BDT: Revelación de otoño & El invierno propio

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.

BDT: Primaveras de otros & Nubes de verano

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

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.

BDT: La muerte es una joda & Un sabor ácido

"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.

BDT: Bolso de viajes cortos & La vieja inocencia

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.")

BDT: Con los delfines & Terapia de soledad

"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.

BDT: Ausencia

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

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.

BDT: Asalto en la noche y Los robinses

"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

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.

BDT: Conversa & El diecinueve

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.)

BDT: Jacinto y Cambalache

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.

BDT: Conciliar el sueño & Soñó que estaba preso

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

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.