I could do it justice.

It's a perplexing story, one in which it seems pretty clear something strange is going on without it being really clear what.

Denevi: Viaje a Puerto Aventura

2009-06-22T22:30:00.002-07:00

There seems to be a bit of porteño-satire going on in this tale of an ill-fated road trip. The story begins with the narrator's wife telling the narrator how she also hates to see people driving around in cars, because she knows that they enjoy making her jealous, what with the way they flaunt their travel to some exciting/relaxing location with all their cool friends. She works herself up into a bit of a state, so the narrator agrees to take her for a drive.

He borrows a friends old Lincoln, and they dress up a bit and go for a drive. Between the narrator's struggles to deal with Buenos Aires traffic and his wife's forced attempts to look as if they're having the times of their lives, the scene quickly grows rather grotesque. It is at this point that the wife decides that it is all those people staying at home and showing off what a fun time they're having at that that really make her sick.

It's a bit broad to make for an emotionally resonant portrayal, but as a poke at the porteño obsession with being seen and envied, it works pretty well. There is also one final surprise in store for the couple, which I thought worked pretty well.

BDT: Con los delfines & Terapia de soledad

2009-06-22T22:30:00.001-07:00

"Con los delfines" and "Terapia de soledad" are both from the Buzon de tiempo section of Buzon de tiempo. This section is made up of letters (or their equivalent).

"Con los delfines" returns to the Dirty War theme of "El diecinueve." It is a letter written by a young woman who was raised by a couple who were not her parents. She learns that she is actually adopted and that her parents were disappeared from their apartment and later dropped into the Rio de Plata. (I don't know what the estimates are, but the situation of infants being taken from parents who were disappeared was a real one.) The letter is being written to her adoptive father, who obviously knew where the infant he was adopting had come from, telling him how she found out and how consequently she does not ever want to see him again.

"Terapia de soledad" is a letter written by a woman coming home to her husband after having spent some time in the woods away from everybody. It's a pean of sorts to the joys of solitude. The theme of solitude is one of the themes that reappears frequently throughout the collection. Here it is fairly positive, a sort of chance for spiritual renewal.

Ocampo: Paradela & Keif

2009-06-22T22:30:00.000-07:00

So, we come to the last two stories in the anthology, both of which incorporate fantasy elements. Paradela is the name of a furniture salesman who helps the narrator's cousin with furnishing a house she has bought. There is a fair amount of humor in the interaction between Paradela, who seems like something of a Porteño-type, and the cousin, who is something more of a humorless society woman. The odd events take place when Paradela comes into contact with furniture, although this is only revealed with two different pieces. One is an antique bed where a Russian prince died. When Paradela lies down on it, he begins to get weaker and appears to be dying himself. The other is a simple-looking piano bench which was once owned by Gardel, and which allows Paradela to sing like Gardel when he is sitting or kneeling on it. It's overall an amusing story, though lacking much in the way of punch.

The second story, Keif, is a little subtler in its use of fantastic elements, and more somber. Keif is the name of a tiger, which is the pet of a woman whom the narrator becomes friends with. Beyond having a tiger as a pet, the woman is rather eccentric in other ways. She decides that she has become tired of life and decides to walk into the sea to do away with herself, leaving the narrator to take care of Keif. The supernatural element doesn't really come until the final twist, which takes some of the melancholy off what should be a fairly depressing story.

And with that, I have read and blogged on all the short stories in La continuación y otras páginas. It was a fun experience, and I'm only sorry that it's taken me so long to finish. Although I don't think Ocampo will anyone forget Borges or Cortazar, she writes some pretty interesting stories. I'll be looking to read more of her works in the future. (And I'll try to spend some time with her poetry in the near-future.)

BDT: Ausencia

2009-06-21T23:35:00.002-07:00

One theme that reoccurs quite a bit in this collection is the legacy of Latin American dictatorships in the '70s and '80s, specifically those of Uruguary and Argentina. This story, the longest of the collection, concerns an ex-revolutionary in Uruguay. He had developed a relationship with Juliana, a girl from his hometown, and had even introduced her to the struggle against the dictatorship. The one day, she leaves for Montevideo and does not return. Her absence haunts the narrator. Several years on, he returns to the town he grew up in to seek out some isolation while he works on some writing. He begins to visit Juliana's family and gets to become friends with her sister, Carmela.

Without getting too much into the plot of the story, which was quite good, this seemed like a pretty powerful story. There's a certain haunting quality to the coming to terms with what happened under the regime, and also an interesting current of the fluidity of identity.

BDT: Más o menos hipócritas

2009-06-21T23:35:00.001-07:00

The story was originally published as the first chapter of an exquisite corpse, where authors take turns each writing a chapter. The story is another of Benedetti's dialogue-based narratives. This one concerns a journalist interviewing an older writer. The journalist is asking the writer about what has happened to literary output he used to have when he was younger. There's some back and forth between the two, and the writer tells the journalist about his two marriages and how they may (or may not) have played a role in his output.

Whether or not the story is autobiographical (most of this collection appears to be from later in Benedetti's career), Benedetti's talent for crafting character is substantial enough that I can't help but wonder if the character is based on him.

Ocampo: Ulises & Los grifos

2009-06-21T23:35:00.000-07:00

For some reason "Ulises" appears to end abruptly. Considering that there is no break in the page numbers, I'd guess that only a few lines are lost. If so, this story ends on a rather abrupt or fatalistic tone. This story incorporates Ocampo's frequent theme of childhood, though with fantasy elements incorporated. The story concerns the narrators' childhood and her friendship with a strange classmate named Ulises. Ulises has a reputation for telling outlandish stories, as well as a face that strikes most people as being that of an old man. He is also an orphan, living with three elderly and rather eccentric aunts. He and the narrator sneak out one day to visit a fortune teller, who offers Ulises his youth. That's when things take a decidedly supernatural turn, which is quickly reversed and at which point the story cut off. Intriguing, though I'm not really sure where it was going.

"Los grifos" is a pretty Borgesian, not least of all because Borges himself makes a few appearances. Grifos are faucets, and the story concerns a set of faucets which drip onto a basin and create a musical, almost mystical sound. Ocampo seeks out the wider meaning of faucets, suggesting a bizarre mythology of faucets. The story climaxes with a mysterious story of how the basin came into her hands. Interesting, but as can be expected from a Borgesian story, there's not much in the way of conventional plot.

Ocampo: Amada en el Amado

2009-06-12T18:56:00.000-07:00

"Amada en el Amado" begins much like "El lecho," with a couple that appears to be almost obsessively in love, though this story develops less disturbingly. Every day, the husband tells the wife his dreams of the previous nights. The wife wishes she could take part in these dreams, as she never has any dreams of her own. In an odd twist, the woman develops the ability to pull things out of the man's dreams. It takes another twist into odder territory after the wife manages to pull a certain phylactery from the man's dreams.

Denevi: Borobobóo

2009-06-12T18:55:00.000-07:00

"Borobobóo" is one of Denevi's fables, this one featuring a jungle full of animals. One day, an ape in a suit shows up. After gathering some information, he tells the inhabitants that they need a computer. In a long passage, he enumerates all of the things that a computer will be able to do for them. (Almost to a one functions of absolutely no value to a jungle creature.) After thinking it over, the jungle animals agree that they need the computer. The ape says he will need to train some people to run the machine, just the brightest. He will also need to cut down a few trees to make room for the computer.

Later, he concludes that he will need more people to run the machine, then even more. Similarly, more and more space has to be cut for the computer. It reads as something of a parable, but it's unique enough that I wouldn't label it as a simple anti-technology screed. In fact, I'd be hard pressed to say exactly what the "moral" of the fable is.

BDT: Asalto en la noche y Los robinses

2009-06-12T18:48:00.000-07:00

"Asalto en la noche" is another story (like "Conciliar el sueño") that struck me as vaguely Borgesian, though I won't reveal which story it reminded me of. A woman finds a burglar in her house and reacts fairly nonchalantly. A good deal of it is told through the dialogue between the woman and the burglar. There are a couple of twists in the story, which I won't get into. Funny, surprising, a little off kilter--a good story.

"Los robinses" has a premise that feels like the punchline to a joke. Five people, all of different nationalities, are shipwrecked on an island. The brief story doesn't dwell so much on the mechanics of survival, though there is a bit of that, as the relations between all the characters. (For one they give up on clothes.) Yet it is the nature of these evolving relationships that lead to a certain tragedy.

BDT: El Viejo Tupi y No hay sombra en el espejo

2009-06-10T22:39:00.002-07:00

Both of these stories are about time, the process of growing old and letting go of things. "El Viejo Tupi" is the name of a cafe, one which the narrator identifies with a particular time and crowd in Montevideo. The cafe is considered something of a local landmark, one of the five places that tourists should see when they are in the city. There's not really much of a plot, mainly that once the cafe has to move due to development, it doesn't end up lasting very long at its new location. From the way Benedetti tells the story, I would guess that he is describing a real cafe, a lost part of the Montevideo of his younger life.

"No hay sombra en el espejo" features as narrator and protagonist one Renato Valenzuela (Is this important? Does he feature elsewhere?) who is looking at himself in the mirror, as he does every day. It is here that he contemplates his life and regrets. Renato recalls his life, his young son, the wife who is no longer with him. It is here where he comes to the conclusion that reflected images have no shadows, no regrets. The image in the mirror may feel no regret, but manages to return accusations. Like Tupi, this story does not have much of a plot. It does make for a moving mood piece, though.

Ocampo: El diario de Porfiria Bernal

2009-06-10T22:39:00.001-07:00

"El diario" bears some similarities to Henry James' "The Turn of the Screw": an English governess in isolating circumstances, watching over a girl and a boy. One of the characters even makes reference to Henry James, although she is unsure whether the name is Henry or Francis James. Despite the obvious homage, the story is not another retelling of James' classic. Instead, it goes off into its own curious direction of lycanthropy, predestination and the text that mediates between them.

True to its title, the story does feature the diary of Porfiria Bernal, the young girl of the family. We are introduced to the diary by Helen Fielding, the English governess taking care of her. In a "Dagon"-like touch, Miss Fielding assures us that she is writing her introduction shortly before the end. We are never given specifics on why Miss Fielding has come to be in Argentina, the circumstances which have led her to her current position, but it appears she has something of an interesting family history. She describes how she came to work for the family and her experiences and affection for Porfiria. It was Helen's suggestion that inspired Porfiria to keep a diary. Miss Fielding is taken aback a bit when Porfiria asks her whether everything you put into a diary has to have really happened or not. She doesn't think much about the question until she has managed to read the diary. It is then the narrative shifts from Miss Fielding to Porfiria's diary.

What follows appears to be a normal account of a somewhat different girl, her family and governess. The Bernal's are upper middle class and travel a fair amount during the year, spending summers on the beach. There are suggestions that more may be going on. Miss Fielding gets along well with the family, but Porfiria doesn't really trust her. Miss Fielding also appears to have a strange reaction to cats.

After several months of entries, the diary is interrupted by Miss Fielding's writing. She claims that the diary is making things happen. She has had it away from Porfiria for several days, but still the events of the last several days have taken place just as described in the entries for those days. From here the entries grow stranger. Miss Fielding becomes more violent with Porfiria, until it culminates in a near fatal accident and a surreal transformation.

It's an interesting combination of elements, one that definitely plays with your expectations. I have to admit, it came as a bit of a surprise when the diary was interrupted by MIss Fielding--sort of equivalent to realizing someone has been reading over your shoulder. There is a pretty interesting ambiguity as to what is going on, whether the diary is causing things to happen or if Miss Fielding is having a nervous breakdown. (But if she is, so it would seem is Porfiria.) In the end, though I enjoyed the story, it struck me as perhaps more comical than haunting, which may or may not have been the intended result.

Denevi: ¡Miss Maggie, Happy Birthday!

2009-06-10T17:08:00.000-07:00

Miss Maggie Sills, who has often been told that she looks and sounds very much like the Queen Mother, has been invited by her friends to join them for dinner at a nice restaurant. She doesn't show up, which worries her friends very muhc. They wiat until late, and then end up going home.

The next day, she meets up with one of her friends, who tells them about how worried they were. Maggie tells the story of why she never made it to the restaurant, of how she took a taxicab with a very nice driver--how he got lost, stopped to get directions, directions which took him in the wrong direction, thus requiring new directions, they always appeared to be only a block or two away but found their way blocked by a one-way street, until after driving around for hours, the driver stops to let her use the restroom at a pizza parlor, but with the rain, they decide to eat right there, and since it's her birthday also celebrate with a bottle of champagne.

So, not much happens overall, but it is an engaging story and reflects nicely some of the social dynamics of Argentine society. It also has kind of a nicely ironic ending.

BDT: Conversa & El diecinueve

2009-06-10T16:28:00.000-07:00

Though I've decided to try to look at at least two stories a day, today's entry works out nicely in that the two stories have a common element. Both of these stories are told principally through dialogue. "Conversa," appropriately enough, is told entirely through dialogue, while "El diecinueve" has a smattering of non-dialogue description.

"Conversa" pure and simple is the conversation of a man and a woman in a coffee shop. It's well written, capturing this sort of interaction quite realistically. The man here is the more assertive, and the woman's response--not hostile, but wary--seems pretty dead on. As well done as it is, I must admit if there was any deeper meaning or current there, it sort of passed me by.

"El diecinueve" (The Nineteenth) begins with a man greeting Captain Farías. The captain doesn't recognize his interlocutor, but soon learns that it is someone from his past, specifically his role in Argentina's Dirty War. There's a curious ambiguity to the 19th and his end of the dialogue. Is he a ghost or did he in fact survive? And what has he come back for? Nothing is really resolved, which makes the story either sort of frustrating or intriguing. (I opt for the latter, personally.)

Ocampo: El pecado mortal y La pluma magica

2009-06-09T23:47:00.000-07:00

I have to quote (via rough translation) the opening to the "El pecado mortal," since I thought it was such a great hook.

The symbols of purity and mysticism are sometimes more of an aphrodisiac than pornographic stories or pictures, and it is because of this--what sacrilege!--that the days before your first communion, with the promise of the white dress, lace gloves, and pearl rosary were perhaps the only truly impure ones of your life.

I can't say the story that follows quite lives up to the opening, but somehow I'm not sure I mind so much.

"La pluma magica" reminded me a great deal of Ramsey Campbell's horror story "Next Time You'll Know Me," in that these are both stories of artistic anxiety narrated by the artist himself. In fact, both stories involve the artist writing to the person(s) who he believes has robbed him. Campbell's story is unsurprisingly the darker of the two, while "pluma" is sadder. The narrator of "pluma" is an author who has had to give up writing because everything he writes turns out to have already been written. The narrator finds a solution in a magical quill which allows him to write absolutely original material. The narrator is then betrayed by a protege (possible lover?) who steals the quill. When certain books begin to be published in a style the narrator recognizes as the quill's, he considers it a confirmation of his suspicion.

Denevi: Gaspar de la noche

2009-06-09T23:18:00.001-07:00

"Gaspar de la noche" is one of Denevi's "epiphanies" and concerns a piano instructor who is auditioning a potential student. There's an intriguing mix of elements here, which make the term epiphany seem particularly appropraite.

There's a touch of the strange in the young boy sitting on the couch, looking to all the world like a miniature adult down to the horrible suit, the boy who has been brought in by his parents in order to nurture his gift. The parents are too poor to pay for a proper teacher but recognize the child's gift. The teacher's reluctance is compounded by the strangeness, especially when the child offers to play "Gaspar de la nuit," a difficult piece which happens to be the teacher's favorite.

I didn't quite get into this story so much, with its mix of realistically sad and sort of kilter elements, but it probably hazards a reread.

BDT: Jacinto y Cambalache

2009-06-09T23:18:00.000-07:00

Two stories, one word titles. Jacinto is a curious little story about a German deaf mute who has been orphaned and is adopted by his aunt and uncle, who are Uruguayan. Their German is poor as is his Spanish, so communication is difficult. One day they take him to a hypnotist to cure him. The hypnotism session allows him to say one word--"Jacinto"--and the hypnotist assures the family that from that one word will come a second, then a third and so on. But the second word never arrives, that is until other forces at work inspire it in him.

Cambalache is a brief story about a rioplatense soccer team. Before a European tournament, one of the players sings the words to "Cambalache" (a tango with some very cynical lyrics) in place of the words to the national anthem. The rest of the team insults and yells at him for being unpatriotic. The game turns out to be close fought, with neither team able to score a goal, until the disgraced player manages to score a goal in the last few seconds of the game. At the next game, all of the players sing "Cambalache" instead of the national anthem, for which they are denounced in the national press as unpatriotic.

Review: In Defense of Food

2009-06-07T21:07:00.000-07:00

In Defense of Food is the latest from Michael Pollan, whose previous The Omnivore's Dilemma examined the environmental impact of modern food production. In Defense, Pollan sets his sights on the modern Western diet, including some of the thinking that has gone into producing and justifying it. As Pollan lays it out, the modern diet has been shaped too much by the profit motives of large food producers and too little by the needs of human beings. While traditional diets were a product of a culture's trials and errors over centuries, the attempt to apply scientific methods to modern food production has resulted in food that is less healthy.

Pollan has a name for the allegedly scientific framework which has come to dominate the way that we think about food: nutritionism. Nutritionism, as distinct from nutrition, is a quasi-scientific set of ideologies about food which reflect little about the real impact of diet on health. Nutritionsim creates the illusion of being a scientific perspective on eating. And though it would seem that the scientific method, powerful as it is, should be able to determine what foods are or aren't healthy, it has failed for several reasons. In part, this is due to the sheer complexity of any diet, which renders it nearly impossible to look at x nutrient or y food item in isolation.

Additionally, the nutritionist impulse to view foods as collections of nutrients instead of whole units can result in bad conclusions. If a study finds that a diet high in red meat and low in fruit lead to higher rates of cancer and heart disease, what would be the logical conclusion? Through the nutritionist lens, that means that the goal should be to cut saturated fats (and cholesterol) and increase fiber (or antioxidant) intake. But switching to leaner meat and ramping up on oat muffins (and antioxidant supplements) does not appear to yield the same benefits as the high-fruit diet.

What then is the solution to the complicated thicket of competing health claims that present themselves in the marketplace? Pollan's recommendations are elegant in their simplicity: Eat food (as opposed to food-like stuffs). Not too much. Mostly plants. He also recommends a return to more traditional forms of eating, especially preparing food from scratch and eating with people instead of in isolation (and on the run).

It seems there is a growing number of people questioning the effect of the modern diet, a trend that Pollan has both helped fuel and benefited from. I would recommend the book to anyone considering a new look at the way we eat now and how much harm it might be doing. Pollan's non-dogmatic approach to the subject makes it an enjoyable read. His thesis about nutritionism may be stark, but his presentation and advice are not.

Ocampo: La cara en la palma & Los amantes

2009-06-07T16:27:00.000-07:00

At this point, I'm trying to double up when I can in order to get through the remaining stories quickly. I would not normally link these two stories, though now that I have done so, I can say that they both serve as parables of romantic passion.

"La cara en la palma" translates to "The hand in the palm," and if you're mind immediately flits to Vampire Hunter D, you're on the right track. The writer of the letter always wears a glove on her left hand while in public, because she says she has a face on the palm of that hand. The hand often whispers dark things to the narrator, undermining her relationship with other people, especially her lover. (It is him that the letter that makes up this narrative is addressed.) They have broken up, but she may return to him. He'll know if she's decided to come back to him if the next time he sees her, she's happy but with her left hand gone before the elbow. Sort of a morbid reflection on relationships and psychic self-mutilation. It's left somewhat ambiguous. Would cutting off the hand be a good thing?

"Los amantes" is a more upbeat but perhaps more demented parable about relationships. A couple go out to a picnic and consume several delectable desserts. What stands out for this story is the sensual power with which Ocampo describes the consumption of the tasty treats in question, leaving little doubt as to what the feasting is a stand in for. Intimate, sensual, a little perverted even--what an odd little story.

BDT: Conciliar el sueño & Soñó que estaba preso

2009-06-07T16:24:00.000-07:00

Though not sequential, the two stories are similar enough that I thought they merited being included on the same post. Both stories are centered on dreams and the permiability of the realm between the dreaming world and this one.

The first is about a man describing his dreams to a doctor (possibly a psychiatrist). The dreams come in thematic cycles. For a long time he dreamed of plane flights. Then he dreamed of sons, his sons but only in dream, as he has no children in real life. At the end, the narrator has begun to dream of beautiful women, movie stars, sex idols--all from his youth. The story finishes with the narrator asking the doctor if he thinks the condoms they sell in drug stores are effective in dreams. The generative power of dreams reminded me somewhat of Borges' "The Circular Ruins."

Soñó que estaba preso is like the mirror image of the former. This one is about a man in prison. Every night he dreams about being in prison, only the dreams transfigure the prison, changing its shabby or cruel elements into comforting or aesthetic ones. He is even visited by shadows from his past--his dead mother, the woman who abandoned him--in vivid form through these dreams. When he is finally released, he takes the few remaining items of his former life and takes the train to his sister's house. That night he dreams of being back in prison.

Buzon de tiempo: Fin de semana

2009-06-04T23:24:00.000-07:00

Due to the recent news of the death of Mario Benedetti, I decided to explore his works. Although his poetic works appear to be what he is best known for, I thought I would approach him through a form that I am a little more comfortable with: the short story. This work is from my local library, chosen due to its intriguing name and its availability.

The first story is "Fin de semana" ("Weekend") told from the point of view of a boy whose parents are divorced. He spends the week with his mom and weekends with his dad. Here we see what must be a fairly typical weekend, with his dad picking him up from school as the start of their time together. Not much seemingly happens. They talk some. The boy describes his mom as being alone. The dad introduces his son to a woman, which I understood, though it is not made explicit, to be his current girlfriend. When the boy returns home, his mom asks how his dad is. He tells her that he is alone.

Although it is a brief story, my brief summary leaves out a whole lot. Of course, it is the boy's two statements about his parents' solitude that mark the most dramatic sign that not everything is as it seems, serving as the prime riddle of the piece.

Review: Companions on the Road

2009-05-25T23:03:00.000-07:00

This book features two short narratives--Companions on the Road and The Winter Players--set in undefined fantasy realms. Companions on the Road begins at the end of a long military campaign, the first, the warrior Havor has just finished a campaign, when through a series of events, he joins with Feluce the rogue and Kachil the brigand to seek out treasure hidden in the dungeons of Avillis. But instead of a lengthy dungeon hack, the three promptly find the treasure they are seeking. And that's when the story really gets going. The three soon learn that they are being followed by something all of their battle experience has not prepared them to face, something that stalks and kills as subtly as it does relentlessly. Lee combines heroic fantasy with horror elements in a tense race against time.

The second story, The Winter Players, features the priestess Oaive, who guards the Mysteries of the Shrine. One day a wolf-like stranger comes to town, offering to buy one of the objects, which Oaive refuses to do. When the stranger returns, a confrontation ensues in which she learns that the stranger is more than he appears to be. Difficult choices and a perilous chase ensue, as the stranger leads Oaive onward towards an even greater danger. While Companions wove horror elements into its fantasy tale, Players' fantasy incorporates questions of free will and destiny, endless cycles, and a feel for the folklore of lonely fishing villages.

While slightly different in theme, both or excellent works of fantasy, told with Lee's consummate skill for character, setting and pace.

Ocampo: Visiones & El lecho

2009-05-20T23:09:00.000-07:00

It's unclear if these two stories are meant to be linked. They have very little thematically in common, except for a certain morbid quality, though the one element that seems to link them is significant enough that the latter (El lecho) may be intended as a febrile vision from the former (Visiones).

Visiones is the story of a woman who wakes up in a hospital bed. It's unclear why she's in the hospital or how long she has been there. Her consciousness is fractured, she believes she has awoken in her own bedroom, and so she is confused by the fixtures and objects in the hospital room. The interactions with the nurse are strange, but the nurse reassures her she will get better. As the story reaches it's conclusion, the narrator begins to think of beds (lechos), their relationship to birth, sex, life, and death.

The story that follows, "El lecho" ("The Bed") is a brief story of a couple, whose relationship has its troubles but who find an escape from their problems when sharing a bed. One day in bed, the woman smells smoke and suggests a fire. The man says it is an olfactory illusion. The woman says she hears the fire, which sounds like a flowing river. The man says it is auditory illusion. When they both see that the room is brightly lit by the blaze, the woman says that if they hold each other tight, the fire will only burn their backs. The man says they will be burned throughout. And so ends the brief and creepy fever dream.

JRS: The Bs

2009-05-20T19:32:00.001-07:00

From Balmeek to Bote hona. Some of the more noteworthy terms:

Balmeek is the name of an author who wrote three versions of the story of Sita and Rama. He's included here because the Thuggee allegedly claim him as one of their own. A brief biography follows, detailing how Balmeek was a Brahmin who joined a gang of Bheel robbers after losing his parents. The gang, armed with bows and arrows, would rob and kill travelers. Balmeek was eventually redeemed by an encounter with seven celebrated saints and went on to write mystic texts.

A Google search suggests that Balmeek is an older transliteration of Valmik or Valmiki, aka Bhagwan Valmik, who wrote the Ramayana. There is one sect of Hindus, named Valmikis, who consider Bhagwan Valmik to have been a God and find references to the legend of his brigand past scandalous.*

One question that's intrigued me as I've learned more about the Thuggee is the extent to which Thuggee, as described by British colonial sources, was actually a real phenomena. That there was banditry in pre-British India is inarguable, but to what the extent to which Thuggee represented the sort of singular occupation that required a Draconian response is unclear. What's odd about this entry is that there is no indication that Balmeek (or Valmeek) actually engaged in Thuggee as we understood it. (Or if there is, Sleeman doesn't hint at it.) Neither strangulation, deceiving travelers nor Devi worship are ever mentioned. If the Thuggee themselves were willing to swell their ranks by adopting what appears to have been a run-of-the-mill bandit (albeit a famous one) into their ranks, how reliable are any accounts of their exploits?

Then again, the author of the Ramayana as a Thug might make for a nicely preposterous rewriting of history in a Da Vinci Code-style thriller centered around Thuggee.

Buk,h - Meaning "come" and used by Thugs to get each other to assemble after having separated. Apparently repeated in threes: Buk,h, buk,h, buk,h. A bunch of feared murderers making chicken noises?

Banee signifies blood. That's about it. The noteworthy thing about this entry is that it made me wonder why more references to blood had not appeared. Considering that the use of strangulation is sometimes attributed to Thuggee's mythic origins in the destruction of Raktabija, wouldn't Thugs have more superstitions about blood? And if so, where is the corresponding vocabulary?

Bunij refers both to loot and to potential victims. Does the conflation of the potential victim with the monetary gain to be derived from his destruction strengthen the case for economic motives? I'd say yes, but it's probably not a definite.

Bhurtotee is the rank of strangler. Relates a story, quoted often, about a Thug leader who claims never to have killed anyone because, "Is any man killed from man's killing? Is it not the hand of God that kills him? And are we not instruments in the hand of God?"

Bora is another term that Thugs have for themselves, though apparently not used by the same clans that use Aulea.

Burka signifies a leader of Thugs, though apparently it can be used to denote any Thug of rank. The Ramaseeana goes on to state that Burkas are considered of particular threat, because a Burka left to his own devices could create a new gang. This is another term that doesn't seem to have made it into any of the fiction, which tends to use the term "jemadar" for the leader of a Thuggee gang. (Jemadar is I believe a more generic term that was used to denote officers in the Anglo-Indian Armed Forces.)

Bisul is someone whose clothing makes them a poor target for strangulation, but can also denote someone who was handled badly in the strangulation or a Thug who has blood or other signs on him that might draw suspicion. Similarly, bisul purna means to be handled badly during a strangulation.

Bote hone means to become inveigled or to fall into the snares of a Thug.

JRS: The As

2009-05-19T23:04:00.000-07:00

Starting with Aulae and ending with Ard,hul.

Aulae is the name that Thugs call each other. Oddly, I've never seen the name used in any fictional treatments of Thuggee, even Confessions. (Fictional Thugs are most likely to call themselves, well, Thugs. I've never gotten clear on whether that name originated with the Thugs or if it was originally something they were called by outsiders.)

Per Ramaseeana, it shows up in two salutations: Aulae Khan Salam and Aulae Bhae Ram Ram, the first used by Muslim Thugs and the second by Hindu Thugs. I've seen Ali used in similar salutations, so I wonder if it might be a variation thereof. Interestingly, the word is contrasted with Beetoo, which is meant to denote any non-Thug. That term I've seen used to mean "victim," but I wonder if it may have been misused. (Since there were taboo victims, at least theoretically, non-thug and victim should not be synonymous terms.)

Ard,hul denotes any bad omen. Also called Khurtul. Both terms only in use among Duckun Thugs. (Not sure what's up with the transliteration of Ard,hul, namely the comma within the word.)

Other terms of note:

Agasee denotes a turban. Not that interesting except the entry includes information about how a turban catching on fire was considered a bad omen. ("it threatens a great evil.") I wonder if this was a common occurrence.

Agureea refers to descendants of Thugs who were expelled from Delhi, resided for a time in the district of Agra, before spreading out to the rest of India. The entry is a little confusing, seemingly suggesting that all Thuggee resided in Delhi, though I think it refers to a specific group of Thugs.

Awk,hur denotes someone maimed or deprived of the use of their limbs. (Again the weird comma-in-word.) Maimed people were considered taboo victims, with their murders apparently leading to great calamities.

There are several terms for types of omens, such as thunder without rain, rain out of season, and the cry of a kite.

Ocampo: Carta bajo la cama

2009-05-18T23:56:00.001-07:00

There's a horror trope (named the Apocalyptic Log) in which a narrator continues to write an account of what is happening to them right up to the minute of their own demise. And "Carta bajo la cama," whose title recalls Poe's "MS Found in a Bottle," is one such account. The story is the letter which an unnamed narrator is writing to a friend. She is staying in an isolated house in the English countryside. The other residents of the house have left for the weekend. The narrator begins by discussing the feeling of fear, how it can be enjoyable, but how she prefers to be able to share it. A strange man approaches the house, seemingly a gardener. She then hears a news report about a man who murders women and buries them next to the gardens of their houses. As other signs of the mysterious man's identity as the murderer turn up, the narrator resigns herself to her fate and places the letter under the bed. Overall, it seems like a pretty straightforward execution of a trope, albeit with some odd touches, and the narrator's own interest in their enjoyment of fear almost takes it into a meta direction.

Ocampo: Magush

2009-05-11T22:11:00.000-07:00

The story of a man who meets a youth with the gift for prophecy. The story is plotless and conceptual in a way that could bring up a certain adjective or proper name. (But there's a word that should never be mentioned in riddles about chess.) The youth reads fortunes not in tea leaves or in crystal balls, but in the windows of a building across the street from the shop where he works.

The prophecies that the youth reveals are of a generally negative cast--romantic betrayals, failed business ventures, disloyal friends--and as some of them begin to come true, he seeks out more and more of the boy's predictions. Eventually, the boy reveals to him pretty much all that is in store for him, which leaves the man paralyzed with despair. The boy suggests that in order to have his life, he must let all the things prophesied come to pass. The man does not want to face them, so the youth suggests if he could only get someone else to endure them in his place, he would be free.

The man offers to trade destinies with the boy, and the boy agrees. Yet they both find themselves paralyzed, watching the windows that reveal the prophecy, neither really eager to take up the destiny of the other. It's a pretty interesting spin on the question of whether knowing your own future would be a blessing or a curse, written with a certain haunting quality

Review: Suite Francaise

2009-05-10T23:19:00.000-07:00

Ever since picking up my first work by Nemirovsky last year, I've admired her talent for observing the human condition. There's something about her observation of people and their actions that suggests a balance between optimistic humanism and world weariness. In Suite Francaise, she trains her fine eye on the way that people react, and then adjust, to war, specifically Germany's invasion of France in WWII.

The book is divided into two sections. The first section begins as the news spreads through France that the army has been unable to stop the Germans. With the Blitz heading towards Paris, panic spreads, and people begin to flee to the countryside. Nemirovsky quickly introduces several people, including one family, and the preparations they make to leave. At first, the sheer number of characters made it a bit confusing, but as the story progressed, I got to know the characters better and became able to distinguish them.

As the Parisians flee, they often find themselves in pretty harrowing circumstances. The invasion has thrown things into disorder, and people who've led lives of privilege and prestige suddenly find the charmed existence that they enjoyed has suddenly disappeared. At first the Germans appear only as news on the radio, but then there are bombings and aerial strafing, followed by pitched battles. The story reflects the horror and confusion of war. As the first section ends, the government has fallen, the fighting has ended and people are in the process of putting their lives back together.

The second section begins in the countryside, specifically in one of the villages to which one of the Parisians had fled. The Germans have gone from being an invading army to an occupying one, and in the process have gone from being an amorphous threat to having a very human face. In fact, the presence of all the young men in a village which has seen its own boys killed or taken prisoner gives rise to a strange dynamic of affection and resentment. This section felt even stronger, as Nemirovsky probes all the fault lines, allowing for a much slower boil of conflicting emotions and allegiances.

Because Nemirovsky was sent to the death camps, she never finished the novel, so the second section of the novel ends somewhat abruptly. Though not part of the novel, I couldn't help but contrast Nemirovsky's eye for day-to-day humanity with the sheer inhuman evil of the Holocaust. I also couldn't help wondering how this chronicle of the war, with all its fine detail and observations, would have continued had she lived.

Ocampo: Las Fotografias

2009-05-10T22:31:00.000-07:00

Told from the first person perspective of a young woman attending a birthday party for Adriana, a girl who has been in an accident. The nature of the accident is never revealed, but it has left Adriana paralyzed. There's really not much to relate about the story in terms of plot, and it's pretty short to start with. There is a somewhat disturbing (or at least sad) ending that comes as a bit of a surprise.

The story reminded me a bit of Shirley Jackson's short works, especially in its combination of a naturalistic situation and the subtle suggestion of the possibility of something terrible going unsaid. The painful ending emphasized the connection between the two authors. (The narrator actually blames the tragedy to a rivalry she has with another young woman at the party, in a way that seemed narcissistic but which also made me ponder what the implications of that accusation might be.)

Ocampo: La casa de azucar

2009-05-09T22:21:00.000-07:00

La casa de azucar means "The Sugar House," and the sugar in question refers to the color of the house's walls. The house is discovered by a man as the result of a search for a new home for himself and his new wife, Cristina. Though the man loves his wife, he admits that she lets her life be ruled by some strange superstitions. She is terrified by the sight of "coins with their faces erased, ink stains, the moon seen through two panes of glass, and her initials carved into the trunk of a cedar."

The search for a new house ends up being complicated by Cristina's desire to live in place without history. Otherwise, she fears, she may find her life polluted by the energy of the previous inhabitants. When the man finds the sugar house, with its newly plastered and painted walls, he thinks he has found the answer. On being told that the house is old, but that it has been renovated, he decides to go ahead with the purchase, figuring there's no way his wife will find out.

Soon after moving in, though, reasons for worry begin. He gets a phone call from someone asking for Violeta, so he finds himself becoming vigilant about the phone, lest Cristina gets one of those calls intended for Violeta. A package arrives, a dress of a color that Cristina normally wouldn't wear. She ends up claiming, rather unconvincingly, that it was a gift from someone.

That's only the beginning, and as the story continues there is the suggestion that Cristina's personality is being taken over by Violeta's (or perhaps Cristina has stolen Violeta's life by moving into her house). The play on personality and its nullification or alteration is reminiscent of some of Cortazar's work. It's definitely a nice creepy variation on the theme of the haunted house or psychic possession.

Ocampo: La continuacion

2009-05-07T23:18:00.000-07:00

La continuacion takes the form of a letter, one which initially seems to be a Dear John letter. As the letter progresses, we learn that the letter writer also happens to write fiction, and that part of the reason that she is leaving is a disconnect between the writer's fiction and their life. It turns out that the writer has created a fictionalized version of her own relationship in which the genders are reversed. Several times, she refers to this fictional relationship to describe her own feelings. There's a certain ambiguity as to whether she is just using the fiction to express her own feelings, or to whether she is getting lost in the fictional world she's creating to the extent that it seems more real than her own life. As the letter reaches its conclusion, the possibility that the letter might be a suicide note, not a Dear John letter, comes into play. The writer's intent is left ambiguous, which contributes to the haunting quality of the ending.

JRS: Introduction

2009-05-07T22:47:00.000-07:00

Sadly, it took me longer than I expected to get through the introduction. I have to confess a lack of time management on this one, where I'd find myself not reading it until late at night. Between the less than compelling nature of the intro and the eye strain of reading a PDF file on a computer screen, I found I couldn't read much of it.

And, frankly, as with the Preface, it's rather clunky for an introduction. I'd go so far as to say it comes off as a collection of notes or a rough draft for Sleeman's memoirs of fighting the Thuggee. Overall, there's not really much sense of narrative or even cohesive theme.

There are some interesting anecdotes, especially lurid ones where British and Indian soldiers, working with an informant, dig up a place where victims had been buried. There are also some rather choice quotes which I've seen elsewhere, such as Sleeman expressing his shock that a group of murderers could be operating in a district he was governing, when he thought he was aware of every last crime. (Though does this say more about Thuggee secrecy or colonial hubris?)

Sleeman does cover the beliefs and behavior of the Thugs, though not in much depth. He actually identifies four names for the deity worshiped: "Devee, Durga, Kalee or Bhawanee." "Devee" is Devi, which is a generic Sanskrit term for a goddess. Durga is the warrior goddess probably best known from the Devi Mahatmya, where she defeats a demon who has rendered himself unkillable by any male, mortal or divine. "Kalee" is, of course, Kali who probably needs no introduction. As for "Bhawanee," who I think would be Bhavani in a more modern transliteration, she seems roughly analogous to Durga or Kali, probably a local (Tujalpur) variation.

Interestingly, Sleeman makes the claim that among Thuggee, belief in the truth of their divine origin and the importance of omens is absolute and universal. For an interesting contrast I recommend Confessions of a Thug, which features a decidedly skeptical Thug. There is also a certain degree of tension between the view, touched on briefly, that Thuggee was motivated purely by religious motivation, and the fact, gone into in a little more detail, that bands of Thugs chose times, routes, and travelers that were specifically likely to yield more loot. (Then again, even among Christians some people, believe that wealth accumulation can serve as an indicator of moral righteousness.)

There is some analytical content, such as the division of Thuggee into seven distinct clans, though there isn't much of a delineation of the clans. (There are also "river Thugs," though their connection to the land-borne kind isn't entirely clear.) Also presented is Sleeman's supposition that Thuggee are descended from certain bands of Persian Muslims who were adept with using leather lassos to catch and kill travelers. It's my understanding that this hypothesis is not given much credence by current scholars, and Sleeman doesn't really marshal much in the way of evidence for it.

Having finished with the introduction, I now move on to the heart of the text: all that funky Ramasee vocabulary. I hope to post a little more frequently on that.

Ocampo: Extraña visita & La siesta en el cedro

2009-05-05T22:01:00.000-07:00

The first two stories in La continuación y otras páginas are childhood stories.

The first is "Extraña visita," in which a little girl named Leonor goes with her father to visit her father's friend, who has a daughter her own age. There's some neat descriptions in this short story, such as the friend being "so tall that he seems isolated from the world by his height" and of Elena, the daughter, having black hair but a face "so transparent that it seemed as if it had been erased." While playing, the girls spy on their fathers talking in the study. (Their sight is distorted by a white curtain drawn across the window.) Leonor gets the impression that her father is crying, but afterwards his demeanor convinces her that she must have been mistaken. They don't go back to Elena's house, and Leonor finds that Elena's face has been erased from her memory. Not much happens, so this story is largely about its use of language and imagery, which it admittedly does pretty well.

"La siesta en el cedro" centers on Elena, who may or may not be the same girl from the previous story. Elena is friends with the gardener's daughters, Cecilia and Esther. Cecilia comes down with an illness which has apparently already killed three other people. Elena doesn't really care--she even drinks from a glass that Cecilia has drunk from--but her parents make sure to keep Cecilia away. Cecilia dies, and Elena goes to vist the family but is disgusted as to the extent that they seem to be getting on with their lives.

There's a certain sadness to both stories, stronger in the second, as well as a sense of mystery. The mystery isn't supernatural so much as a product of the interaction between children and adults. In a way, I'm reminded of Julio Cortazar who also wrote short stories about childhood with their fair share of mystery and sadness.

Story a Day: Silvina Ocampo anthology

2009-05-03T23:13:00.000-07:00

My next Story a Day treatment will deal with Silvina Ocampo's La continuacion y otras paginas, which is a brief anthology of her works, beginning with some stories from Viaje Olvidado.

The Journal of Ramasyanic Studies: Preface

2009-05-02T15:09:00.000-07:00

After a slight hiatus to concentrate on Argentine fiction, I've decided to head back to Thuggee. Next up is (the) Ramaseeana, one of the oldes published works to deal with Thuggee. Ramaseeana appears to have started out as a vocabulary of Ramasee, a language used by the Thugs for communicating among themselves. Judging by the table of contents, several appendices were added which were mostly case files of investigations and arrests.

So far, I'm only into the Preface, which seems to be oddly non-preface like. That is, Sleeman details how the system of Thuggee could have existed for so long, first enumerating three factors which keep crime in check: religious sanction, societal taboos, and legal prohibitions. He then explains why these factors did not apply in the case of Thuggee. It seems, curiously, more like the kind of argument one would make after having described a little of what Thuggee is or as a way to overcome an audience's potential objections.

Sadly, I was not able to find much material on the publishing history of Ramaseeana, so I'm at a bit of a loss as to when and why the preface was added.

Review: El Túnel

2009-04-30T18:49:00.000-07:00

Ernesto Sabato's El Túnel is the first person account of an artist's murder of the one person who understood him best. At an exhibition, Juan Pablo Castel notices a woman captivated by the window that takes up a small section of one of his finished paintings. She is the only person who appears to have realized the importance of the window, which leads to him becoming to become slowly and utterly fixated on her.

He seeks her out in a somewhat roundabout matter, finally running into her seemingly by accident. He learns that she has been thinking about his painting all the time since that showing. They become romantically involved, but Castel feels she is not being completely honest with him. He begins to suspect she has other lovers, perhaps even that he´s just a plaything to her. He becomes increasingly obsessed with possessing her until his actions cross over into derangement.

This is a novel about obsession and man's futile struggle for meaning, and it is no surprise that Camus found it important enough to have translated into French. I must admit I was not entirely captivated by the story. Though I'm fond of eccentrics in literature (especially the obsessive kind), I often found Castel's obsessiveness more irritating than contagious. I also felt the metaphor of the tunnel as reflecting the essential loneliness of human existence was a bit on the literal side.

So, overall an interesting look at one man's obsession and how it reflects modern man's fruitless search for connection, but not entirely satisfying.

Review: Cola de Lagartija

2009-04-30T18:46:00.000-07:00

When Juan Peron returned to the Argentine presidency for the last time in 1974, he brought along two intimates who would go on to create some trouble. The first was his third wife Isabela, who would ascend to the presidency after his death. The second was Jose Lopez Rega, a character so odd it seems hard to believe he was not invented by Arlt or Borges. Rega was fascinated with occult and mystic arts, including Umbanda (like Santeria or Voodoo) and astrology. His interests earned him the nickname El Brujo, not inappropriate given the Rasputin-like hold he had on Peron and later Isabela. It was under Rega that Dirty War began, which was run out of the Office of Social Welfare under the auspices of the triple-A. (Argentine Anticommunist Alliance)

Cola de lagartija is based loosely on Lopez Rega, parting ways with the historical facts of Lopez Rega to create a surreal and disturbing meditation on violence and power. After the fall of Isabela's government, El Brujo heads to his childhood home of Laguna Negra in northern Argentina with his followers. Here he organizes new rituals of blood and sacrifice, and stages a very twisted orgy to which he invites prominent members of Argentine society.

Even in internal exile, he is dangerous enough to inspire enemies, among them the ruling junta, a revolutionary, and an author working on El Brujo's biography. The revolutionary and the author have a brief relationship, during which the revolutionary asks the author to finish her book by killing off El Brujo. But can she really pull it off in such a way as to kill the original?

El Brujo soon finds a new enemy in the mayor of the town of Capivari and its little newspaper. He takes over the town and the newspaper, changing the emphasis of the latter to occult themes. This inspires in him the plans for a new ritual, an immaculate conception which will cleanse Argentina in a river of blood.

I was expecting a touch of the strange, perhaps even some magic realism, when I started this book, as can only be expected from a story based on an already strange individual. But the story is strikingly surreal, often disturbing or funny, presenting an exaggerated look at the relationship between power and violence, and the role of the journalist or writer in responding to the terrible.

Review: El Cantor de Tango

2009-04-28T22:34:00.000-07:00

Bruno Cadogan is writing a dissertation on Borges' view of the tango--especially the older, less sentimental tangos Borges would have heard in his youth--when he hears that in Buenos Aires there is a man, Julio Martel, who sings the tango in this older style. Since no recordings exist of Martel's singing, Bruno heads to Buenos Aires to seek him out personally.

When he lands in Buenos Aires, he finds a room for rent in the very same building which housed Borges' Aleph in the story of the same name. From here he begins his quest for Martel, which turns into a labrynthine wandering through Buenos Aires in time and space. Martel, it turns out, has decided to forgo a career in order to use his tango singing to mark off places and events in the city that hold some particular meaning for him. He also becomes fascinated by the possibility of finding the Aleph in the house where he is staying.

This labrynthine wandering was the strongest aspect of the novel, and I really appreciated how Martinez explored and even celebrated the city of Buenos Aires and its lengthy and often tragic history. I cannot say if someone who has never visited the city would feel something similar, but I would certainly hope that the book would provide some motivation for planning a visit.

The novel did have a couple of flaws. Bruno Cadogan is meant to be an American, but he really thinks and acts more like an Argentine. While a minor flaw, it does cost the novel some verisimilitude. For me the larger flaw was that the novel was almost too Borgesian (never did I thought I would say that) in its use of allusions and homages to the point where it almost became distracting. (Bruno himself seems an obvious homage to Cortazar's "The Pursuer," also about a writer named Bruno fascinated with a troubled musician whose art allows him to experience time differently.)

Despite these flaws, I still found it a captivating read and greatly enjoyed its wanderings through the mazes of space and time which make up the reality of Buenos Aires.

Review: Plata Quemada

2009-04-28T22:09:00.000-07:00

A group of Argentine criminals have got what could be a great heist planned out. They will grab the municipal payroll in a daring daytime robbery, then cross the river and slip into Uruguay until the heat dies down. The gang includes Gaucho Dorda and Nene Brignone, who are lovers; Cuervo Mereles, who swaggers with outlaw charisma; and Malito, a cold-blooded and calculating man and their defacto leader. The robbery goes off as planned, but they soon find themselves on the run, guns blazing as they drive their getaway car through the streets of Buenos Aires. Though the events related in Money to Burn seem outrageous enough to belong to a Tarantino film or a pulp crime novel, Ricardo Piglia as invented nothing in this hypnotizing tale of crime, loyalty and vengeance.

Piglia has a minor personal connection to the story, having met Mereles' ex-girlfriend in 1966 while on a train ride to Bolivia. During the trip, she told Piglia a confused and seemingly incredible story of the man she had been in a relationship with and the crimes he had been involved in. Though he never saw her again, he became fascinated by the story and began to research and attempt to write about it. It was a project that he ended up setting aside for the better part of two decades, only to return to and finish later.

Plata Quemada is a novelistic retelling of true events, with Piglia acknowledging where the historical record is ambiguous or incomplete. The only license taken is in the extent to which we get inside the heads of those involved, not just the criminals but also the police who are hunting them. What emerges is a fascinating portrayal of criminality and politics in Argentina and Uruguay of the 1960s, as well as an unforgettable portrayal of characters far outside the pale.

Review: Toda Mafalda

2009-04-27T22:07:00.000-07:00

Joaquín Salvador Lavado, aka Quino, is a cartoonist with a talent for observing the human condition and translating it into striking and darkly comic observations. Many of his works feature recognizable people in situations whose nightmarishness is made more painful by the truths so cleverly expressed. (It should come as no surprise that Quino's representations of bureaucracies at work bear some resemblance to Kafka's.) However, the comic strip Mafalda combines this dark comic sense with the more innocent realm of kids growing up in Argentina in the late 1960s.

If you are already familiar with Mafalda, Susanita, Manolito, Felipe and the rest of the gang, you probably need little convincing as to why Toda Mafalda, which features every Mafalda strip Quino ever created (including several for side projects or that were left out of previous collections) is a very good thing. (Sadly, the book is not in translation, though the individual collections have been published in English under the name Mafalda & Friends.)

Whenever I've tried to describe Mafalda to friends, I usually resort to describing it as "cross between Peanuts and Bloom County or Doonesbury." Like Peanuts, the principal characters are a group of kids with striking personality differences. (Though unlike Peanuts, the parents are also characters in the action.) But like Doonesbury and Bloom County, the comic deals with political and social topics of its time, including the Vietnam War and the crises affecting Argentina.

The appeal of Mafalda, though, is not in its topical commentary, much of which is dated or inaccessible to the non-Argentine. For one, as with Peanuts, the characters are quite memorable. There is, of course, Mafalda herself, a little girl more fixated on the problems of the world than adults around might find healthy. There is a certain poignancy to her, a sense that sometimes we feel a bit like children ourselves when faced with the complicated and seemingly unsolvable problems of the world. Mafalda has a perfect foil in Susanita, a superficial gossip girl who dreams of achieving status through marriage and motherhood. Her ambitions are something of a throwback, even for their time, but her fascination on the social realm and its secrets is still with us today.

I could go on, but I fear that my descriptions would not do the characters justice, nor Quino's often funny takes on politics, work, friendship, life and death. This is the kind of collection worth having on hand and revisiting quite often.

Review: El Juguete Rabioso

2009-04-27T21:40:00.000-07:00

El Juguete Rabioso (usually translated as The Mad Toy), the debut novel of Roberto Arlt, was published with the help of Ricardo Güiraldes. It is arguably Arlt's most biographical work, chronicling the (mis)adventures of Silvio Drodman Astier as he attempts to find some way out of the poverty and alienation he has been born into.

Silvio is the parent of immigrants, an outsider in the world of early 20th Century Buenos Aires. He does not lack for ambition, though it often seems that the world works hard to thwart whatever minor dreams he may nurture. Because his father has abandoned the family, he finds himself having to quit school and seek work in order to support his mother and sister. At first he gets together with a couple of other neighborhood kids to engage in some theft, though their first crime--the break-in and robbery of a library--becomes their last after a close call with the police. Later, Silvio goes to work for a dishonest book seller, lands a job with the mechanic corps of the Air Force, and finally works as a paper salesman. The last of these turns out to be such drudgery, that he begins to consider returning to a life of crime.

Arlt expresses Silvio's drive, his hunger for success, in terms that must have been very familiar to him, as the changing circumstances move Silvio to alternate between hope and despair. The title is perhaps a little obvious in its metaphor: Silvio's overwhelming drives and passions combined with his inability to be enact them make him feel like some fierce frivolity. These different poles of existence are expressed in Arlt's unique prose, which combines lyricism with the street language of Buenos Aires.

El Juguete Rabioso, as with most of Arlt's works, is a bracing, sometimes almost painful, work with moments of dark humor or fascinating inventiveness. It pales a bit in relation to Arlt's later The Seven Madmen (arguably his best work), in comparison with which it seems somewhat conventional, but if you've never read Arlt and are interested in encountering his unique representation of the alienation of modern life (Argentine style), El Juguete Rabioso would be a good place to start.

Review: Don Segundo Sombra

2009-04-23T23:37:00.001-07:00

Don Segundo Sombra is the story of an orphaned boy named Fabio who has spent most of his early years in a small town living a somewhat rootless experience. One day he meets a gaucho named Don Segundo Sombra, the character who gives the novel its name, and is so impressed by the gaucho's quiet dignity that he decides to take him up as a mentor. He seeks out to the ranch of Sombra's current employer in order to obtain work alongside the gaucho. In the years that follow, he learns much from Sombra and travels widely around Argentina. The narrative details some of the adventures he encounters along the trail, including time spent among other gauchos.

Though there is some overlap, there is also a marked difference between the gaucho life as portrayed in Martin Fierro and that seen in this novel. Martin Fierro may have his honorable aspect, but he is basically an outlaw and a killer. While Sombra has its share of drawn knives, bloodshed is generally avoided. The one death that does result is portrayed as a tragedy and waste, without the outlaw romanticism of the older book.

What is most striking is the extent to which the gaucho is a civilizing influence. It is through Don Segundo that Fabio learns about courage, honesty and loyalty--values it is implied that he would not have picked up had he stayed with the distant relatives with whom he is staying at the beginning of the novel.

Like Martin Fierro, the novel's language draws heavily from Argentine, especially gaucho, manners of speaking, though written in a more natural and readable style. As with much gauchesque literature, the gaucho Sombra serves as symbolic of national character. Unlike those older works, Sombra was written when the real-life gauchos had begun to disappear and so reflects the shift of the gaucho from reality to myth, a lost emblem of the forging of personal and national adulthood.

Review: La Guerra Gaucha

2009-04-22T17:34:00.000-07:00

One dramatic footnote in the Argentine War of Independence took place in the northern provinces of Salta and Jujuy, where Spanish-led troops faced off with a guerrila force made up of local gauchos. Though not as strategically important as the campaigns of San Martín, Leopoldo Lugones found the confrontation between Spaniard and gaucho to be fertile ground for an exploration of courage, honor and patriotism. He travelled to the region to learn the oral traditions of the conflict and see the locations where the fighting had taken place.

Though he originally intended to write it as a novel, Lugones found that he could not work everything he wanted to say into one narrative, so La Guerra Gaucha became a collection of stories about the war. The short stories are to some extent disconnected: some feature skirmishes or battles while others feature the more day-to-day aspect of life during the war, and rarely does one get a sense of where each story fits into the larger strategic struggle.

The fighting, however, does serve as the binding force of the narrative. Even a simple local gathering can suddenly erupt into tense confrontation, and there are several stories in which the act of violence occurs suddenly, shockingly. The stories are also connected by several thematic elements, including the harshness of war, the desire for freedom, courage, sacrifice, fatalism.

The book does not want for fascinating characters--the friar who risks his life to signal the patriots, the gaucho who stages a suicide attack on a royalist fort, the young royalist lieutenant falling in love with a local widow--but Lugones' descriptive powers are effectively used to evocatively describe the land and its features. I never really considered Lugones a brilliant writer, as his other short story collections (Strange Forces, Fatal Stories) were longer on concept than linguistic fireworks. La Guerra Gaucha, on the other hand, reflects a sophisticated and striking command of language and imagery in service of the story he tells. Here he crafts a real sense of place to serve as powerful backdrop for the war being waged.

I will admit there were off moments, where Lugones shades off into a simplistic nationalism. Perhaps these struck me as terrible in part because I was aware of his later embrace of fascism, but luckily there were very few of those moments. Overall, I'd have to call it the strongest of Lugones' short story collections.

(Sadly, this book does not appear to have ever been translated.)

Review: Facundo

2009-04-21T22:18:00.000-07:00

Domingo Sarmiento wrote Facundo while he was in exile in Chile, having had to flee Argentina due to Juan Manuel Rosas, the country's first dictator. Facundo can be read as his attempt to come to grips with the forces that brought his country under dictatorship and sent him to exile.

Facundo is presented as the biography of Facundo Quiroga, a gaucho and fighter in the War of Independence who would go on to serve as one of the most important generals in the civil war which would bring Rosas to power. Sarmiento uses the biography of Quiroga as a basis for a deeper exploration of Argentine politics and society. Even before Quiroga appears, Sarmiento gives a brief account of the geography of Argentina, and how its history led to a divergence between the city of Buenos Aires--cosmopolitan, cultured, with an interest in new political ideas--and the rural provinces, in which violence and corruption had come to dominate. In doing this, Sarmiento lays out the central struggle of Argentina as one between the Civilization of Buenos Aires and the Barbarism of the provincial caudillos, of which he sees Quiroga as an embodiment.

Quiroga makes for a larger than life figure, so there is a certain logic to his centrality (as opposed to Rosas) for Sarmiento. As a young man, Quiroga had a run in with a puma and killed it with a knife, earning the sobriquet "El Tigre de los Llanos" (The Tiger of the Plains). He dropped out of school while still young to pursue a gaucho existence buyt did not really make much of himself until becoming a leader of men during the civil war. Though not a great strategic thinker, his leadership of bands of gauchos turned out to be key in the victory of the Federalist forces under Rosas. Once Rosas is in power, Quiroga shows little interest in government, and ends up being violently assassinated. (Sarmiento alleges Rosas ordered the assassination, though the historical record is unclear.)

Quiroga can be thought of as many things: as novel, biography, history, and an exploration of the forces at work in Argentine history. Sarmiento sees the gaucho and his culture as expressions of the Barbarism which rejects the standards of Civilization. He advocates for the importance of education and the development of commerce in order to allow Argentina to rise to greatness. Though his theory of this struggle between Civilization and Barbarism tends at times towards simplification,(He seems to have a particular fetish for the use of European-style clothing as expression of political sophistication.) the difference between the European-influenced porteños and the insular world of the gauchos does bring insights into Argentina's history. Whatever its flaws, it's a fairly thorough and fascinating portrait of Argentina's internal struggle after independence and one very noteworthy figure in that struggle.

Review: Martin Fierro

2009-04-20T18:53:00.000-07:00

Martin Fierro is a two-part epic poem about a nineteenth century gaucho of the same name. It belongs stylistically to a tradition of gauchesque poetry, written not in traditional Spanish but in a Spanish filtered through the language, wordplay and lyrical traditions of the rural life of Argentina.

The first part of the poem, "The Gaucho Martin Fierro" introduces us to the character of Fierro, a poor and uneducated, but basically decent gaucho who lives with his common-law wife and children and eeks out a a basic existence. Trouble begins when he is pressed into military service by the authorities (a common occurrence at the time) and sent to serve on the frontier with the "unsettled" lands ruled over by fierce tribes of Pampas and Araucans. Here he is underpaid, underfed, poorly supplied, and generally mistreated. When he sees an opportunity, he flees back to the world he left behind. Later, the authorities catch up to him, and his resistance reveals such a depth of courage and nobility that he finds an unlikely ally in this struggle. Together, the two friends travel beyond the bounds of civilization.

"The Return of Martin Fierro" picks up several years later, with Fierro having found life in the wilderness much harsher than he expected. He returns to his home, where he meets up with the sons--all grown up now--whom he had to leave behind ten years prior. Together, they share stories of hardship and struggle, and of dealing with corrupt and callous authorities. While Fierro finds that the authorities have forgotten about his outlaw status, one act of violence from his past returns to haunt him and to leave the narrative with an ambiguous ending.

Martin Fierro is a sympathetic protagonist, though not without his flaws. He is not just an outlaw and a deserter, but also a brawler and a killer, though he is not without his sense of nobility. When contrasted to the authorities, which exert such power over him yet care little for his welfare, it becomes only natural to feel for the gaucho. I found the combination of the outlaw mystique and the realism of the gaucho's social marginalization to make for a moving tale.

To add to this, Fierro is not only a noble outlaw but also a musician, making his role as archetypal figure all the more noteworthy. The narrative is presented as one in which each of the main characters tell his own story in song, and the combination of musical performance with outlaw machismo struck me as just as deeply embedded in North American culture, whether you're talking of cowboys or gangstas. The climax of the second part involves a "payado," a sort of traditional gaucho song duel in which two guitar-players/singers trade off improvising songs on a theme.

The use of gauchesque style and language make for something of a double-edged sword, providing a unique feel while being potentially difficult to fully grasp. The edition I read was bilingual and thoroughly footnoted, which I found to be very helpful. I managed to understand it pretty well while reading the original, with only occasional glances to the translation. If your Spanish, like mine, is good but could be better, I recommend a bilingual edition. If you're more of a beginner, you're probably better off sticking to a translation, though much of the texture of the gauchesque language will be lost.

Marin Fierro is considered among the first classics of Argentine literature, and as with many a book that I'd heard much about, I approached it with a certain sense of wariness, fearing age would have dimmed its power. However, with its portrayal of a heroic criminal confronted by corrupt authority, and its beautiful and unique language, Martin Fierro certainly earns its classic status.

LGG: "Tailon"/"Güemes"

2009-04-01T23:09:00.000-07:00

My copy of La Guerra Gaucha goes out not with a bang nor a whimper, but a D'oh! Just as "Tailon" reached its dramatic climax, it seemed to suddenly break off into a completely unrelated story. Lugones engaging in some sort of pre-post-modern wackiness? No, pages 273 - 288 just happened to be missing, apparently a major screw up in the whole printing/binding process.

Which frankly was a bit of a shame, because Tailon seemed a pretty solid story which cut off just as the big bad gaucho came back to put a hurtin' on the people he believed responsible for the death of his beloved. (I may have misread it, but I think the death was drawn somewhat ambiguously.) Prime among his targets seems to be a local functionary who is a royalist sympathizer. But the story cuts off, and I was left with the last couple pages of "Güemes" about the important montonero caudillo. Those last two pages seem to be a somewhat hagiographic portrayal of his death, though too much was cut out for me to get a good sense of it.

So, I'm finally done blogging the stories in La Guerra Gaucha, and only two weeks late. I'm going to hold off on the next collection (Silvina Ocampo's La continuación y otras páginas) until I've managed to write some reviews, on which I've managed to fall too far behind.

LGG: "Un lazo"

2009-03-31T23:23:00.000-07:00

This story feels as if it completes a cycle of sorts with the first story as we once again see the Dragones Infernales, a seasoned, elite group of montoneros. Among them is a gaucho who is something of a horse whisperer and a wiz with the lasso. Meanwhile, the royalist forces appear to be on the defensive, risking their lives to guard some pasture land to keep their animals alive.

The gaucho's lasso skill comes in handy when the montonera finally attacks the royalists and their grazing animals. The battle, violent in itself, has a pretty gruesome end. Like "Despedida," the combination of sudden, gory violence amidst Lugones' somewhat verbose style can make for a shock. I'd be willing to call it a dramatic cheat or a celebration of nationalist violence, except that it really does fit in with the sort of hardscrabble existence painted in even those stories that lack much in the way of violence.

LGG: "Dianas"

2009-03-30T22:56:00.000-07:00

As I wrote in my last post, most of the stories seem to have the same elements repeated over and over. The patriot here is an old monk. The land isn't so much inhospitable, though it does play a role. And there's the encounter with the royalists, who have taken over the town where the monk resides. The monk decides that he can't abide the royalists, and so when the Spanish forces ride off to ambush a force of montoneros, the monk rings the church bell so as to warn the gauchos. The royalists ride back and grab the monk, beating him severely. However, his action leads to the royalists' defeat, and he manages to escape as they retreat.

Embedded in the story is the monk's own background, as a gaucho who decided to become a man of the cloth, although he maintains a certain uncouth individualism. Again there is the patriotism which leaves me a little flat, though I thought this story at least grounds it in an interesting character.

LGG: "Chasque"

2009-03-29T23:54:00.001-07:00

A royalist force guards a mountain pass during some harsh winter weather. A rider comes up, but there is something sort of suspicious about him. A tell-tale sign allows the guards to realize that the rider is a woman whose lover has been fighting for independence and who has been carrying messages across the lines. That's roughly the whole story, and I'm starting to think many of the stories can be broken down into a few elements. The patriot and their motivation for fighting the Spanish. The inhospitable terrain. The encounter with the Spanish.

It's not a formula per se, and I think Lugones does more within those bounds than he did, say, with Strange Forces. Lugones, of course, was principally a poet, and I can't help but see some connection to Borges here. Borges was also first a poet, and most (if not all) of his stories can be thought of as pretty simple, but manage to achieve a certain abstract transcendence with very few elements. Lugones doesn't really come close to Borges in that respect, but there's a certain power to his repeated use of the same themes.

LGG: "Al Rastro"

2009-03-28T16:30:00.001-07:00

"Al Rastro" seems like a good companion to "Tactica," as both of them concentrate pretty clearly on the battle aspect, showing how the montoneros would have waged this sort of war. Lugones apparently drew from an existing oral tradition when writing the stories, but this one sounds almost too good to be true.

In the story, a gaucho decides that he has had enough of the Spanish troops in his country and stages a one-man attack on a fort. First, he detonates a gunpowder-filled cart in front of the local fort, and then he attacks the survivors, until he himself is mortally wounded. It's a fun little bit of badassery, which is why I find myself feeling somewhat skeptical about its basis in truth.

LGG: "Tactica"

2009-03-27T23:19:00.000-07:00

After a story which pretty much relegates the war to the background, "Tactica" takes us back to the hear of the war. The story regards a battle between a large contingent of royalist forces and an even larger force of montoneros. But first, Lugones spends some time on the toll that the long campaign has taken on both sides. Although this is a theme that he's brought up before, it added to the realism of the account.

One thing I realized is that Lugones' descriptive powers are interesting but thhere's something about the language I find challenging. One description of a fire seemed hard to follow, until I looked up a couple of works and realized that he was comparing it to the mane of a red horse. Considering the importance of the horse in gaucho culture, it seemed like a pretty apt metaphor.

LGG: "Jarana"

2009-03-26T15:58:00.000-07:00

Whenever the royalist forces would retreat from the field of battle, the montonera would get together, in part to celebrate and in part to take advantage of the opportunity to get a lot of people together for a celebration. The story takes place during one of these get-togethers, which includes two weddings. The celebration includes a cock fight and the slaughtering of a steer for the feast. The choice cuts of meat are to be grilled up, as is the standard for Argentine outdoor events.

So, there's not really much of a war and not that much of a plot, but it is an interesting portrayal of life and celebrations in the Salta of the early 19th century. Included is a ritual where some of the steer's blood is used to draw a cross on the door of the house outside of which the celebration is held, as well as the burying of small pieces of meat at all the four corners of the house.

LGG: "Artilleria"

2009-03-25T22:23:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I think Lugones is being a bit funny with the names. For example, this story does have an artillery piece, but the story seems to revolve more around one character: a wealthy and beautiful spinster. The woman in question has remained a spinster because she is a mulatto and therefore socially marginal. She does take up the patriot cause and even sends her slaves to fight alongside the montoneros.

Another way in which she serves the cause of independence is by throwing parties at her estate for the Spanish forces, thereby getting them all worn out and hungover before they have to fight the montoneros. This does raise some doubt on the part of the gauchos as to where her loyalties lie, but she comes through for them by providing metal to forge cannonballs for their artillery piece.

There's a curious sort of parallel at work in the story. The story introduces two spinster sisters but then goes on only to involve one of them. Similarly, the story introduces two artillery pieces, but one is quickly destroyed, leaving only one in the story. I'm not entirely sure what to make of it.

Perhaps the most curious element in the story (at least to me) is that of race. Lugones really plays up the sort of seductive otherness of the woman when discussing her parties meant to distract the royalists in a way that now would seem dated. And yet, she does come off as a heroic figure. Overall, a little hard to gague whether its racial politics are painfully dated or intriguingly ambiguous. It does make me more curious as to the history of people of African ancestry in Argentina.

LGG: "Vivac"

2009-03-24T22:24:00.000-07:00

This is kind of an interesting change of pace, in that the story is really just about a bunch of gauchos sitting around passing the mate around and chewing the fat. One of the gauchos happens to be a great storyteller, so the other gauchos convince him to tell them some stories. (The gaucho as storyteller element comes up in Don Segundo Sombra, too.)

There's an interesting progression to the three stories he tells. The first is a pretty typical folktale about the fox and the jaguar, with the fox and the jaguar being relatives and friends until the fox cheats the jaguar. The second story is something of a ghost story, introducing a human element and some local color. The final story completes the process by being a pretty horrific story of a gaucho and his dog.

There's always something a little artificial about stories within stories, but I tend to find them quite a thrill when they're done well. I wouldn't place this at the top of the scale, but I thought it was quite well done.

LGG: "Vado"

2009-03-23T22:39:00.000-07:00

The story begins with the ambush of royalist forces by montoneros. The montoneros later meet up with a person who would probably be described (in PC terms) as mentally challenged. He ends up becoming sort of adopted by the group as "El Tontito de la Patria." But he turns out not to be as harmless as they originally assumed.

I've had a little less to say over the last few stories, in part because there hasn't seemed to be as much to point out. None of the stories have really bugged me, as did some of the first ones that leaned a little heavily on shout-outs to the homeland. Also, my expectations have fallen more in line with the stories, so I'm no longer feeling disappointed that they don't seem to tell that much about the Gaucho War as a war.

There's an interesting sense of the place and of the sort of desperate situations that men could find themselves in when in such a terrain. (In that way, they´re somewhat reminiscent of Horacio Quiroga's stories of life in the jungle.) There´s occasionally an interesting character or a surprising plot development, sometimes with a hint (or more) of the supernatural. Overall, it's a fairly coherent and enjoyable, if not transformative, collection of short stories.

LGG: "Milagro"

2009-03-22T22:13:00.000-07:00

As the royalist forces retreat following a defeat, a group of them remain behind to convalesce at the estate of a local widow. The soldiers have become aflicted with yellow fever I believe, and as the rain continues to pour outside, day after day, they are slowly dying. The widow whose estate they stay at knows enough about medicine to take charge of the care of the soldiers, although there is not much she can do to halt the effect of the fever.

It turns out that her loyalties lie elsewhere, and though she doesn't neglect the soldiers, she lets her views be known. The sergeant, in charge of the remaining eleven soldiers, sees no recourse but to punish her. This sets up the miracle from which the story gets its name.

Sort of with the last one, the strongest element struck me as the grim atmosphere. The conflict would be more dramatic if Lugones had better skill at characterization.

Review: Something Wicked This Way Comes

2009-03-22T21:48:00.000-07:00

Something Wicked This Way Comes is like a little segment of nightmare, a dream-like tale of innocence threatened by a malignant evil. When a carnival comes to town too late at night and out of season, it is the kind of curious omen that cannot help but draw in two boys on the edge of adolescence, such as Will Halloway and Jim Nightshade. Cougar and Dark's Pandemonium Carnival shows up mysteriously, appears to go up just as mysteriously, and promises secret delights somehow just a little more extravagant than those of the average carnival. So, it can hardly come as a surprise when it turns out that the Hall of Mirrors or the Carousel conceal darker secrets.

Jim and Will are first drawn to the marvelous carnival but soon find themselves the only ones aware of its intentions. As they take action to stop its plans, they make enemies of the strange characters who populate it, especially the sinister Illustrated Man, Mr. Dark. To resist the sinister forces moving against them, they will require some outside help, but who will possibly believe them?

Bradbury has crafted a fine little work of fantasy. Though it's not particularly scary, it succeeds at creating a rather childlike sense of dark enchantment. There's an almost mythic quality to his portrayal of not quite innocent childhood confronted with the wider world. His prose is mostly perfect for the sort of nightmare adventure described, although it did have moments where he seemed to so commit to inflating an already overinflated sentence or metaphor that you lost all sense of what he was actually talking about. But overall, it's the sort of book that makes you wish yourself could visit Cougar and Dark's Pandemonium Carnival, even if just once, no matter the consequences.